Magazine Posts

A hanging element,
passage to the Stars,
on our adventure,
a trip to Mars.
A lifetime's journey,
for a trip so long.
A lonely memory
enshrined in song.
A golden history
for all to see.
Your sacrifices,
will always be,
one so heroic,
in our modern time,
a historic honor,
so very divine.
What is this?
The rambling text
is life's happening
and what is next.
Time travel will be
that moment in time
when I return to thee.

My knees are weak.
My skin does sag.
I'm starting to look
Like a misshapen bag.
The aging process
Is so very grand,
That exercise is needed
Now, on demand.

My thoughts do ramble so
and words are stop or go,
as I write as quick as I can;
Not from fear but rather than
to let out feelings, deep inside.
Some that I won't hide
away from friends and family
but to stay as close as I can be.

No more will I hear
that cry in the night.
No more the pain,
no more the plight,
for time has passed,
as it usually will do.
I long, once more to hear
the sound of your voice,
when you talk to me,
of our dreams on this road to eternity.
Don't go from me.
Don't leave me alone.
Please my dear love,
please stay at home.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Is this one galaxy or two? This question came to light in 1950 when astronomer Arthur Hoag chanced upon this unusual extragalactic object. On the outside is a ring dominated by bright blue stars, while near the center lies a ball of much redder stars that are likely much older. Between the two is a gap that appears almost completely dark. How Hoag's Object formed, including its nearly perfectly round ring of stars and gas, remains unknown. Genesis hypotheses include a galaxy collision billions of years ago and the gravitational effect of a central bar that has since vanished. The featured photo was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and recently reprocessed using an artificially intelligent de-noising algorithm. Observations in radio waves indicate that Hoag's Object has not accreted a smaller galaxy in the past billion years. Hoag's Object spans about 100,000 light years and lies about 600 million light years away toward the constellation of the Snake (Serpens). Many galaxies far in the distance are visible toward the right, while coincidentally, visible in the gap at about seven o'clock, is another but more distant ring galaxy.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What are those two bright objects on the horizon? Venus and Jupiter. The two brightest planets in the night sky passed very close together -- angularly -- just two days ago. In real space, they were just about as far apart as usual, since Jupiter (on the right) orbits the Sun around seven times farther out than Venus. The planetary duo were captured together two days ago in a picturesque sunset sky from Llers, Catalonia, Spain between a tree and the astrophotographer's daughter. These two planets will continue to stand out in the evening sky, toward the west, for the next few days, with a sliver of a crescent Moon and a fainter Saturn also visible nearby. As November ends, Jupiter will sink lower into the sunset horizon with each subsequent night, while Venus will rise higher. The next Jupiter-Venus conjunction will occur in early 2021.

Photo by Juan Carlos CasadoTWAN

www.flickr.com/photos/87251004@N05
http://www.marcobertazzoni.com

I remember back to the olden days,
laying on the floor, behind the kitchen stove.
On linoleum, metal, no asbestos
to protect the floor from the
excess heat.
Smells of apple pies, in the wood fired oven.
Those days of so long ago, are gone.
So here we are now, along
with all the good thoughts that
we recall.
Fortunately, for me, it's the good
thoughts that I remember, not the bad,
not the memories that make me sad.
Knowing that we won't
come this way again.

I knew lonely times,
when evening came
and daylight, washed away.
Sadness was a friend of mine,
when cities, dark and grey,
turned their backs, on my loneliness.

Rising up, in early light
with bits of joy and sorrow,
as days go by
and nights do pass,
into a new tomorrow
and so it is, as days go by,
as nights go yon and hither,
while age descends,
upon our minds
and flesh begins to wither.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Do you see the bat? It haunts this cosmic close-up of the eastern Veil Nebula. The Veil Nebula itself is a large supernova remnant, the expanding debris cloud from the death explosion of a massive star. While the Veil is roughly circular in shape and covers nearly 3 degrees on the sky toward the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus), the Bat Nebula, NGC 6995, spans only 1/2 degree, about the apparent size of the Moon. That translates to 12 light-years at the Veil's estimated distance, a reassuring 1,400 light-years from planet Earth. In the composite of image data recorded through broad and narrow band filters, emission from hydrogen atoms in the remnant is shown in red with strong emission from oxygen and nitrogen atoms shown in hues of blue. Of course, in the western part of the Veil lies another seasonal apparition: the Witch's Broom Nebula.

Photo by Josep Drudis