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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Why do colorful cloud bands encircle Jupiter? Jupiter's top atmospheric layer is divided into light zones and dark belts that go all the way around the giant planet. It is high horizontal winds -- in excess of 300 kilometers per hour -- that cause the zones to spread out planet-wide. What causes these strong winds remains a topic of research. Replenished by upwelling gas, zonal bands are thought to include relatively opaque clouds of ammonia and water that block light from lower and darker atmospheric levels. One light-colored zone is shown in great detail in the featured vista taken by the robotic Juno spacecraft in 2017. Jupiter's atmosphere is mostly clear and colorless hydrogen and helium, gases that are not thought to contribute to the gold and brown colors. What compounds create these colors is another active topic of research -- but is hypothesized to involve small amounts of sunlight-altered sulfur and carbon. Many discoveries have been made from Juno's data, including that water composes an unexpectedly high 0.25 percent of upper-level cloud molecules near Jupiter's equator, a finding important not only for understanding Jovian currents but for the history of water in the entire Solar System.

I ponder the day of recent past
of voting out a President, so crass,
who still hangs on, in his defeat.
His term will be over; he'll retreat.

The sound of your voice,
when you say words to me,
is a most special feeling.
It is nothing you can see,
for it kindles the life
in my Soul, exponentially.

Where did you go yesterday?
I talked to you
but you wouldn't say.
You are my love
and you always will be,
although you don't know it,
I know it for thee.

Here is a riddle,
I write just for you.
Do you understand
now what to do?
Do you know when
your mind is all gone
and you are not the
person who's mind is done?
Why does this happen to she?
Why can't it simply be me?

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Where did all the stars go? What used to be considered a hole in the sky is now known to astronomers as a dark molecular cloud. Here, a high concentration of dust and molecular gas absorb practically all the visible light emitted from background stars. The eerily dark surroundings help make the interiors of molecular clouds some of the coldest and most isolated places in the universe. One of the most notable of these dark absorption nebulae is a cloud toward the constellation Ophiuchus known as Barnard 68, pictured here. That no stars are visible in the center indicates that Barnard 68 is relatively nearby, with measurements placing it about 500 light-years away and half a light-year across. It is not known exactly how molecular clouds like Barnard 68 form, but it is known that these clouds are themselves likely places for new stars to form. In fact, Barnard 68 itself has been found likely to collapse and form a new star system. It is possible to look right through the cloud in infrared light.

So goes the pride, before the fall.
No loss to me, for I recall,
I liked you not; not at all.
A glibness of untruths, your call,
You were the demon, feared by all.

Please don't run to the place
where your mind likes to hide,
for I need you near me,
close by my side.

I have seen the sorrow in your eyes,
from a lost love, I will surmise.
A broken heart, shattered too many times,
put back together with thought and some wine.
Wishing some hugs, were available now too,
as I would provide some of them to you.

A short burst of words,
down to this page
with the noisiest pen,
I've ever engaged.
Words continue to pop,
in this old head of mine.
Some new words perhaps,
but mostly quite dead.
Dead from the Latin
of so long ago.
Off in the night ,
I will soon flee,
for I believe Death
is now chasing me.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

A brilliant yellowish celestial beacon, Mars still dazzles in the night. Peering between clouds the wandering planet was briefly joined by the flash of a meteor in this moonless dark sky on November 18. The single exposure was taken as the Earth swept up dust from periodic comet Tempel-Tuttle during the annual Leonid Meteor Shower. The view of a rugged western horizon looks along the Yulong mountain range in Yunnan province, southwestern China. Yulong (Jade Dragon) Snow Mountain lies below the clouds and beyond the end of the meteor streak.

Photo by Jeff Dai

What do you do?
What can you say,
When all the children
Are not allowed to play?
How can their psyche
Not be harmed in this way,
When all the children
Are not allowed to play?
Do you look to the heaven,
So far away and up high,
To strengthen their souls
Or at least try?