Contributor Posts

Villages of Hullathy Gram Panchayat in a steep arid valley in the north face of the Nilgiri Mountains. Villagers have created a vibrant agrarian economy, largely vegetables and tea, using terraces and irrigation. Tamil Nadu, India.

Timothy A. Gonsalves, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

By Nikolay Vorobyev on Unsplash

Caitlin Wynne on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Is gravity the same over the surface of the Earth? No -- in some places you will feel slightly heavier than others. The featured Earth map video shows in colors and exaggerated highs and lows where the gravitational field of Earth is relatively strong and weak. A low spot, where you would feel slightly lighter, can be seen just off the coast of India, in blue, while a relative high occurs in the mountains of Chile in South America. The cause of these irregularities does not always follow present surface features. Scientists hypothesize that other important factors lie in deep underground structures in Earth's mantle and may be related to the Earth's appearance in the distant past. The featured map was composed from data taken by NASA's twin GRACE satellites that orbited the Earth from 2002 to 2017. GRACE mapped Earth's gravity by carefully tracking tiny changes in the distance between the two satellites.

View NASA’s Astronomy Photo of the Day

Little corella (Cacatua sanguinea gymnopis) Murray River, Blanchetown, South Australia. A type of cockatoo.

Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

Alan J. Hendry on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What's happening at the end of that street? Pictured here are not auroras but light pillars, a phenomenon typically much closer. In most places on Earth, a lucky viewer can see a Sun pillar, a column of light appearing to extend up from the Sun caused by flat fluttering ice-crystals reflecting sunlight from the upper atmosphere. Usually, these ice crystals evaporate before reaching the ground. During freezing temperatures, however, flat fluttering ice crystals may form near the ground and are sometimes known as a crystal fog. These small ice crystals may then reflect not the Sun but ground lights. The featured image captured not only numerous light pillars but also the iconic constellation of Orion, and was taken in Mohe, the northernmost city in China.

Photo by Jeff Dai (TWAN)

A previously unpublished illustration intended for the Saturday Evening Post's 1943 New Year's edition. It was never used due to publisher demands that the illustrator, J.C. Leyendecker, create a more optimistic and patriotic cover that was sensitive to the families of American soldiers. It was publicly shown for the first time in 2020 as part of an auction.

J. C. Leyendecker, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

This Quote has been published in different variations. This specific wording was published by Stephen R. Covey, on his book "The Speed of Trust". It highlights a common human bias to excuse our own shortcomings but penalize others for theirs. Covey is also the author  of "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People".