Magazine Posts

It is widely believed today that the Earth's moon is the result of a giant impact between Earth, then in its early proto-planet stage, and an astronomical body called Theia. The debris from this impact, collected in an orbit around Earth to form the Moon. Analysis of samples brought back from the NASA Apollo missions suggest support for this theory, which is called the Giant-impact theory.
Most moons in our solar system are believed not to have formed this way but from gravitational capture by the planets during the formation of our solar system. Read More at the UK National History Museum.  

When I was a young man,
I wanted to kiss.
Now I am an older man,
Recalling what I miss.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What's happening in the sky this unusual night? Most striking in the featured 4.5-hour 360-degree panoramic video, perhaps, is the pink and purple aurora. That's because this night, encompassing May 11, was famous for its auroral skies around the world. As the night progresses, auroral bands shimmer, the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy rises, and stars shift as the Earth rotates beneath them. Captured here simultaneously is a rare red band running above the aurora: a SAR arc, seen to change only slightly. The flashing below the horizon is caused by passing cars, while the moving spots in the sky are satellites and airplanes. The featured video was captured from Xinjiang, China with four separate cameras.

Video by Jeff Dai (TWAN); Music (License): Suite bergamasque by Claude Debussy

When we think
Of days gone by,
Should we think again
And always try?

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What is that strange brown ribbon on the sky? When observing the star cluster NGC 4372, observers frequently take note of an unusual dark streak nearby running about three degrees in length. The streak, actually a long molecular cloud, has become known as the Dark Doodad Nebula. (Doodad is slang for a thingy or a whatchamacallit.) Pictured here, the Dark Doodad Nebula sweeps across the center of a rich and colorful starfield. Its dark color comes from a high concentration of interstellar dust that preferentially scatters visible light. The globular star cluster NGC 4372 is visible as the fuzzy white spot on the far left, while the bright blue star gamma Muscae is seen to the cluster's upper right. The Dark Doodad Nebula can be found with strong binoculars toward the southern constellation of the Fly (Musca).

Photo by Martin Pugh & Rocco Sung

Memories are special.
They can take us back,
to a time of less stress.
A good thing.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What if we could see back to the beginning of the universe? We could see galaxies forming. But what did galaxies look like back then? These questions took a step forward recently with the release of the analysis of a James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) image that included the most distant object yet discovered. Most galaxies formed at about 3 billion years after the Big Bang, but some formed earlier. Pictured in the inset box is JADES-GS-z14-0, a faint smudge of a galaxy that formed only 300 million years after the universe started. In technical terms, this galaxy lies at the record redshift of z=14.32, and so existed when the universe was only one fiftieth of the its present age. Practically all of the objects in the featured photograph are galaxies.

Cars always
made my heart beat,
faster. They still do.

"When you think about the word “art,” what comes to mind? A child’s artwork pinned to the fridge? A favorite artist whose work always inspires? Abstract art that is hard to understand? "...."Although everyone has their own concept of what defines art, one thing is universally true: Creativity is a defining feature of the human species".... More at The Conversation ➜