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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

In 60 seconds, this setting Sun will turn green. Actually, the top of the Sun already appears not only green, but wavey -- along with all of its edges. The Sun itself is unchanged -- both effects are caused by looking along hot and cold layers in Earth's atmosphere. The unusual color is known as a green flash and occurs because these atmospheric layers not only shift background images but disperse colors into slightly different directions, like a prism. The featured video was captured earlier this month off the coast of Hawaii, USA. After waiting those 60 seconds, at the video's end, the upper part of the Sun seems to hover alone in space, while turning not only green, but blue. Then suddenly, the Sun appears to shrink to nothing -- only to return tomorrow.

Video by Tengyu Cai

It Was Late

Posted by MFish • Profile • 10/24/23 at 02:33PM • Life Stories - Memories • See more by MFish

It was late,
in early Spring,
as a new love,
I learned to sing.

Sing about all
the joys in life,
being together,
with my lovely wife.

What has happened,
during these long years,
when life has changed,
and now I have many fears.

I can't change
the outcome, laying ahead.
I pray I can, but
what I see, is nothing good.

Anticipation, of what lies ahead,
about the fate I will find.
A slow goodbye, for
the love of mine.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

This dance is to the death. As these two large galaxies duel, a cosmic bridge of stars, gas, and dust currently stretches over 75,000 light-years and joins them. The bridge itself is strong evidence that these two immense star systems have passed close to each other and experienced violent tides induced by mutual gravity. As further evidence, the face-on spiral galaxy on the right, also known as NGC 3808A, exhibits many young blue star clusters produced in a burst of star formation. The twisted edge-on spiral on the left (NGC 3808B) seems to be wrapped in the material bridging the galaxies and surrounded by a curious polar ring. Together, the system is known as Arp 87. While such interactions are drawn out over billions of years, repeated close passages will ultimately create one merged galaxy. Although this scenario does look unusual, galactic mergers are thought to be common, with Arp 87 representing a stage in this inevitable process. The Arp 87 dancing pair are about 300 million light-years distant toward the constellation of the Lion (Leo). The prominent edge-on spiral galaxy at the far left appears to be a more distant background galaxy and not involved in the on-going merger.

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