Contributor Posts

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The Buck Moon is a traditional name for the full moon of July. In this colorful Adriatic sea and skyscape captured on July 28 from Krk Island along the coast of Croatia, a full Buck Moon is just rising over distant mountains. Since a full moon rises as the Sun sets, Earth's shadow also rises in the twilight scene, a diffuse gray band extending above the mountainous southeastern horizon. Above Earth's shadow band is the pinkish antitwilight arch. That subtly tinted band of backscattered sunlight is more widely known as the Belt of Venus. But as it shares the eastern horizon with the atmospheric shadow of Earth and Belt of Venus, this full Buck Moon seems to set the stage for the New Moon to come. The New Moon of August 12 will cast its shadow on planet Earth in a much anticipated total solar eclipse.

Photo by Branko Nadj

Ceiling of Sala della Stufa, Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti, Florence. The room, created between 1627 and 1641, was originally an open gallery, but it was closed off later in the 17th century and restructured as a “stove” room, a bathroom heated using the same techniques as the Roman baths and intended for private use by the Grand Duke, whose bedroom is believed to be next door. The decoration, specially the frescos and stuccos, commissioned by Grand Duke Ferdinand II de' Medici, are a work of Michelangelo Cinganelli (1558-1635) Matteo Rosselli (1578-1650) and Ottavio Vannini (1585–1643).

Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

Welcome to Kudos365 Weekly History Challenge. Test your history  knowledge and see how many of the history questions you can answer correctly. A new updated History Challenge is released every Saturday.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The Dark Doodad Nebula drifts through southern skies, a tantalizing target for binoculars toward the small constellation Musca, The Fly. A dusty interstellar cloud, it's seen against rich starfields just south of the Coalsack Nebula and the Southern Cross. Stretching for about 3 degrees across this telescopic field of view, the Dark Doodad is punctuated near its southern tip (upper right) by yellowish globular star cluster NGC 4372. Of course NGC 4372 roams the halo of our Milky Way galaxy, a background object some 20,000 light-years away and only by chance along our line-of-sight to the Dark Doodad. About 700 light-years distant and over 30 light-years long, the Dark Doodad's well defined silhouette belongs to the potentially star-forming Musca molecular cloud. The dusty Dark Doodad's delightfully alliterative moniker was first coined by astro-imager and writer Dennis di Cicco in 1986 while observing Comet Halley from the Australian outback.

Photo by Alessandro Cipolat Bares

Parasols, Evening on the beach, Rincón de la Victoria, Andalusia, Spain.

Jebulon, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

Philip Arthur Larkin (1922 – 1985)  was an English writer, poet, novelist  and librarian. He published his first book of poetry, "The North Ship, in1945, .He was offered, but declined, the position of Poet Laureate in 1984, following the death of Sir John Betjema

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

This could be the view from an exoplanet orbiting around a red dwarf star, but it is our own Sun. This image was taken on July 22, 2026, in the Okanagan region in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Wildfire smoke from the Pacific Northwest acted as a solar filter, allowing the photographer to take this photo of the Sun directly. Several sunspots are also visible in this eerie image; just below and right of the center is AR 4493, a fast evolving, giant active solar region and sunspot group. The smoke is made of tiny particles that help block and scatter light with bluer colors, so the light we see coming from the Sun is dimmer and redder than usual (but it is never safe to stare directly at the Sun). Sunsets and sunrises are also more colorful because of the smoke. Some 6 billion years from now, the Sun will actually start to turn redder as it approaches its red giant phase.

Photo by Debra Ceravolo Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)

Interior of the Shandong Grand Theater, China.

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

A rose has thorns as well as honey,
I’ll not have her for love or money;
An iris grows so straight and fine,
That she shall be no friend of mine;
Snowdrops like the snow would chill me;
Nightshade would caress and kill me;
Crocus like a spear would fright me;
Dragon’s-mouth might bark or bite me;
Convolvulus but blooms to die;
A wind-flower suggests a sigh;
Love-lies-bleeding makes me sad;
And poppy-juice would drive me mad:—
But give me holly, bold and jolly,
Honest, prickly, shining holly;
Pluck me holly leaf and berry
For the day when I make merry.

Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 –1894), was an English writer born in London. She authored many romantic, devotional and children's poems, including "Goblin Market" and "Remember". She also wrote the words of two Christmas carols well known in Britain: "In the Bleak Midwinter" and "Love Came Down at Christmas",  She was a sister of the artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti II and features in several of his paintings.

This poem is in the public domain.