Contributor Posts

Night view of the City of Huaraz, Peru. Club Fotografico de Huaraz - @Francisco Quispe

Into the void of darkest space
to escape this life
to another place.
Where do you go, when in flight,
for there is nothing to see
in our clouded sight.
Off we go, as said before,
out to the desert,
to the space port, a door
into the heavens on rockets bright.
Go now young people
enjoying your pioneering flight.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

How far do magnetic fields extend up and out of spiral galaxies? For decades astronomers knew only that some spiral galaxies had magnetic fields. However, after NRAO's Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope (popularized in the movie Contact) was upgraded in 2011, it was unexpectedly discovered that these fields could extend vertically away from the disk by several thousand light-years. The featured image of edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 5775, observed in the CHANG-ES (Continuum Halos in Nearby Galaxies) survey, also reveals spurs of magnetic field lines that may be common in spirals. Analogous to iron filings around a bar magnet, radiation from electrons trace galactic magnetic field lines by spiraling around these lines at almost the speed of light. The filaments in this image are constructed from those tracks in VLA data. The visible light image, constructed from Hubble Space Telescope data, shows pink gaseous regions where stars are born. It seems that winds from these regions help form the magnificently extended galactic magnetic fields.

Do we talk?
Do we care?
Do we balk,
At our despair?
What say you,
Oh foolish one,
My life's over
Yours just begun.

Please don't get upset with me,
when I tell you what I see.
I should have learned, so long ago,
a discussion is not the place to go.

The Frost has covered,
limbs, weeds and grass,
while nipping at new growth
of daffodils in flower beds.
The grape hyacinth, once tall,
have been nipped to the ground,
by the resident rabbit

The dog was young,
with a nose,
both wet and runny.
Pet me now,
rub my tummy,
wipe my nose,
all wet and runny.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

How did this strange-looking galaxy form? Astronomers turn detectives when trying to figure out the cause of unusual jumbles of stars, gas, and dust like NGC 1316. Inspection indicates that NGC 1316 is an enormous elliptical galaxy that somehow includes dark dust lanes usually found in a spiral galaxy. Detailed images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows details, however, that help in reconstructing the history of this gigantic tangle. Deep and wide images show huge collisional shells, while deep central images reveal fewer globular clusters of stars toward NGC 1316's interior. Such effects are expected in galaxies that have undergone collisions or merging with other galaxies in the past few billion years. The dark knots and lanes of dust, prominent in the featured image, indicate that one or more of the devoured galaxies were spiral galaxies. NGC 1316 spans about 50,000 light years and lies about 60 million light years away toward the constellation of the Furnace (Fornax).

A Mt. Rainier Dawn. Photo taken from South Saratoga Passage,WA. Jan 26, 2021

Strangers we are once again.
You were my closest friend.
All the socializing of the past,
disappeared. My was it fast.

There are no words, I can say,
about the outcome of your day,
for I know not, of your Dementia mind.
I am sorry, I do not mean to be unkind.

I was sitting in the corner
of a smoke filled saloon.
A jukebox was playing a new,
Rock 'n Roll, Chuck Beery tune.
Having a beer, with a friend,
was my plan, for the night.
Have a drink and be mellow,
and avoid getting in a fight.
It was then I saw her.
She was sitting at the bar.
Her hair long; pulled up tight.
The laugh, I heard, was, well,
like the sound of a beautiful bell.
She looked my way, only twice.
No eye contact; not to me.
It was my entertainment of the night,
for there wasn't more, to be.