Magazine Posts

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

NGC 4631 is a big beautiful spiral galaxy. Seen edge-on, it lies only 25 million light-years away in the well-trained northern constellation Canes Venatici. The galaxy's slightly distorted wedge shape suggests to some a cosmic herring and to others its popular moniker, The Whale Galaxy. Either way, it is similar in size to our own Milky Way. In this sharp color image, the galaxy's yellowish core, dark dust clouds, bright blue star clusters, and red star forming regions are easy to spot. A companion galaxy, the small elliptical NGC 4627 is just above the Whale Galaxy. Faint star streams seen in deep images are the remnants of small companion galaxies disrupted by repeated encounters with the Whale in the distant past. The Whale Galaxy is also known to have spouted a halo of hot gas glowing in X-rays.

Photo by Michael Sherick

Long before the morning,
long before the dawn,
I awoke to find
my mind had moved along.
What is the reason,
why would I feel this way?
I couldn't separate tomorrow,
from the memories of yesterday.

Chili mac and cheese! Who can resist two favorite comfort foods combined into one? Take two comfort food favorites and combine them into one cheesy skillet. Not too spicy, so perfect for a family meal (add hot sauce if you like heat!). Click to read Aaron Hutcherson's recipe.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What happens if you crash a spaceship into an asteroid? In the case of NASA's DART spaceship and the small asteroid Dimorphos, as happened last week, you get quite a plume. The goal of the planned impact was planetary protection -- to show that the path of an asteroid can be slightly altered, so that, if done right, a big space rock will miss the Earth. The high brightness of the plume, though, was unexpected by many, and what it means remains a topic of research. One possibility is that 170-meter wide Dimorphos is primarily a rubble pile asteroid and the collision dispersed some of the rubble in the pile. The featured time-lapse video covers about 20 minutes and was taken from the Les Makes Observatory on France's Reunion Island, off the southeast coast of southern Africa. One of many Earth-based observatories following the impact, the initial dot is primarily Dimorphos's larger companion: asteroid Didymos. Most recently, images show that the Didymos - Dimorphos system has developed comet-like tails. DART Impact on Dimorphos: Notable images submitted to APOD

I stuck out my foot,
reaching for the stair.
I missed the step,
for it was not there.
It should have been solid,
but now I'm in the air.
A thought entered my head,
find something soft,
to avoid being dead.
As luck would have it,
there was a large bush,
and I fell in the middle,
right on my tush..

What goes through your mind,
when memories have gone away?
What questions are raised?
Who can you turn to,
what can you ask?
Searching for something,
what can you find,
when all you now have
is an empty mind?

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The whole thing looks like an eagle. A closer look at the Eagle Nebula's center, however, shows the bright region is actually a window into the center of a larger dark shell of dust. Through this window, a brightly-lit workshop appears where a whole open cluster of stars is being formed. In this cavity tall pillars and round globules of dark dust and cold molecular gas remain where stars are still forming. Paradoxically, it is perhaps easier to appreciate this impressive factory of star formation by seeing it without its stars -- which have been digitally removed in the featured image. The Eagle emission nebula, tagged M16, lies about 6500 light years away, spans about 20 light-years, and is visible with binoculars toward the constellation of the Serpent (Serpens). Creating this picture involved over 22 hours of imaging and combining colors emitted specifically by hydrogen (red), and oxygen (blue).

Photo by Yannick Akar

Words of inanely chatter,
float through the air.
Not just a person
but from everywhere.

Music is lively,
a good basic beat,
sounding good
as I take my seat.

The clanking of pans,
utensils and such,
noise for Pavlov's dog,
we'll soon have lunch.

Alone, a place in my mind,
where I want to be,
unencumbered about our life,
which has become a test of we.

Happiness in this life, ours
Twas never a guarantee,
and now is a status
of let it be.

Bright light and shadows,
fill this mind, mine.
Why is there no rainfall,
and only the sunshine?

She sits on the bench,
hands in her lap,
while the Sun's warming,
is a time for a nap.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What mysteries might be solved by peering into this crystal ball? In this case, the ball is actually a moon of Jupiter, the crystals are ice, and the moon is not only dirty but cracked beyond repair. Nevertheless, speculation is rampant that oceans exist under Europa's fractured ice-plains that could support life. Europa, roughly the size of Earth's Moon, is pictured here in an image taken a few days ago when the Jupiter-orbiting robotic spacecraft Juno passed within 325 kilometers of its streaked and shifting surface. Underground oceans are thought likely because Europa undergoes global flexing due to its changing gravitational attraction with Jupiter during its slightly elliptical orbit, and this flexing heats the interior. Studying Juno's close-up images may further humanity's understanding not only of Europa and the early Solar System but also of the possibility that life exists elsewhere in the universe.