Magazine Posts

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What's the closest active galaxy to planet Earth? That would be Centaurus A, cataloged as NGC 5128, which is only 12 million light-years distant. Forged in a collision of two otherwise normal galaxies, Centaurus A shows several distinctive features including a dark dust lane across its center, outer shells of stars and gas, and jets of particles shooting out from a supermassive black hole at its center. The featured image captures all of these in a composite series of visible light images totaling over 310 hours captured over the past 10 years with a homebuilt telescope operating in Auckland, New Zealand. The brightness of Cen A's center from low-energy radio waves to high-energy gamma rays underlies its designation as an active galaxy. Astrophysicists: Browse 3,500+ codes in the Astrophysics Source Code Library

"Since October 7th, 2023, fault lines around Palestinian solidarity have changed the landscape of visual art.....A wave of anti-Palestinian repression has swept the Western art world in the aftermath of October 7th, 2023. From Amsterdam to San Francisco, artists who have criticized Israel’s brutal war on Gaza have seen their exhibitions canceled, their work deinstalled, and other opportunities rescinded. Some of these incidents have been met with major backlash" More at Hyperallergic ➜

Mount Bolshoy Tkhach, 2,368 m (7,769 ft), 20 minutes after sunrise. Republic of Adygea, Western Caucasus. Today is International Mountain Day.

Vyacheslav Argenberg, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

It was a night of 100,000 meteors. The Great Meteor Storm of 1833 was perhaps the most impressive meteor event in recent history. Best visible over eastern North America during the pre-dawn hours of November 13, many people -- including a young Abraham Lincoln -- were woken up to see the sky erupt in streaks and flashes. Hundreds of thousands of meteors blazed across the sky, seemingly pouring out of the constellation of the Lion (Leo). The featured image is a digitization of a wood engraving which itself was based on a painting from a first-person account. We know today that the Great Meteor Storm of 1833 was caused by the Earth moving through a dense part of the dust trail expelled from Comet Tempel-Tuttle. The Earth moves through this dust stream every November during the Leonid meteor shower. Later this week you might get a slight taste of the intensity of that 1833 meteor storm by witnessing the annual Geminid meteor shower. Explore Your Universe: Random APOD Generator

Newly-sown fields of Zangla village on the right bank of the Zanskar River contrasting refreshingly against the stark mountains of this arid region in the Indian Himalayas. The river flows from lower left to centre through a valley that narrows into the Zanskar gorge. Elevation: river 3,510 m (11,520 ft), peaks in centre ~5,200 m (17,100 ft). View from Zangla Fort, Zanskar, Ladakh, India.

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:

Have you ever seen the Pleiades star cluster? Even if you have, you probably have never seen it as large and clear as this. Perhaps the most famous star cluster on the sky, the bright stars of the Pleiades can be seen with the unaided eye even from the depths of a light-polluted city. With a long exposure from a dark location, though, the dust cloud surrounding the Pleiades star cluster becomes very evident. The featured 23-hour exposure, taken from Fagagna, Italy covers a sky area several times the size of the full moon. Also known as the Seven Sisters and M45, the Pleiades lies about 400 light years away toward the constellation of the Bull (Taurus). A common legend with a modern twist is that one of the brighter stars faded since the cluster was named, leaving only six of the sister stars visible to the unaided eye. The actual number of Pleiades stars visible, however, may be more or less than seven, depending on the darkness of the surrounding sky and the clarity of the observer's eyesight. New: Alternative multi-APOD front page

Photo by Francesco Pelizzo

Common crab spider (Xysticus cristatus) female with prey Carniolan honey bee (Apis melifera carnica), a subspecies of the western honey bee. Near Bled, Slovenia.

Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

George Santayana - (1863 – 1952)  ~ Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, was a philosopher, essayist, poet, critic and novelist. Born in Spain and raised and educated in the US from the age of eight. He left his position at Harvard at the age of 48 and returned to Europe permanently. Santayana was the author of many books and known for his aphorisms. He was profoundly influenced by Spinoza's life and thought. Although he was an atheist, he treasured the Spanish Catholic values, practices, and worldview in which he was raised.