Contributor Posts

He wrote hard,
he wrote wet.
He wrote so much
he incurred debt.

Early in the morning,
hours before the dawn,
when your sleep filled body,
is in a state of yawn.
To be amongst the living,
for today and well beyond,
will be a life's beginning
as we continue to carry on.

Off we go
on a free
writing spree.
Just write
the words,
so rapidly,
there's no
time to
rationalize or
decide if
acceptable prose,
no matter,
what's said,
this will
still be
a better
day of
joyful time.
Lost my
mind, sprang
out the
door to
nowhere here
and no
way we
can it's
idiocy at
it's finest
hour.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

It's easy to get lost following the intricate, looping, twisting filaments in this detailed image of supernova remnant Simeis 147. Also cataloged as Sharpless 2-240 it goes by the popular nickname, the Spaghetti Nebula. Seen toward the boundary of the constellations Taurus and Auriga, it covers nearly 3 degrees or 6 full moons on the sky. That's about 150 light-years at the stellar debris cloud's estimated distance of 3,000 light-years. This composite includes image data taken through narrow-band filters where reddish emission from ionized hydrogen atoms and doubly ionized oxygen atoms in faint blue-green hues trace the shocked, glowing gas. The supernova remnant has an estimated age of about 40,000 years, meaning light from the massive stellar explosion first reached Earth 40,000 years ago. But the expanding remnant is not the only aftermath. The cosmic catastrophe also left behind a spinning neutron star or pulsar, all that remains of the original star's core.

Photo by Jason Dain

Solitary birch tree (Betula pendula) on a hill near Ilsfeld, Germany. Photo taken in January 2021 during sunset.
 License CC BY-SA 4.0

Dakos Salad is a specialty Greek salad made with fresh tomatoes, feta, capers, onion, oregano, and basil. You get the taste of summer all in one bite. It can made in a few different forms. Either served like an Italian bruschetta with the tomatoes and cheese crumbled on top of rusks (savory biscuits), or deconstructed into a salad. Click to read Yasmin's Khan's recipe r

Rain continues falling
on the graying of the day.
Perhaps a glimpse of sunshine
will hold the clouds at bay.

Seek you not,
a journey to heaven.
For you only, a trip
to your Seven-Eleven

Orange, was the color
of the Sun which arose
from the Eastern sky.
Bright the reflection
from lake and pond.
Heaven air masses,
cloudless they were,
clear skies above.
The only thing missing,
was you my love.

Mystic nights,
a purple dawn,
one more day,
this land beyond
and then I
think of you.

Will you be there on the morrow?
Will you be there as my friend?
Will you help me, through my sorrow?
Will you stay here, until the end?

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What does Comet Leonard look like up close? Although we can't go there, imaging the comet's coma and inner tails through a small telescope gives us a good idea. As the name implies, the ion tail is made of ionized gas -- gas energized by ultraviolet light from the Sun and pushed outward by the solar wind. The solar wind is quite structured and sculpted by the Sun's complex and ever changing magnetic field. The effect of the variable solar wind combined with different gas jets venting from the comet's nucleus accounts for the tail's complex structure. Following the wind, structure in Comet Leonard's tail can be seen to move outward from the Sun even alter its wavy appearance over time. The blue color of the ion tail is dominated by recombining carbon monoxide molecules, while the green color of the coma surrounding the head of the comet is created mostly by a slight amount of recombining diatomic carbon molecules. Diatomic carbon is destroyed by sunlight in about 50 hours -- which is why its green glow does not make it far into the ion tail. The featured image was taken on January 2 from Siding Spring Observatory in Australia. Comet Leonard, presently best viewed from Earth's Southern Hemisphere, has rounded the Sun and is now headed out of the Solar System.

Photo by Blake Estesitelescope.net