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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Stars are forming in the gigantic dust pillar called the Cone Nebula. Cones, pillars, and majestic flowing shapes abound in stellar nurseries where natal clouds of gas and dust are buffeted by energetic winds from newborn stars. The Cone Nebula, a well-known example, lies within the bright galactic star-forming region NGC 2264. The Cone was captured in unprecedented detail in this close-up composite of several observations from the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. While the Cone Nebula, about 2,500 light-years away in Monoceros, is around 7 light-years long, the region pictured here surrounding the cone's blunted head is a mere 2.5 light-years across. In our neck of the galaxy that distance is just over half way from our Sun to its nearest stellar neighbors in the Alpha Centauri star system. The massive star NGC 2264 IRS, seen by Hubble's infrared camera in 1997, is the likely source of the wind sculpting the Cone Nebula and lies off the top of the image. The Cone Nebula's reddish veil is produced by dust and glowing hydrogen gas.

A range of emotions,
is what is found,
when regarding change,
to the environment, around.

Would you stay in place,
wherever you go,
or try to move forward?
I'm not sure I know.

Early Sun,
a dappled, grey sky.
I think of Spring,
a new beginning to try.

Trying to move forward,
hard as it may be.
It's what I'd want,
if I was thee.

I am amazed, at those,
who, stand in front of me.
When they look this way,
what do they see?

A saddened, old man,
wanting to be free,
or an old Curmudgeon,
looking a lot like me.

I want to be happy again,
perhaps dating or to play,
but I believe my guilt,
will get in my way.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Apollo 14's Lunar Module Antares landed on the Moon on February 5, 1971. Toward the end of the stay astronaut Ed Mitchell snapped a series of photos of the lunar surface while looking out a window, assembled into this detailed mosaic by Apollo Lunar Surface Journal editor Eric Jones. The view looks across the Fra Mauro highlands to the northwest of the landing site after the Apollo 14 astronauts had completed their second and final walk on the Moon. Prominent in the foreground is their Modular Equipment Transporter, a two-wheeled, rickshaw-like device used to carry tools and samples. Near the horizon at top center is a 1.5 meter wide boulder dubbed Turtle rock. In the shallow crater below Turtle rock is the long white handle of a sampling instrument, thrown there javelin-style by Mitchell. Mitchell's fellow moonwalker and first American in space, Alan Shepard, also used a makeshift six iron to hit two golf balls. One of Shepard's golf balls is just visible as a white spot below Mitchell's javelin.

I'll come here tomorrow,
Please wait for me,
as I want to love you,
I'm the best cure for thee.

Here we are,
here we'll be.
Won't you,
wait for me?

A revisit of a time gone by,
now finding the words still are needed.

I never found,
I don't think, anymore,
for the old memories,
my mind does implore.

Quiet! Thinking of the past,
Changes always given before,
are needed now, if you are,
to change your inner core.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

This cosmic view shows off an otherwise faint emission nebula IC 410, captured under clear Netherlands skies with telescope and narrowband filters. Above and right of center you can spot two remarkable inhabitants of the interstellar pond of gas and dust, known as the tadpoles of IC 410. Partly obscured by foreground dust, the nebula itself surrounds NGC 1893, a young galactic cluster of stars. Formed in the interstellar cloud a mere 4 million years ago, the intensely hot, bright cluster stars energize the glowing gas. Globules composed of denser cooler gas and dust, the tadpoles are around 10 light-years long and are likely sites of ongoing star formation. Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation their heads are outlined by bright ridges of ionized gas while their tails trail away from the cluster's central young stars. IC 410 and embedded NGC 1893 lie some 10,000 light-years away, toward the nebula-rich constellation Auriga.

Photo by Sander de Jong