Magazine Posts

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Stars can't turn these old wooden arms, but it does look like they might in this scene from a rotating planet. The well-composed night skyscape was recorded from Garafia, a municipality on the island of La Palma, Canary Islands, planet Earth. The center of the once working windmill, retired since 1953, is lined-up with the north celestial pole, the planet's rotation axis projected on to the northern sky. From a camera fixed to a tripod, the star trails are a reflection of the planet's rotation traced in a digital composite of 39 sequential exposures each 25 seconds long. Brought out by highlighting the final exposure in the sequence, the stars themselves appear at the ends of their short concentric arcs. A faint band of winter's Milky Way and even a diffuse glow from our neighboring Andromeda Galaxy also shine in the night.

Photo by Antonio Gonzalez

Designed to feed two, but it’s easy to scale up or down. An all-in-one Salmon Foil Packet with potatoes, snap peas, and tomatoes gets its spicy zing from Harissa paste, a North African spice. Click the image below to see Sally Vargas's recipe at Simply Recipes 

Many flowers; colorful all,
will be gone by the Fall.

Sometimes I write the words that flood my head, not thinking, just writing.
Here is an example.

Words that cling,
words that fled,
have caused an avalanche,
in this old head.
Words we use every day,
are here now, and
here they'll stay.
Words that stick like Velcro
or like "a rolling stone."
No Moss to gather, all alone.
What is this gibberish
that you write,
are these words wrong
or are they right?
Talk to me now,
you Spring delight
for I will not leave
without a fight.
OK then, say what you will
but for me now, it's Good Night.

Dance with me as you did before;
A slow dance with music you adore.

She glanced at him,
as he walked by.
He looked at her,
knowing not why.

A single encounter,
as if by chance,
could this lead to,
a new romance?

He stopped again,
as if to try,
she said no to him,
with a sigh.

"Please don't bother me,"
she said to he.
"Please go away,
and leave me be."

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Cruising through the inner solar system, Comet ATLAS C2019/Y4 has apparently fragmented. Multiple separate condensations within its diffuse coma are visible in this telescopic close-up from April 12, composed of frames tracking the comet's motion against trailing background stars. Discovered at the end of December 2019, this comet ATLAS showed a remarkably rapid increase in brightness in late March. Northern hemisphere comet watchers held out hope that it would become a bright nake-eye comet as it came closer to Earth in late April and May. But fragmenting ATLAS is slowly fading in northern skies. The breakup of comets is not uncommon though. This comet ATLAS is in an orbit similar to the Great Comet of 1844 (C/1844 Y1) and both may be fragments of a single larger comet.

Photo by NAO Rozhen

Off in the distance,
I hear a sound.
Not knowing what or where
a sound so unique,
of soft and loud.
Melodious for my ears,
long will I remember
the sound I heard.
I won't explain
it now to you;
for it matters not,
as you must know
the sound of life
in a death throw.