Magazine Posts

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

SS 433 is one of the most exotic star systems known. Its unremarkable name stems from its inclusion in a catalog of Milky Way stars which emit radiation characteristic of atomic hydrogen. Its remarkable behavior stems from a compact object, a black hole or neutron star, which has produced an accretion disk with jets. Because the disk and jets from SS 433 resemble those surrounding supermassive black holes in the centers of distant galaxies, SS 433 is considered a micro-quasar. As illustrated in the animated featured video based on observational data, a massive, hot, normal star is locked in orbit with the compact object. As the video starts, material is shown being gravitationally ripped from the normal star and falling onto an accretion disk. The central star also blasts out jets of ionized gas in opposite directions – each at about 1/4 the speed of light. The video then pans out to show a top view of the precessing jets producing an expanding spiral. From even greater distances, the dissipating jets are then visualized near the heart of supernova remnant W50. Two years ago, SS 433 was unexpectedly found by the HAWC detector array in Mexico to emit unusually high energy (TeV-range) gamma-rays. Surprises continue, as a recent analysis of archival data taken by NASA's Fermi satellite find a gamma-ray source -- separated from the central stars as shown -- that pulses in gamma-rays with a period of 162 days – the same as SS 433's jet precession period – for reasons yet unknown. Teachers & Students: Ideas for utilizing APOD in the classroom.

I fear not death,
which is hovering near,
but I fear the loss
of those I hold dear.

All the words that I write.
All the words that you see.
Why do they come from
A person like me?
I wish I knew, what to say
But my thoughts have gone
Another way.

I know I've lost you when
I'm repeating my word to you,
Over, over and over again.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

How massive can a normal star be? Estimates made from distance, brightness and standard solar models had given one star in the open cluster Pismis 24 over 200 times the mass of our Sun, making it one of the most massive stars known. This star is the brightest object located just above the gas front in the featured image. Close inspection of images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, however, have shown that Pismis 24-1 derives its brilliant luminosity not from a single star but from three at least. Component stars would still remain near 100 solar masses, making them among the more massive stars currently on record. Toward the bottom of the image, stars are still forming in the associated emission nebula NGC 6357. Appearing perhaps like a Gothic cathedral, energetic stars near the center appear to be breaking out and illuminating a spectacular cocoon. Teachers & Students: Ideas for Utilizing APOD in the Classroom

You say it's over,
using the past tense,
isn't the sharpest picket
when you sit on the fence.
Painful to you, in your defense
into our Nation's history
your journey will commence.

I have written about my beloved's
loss of memory,
when I should be writing about
my slow descent into insanity.
I believe my mind was sane before
but now lies in shambles
across the emptiness within.
A rational thought. An elusive one
has broken away and has begun
to pause, before it takes the plunge
into a morass of words,
expressed by me into a
malady of hurt, only I can say,
what is this mess in this brain of mine,
where love not hate does entwine.
The insanity of life on this day
is here now and here it will stay.

Where do you go,
when you're with me?
A sadness is here
and then I see,
you no longer remember we.
I talk of what and how,
we lived our good life
and you reply to me,
"I don't remember or recall,
those parts of our history."
You ask me questions;
"Did you know my Dad?"
I answer you by
saying, "Yes, he was a nice man."
The pain I feel is for thee
and of this life's uncertainty,
for my love for you is
still running strong,
as I wrestle with,
where do you belong.
At what point in
this life sublime,
do I say to you,
"Now is the time/"

The long and short of it all is,
I don't care for this mental whiz,
that tells us the Spanish Flu of 1918,
is what ended WWII, which started
in 1938. Sweet Louise, as someone said,
is this man now brain dead?

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Deep shadows create dramatic contrasts between light and dark in this high-resolution close-up of the martian surface. Recorded on January 24, 2014 by the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the scene spans about 1.5 kilometers. From 250 kilometers above the Red Planet the camera is looking down at a sand dune field in a southern highlands crater. Captured when the Sun was about 5 degrees above the local horizon, only the dune crests were caught in full sunlight. A long, cold winter was coming to the southern hemisphere and bright ridges of seasonal frost line the martian dunes. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, one of the oldest operating spacecraft at the Red Planet, celebrated the 15th anniversary of its launch from planet Earth on August 12.

I do know one thing about you.
It doesn't matter what you may do,
For all the World, of which I see,
You are still the best part of me.

Be still my love.
Be still tonight,
For tomorrow will bring,
A new, everlasting light.