Magazine Posts

I write of tomorrow,
which may not come,
based upon testing you
and any outcome.
I know this now,
at my old age,
what it feels like,
when put in a cage.
Do not go anywhere.
Stay thee at home.
You do not have freedom
and can no longer roam.
Please stay inside,
away from a crowd.
Do what you can.
Don't speak out loud
about this terrible virus
unseen in the cloud.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Massive star IRS 4 is beginning to spread its wings. Born only about 100,000 years ago, material streaming out from this newborn star has formed the nebula dubbed Sharpless 2-106 Nebula (S106), featured here. A large disk of dust and gas orbiting Infrared Source 4 (IRS 4), visible in brown near the image center, gives the nebula an hourglass or butterfly shape. S106 gas near IRS 4 acts as an emission nebula as it emits light after being ionized, while dust far from IRS 4 reflects light from the central star and so acts as a reflection nebula. Detailed inspection of a relevant infrared image of S106 reveal hundreds of low-mass brown dwarf stars lurking in the nebula's gas. S106 spans about 2 light-years and lies about 2000 light-years away toward the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus).

Photo by Utkarsh Mishra

A Goat, with big horns,
came into our yard.
It was a Male of
a questionable kind,
that was remarkable
with his reddish, black coat
with a luxurious shine.
Whence is your journey?
I asked of he.
I'm off to the City
where I'll soon live free,
to eat Blackberry vines
as my daily fare
While looking for others
with the same beautiful hair.

Frost again,
Sunny but cold.
This kind of weather
has gotten quite old.

I hate to say this.
This leadership spell,
is your responsibility
and you wear it not well.

I sat on the hillside
with the Valley below,
checking the tree line,
whence the wind did blow.
I was downwind,
wind blowing towards me,
as I watched for movement,
within the shadows of trees.
I felt a quiver,
in the back of my knees;
was this the one
I had been waiting for?
Or just the wind playing tricks
with the limbs and shadows, for kicks.
The wind shifted on me
and was now at my back
as a huge Deer
with a big rack,
thundered away, like dust in the breeze
immediately after, I let out a sneeze.
It's alright I yelled at the Deer,
I'll be looking for you again,
Next year.

Across this country, past the Great Divide,
through fields of grain, along the side
of rivers running high and wide,
we must fight a virus threatening life
of every parent's child, husband and wife.
Stay inside away from the shrinking crowd;
pray to Heaven, quietly or out loud.
Pray our government will come through for us,
pray for all, In God We Trust.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What happens to a star that goes near a black hole? If the star directly impacts a massive black hole, then the star falls in completely -- and everything vanishes. More likely, though, the star goes close enough to have the black hole's gravity pull away the outer layers of the star, or disrupt the star. Then most of the star's gas does not fall into the black hole. These stellar tidal disruption events can be as bright as a supernova, and an increasing amount of them are being discovered by automated sky surveys. In the featured artist's illustration, a star has just passed a massive black hole and sheds gas that continues to orbit. The inner edge of a disk of gas and dust surrounding the black hole is heated by the disruption event and may glow long after the star is gone.

https://vladimirkostka.com/

Alone am I now
but then I see
there is someone
here, living with me.
She has no memory
of this life we lived.
A mind that now
without thoughts to give.

You're like a child
who is being trained.
The problem is when
your lessons aren't retained.
I love you for what you are
the best thing for me, by far.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

If you stare at an interesting patch of sky long enough, will it look different? In the case of Pleiades and Hyades star clusters -- and surrounding regions -- the answer is: yes, pretty different. Long duration camera exposures reveal an intricate network of interwoven interstellar dust and gas that was previously invisible not only to the eye but to lower exposure images. In the featured wide and deep mosaic, the dust stands out spectacularly, with the familiar Pleaides star cluster visible as the blue patch near the top of the image. Blue is the color of the Pleiades' most massive stars, whose distinctive light reflects from nearby fine dust. On the upper left is the Hyades star cluster surrounding the bright, orange, foreground-star Aldebaran. Red glowing emission nebula highlight the bottom of the image, including the curving vertical red ribbon known as the Eridanus Loop. The pervasive dust clouds appear typically in light brown and are dotted with unrelated stars. Almost Hyperspace: Random APOD Generator

Photo by Hirofumi Okubo