Magazine Posts

Hou Yifan at the 2016 Chess Olympiad in Baku, Azerbaijan. She participated in the Chinese team which won first place in the Women's event. Hou turns 31 today.

Andreas Kontokanis from Piraeus, Greece, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Do you see the ring? If you look very closely at the center of the featured galaxy NGC 6505, a ring becomes evident. It is the gravity of NGC 6505, the nearby (z = 0.042) elliptical galaxy that you can easily see, that is magnifying and distorting the image of a distant galaxy into a complete circle. To create a complete Einstein ring there must be perfect alignment of the nearby galaxy's center and part of the background galaxy. Analysis of this ring and the multiple images of the background galaxy help to determine the mass and fraction of dark matter in NGC 6505's center, as well as uncover previously unseen details in the distorted galaxy. The featured image was captured by ESA's Earth-orbiting Euclid telescope in 2023 and released earlier this month.

Photo by ESA, NASA, Euclid Consortium; Processing: J.-C. Cuillandre, G. Anselmi, T. Li

Rama VIII Bridge over the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok, Thailand, seen just after sunrise.

Dominic Nelson, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Why are there so many bright blue stars? Stars are usually born in clusters, and the brightest and most massive of these stars typically glow blue. Less-bright, non-blue stars like our Sun surely also exist in this M41 star cluster but are harder to see. A few bright orange-appearing red giant stars are visible. The red-light filaments are emitted by diffuse hydrogen gas, a color that was specifically filtered and enhanced in this image. In a hundred million years or so, the bright blue stars will have exploded in supernovas and disappeared, while the slightly different trajectories of the fainter stars will cause this picturesque open cluster to disperse. Similarly, billions of years ago, our own Sun was likely born into a star cluster like M41, but it has long since drifted apart from its sister stars. The featured image was captured over four hours with Chilescope T2 in Chile.

Photo by Xinran Li

Youngzin cottage in the historic Gemoor Khar against backdrop of the Gephan range, Gemur village, Lahaul, India. Elevation 3,290 m (10,790 ft), peaks about 6,000 m (20,000 ft).

This Photo was taken by Timothy A. Gonsalves. Feel free to use my photos, but please mention me as the author. I would much appreciate if you send me an email tagooty@gmail.com or write on my talk page, for my information. Please contact me before commercial use. Please do not upload an edited image here without consulting me. I would like to make corrections only at my own source to ensure that the changes improve the image and are preserved.Otherwise you may upload an edited image with a new name. Please use one of the templates derivative or extract., CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Can a lava flow extend into the sky? No, but light from the lava flow can. One effect is something quite unusual -- a volcanic light pillar. More typically, light pillars are caused by sunlight and so appear as a bright column that extends upward above a rising or setting Sun. Alternatively, other light pillars -- some quite colorful -- have been recorded above street and house lights. This light pillar, though, was illuminated by the red light emitted by the glowing magma of an erupting volcano. The volcano is Italy's Mount Etna, and the featured image was captured with a single shot during an early morning in mid-February. Freezing temperatures above the volcano's lava flow created ice-crystals either in the air above the volcano or in condensed water vapor expelled by Mount Etna. These ice crystals -- mostly flat toward the ground but fluttering -- then reflected away light from the volcano's caldera.

Photo by Davide Caliò

The Kaohsiung Music Center and the Lingyaliao Railroad Bridge illuminated in the colors of Ukraine's national flag during the 2022 Taiwan Lantern Festival. This light show was displayed from February 26, two days after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Tiouraren (Y.-C. Tsai), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

During its first month, the second Trump administration has pushed a new balance of these powers, granting the president expansive and far-reaching authority. These actions imperil the power of elected lawmakers in the House and Senate to pass legislation, oversee the federal government and exercise spending authority. More at The Conversation ➜

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874 –1936) was an English writer,[philosopher, Christian apologist, and literary and art critic. He has been referred to as the "prince of paradox" Chesterton created the fictional priest-detective Father Brown,] and wrote on apologetics. Even some of those who disagree with him have recognized the wide appeal of such works as Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man. Chesterton routinely referred to himself as an "orthodox" Christian, and eventually converted to Roman Catholicism from high church Anglicanism.