Magazine Posts

I see your legs,
oh, what can I say,
to avoid writing,
something risque'.

Long will I wander,
Long will I run,
until I arrive at
my first home.
Home in the Valley,
far from the sea,
where I still hear
voices calling for me.
Hide in the shadows,
if you choose not to run.
Lie in the vast meadow,
warmed by the Sun.
Stay there forever
until your journey is done.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What created the strange spiral structure on the upper left? No one is sure, although it is likely related to a star in a binary star system entering the planetary nebula phase, when its outer atmosphere is ejected. The huge spiral spans about a third of a light year across and, winding four or five complete turns, has a regularity that is without precedent. Given the expansion rate of the spiral gas, a new layer must appear about every 800 years, a close match to the time it takes for the two stars to orbit each other. The star system that created it is most commonly known as LL Pegasi, but also AFGL 3068 and IRAS 23166+1655. The featured image was taken in near-infrared light by the Hubble Space Telescope. Why the spiral glows is itself a mystery, with a leading hypothesis being illumination by light reflected from nearby stars.

Photo by Jonathan Lodge

"For many Native American communities, three seeds - corn, beans, and squash represent the most important crops. When planted together, the Three Sisters, work together to help one another thrive and survive. Utilizing the corn, beans, and squash together in your garden draws upon centuries of Native American agricultural traditions and expertise. This post covers the benefits of three sisters planting and provides tips for when to plant, varieties that work well in planting together, and suggested layouts for your garden".  Read more

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

This high cliff occurs not on a planet, not on a moon, but on a comet. It was discovered to be part of the dark nucleus of Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko (CG) by Rosetta, a robotic spacecraft launched by ESA that rendezvoused with the Sun-orbiting comet in 2014. The ragged cliff, as featured here, was imaged by Rosetta in 2014. Although towering about one kilometer high, the low surface gravity of Comet CG would likely make it an accessible climb -- and even a jump from the cliff survivable. At the foot of the cliff is relatively smooth terrain dotted with boulders as large as 20 meters across. Data from Rosetta indicates that the ice in Comet CG has a significantly different deuterium fraction -- and hence likely a different origin -- than the water in Earth's oceans. Rosetta ended its mission with a controlled impact onto Comet CG in 2016. Comet CG has just completed another close approach to Earth and remains visible through a small telescope.

A sharp pain, down my spine,
as I remember when
I asked you to be mine.
Our life was great,
our life was so fine,
when Dementia attacked;
robbing you of your mind.

The sky was the color
of Chinese Porcelain Clay.
A deepening blue; crimson the edge,
when the Sun sank below the
Horizon, with an explosion of noise
was when a discovery came,
about this beautiful life of anguish
and pain. While the beauty of
life will always remain.

Sun light streams
on the window sill,
creating more heat,
yet there is still
a feeling of cold
in the Winter air,
telling us all
the weather is fair.

Black hair flowing,
down neck and cheek.
She smiles, all knowing;
your heart skips a beat.
Being in her presence
is not for the meek.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Big, beautiful spiral galaxy M101 is one of the last entries in Charles Messier's famous catalog, but definitely not one of the least. About 170,000 light-years across, this galaxy is enormous, almost twice the size of our own Milky Way. M101 was also one of the original spiral nebulae observed by Lord Rosse's large 19th century telescope, the Leviathan of Parsontown. Assembled from 51 exposures recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope in the 20th and 21st centuries, with additional data from ground based telescopes, this mosaic spans about 40,000 light-years across the central region of M101 in one of the highest definition spiral galaxy portraits ever released from Hubble. The sharp image shows stunning features of the galaxy's face-on disk of stars and dust along with background galaxies, some visible right through M101 itself. Also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy, M101 lies within the boundaries of the northern constellation Ursa Major, about 25 million light-years away.