Pi Day π (pi) is observed on March 14 (3/14 in the month/day format) since 3, 1, and 4 are the first three significant digits of π. Pi (π) Day has become an international holiday, celebrated live and online all around the world.
What is π anyway? Divide any circle’s circumference by its diameter; the answer (whether for a plate or a planet) is always approximately 3.14, a number represented with the Greek letter π. Mathematicians have been calculating π’s digits with more and more accuracy and have discover they go on literally forever, with no pattern.
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Colorful Airglow Bands Surround Milky Way
• 03/13/22 at 12:16PM •NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:
Why would the sky glow like a giant repeating rainbow? Airglow. Now air glows all of the time, but it is usually hard to see. A disturbance however -- like an approaching storm -- may cause noticeable rippling in the Earth's atmosphere. These gravity waves are oscillations in air analogous to those created when a rock is thrown in calm water. Red airglow likely originates from OH molecules about 87-kilometers high, excited by ultraviolet light from the Sun, while orange and green airglow is likely caused by sodium and oxygen atoms slightly higher up. While driving near Keluke Lake in Qinghai Provence in China a few years ago, the photographer originally noticed mainly the impressive central band of the Milky Way Galaxy. Stopping to photograph it, surprisingly, the resulting sensitive camera image showed airglow bands to be quite prominent and span the entire sky. The featured image has been digitally enhanced to make the colors more vibrant.
Photo by Xiaohan Wang
The electrical chatter of our working memories reflects our uncertainty about their contents. Neuroscientific studies suggest that when we call up a memory to use it, our uncertainty about its accuracy is part of the recollection. Read more
Point Reyes Milky Way
• 03/12/22 at 12:16PM •NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:
Northern winter constellations and a long arc of the Milky Way are setting in this night skyscape looking toward the Pacific Ocean from Point Reyes on planet Earth's California coast. Sirius, alpha star of Canis Major, is prominent below the starry arc toward the left. Orion's yellowish Betelgeuse, Aldebaran in Taurus, and the blue tinted Pleiades star cluster also find themselves between Milky Way and northwestern horizon near the center of the scene. The nebulae visible in the series of exposures used to construct this panoramic view were captured in early March, but are just too faint to be seen with the unaided eye. On that northern night their expansive glow includes the reddish semi-circle of Barnard's Loop in Orion and NGC 1499 above and right of the Pleiades, also known as the California Nebula.
Photo by Dan Zafra
The Most Difficult
• 03/12/22 at 11:17AM •The most difficult part
in my life today,
is living apart,
when she asks me to stay.
A Comment by Loy
❤️
Words Written Now
• 03/12/22 at 11:15AM •Words written now
transform into glass,
no matter the lies,
the truth won't pass.
Inflation is high,
blame corporate greed,
as company profits rose,
with cost to all, in need.
Go back in history now,
time to manage the seed,
for raising prices hurts
the consumer. Yes, indeed.
A Comment by Loy
So true!
Photo shared by Heather Cox Richardson from Letters from an American
Shoot From the Hip
• 03/12/22 at 01:44AM •Shoot from the hip,
not the way to
write a new poem,
for the words are
rough as an
unpolished stone.
Words should flow
like water on glass
without hesitation
for you must know
it matters not about
you, it is more for
ending the show.
Forever
• 03/12/22 at 01:40AM •Forever is my love for you.
It doesn't matter what you do.
Just be there. I will too
as I think again of only you.
When Rainbows Smile
• 03/11/22 at 12:16PM •NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:
Want to see a rainbow smile? Look near the zenith (straight up) when the sun is low in the sky and you might. This example of an ice halo known as a circumzenithal arc was captured above a palm tree top from Ragusa, Sicily on February 24. The vividly colorful arcs are often called smiling rainbows because of their upside down curvature and colors. For circumzenithal arcs the zenith is at the center and red is on the outside, compared to rainbows whose arcs bend toward the horizon after a downpour. True rainbows are formed by water droplets refracting the sunlight to produce a spectrum of colors, though. Circumzenithal arcs are the product of refraction and reflection in flat hexagonal ice crystals, like the ice crystals that create sundogs, formed in high thin clouds.
Photo by Marcella Giulia Pace
She is Lost
• 03/11/22 at 08:10AM •She is lost
in a World,
she does not know.
Memories are piqued,
by pictures seen
of happier times,
of long ago.
Conversations consist
of questions,
asked of me.
"Why can't you
stay with me here?"
Looking at pictures
of our two boys is
an enigma, to she,
knowing not
their names.
A sadness exists,
it shouldn't be,
for this is
her life, living
with sans memories.
Albert Alexander was dying. World War II was raging, and this police officer of the county of Oxford, England, had developed a severe case of sepsis after a cut on his face became badly infected. His blood was now teeming with deadly bacteria....Read more