Contributor Posts

Kapelle St. Martin-Caplutta Sogn Martin. Breil-Brigels. Wooden main door of the chapel. (Detail).

Agnes Monkelbaan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

"From symphonies to rock music, marching bands and advertising jingles — we hear Zildjian cymbals everywhere. Drummers across the globe know that name because it’s emblazoned on every gleaming disc. What’s less known is the Zildjian family has been making their famous cymbals — with a secret process — for more than 400 years". More at Vermont Public ➜

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The colorful, spiky stars are in the foreground of this image taken with a small telescope on planet Earth. They lie well within our own Milky Way Galaxy. But the two eye-catching galaxies in the frame lie far beyond the Milky Way, at a distance of over 300 million light-years. The galaxies' twisted and distorted appearance is due to mutual gravitational tides as the pair engage in close encounters. Cataloged as Arp 273 (also as UGC 1810), these galaxies do look peculiar, but interacting galaxies are now understood to be common in the universe. Closer to home, the large spiral Andromeda Galaxy is known to be some 2 million light-years away and inexorably approaching the Milky Way. In fact the far away peculiar galaxies of Arp 273 may offer an analog of the far future encounter of Andromeda and Milky Way. Repeated galaxy encounters on a cosmic timescale ultimately result in a merger into a single galaxy of stars. From our perspective, the bright cores of the Arp 273 galaxies are separated by only a little over 100,000 light-years.

Photo by Dave Doctor

Art installation “Himmelsleiter” (Billi Thanner) on the tower of St. Lambert's Church in Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia, GermanyThe artwork came from St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna to St. Lambert's Church in Münster in September 2022. It remained there until March 2024 and has been on display at Saint-Eustache Church in Paris since May 2024.

Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

"A nutritional neuroscientist explains how to kickstart your energy by getting essential nutrients in a well-rounded diet, along with more sleep and exercise". "Feeling drained and lethargic is common: A 2022 national survey found that 13.5% of U.S. adults said they felt “very tired” or “exhausted” most days or every day over a three-month period. Women ages 18 to 44 had the highest rate of fatigue – just over 20%." More at The Conversation ➜

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What happens after a star explodes? A huge fireball of hot gas shoots out in all directions. When this gas slams into the existing interstellar medium, it heats up so much it glows. Two different supernova remnants (SNRs) are visible in the featured image, taken at the Oukaïmeden Observatory in Morocco. The blue soccer ball-looking nebula toward the upper left is SNR G179.0+02.6, which appears to be the smaller one. This supernova, about 11,000 light years distant, detonated about 50,000 years ago. Although composed mostly of hydrogen gas, the blue light is emitted by a trace amount of oxygen. The seemingly larger SNR, dominating the lower right of the frame, is the Spaghetti Nebula, cataloged as Simeis 147 and sh2-240. This supernova, only about 3,000 light years away, exploded about 40,000 years ago. Comparatively, even though they appear different sizes, both supernova remnants are not only roughly the same age, but about the same size, too.

Photo by Stéphane Vetter (Nuits sacrées)

The view of Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View in Yosemite National Park, California, United States.

Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

It was a new year, and the sky was doubly red. The new year meant that the Earth had returned to its usual place in its orbit on January 1, a place a few days before its closest approach to the Sun. The first of the two red skyglows, on the left, was a red aurora, complete with vertical rays, caused by a blast from the Sun pushing charged particles into Earth's atmosphere. The second red glow, most prominent on the far right, was possibly a SAR arc caused by a river of charged particles flowing across Earth's atmosphere. Although both appear red, the slight color difference is likely due to the aurora being emitted by both oxygen and nitrogen, whereas the higher SAR arc was possibly emitted more purely by atmospheric oxygen. The featured image was taken on January 1 from near Pieve di Cadore in Italy. Portal Universe: Random APOD Generator

Photo by Alessandra Masi

Night view of the Széchenyi Chain Bridge from Buda Castle in Budapest, Hungary.

Wilfredor, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.