Contributor Posts

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Why would this mission go out as far as Jupiter -- but then not visit Jupiter? Lucy's plan is to follow different leads about the origin of our Solar System than can be found at Jupiter -- where Juno now orbits. Jupiter is such a massive planet that its gravity captures numerous asteroids that orbit the Sun ahead of it -- and behind. These trojan asteroids formed all over our Solar System and some may have been trapped there for billions of years. Flying by these trojan asteroids enables studying them as fossils that likely hold unique clues about our early Solar System. Lucy, named after a famous fossil skeleton which was named after a famous song, is scheduled to visit eight asteroids from 2025 to 2033. Pictured, Lucy's launch was captured with reflection last week aboard a powerful Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA.

Photo by John Kraus

Pray to the Lord.
Prey on the land,
the choice is yours.
Yours to command.
Be you a good person,
as I know you are.
You were the one,
so much stronger than me
and I will carry my love
to the end of eternity,
and yet, when we're gone,
will we be in someone's memory?

How near the Earth?
How far the Sky?
Questions posed, over the years,
with physical numbers.
Is it now a clear answer?
Or must we question again?
To the end of the Earth
and travel some more,
to see the greenest of grass,
in a rain forest we see,
with echo's of bird sounds,
as we peruse dreams in our life,
while walking the byways,
crossing river and stream.
Climb mountains, with abandon,
meeting New World cultures,
unlike any we know.
Aren't all those events, important,
in this World so grand,
in a land of plenty,
with a forgotten man.

You're the man.
You're the best,
except for Adam,
who went West.
Adam West then
was an actor playing Batman.
These crazy words,
ring in my ear.
Join me now,
have a beer.
Off we go,
into the rain.
Help me here,
I can't explain,
why I write
out words.
Weird they are.
Are you sure
this is my car?
It is yours,
told you before.
Here you are,
asking for more.

Claire Weekes, a "trailblazing Australian doctor stared down professional resistance to revolutionize the way we treat anxiety. Along the way she became a best-selling author and one of the first self-help gurus."
" Her face, accept, float, let time pass method" was based on the biological understanding of how the body’s simple alarm system, the unconscious fight-or-flight system – which she called first fear – could be distressingly perpetuated by what she called “second fear” which kicked off a vicious “fear-adrenalin-fear cycle”, Read article

Judith Hoare is the author of "The Woman Who Cracked the Anxiety Code: the Extraordinary Life of Dr. Claire Weekes.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Where did this big ball of stars come from? Palomar 6 is one of about 200 globular clusters of stars that survive in our Milky Way Galaxy. These spherical star-balls are older than our Sun as well as older than most stars that orbit in our galaxy's disk. Palomar 6 itself is estimated to be about 12.5 billion years old, so old that it is close to -- and so constrains -- the age of the entire universe. Containing about 500,000 stars, Palomar 6 lies about 25,000 light years away, but not very far from our galaxy's center. At that distance, this sharp image from the Hubble Space Telescope spans about 15 light-years. After much study including images from Hubble, a leading origin hypothesis is that Palomar 6 was created -- and survives today -- in the central bulge of stars that surround the Milky Way's center, not in the distant galactic halo where most other globular clusters are now found.

Don't go soft on me,
with all our resolve,
to avoid talking to me
about a problem to solve.
You run from the truth.
You know what to do.
Place her in Memory Care.
Tell her, I Love You.

There are thoughts thrashing
around in my head,
scratching and clawing;
trying to get out
through the tips of my finger,
and movement of my hand.
Trying to reach the writer,
most literal, to understand,
what is happening to his mind,
at this time of his life,
with his life's company
a sick, Dementia laden, wife.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Why can we see the entire face of this Moon? When the Moon is in a crescent phase, only part of it appears directly illuminated by the Sun. The answer is earthshine, also known as earthlight and the da Vinci glow. The reason is that the rest of the Earth-facing Moon is slightly illuminated by sunlight first reflected from the Earth. Since the Earth appears near full phase from the Moon -- when the Moon appears as a slight crescent from the Earth -- earthshine is then near its brightest. Featured here in combined, consecutively-taken, HDR images taken earlier this month, a rising earthshine Moon was captured passing slowly near the planet Venus, the brightest spot near the image center. Just above Venus is the star Dschubba (catalogued as Delta Scorpii), while the red star on the far left is Antares. The celestial show is visible through scenic cloud decks. In the foreground are the lights from Palazzolo Acreide, a city with ancient historical roots in Sicily, Italy.

Photo by Dario Giannobile

Sitting here now,
pen in my hand,
hoping to write words,
strong and not bland.
Scratch out I must,
these words which you see,
before they are dust
and will no longer be.
The are no clear thoughts
of what this writing will be,
except to say they live
within my minds infamy.

Why do we call
a knife a blade"
We can hone a blade,
meaning to sharpen, too.
I'm not sure about me
and I wonder about you.

Words can be soft
and words can be hard.
Hey! All you kids,
get out of my yard.