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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Which star created this bubble? It wasn't the bright star on the bubble's right. And it also wasn't a giant space dolphin. It was the star in the blue nebula's center, a famously energetic Wolf-Rayet star. Wolf-Rayet stars in general have over 20 times the mass of our Sun and expel fast particle winds that can create iconic looking nebulas. In this case, the resulting star bubble spans over 60 light years, is about 70,000 years old, and happens to look like the head of a dolphin. Named Sh2-308 and dubbed the Dolphin-Head Nebula, the gas ball lies about 5,000 light years away and covers as much sky as the full moon -- although it is much dimmer. The nearby red-tinged clouds on the left of the featured image may owe their glow and shape to energetic light emitted from the same Wolf-Rayet star.

Photo by Aleix RoigAstroCatInfo

When the line breaks,
I may not stay,
or choose, another place
and move away.

I feel a need to flee,
or perhaps, fly away,
to begin a life alone.
It will be the saddest day.

How do you walk away?
I don't know when,
it will finally come,
The Long Goodbye.

Please don't tell me,
it was God's way,
my faith is gone,
I will not pray.

"When a stubborn pain in Nick van Terheyden’s bones would not subside, his doctor had a hunch what was wrong. Without enough vitamin D in the blood, the body will pull that vital nutrient from the bones. Left untreated, a vitamin D deficiency can lead to osteoporosis. A blood test in the fall of 2021 confirmed the doctor’s diagnosis, and van Terheyden expected his company’s insurance plan, managed by Cigna, to cover the cost of the bloodwork. Instead, Cigna sent van Terheyden a letter explaining that it would not pay for the $350 test because it was not “medically necessary.”. ... Read more at ProPublica

I hear the words,
filling the air,
asking for her mother,
in a voice of despair.

She loves our oldest son,
while say he's me.
She doesn't know,
it's I she can see.

Dementia is so cruel,
there is no comfort to see,
knowing of others,
who are the same as me.

May the wrath of God,
start falling on me,
not on my wife.
Is this my blasphemy?

I don't care if it is,
I've wasted time and breath.
I will await my visit,
with the Old Dr. Death.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Yes, but can your green flash do this? A green flash at sunset is a rare event that many Sun watchers pride themselves on having seen.  Once thought to be a myth, a green flash is now understood to occur when the Earth's atmosphere acts like both a prism and a lens. Different atmospheric layers create altitude-variable refraction that takes light from the top of the Sun and disperses its colors, creates two images, and magnifies it in just the right way to make a thin sliver appear green just before it disappears. Pictured, though, is an even more unusual sunset. From the high-altitude Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile one day last April, the Sun was captured setting beyond an atmosphere with multiple distinct thermal layers, creating several  mock images of the Sun.  This time and from this location, many of those layers produced a green flash simultaneously. Just seconds after this multiple-green-flash event was caught by two well-surprised astrophotographers, the Sun set below the clouds.

Photo by T. SlovinskýP. HorálekIoP OpavaCTIONOIRLabNSFAURA

 "Friendship is the sunshine of life — the quiet radiance that makes our lives not only livable but worth living. (This is why we must use the utmost care in how we wield the word friend".... Read more at the Marginalian

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