Contributor Posts

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Why do some spiral galaxies have a ring around the center? Spiral galaxy NGC 1398 not only has a ring of pearly stars, gas and dust around its center, but a bar of stars and gas across its center, and spiral arms that appear like ribbons farther out. The featured deep image from Observatorio El Sauce in Chile shows the grand spiral galaxy in impressive detail. NGC 1398 lies about 65 million light years distant, meaning the light we see today left this galaxy when dinosaurs were disappearing from the Earth. The photogenic galaxy is visible with a small telescope toward the constellation of the Furnace (Fornax). The ring near the center is likely an expanding density wave of star formation, caused either by a gravitational encounter with another galaxy, or by the galaxy's own gravitational asymmetries.

It was in the far past,
when stars fell from the sky,
hitting the land and sea.
No recovery efforts, no reason why.

When I was young,
I knew a girl, called Sue.
She would never, ever,
do what I wanted to.

A scary thought,
both night and day.
Will you be here,
after I've gone away.

Ask not of me,
for favor free,
when you love me not,
though I am not thee.

https://www.filmingperu.com/

Beautiful dreamer,
Beautiful day.
My love for you
Will always stay.

I failed to see,
this part of life,
living alone,
without my wife.

Why am I troubled?
Why am I sore,
when my true love,
Is gone. No more.

To see her,
smiling face,
without a
sweet embrace.

Sadness eats
at my soul,
as a person,
I am no longer whole.

In the dead of the night,
running fast as you can,
be careful as you step,
beware the Gingerbread Man.

A coldness,
crept over me.
It's what I felt,
but didn't see.

A chill runs
down my spine.
An ominous feeling
knowing it's mine.

The word Hospice,
my stomach turns,
the patient, my wife,
now my eyes burn.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Why is our Sun so active now? No one is sure. An increase in surface activity was expected because our Sun is approaching solar maximum in 2025. However, last month our Sun sprouted more sunspots than in any month during the entire previous 11-year solar cycle -- and even dating back to 2002. The featured picture is a composite of images taken every day from January to June by NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory. Showing a high abundance of sunspots, large individual spots can be tracked across the Sun's disk, left to right, over about two weeks. As a solar cycle continues, sunspots typically appear closer to the equator. Sunspots are just one way that our Sun displays surface activity -- another is flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that expel particles out into the Solar System. Since these particles can affect astronauts and electronics, tracking surface disturbances is of more than aesthetic value. Conversely, solar activity can have very high aesthetic value -- in the Earth's atmosphere when they trigger aurora.