Magazine Posts

I like you,
It's easy to say,
But if I say it,
You'll run away.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

When two planets pass on the night sky, they can usually be seen near each other for a week or more. In the case of this planetary conjunction, Venus and Mars passed within 4 degrees of each other earlier this month. The featured image was taken a few days prior, when Venus was slowing rising in the pre-dawn sky, night by night, while Mars was slowly setting. The image, a four-part mosaic, was captured in Brazil from the small town Teresópolis. Besides Venus and Mars, the morning sky now also includes the more distant planet Saturn. Of course, these conjunctions are only angular -- Venus, Mars, and Saturn continue to orbit the Sun in very different parts of our Solar System. Next week, the angle between Saturn and Mars will drop to below a quarter of a degree.

Photo by Carlos Kiko Fairbairn

Click here to see the video  or click the image below to go to Hal McMillen YouTube channel to see more of his work.

Sit I, here
pen in hand
at 2:30 A.M.
Been awake
for an hour.
Why can't
I sleep?
A question,
haunts me,
then I recall
my grandfather
telling me
he lived
on under
4 hours
of sleep,
when he
was my age.
Didn't know
it was
hereditary.

A silence, whispers
past the corners of my mind,
covering my being with
an unprofessed love.
Nurturing Sun casting shadows,
bringing breath of life.
I lay awake, alongside my wife,
marveling at the fine lines
which gently, so gently
compliment the smoothness
of skin covering her cheeks.
Brown eyes closed, as she sleeps.
I want to talk with you,
as we did many years ago,
but know it will never be
the same. Never again,
will we share memories,
only mine, alone, as I
am mired in this existence.

Barren the ground
swept by the wind,
moss covered rocks,
wet with the dew.
Barren the branches,
naked to view,
while I sit alone
waiting for you.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The southernmost part of the Milky Way contains not only the stars of the Southern Cross, but the closest star system to our Sun -- Alpha Centauri. The Southern Cross itself is topped by the bright, yellowish star Gamma Crucis. A line from Gamma Crucis through the blue star at the bottom of the cross, Acrux, points toward the south celestial pole, located just above the small island in the featured picture -- taken in early March. That island is Madivaru of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. Against faint Milky Way starlight, the dark Coal Sack Nebula lies just left of the cross, while farther left along the Milky Way are the bright stars Alpha Centauri (left) and Beta Centauri (Hadar). Alpha Centauri A, a Sun-like star anchoring a three-star system with exoplanets, is a mere 4.3 light-years distant. Seen from Alpha Centauri, our own Sun would be a bright yellowish star in the otherwise recognizable constellation Cassiopeia. Almost Hyperspace: Random APOD Generator

Photo by Petr HorálekESOPhoto AmbassadorInst. of Physics in Opava

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Why would the surface of Titan light up with a blinding flash? The reason: a sunglint from liquid seas. Saturn's moon Titan has numerous smooth lakes of methane that, when the angle is right, reflect sunlight as if they were mirrors. Pictured here in false-color, the robotic Cassini spacecraft that orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017 imaged the cloud-covered Titan in 2014 in different bands of cloud-piercing infrared light. This specular reflection was so bright it saturated one of Cassini's infrared cameras. Although the sunglint was annoying -- it was also useful. The reflecting regions confirm that northern Titan houses a wide and complex array of seas with a geometry that indicates periods of significant evaporation. During its numerous passes of our Solar System's most mysterious moon, Cassini has revealed Titan to be a world with active weather -- including times when it rains a liquefied version of natural gas.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The night side of Pluto spans this shadowy scene. In the stunning spacebased perspective the Sun is 4.9 billion kilometers (almost 4.5 light-hours) behind the dim and distant world. It was captured by far flung New Horizons in July of 2015 when the spacecraft was at a range of some 21,000 kilometers from Pluto, about 19 minutes after its closest approach. A denizen of the Kuiper Belt in dramatic silhouette, the image also reveals Pluto's tenuous, surprisingly complex layers of hazy atmosphere. Near the top of the frame the crescent twilight landscape includes southern areas of nitrogen ice plains now formally known as Sputnik Planitia and rugged mountains of water-ice in the Norgay Montes.

On top of the world….

I’m not a violent man. But everyone has their breaking point. And I’ve reached mine. If you’re a homeowner, there are three certainties in life: your property taxes will go up, the roof will need to be replaced SOON, and with the first blossoms of Spring, moles will arrive in your yard.....Read more