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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Why would x-ray rings appear around a gamma-ray burst? The surprising answer has little to do with the explosion itself but rather with light reflected off areas of dust-laden gas in our own Milky Way Galaxy. GRB 221009A was a tremendous explosion -- a very bright gamma-ray burst (GRB) that occurred far across the universe with radiation just arriving in our Solar System last week. Since GRBs can also emit copious amounts of x-rays, a bright flash of x-rays arrived nearly simultaneously with the gamma-radiation. In this case, the X-rays also bounced off regions high in dust right here in our Milky Way Galaxy, creating the unusual reflections. The greater the angle between reflecting Milky Way dust and the GRB, the greater the radius of the X-ray rings, and, typically, the longer it takes for these light-echoes to arrive.

George Santayana - (1863 – 1952)  ~ Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, was a philosopher, essayist, poet, critic and novelist. Born in Spain and raised and educated in the US from the age of eight. He left his position at Harvard at the age of 48 and returned to Europe permanently. Santayana was the author of many books and known for his aphorisms. He was profoundly influenced by Spinoza's life and thought. Although he was an atheist, he treasured the Spanish Catholic values, practices, and worldview in which he was raised. 

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Across the center of this spiral galaxy is a bar. And at the center of this bar is smaller spiral. And at the center of that spiral is a supermassive black hole.  This all happens in the big, beautiful, barred spiral galaxy cataloged as NGC 1300, a galaxy that lies some 70 million light-years away toward the constellation of the river Eridanus. This Hubble Space Telescope composite view of the gorgeous island universe is one of the most detailed Hubble images ever made of a complete galaxy. NGC 1300 spans over 100,000 light-years and the Hubble image reveals striking details of the galaxy's dominant central bar and majestic spiral arms. How the giant bar formed, how it remains, and how it affects star formation remains an active topic of research.

What is a thought?
What is a notion,
but an idea or
a strong emotion.

I know the words,
sound like a song.
I'll keep on writing,
as I move along.

Words can be pliant,
as some people you see.
Not speaking of you,
just thinking of me.

Anyone can be bent
and follow a sign,
but some become warped
becoming bigoted and blind.

A Comment by Loy

Your avatar
Loy • 10/15/2022 at 06:35PM • Like 1 Profile

True- good poem

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Gamma-ray burst GRB 221009A likely signals the birth of a new black hole, formed at the core of a collapsing star long ago in the distant universe. The extremely powerful blast is depicted in this animated gif constructed using data from the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope. Fermi captured the data at gamma-ray energies, detecting photons with over 100 million electron volts. In comparison visible light photons have energies of about 2 electron volts. A steady, high energy gamma-ray glow from the plane of our Milky Way galaxy runs diagonally through the 20 degree wide frame at the left, while the transient gamma-ray flash from GRB 221009A appears at center and then fades. One of the brightest gamma-ray bursts ever detected GRB 221009A is also close as far as gamma-ray bursts go, but still lies about 2 billion light-years away. In low Earth orbit Fermi’s Large Area Telescope recorded gamma-ray photons from the burst for more than 10 hours as high-energy radiation from GRB 221009A swept over planet Earth last Sunday, October 9.

Wassily Kandinsky (1866 - 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. One of the pioneers of abstraction in western art. He studied Law and Economics at the University of Moscow. He spent 18 years in Munich, returning to Russia after the outbreak of World War I.  He returned to Germany in 1920 where he taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture until the Nazis closed it in 1933. He then moved to France, where he produced some of his most prominent art, became a French citizen and lived for the rest of his life.

It's funny how thoughts pop into your head.
My grandparents retired from the railroad.
My father and I both worked there for a short time.
Our family home, when in high school, was close
to the railroad tracks.
I would use the RR tracks for a path to go hunting
and fishing.
I recall, when walking down the hall at the memory
care unit, where both my wife and I now reside.
My beloved is in early or mid-Alzheimer and walks with
a short, choppy walk. I found myself walking in a similar
shuffle and it brought to mind my youthful days walking
the tracks. Walking on the ties required two small steps
the one long step and repeat. Or you could tread on every
tie, which wasn't ideal. It's funny about recollection and
what can trigger the thought.
Thank you for your patience and support over the years
as I scribbled out my thoughts and little odes.

A Comment by Loy

Your avatar
Loy • 10/15/2022 at 12:17AM • Like 1 Profile

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and poems - I look forward to reading them.

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