Magazine Posts

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Is this really the famous Pleiades star cluster? Known for its iconic blue stars, the Pleiades is shown here in infrared light where the surrounding dust outshines the stars. Here, three infrared colors have been mapped into visual colors (R=24, G=12, B=4.6 microns). The base images were taken by NASA's orbiting Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft. Cataloged as M45 and nicknamed the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades star cluster is by chance situated in a passing dust cloud. The light and winds from the massive Pleiades stars preferentially repel smaller dust particles, causing the dust to become stratified into filaments, as seen. The featured image spans about 20 light years at the distance of the Pleiades, which lies about 450 light years distant toward the constellation of the Bull (Taurus).

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Shockwaves ripple across the glare as a launch eclipses the setting Sun in this exciting close-up. Captured on September 17, the roaring Falcon 9 rocket carried European Galileo L13 navigation satellites to medium Earth orbit after a lift-off from Cape Canaveral on Florida's space coast. The Falcon 9 booster returned safely to Earth about 8.5 minutes later, notching the 22nd launch and landing for the reusable workhorse launch vehicle. But where did it land? Just Read the Instructions.

Photo by Ben Cooper

Great the season,
but thats isn't all,
for Halloween is coming.
Be afraid, you all.

Every season,
especially, fall,
flowers and leaves,
will tumble, all.

A lack of sleep will be
the death of me.
It will be
for an eternity.

Round about,
no matter,
what its name,
is still a silly,
adult game.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The twenty galaxies arrayed in these panels are part of an ambitious astronomical survey of tidal stellar streams. Each panel presents a composite view; a deep, inverted image taken from publicly available imaging surveys of a field that surrounds a nearby massive galaxy image. The inverted images reveal faint cosmic structures, star streams hundreds of thousands of light-years across, that result from the gravitational disruption and eventual merger of satellite galaxies in the local universe. Such surveys of mergers and gravitational tidal interactions between massive galaxies and their dwarf satellites are crucial guides for current models of galaxy formation and cosmology. Of course, the detection of stellar streams in the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy and our own Milky Way also offers spectacular evidence for ongoing satellite galaxy disruption within our more local galaxy group.

Do you perceive
a new change in life,
where you will marry
and have a new wife?

Don't be worried,
don't be scared,
gather your things and
be prepared.

Racing down,
Canyon Road,
speeding now,
just a load

of teen-age souls,
bent on finding Hell,
as they raced against
a clock which told,

if you succeed,
you will never get old,
for you will be part of
infamy. But do not worry,

you will be remembered
in the only verse,
when They gather you up
for the final ride,
in the hearse