Magazine Posts

I'm no longer a believer,
in life's fairness, of what I see,
when the cruelest disease can be,
a Dementia which attacks your mental state,
for who do I pray to, when I am so irate?

I remember the glory,
as I recall from my side,
when I jumped on
my horse; sitting astride.
It was a time
for the Carousel Ride.
The Merry Go Round,
and how I tried
getting a black horse,
with saddle so wide,
for it was the Summer
of the Carousel Ride.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

If you could stand on Venus -- what would you see? Pictured is the view from Venera 13, a robotic Soviet lander which parachuted and air-braked down through the thick Venusian atmosphere in March of 1982. The desolate landscape it saw included flat rocks, vast empty terrain, and a featureless sky above Phoebe Regio near Venus' equator. On the lower left is the spacecraft's penetrometer used to make scientific measurements, while the light piece on the right is part of an ejected lens-cap. Enduring temperatures near 450 degrees Celsius and pressures 75 times that on Earth, the hardened Venera spacecraft lasted only about two hours. Although data from Venera 13 was beamed across the inner Solar System almost 40 years ago, digital processing and merging of Venera's unusual images continues even today. Recent analyses of infrared measurements taken by ESA's orbiting Venus Express spacecraft indicate that active volcanoes may currently exist on Venus.

Photo by Donald Mitchell

Do you have a plan
for your remaining life,
when you battle through
your worry and strife,
to arrive somplace afar,
as you search for answers
of who you really are?

Most people wanty to live,
few people want to die,
but living takes an effort
and we all must try,
to change this place,
from sorrow to the joy
reflected in a child's face
when viewing a new toy.

It's three AM
and here I am,
a very tired;
tired old man.
Why can't I sleep,
through another long night,
as I sit and scribe
all these words, so trite.
Writing of a sadness,
is what I now do,
as I think of my friends,
like you and like you.
Is it worth it,
having a sleepless night,
while writing these words,
with no plan in sight?
I hope it is, I really do
for I write for me
and I write for you.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

In the constellation of the swan near the nebula of the pelican lies the gas cloud of the butterfly next to a star known as the hen. That star, given the proper name Sadr, is just to the right of the featured frame, but the central Butterfly Nebula, designated IC 1318, is shown in high resolution. The intricate patterns in the bright gas and dark dust are caused by complex interactions between interstellar winds, radiation pressures, magnetic fields, and gravity. The featured telescopic view captures IC 1318's characteristic emission from ionized sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms mapped to the red, green, and blue hues of the popular Hubble Palette. The portion of the Butterfly Nebula pictured spans about 100 light years and lies about 4000 light years away.

Photo by Alan Pham

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Yes, but have you ever heard a meteor? Usually, meteors are too far away to make any audible sound. However, a meteor will briefly create an ionization trail that can reflect a distant radio signal. If the geometry is right, you may momentarily hear -- through your radio -- a distant radio station even over static. In the featured video, the sounds of distant radio transmitters were caught reflecting from large meteor trails by a sensitive radio receiver -- at the same time the bright streaks were captured by an all-sky video camera. In the video, the bright paths taken by four fireballs across the sky near Lamy, New Mexico, USA, are shown first. Next, after each static frame, a real-time video captures each meteor streaking across the sky, now paired with the sound recorded from its radio reflection. Projecting a meteor trail down to the Earth may lead to finding its impact site (if any), while projecting its trail back into the sky may lead to identifying its parent comet or asteroid. Almost Hyperspace: Random APOD Generator

Video by Thomas AshcraftRadio Fireball Observatory

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I tire of this writing style,
for words, come not to me.
My mind has slowed to a crawl,
as my body strength does flee.
Words which came along this way,
no longer do they appear to me.
Do I care? Of course I do,
for writing was a pleasure; mine.
Perhaps I need a spark again.
I'll try again, while drinking wine.

When I write about words
laying culled on the floor,
it is a mental image
and means nothing more.
There is nothing more,
nothing more, instead,
the words are those still
lodged in this old head.
My heart will pull forth,
words when I write,
with little of my malice
as I'm not always right.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

It appeared, momentarily, like a 50-km tall banded flag. In mid-March of 2015, an energetic Coronal Mass Ejection directed toward a clear magnetic channel to Earth led to one of the more intense geomagnetic storms of recent years. A visual result was wide spread auroras being seen over many countries near Earth's magnetic poles. Captured over Kiruna, Sweden, the image features an unusually straight auroral curtain with the green color emitted low in the Earth's atmosphere, and red many kilometers higher up. It is unclear where the rare purple aurora originates, but it might involve an unusual blue aurora at an even lower altitude than the green, seen superposed with a much higher red. Now past Solar Minimum, colorful nights of auroras over Earth are likely to increase. Follow APOD: Through the Free NASA App

Photo by Mia Stålnacke