"In the Blue Hour, French illustrator and author Isabelle Simler offers a stunning joint celebration of these uncommon blue creatures and the common blue world they inhabit, the Pale Blue Dot we share." ........ Read the full article on Brain Pickings

Photo credit: Calob Photography

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The jets emanating from Centaurus A are over a million light years long. These jets of streaming plasma, expelled by a giant black hole in the center of this spiral galaxy, light up this composite image of Cen A. Exactly how the central black hole expels infalling matter remains unknown. After clearing the galaxy, however, the jets inflate large radio bubbles that likely glow for millions of years. If energized by a passing gas cloud, the radio bubbles can even light up again after billions of years. X-ray light is depicted in the featured composite image in blue, while microwave light is colored orange. The base of the jet in radio light shows details of the innermost light year of the central jet.

How one man went from attending President Barack Obama’s inauguration to dying in the mob protesting Donald Trump’s election loss during the Capitol insurrection.............. Read the full article at ProPublica

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

This fantastic skyscape lies near the edge of NGC 2174 a star forming region about 6,400 light-years away in the nebula-rich constellation of Orion. It follows mountainous clouds of gas and dust carved by winds and radiation from the region's newborn stars, now found scattered in open star clusters embedded around the center of NGC 2174, off the top of the frame. Though star formation continues within these dusty cosmic clouds they will likely be dispersed by the energetic newborn stars within a few million years. Recorded at infrared wavelengths by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014, the interstellar scene spans about 6 light-years. Scheduled for launch in 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope is optimized for exploring the Universe at infrared wavelengths.

May I speak freely
about Elf's and Gnome's.
Those of the garden variety,
where they make their homes.

The lost moon,
a void horizon.
An empty sky;
Where's the brightness
to catch my eye?
Come back now.
Return to me,
for in the darkness,
I cannot see.

The sack is empty.
No more your lies.
Leave this place now;
No shameful goodbyes.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

This shadowy landscape of majestic mountains and icy plains stretches toward the horizon on a small, distant world. It was captured from a range of about 18,000 kilometers when New Horizons looked back toward Pluto, 15 minutes after the spacecraft's closest approach on July 14, 2015. The dramatic, low-angle, near-twilight scene follows rugged mountains formally known as Norgay Montes from foreground left, and Hillary Montes along the horizon, giving way to smooth Sputnik Planum at right. Layers of Pluto's tenuous atmosphere are also revealed in the backlit view. With a strangely familiar appearance, the frigid terrain likely includes ices of nitrogen and carbon monoxide with water-ice mountains rising up to 3,500 meters (11,000 feet). That's comparable in height to the majestic mountains of planet Earth. The Plutonian landscape is 380 kilometers (230 miles) across.

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The rain falls;
laying in puddles,
filling street gutters,
as the drains,
overflow; bubbling up,
as if saying,
"No more rain."
The ground is saturated;
soil wet and deep,
but the sound
of the rain,
on our roof,
makes for a restful
night of sleep.

There are times
when I arise
in the morn
and the smell
of the Sea,
wafts the air,
recalling the memories,
to the front
of my mind
of trips to
the beach;
a favorite time,
walking on sand,
wind in face,
while many of
your troubles will
disappear, when the
sounds of Seabirds,
in the salt
laden air,
removes the worries,
lets them all
pass, when the
wind dies down
and the Sea
is like glass.

January 14, 2021

If you’re like most Americans, there’s a good chance you’re going to wear a cloth mask today. Doing so makes sense...... Continue reading 

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Like salsa verde on your favorite burrito, a green aurora slathers up the sky in this 2017 June 25 snapshot from the International Space Station. About 400 kilometers (250 miles) above Earth, the orbiting station is itself within the upper realm of the auroral displays. Aurorae have the signature colors of excited molecules and atoms at the low densities found at extreme altitudes. Emission from atomic oxygen dominates this view. The tantalizing glow is green at lower altitudes, but rarer reddish bands extend above the space station's horizon. The orbital scene was captured while passing over a point south and east of Australia, with stars above the horizon at the right belonging to the constellation Canis Major, Orion's big dog. Sirius, alpha star of Canis Major, is the brightest star near the Earth's limb.

If you still are a believer, in We,
of this current display of idiocy,
please review the insurrection you see.
Is this the Nation you want it to be?

Up in the morning,
before the Sunrise.
Time to go fishing,
as it is an ebb tide.
Down to the water
pole in my hand,
reliving the joy
of a younger man.
No worries or fears
of what I could do,
for I hadn't yet met
the remarkable you.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What are these two giant arches across the sky? Perhaps the more familiar one, on the left, is the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy. This grand disk of stars and nebulas here appears to encircle much of the southern sky. Visible below the stellar arch is the rusty-orange planet Mars and the extended Andromeda galaxy. For a few minutes during this cold arctic night, a second giant arch appeared to the right, encircling part of the northern sky: an aurora. Auroras are much closer than stars as they are composed of glowing air high in Earth's atmosphere. Visible outside the green auroral arch is the group of stars popularly known as the Big Dipper. The featured digital composite of 18 images was captured in mid-December over the Lofoten Islands in Norway. APOD Year in Review (2020): RJN's Night Sky Network Lecture

Photo by Giulio Cobianchi

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The night sky is filled with stories. Cultures throughout history have projected some of their most enduring legends onto the stars above. Generations of people see these stellar constellations, hear the associated stories, and pass them down. Featured here is the perhaps unfamiliar constellation of the Old Man, long recognized by the Tupi peoples native to regions of South America now known as Brazil. The Old Man, in more modern vernacular, may be composed of the Hyades star cluster as his head and the belt of Orion as part of one leg. Tupi folklore relates that the other leg was cut off by his unhappy wife, causing it to end at the orange star now known as Betelgeuse. The Pleiades star cluster, on the far left, can be interpreted as a head feather. In the featured image, the hobbled Old Man is mirrored by a person posing in the foreground. Folklore of the night sky is important for many reasons, including that it records cultural heritage and documents the universality of human intelligence and imagination. APOD in world languages: Arabic, Catalan, Chinese (Beijing), Chinese (Taiwan), Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Farsi, French, German, Hebrew, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Montenegrin, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish, Taiwanese, Turkish, Turkish, and Ukrainian APOD online webinar January 12: Free registration, hosted by Amateur Astronomers Association of New York.

Photo by Rodrigo Guerra

Be here for me,
is what I say,
for my time here,
will be going away.
Away to a place,
I do not know,
but perhaps a trace
of love and affection
in a far away land
of sweet perfection.