Magazine Posts

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The Mars Rover named Curiosity recorded high-resolution, 360 degree views of its location on Mars late last year. The panoramic scene was stitched from over 1,000 images from Curiosity's Mast camera or Mastcam. In this version, captured with Mastcam's medium angle lens, the rover's deck and robotic arm are in the foreground, stretched and distorted by the extreme wide perspective. Just beyond the rover are regions of clay rich rock, evidence for an ancient watery environment, with a clear view toward more distant martian ridges and buttes. Gale crater wall runs across the center (toward the north) in the background over 30 kilometers in the distance. The upper reaches of Mt. Sharp are at the far right. Images to construct the panorama were recorded over 4 consecutive sols between local noon and 2pm to provide consistent lighting. Zoom in to the panoramic scene and you can easily spot the shadow casting sundial mounted on rover's deck (right). In July NASA plans to launch a new rover to Mars named Perseverance.

 Fresh, simple, and fast . Click the image below to read Sabrina Modelle's recipe at Simply Recipes

For all of the World
a life is to live,
unfortunately not yours
but it's a life to give.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

This colorful skyscape spans about four full moons across nebula rich starfields along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy in the royal northern constellation Cepheus. Near the edge of the region's massive molecular cloud some 2,400 light-years away, bright reddish emission region Sharpless (Sh) 155 is left of center, also known as the Cave Nebula. About 10 light-years across the cosmic cave's bright walls of gas are ionized by ultraviolet light from the hot young stars around it. Dusty blue reflection nebulae, like vdB 155 at lower right, and dense obscuring clouds of dust also abound on the interstellar canvas. Astronomical explorations have revealed other dramatic signs of star formation, including the bright red fleck of Herbig-Haro (HH) 168. Below center in the frame, the Herbig-Haro object emission is generated by energetic jets from a newborn star.

Photo by Casey Good

A narrow ditch, perhaps three feet wide,
meanders; through a Rancher's field.
I'm not sure how deep it was
or how fast the water moved.
I remember, years ago, fishing
in this ditch, just a few times each year.
I never told anyone about the location,
until years later.
Generally a fisherman is reluctant to share
fishing locations, not even with close friends.
I was that way. I would tell those that asked
a general location, omitting much detail.
I would catch 3 or 4 Brook Trout,
10 to 14 inches long, fat from the rich
food supply of the irrigation ditch.
A great memory for me.

Far below in a canyon of dreams
filled with the shine of wandering streams.
The steeping hills covered with trees
being swept by a steady breeze.
Off in the distance, across the deep aisle
a Crow and Hawk began to beguile.
Soaring up to the heavens above,
the blue of the sky brought us love
and the grandeur of nature's far away
viewing the colors on a beautiful day.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

If you like slow dances, then this may be one for you. A single turn in this dance takes several hundred million years. Two galaxies, NGC 5394 and NGC 5395, slowly whirl about each other in a gravitational interaction that sets off a flourish of sparks in the form of new stars. The featured image, taken with the Gemini North 8-meter telescope on Maunakea, Hawaii, USA, combines four different colors. Emission from hydrogen gas, colored red, marks stellar nurseries where new stars drive the evolution of the galaxies. Also visible are dark dust lanes that mark gas that will eventually become stellar nurseries. If you look carefully you will see many more galaxies in the background, some involved in their own slow cosmic dances. APOD across world languages: Arabic, Catalan, Chinese (Beijing), Chinese (Taiwan), Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Farsi, French, French, German, Hebrew, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Montenegrin, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish and Ukrainian

It had purple skin,
with eight green eyes.
A red nose, not blinking
was a big surprise.
The pigeon toed gait
as it walked down the road,
with a lumpy body, like a toad.

Playing soccer, in an Over 40 League,
was fun for me and good exercise.
Playing, as a defender, at that time,
I was told, I was good in the air. Or in
layman terms, heading the ball.
High balls were mine.
The ball was passed by an opposing player,
to a space ahead of me. I jumped
to use my head to move the ball out of reach
of the opposing player.
A collision with a teammate's head, happened,
at my eyebrow.
I stood there, dazed, confused and wondered
how come there was blood dripping down my
nose to the ground.
I walked off the field and a teammate took
me across the street to the Steele Lake,
Fire Station, where a EMT put a bandage on
my eye brow. I finished playing the game,
as we were playing shorthanded, with less than
eleven player. I made sure that I did not do
any more head balls.
I was riding with a friend and I dropped him off
at his place and then proceeded to the ER,
at Evergreen Medical Center.
The staff handled me in their usual fine fashion and
after 7 stitches, inside the cut and 8 stitches outside,
I was sent home.
I enjoyed playing soccer and did so until I was in my 50's.

Her eyes reflected the blue of the sky.
Her hair was silken; you could see why.
Why does your skin have that beautiful shine?
When will you say you will be mine?
Your answer, I'm sure will not come soon,
As I was staring at the silvery Moon.
The Moon was my love; it was every night,
Until the Sun rose ending my sight
Of the loveliest orb in the evening sky.
Where are you going? Please tell me why,
When the Sun comes arising
And you say Goodbye.

There are times when you cant see,
who in the World, is your enemy.
Don't sit there, so quietly
when all you may know
is your "why?" was a once
and off she would go.
Words that I say,
mean nothing more
for the word "Once"
was most certainly a "We".
This gibberish, I write,
as I have written now,
are words out of order,
something I cannot allow.
My mind is now broken,
my sight is now dim,
for I call to the heavens,
please rid us of him.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What if the only way to get back to Earth was to go around the far side of the Moon? Such was the dilemma of the Apollo 13 Crew in 1970 as they tried to return home in their unexpectedly damaged spacecraft. With the Moon in the middle, their perilous journey substituted spectacular views of the lunar farside for radio contact with NASA's Mission Control. These views have now been digitally recreated from detailed images of the Moon taken by the robotic Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The featured video starts by showing Earth disappear behind a dark lunar limb, while eight minutes later the Sun rises around the opposite side of the Moon and begins to illuminate the Moon's unusual and spectacularly cratered surface. Radio contact was only re-established several minutes after that, as a crescent Earth rose into view. With the gravity of the Moon and the advice of many industrious NASA engineers and scientists, a few days later Apollo 13 opened its parachutes over the Pacific Ocean and landed safely back on Earth.