Contributor Posts

You know the highway is slick,
as you drive down the road
and the red lights you follow,
turn to white and back
to red, spinning like a top.
My heart jumps into my throat,
while a calmness comes over me
for the "black ice", on the road
I drive has appeared as
dry pavement, which it is not
and maybe the end of me.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

This was not a typical sun pillar. Just after sunrise two weeks ago in Providence, Rhode Island, USA, a photographer, looking out his window, was suddenly awestruck. The astonishment was caused by a sun pillar that fanned out at the top. Sun pillars, singular columns of light going up from the Sun, are themselves rare to see, and are known to be caused by sunlight reflecting from wobbling, hexagon-shaped ice-disks falling through Earth's atmosphere. Separately, upper tangent arcs are known to be caused by sunlight refracting through falling hexagon-shaped ice-tubes. Finding a sun pillar connected to an upper tangent arc is extraordinary, and, initially, took some analysis to figure out what was going on. A leading theory is that this sun pillar was also created, in a complex and unusual way, by falling ice tubes. Few might believe that such a rare phenomenon was seen again if it wasn't for the quick thinking of the photographer -- and the camera on his nearby smartphone. News from Mars: NASA Perseverance Coverage

Photo by Mike Cohea

I am desperate, to write.
I am desperate, right now,
to write of my love,
but not remembering how.

Why is sadness,
the most news I hear,
when there are other emotions,
which can bring good cheer?
I don't understand,
when life is so dear,
to read of another's life
is gone. No longer here.

I heard the Sirens call,
when I first went to sea.
I'm hearing it once more,
as she is searching for me.
A mournful sound, as I recall.
There was nothing there to see,
except to know in my heart,
she will soon be finding me.
Should I hide away from here?
Will she let me flee,
or go to the Earth's end,
to capture the Soul of me?
I now dream of sleepless nights
when I was last at sea,
knowing when the Siren calls,
it may be the end of me.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

How hard is it to land safely on Mars? So hard that many more attempts have failed than succeeded. The next attempt will be on Thursday. The main problem is that the Martian atmosphere is too thick to ignore -- or it will melt your spacecraft. On the other hand, the atmosphere is too thin to rely on parachutes -- or your spacecraft will crash land. Therefore, as outlined in the featured video, the Perseverance lander will lose much of its high speed by deploying a huge parachute, but then switch to rockets, and finally, assuming everything goes right, culminate with a hovering Sky Crane that will slowly lower the car-sized Perseverance rover to the surface with ropes. It may sound crazy, but the Curiosity rover was placed on Mars using a similar method in 2012. From atmospheric entry to surface touch-down takes about seven minutes, all coordinated by an onboard computer because Mars is too far away for rapid interactive communication. During this time, humans on Earth will simply wait to hear if the landing was successful. Last week, UAE's Hope spacecraft successfully began orbiting Mars, followed a day later by the Chinese Tianwen-1 mission, which will likely schedule a landing of its own rover sometime in the next few months. News: NASA Perseverance Coverage

Disparage me not,
you, my true love,
for I care for you.
That is my trove.

Here we are,
once more.
A very small fear,
of the loss of
your memory and recall,
which has gone away
and will no longer be,
yours to bring forth,
for others to hear
and all to riminess,
of the adventures we had
during this life of ours.
A captured image, now gone,
we must work hard,
and keep moving on.

Forlorn is the cat
who waits patiently
for someone to appear,
so it can still see,
the caring picture of love today.
I hear him now and will
stay, not go away.

A lost soul
now lives with me,
knowing not where
she should go or be.
Being alone
within her body shell,
I cannot imagine
what type of Hell,
she sees every day,
for there is nothing
to change the way,
for her memories
no longer stay.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Starting Thursday, there may be an amazing new robotic explorer on Mars. Or there may be a new pile of junk. It all likely depends on things going correctly in the minutes after the Mars 2020 mission arrives at its new home planet and attempts to deploy the Perseverance rover. Arguably the most sophisticated landing yet attempted on the red planet, consecutive precision events will involve a heat shield, a parachute, several rocket maneuvers, and the automatic operation of an unusual device called a Sky Crane. Thursday's Seven Minutes of Terror echo the landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars in 2012, as depicted in the featured video. If successful, the car-sized Perseverance rover will rest on the surface of Mars, soon to begin exploring Jezero Crater to better determine the habitability of this seemingly barren world to life -- past, present, and future. Although multiple media outlets may cover this event, one way to watch these landing events unfold is on the NASA channel live on the web. News: NASA Perseverance Coverage

Liane Metzler on Unsplash