Contributor Posts

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Why would the surface of Titan light up with a blinding flash? The reason: a sunglint from liquid seas. Saturn's moon Titan has numerous smooth lakes of methane that, when the angle is right, reflect sunlight as if they were mirrors. Pictured here in false-color, the robotic Cassini spacecraft that orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017 imaged the cloud-covered Titan in 2014 in different bands of cloud-piercing infrared light. This specular reflection was so bright it saturated one of Cassini's infrared cameras. Although the sunglint was annoying -- it was also useful. The reflecting regions confirm that northern Titan houses a wide and complex array of seas with a geometry that indicates periods of significant evaporation. During its numerous passes of our Solar System's most mysterious moon, Cassini has revealed Titan to be a world with active weather -- including times when it rains a liquefied version of natural gas.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The night side of Pluto spans this shadowy scene. In the stunning spacebased perspective the Sun is 4.9 billion kilometers (almost 4.5 light-hours) behind the dim and distant world. It was captured by far flung New Horizons in July of 2015 when the spacecraft was at a range of some 21,000 kilometers from Pluto, about 19 minutes after its closest approach. A denizen of the Kuiper Belt in dramatic silhouette, the image also reveals Pluto's tenuous, surprisingly complex layers of hazy atmosphere. Near the top of the frame the crescent twilight landscape includes southern areas of nitrogen ice plains now formally known as Sputnik Planitia and rugged mountains of water-ice in the Norgay Montes.

I’m not a violent man. But everyone has their breaking point. And I’ve reached mine. If you’re a homeowner, there are three certainties in life: your property taxes will go up, the roof will need to be replaced SOON, and with the first blossoms of Spring, moles will arrive in your yard.....Read more

There is another World,
running parallel to thee.
It lies there, open
where a human cannot see.
Does it mean there
is another, opposite me?
A doppelganger, an image
of one person or three?

Go you now,
of little faith,
for your loss,
yet to come.
Casting your lot
with those today,
who will not,
let you walk
away or stay,
until golden light
appears once more,
at your doorstep.
Just be sure
your love will
be, solid gold,
no matter when
your soul is gone.

At last
life's failed.
Pain is
here, close
at hand.
Always near,
too close
at times,
edging near
to Life's
open door
of sadness
and sounds
of prayer.
A loss
of faith
will appear
and yet,
we're gone.
No longer
the life.
A sadness
to end
the day.

They ran in a panic,
running to flee,
the fires, now burning
across forest and plain.
Small animals, deer, rabbits,
scurried away from flame,
caused by a careless
camper, who was to blame.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Braided and serpentine filaments of glowing gas suggest this nebula's popular name, The Medusa Nebula. Also known as Abell 21, this Medusa is an old planetary nebula some 1,500 light-years away in the constellation Gemini. Like its mythological namesake, the nebula is associated with a dramatic transformation. The planetary nebula phase represents a final stage in the evolution of low mass stars like the sun as they transform themselves from red giants to hot white dwarf stars and in the process shrug off their outer layers. Ultraviolet radiation from the hot star powers the nebular glow. The Medusa's transforming star is the faint one near the center of the overall bright crescent shape. In this deep telescopic view, fainter filaments clearly extend above and left of the bright crescent region. The Medusa Nebula is estimated to be over 4 light-years across.

Photo by Damien Cannane

#saratogapassage 

It's 3:30 am,
I've been up an hour.
I cannot sleep,
my mood is dower.
Our children say
it's best for me,
and for their mother
at a place for her memory.

Life could be better,
or it could be worse,
if your life was over
as you lay in a hearse.

Do I know you my friend?
Have I been here before?
Were we ever lovers,
or a friendship, no more?