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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Get out your red/blue glasses and check out this stereo scene from Taurus-Littrow valley on the Moon! The color anaglyph features a detailed 3D view of Apollo 17's Lunar Rover in the foreground -- behind it lies the Lunar Module and distant lunar hills. Because the world was going to be able to watch the Lunar Module's ascent stage liftoff via the rover's TV camera, this parking place was also known as the VIP Site. Fifty years ago, in December of 1972, Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spent about 75 hours on the Moon, while colleague Ronald Evans orbited overhead. The crew returned with 110 kilograms of rock and soil samples, more than from any of the other lunar landing sites. Cernan and Schmitt are still the last to walk (or drive) on the Moon.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Returning from beyond the Moon, on December 11 the Orion spacecraft entered Earth's atmosphere at almost 11 kilometers per second. That's half the speed of the grain of dust that created this long fireball meteor when it entered the atmosphere on December 13, near the peak of the annual Geminid meteor shower. As our fair planet makes its yearly pass through the dust trail of mysterious asteroid 3200 Phaethon, the parallel tracks of all Geminid meteors appear to radiate from a point in the constellation Gemini. But the twin stars of Gemini hide just behind the trees on the left in this night skyscape from the beautiful Blue Moon Valley, Yunnan, China. Reflected in the still waters of the mountain lake, stars of the constellation Orion are rising near center. Captured before moonrise, dazzling Mars is still the brightest celestial beacon in the scene.

Photo by Jeff Dai

Cowardly

Posted by MFish • Profile • 12/15/22 at 09:59PM • Life Stories - Memories • See more by MFish

I can be cowardly at times
with clenching of fist,
asking myself questions
of why do I exist?

Looking at others facing ills,
unwilling to talk about you.
Afraid, of you leaving me.
If it happens, what do I do?

I want you to remember,
all of the memories we had.
Realizing it will never be,
all of my memories, are sad.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

On December 8 a full Moon and a full Mars were close, both bright and opposite the Sun in planet Earth's sky. In fact Mars was occulted, passing behind the Moon when viewed from some locations across Europe and North America. Seen from the city of Kosice in eastern Slovakia, the lunar occultation of Mars happened just before sunrise. The tantalizing spectacle was recorded in this telescopic timelapse sequence of exposures. It took about an hour for the Red Planet to disappear behind the lunar disk and then reappear as a warm-hued full Moon, the last full Moon of 2022, sank toward the western horizon. The next lunar occultation of bright planet Mars will be in the new year on January 3, when the Moon is in a waxing gibbous phase. Lunar occultations are only ever visible from a fraction of the Earth's surface, though. The January 3 occultation of Mars will be visible from parts of the South Atlantic, southern Africa, and the Indian Ocean.

Photo by Tomas Slovinsky

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