Magazine Posts

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

It was bright and green and stretched across the sky. This striking aurora display was captured in 2016 just outside of Östersund, Sweden. Six photographic fields were merged to create the featured panorama spanning almost 180 degrees. Particularly striking aspects of this aurora include its sweeping arc-like shape and its stark definition. Lake Storsjön is seen in the foreground, while several familiar constellations and the star Polaris are visible through the aurora, far in the background. Coincidently, the aurora appears to avoid the Moon visible on the lower left. The aurora appeared a day after a large hole opened in the Sun's corona allowing particularly energetic particles to flow out into the Solar System. The green color of the aurora is caused by oxygen atoms recombining with ambient electrons high in the Earth's atmosphere.

Photo by Göran Strand

Leque Island is located between the city of Stanwood and Camano Island, WA. The area is going through a process of restoration. Water from Skagit and Port Susan bays and the Stillaguamish River flowed into Leque Island for the first time in 100 years on Oct. 14, 2019 - opening 250 acres to the tide, young salmon and crab.The natural marsh vegetation will slowly return to tidal marshland as it reseeds with natural vegetation. Learn more about the Restoration Project 

Ugliness has risen, in our life led,
where many citizens are begging for bread,
in this great country of ours, broken now,
as there is no work or how
to survive, in this, our own land,
as the virus killed, one hundred thousand.
Where is the outrage? The question why,
when our elected leader, continues to lie?

The Gods are at play,
is often said,
when the game they're playing,
can wake the dead.
A rolling noise, coming this way,
shows me the Gods really do
know how to play.

A trail, a path, a rutted road,
marked the journey of the old Toad.
He left the Bog he lived in,
starting his life anew, where it began.
From Bog to trail, through the trees,
hiding in daylight under branches and leaves.
He made his way toward the town,
where his family lived, near the Sound.
Water he craved, back to the Sea,
for this journey is not about him,
but more about the man I be.
I must go now; the light grows dim
as our journey in life is short,
from the time we were born
until life does abort.

The roar of thunder
outside our door,
makes me wish,
for even more.
I love the sound
of rain on the roof.
Makes me feel humble,
certainly not aloof.

Quite a show of force today,
as thunder rolled across our stage.
No lightning was seen by me
although our lights did flicker.

Oh you poor, misguided wretch of a man,
go back to where you once began.
Step up to the window, by your side;
make a decision and then decide,
to leave the citizens of this land
in worse shape now,
than when you first ran.

The things you won't find.
The things you won't see,
are stuck in my head
and there they will be.
away from my thoughts,
away from my Soul,
for my mental state now,
keeps falling below
where a sane man should be,
with wife, children and family.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Follow a sunset on a clear day against a distant horizon and you might glimpse green just as the Sun disappears from view. The green flash is caused by refraction of light rays traveling to the eye over a long path through the atmosphere. Shorter wavelengths refract more strongly than longer redder wavelengths and the separation of colors lends a green hue to the last visible vestige of the solar disk. It's harder to see a green flash from the Moon, not to mention the diminutive disks of Venus and Mercury. But a telescope or telephoto lens and camera can help catch this tantalizing result of atmospheric refraction when the celestial bodies are near the horizon. From Sicily, the top panels were recorded on March 18, 2019 for the Sun and May 8, 2020 for the Moon. Also from the Mediterranean island, the bottom panels were shot during the twilight apparition of Venus and Mercury near the western horizon on May 24.

Photo by Marcella Giulia Pace

America feels completely chaotic today. Protesters are marching in major cities, sometimes looting; police appear to be attacking them and the journalists covering the protests. Rather than calming the situation, the president has thrown gasoline on the fire, which escalated yesterday’s fight with Twitter. Trump launched a blistering verbal attack on China and announced that the United States is withdrawing from the World Health Organization in the midst of a deadly pandemic. Meanwhile, new information suggests that the Trump administration did, indeed, collude with Russia...............Read more