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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Not every road ends in a STEVE. A week ago, a sky enthusiast's journey began with a goal: to photograph an aurora over Lake Huron. Driving through rural Ontario, Canada, the forecasted sky show started unexpectedly early, causing the photographer to stop before arriving at the scenic Great Lake. Aurora images were taken toward the north -- but over land, not sea. While waiting for a second round of auroras, a peculiar band of light was noticed to the west. Slowly, the photographer and friends realized that this western band was likely an unusual type of aurora: a Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement (STEVE). Moreover, this STEVE was putting on quite a show: appearing intertwined with the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy while intersecting the horizon just near the end of the country road. After capturing this cosmic X on camera, the photographer paused to appreciate the unexpected awesomeness of finding extraordinary beauty in an ordinary setting. Your Sky Surprise: What picture did APOD feature on your birthday? (post 1995)

Photo by Theresa Clarke

You're never right,
but are always wrong.
You never know
the words of a song.

Your hearings bad,
needs a lot of work.
Don't misbehave
or act like a jerk.

Go down under,
go yee soon.
Do it now,
before a full moon.

You must be crazy,
or perhaps, just daft,
for your behavior is
similar to witchcraft.

Why are the embers,
glowing red,
while the fire burns
above our head.

Do you understand,
do you not know,
when fire surrounds you,
there is no place to go.

Fire is like
emotions in life,
we all will experience
a type of strife.

The pressure of life,
occurs every day,
you can't escape it,
by running away.

Today or tomorrow,
or even yesterday,
a collection of memories,
a memory array.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Do you see the horse's head? What you are seeing is not the famous Horsehead nebula toward Orion, but rather a fainter nebula that only takes on a familiar form with deeper imaging. The main part of the here-imaged molecular cloud complex is reflection nebula IC 4592. Reflection nebulas are made up of very fine dust that normally appears dark but can look quite blue when reflecting the visible light of energetic nearby stars. In this case, the source of much of the reflected light is a star at the eye of the horse. That star is part of Nu Scorpii, one of the brighter star systems toward the constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpius). A second reflection nebula dubbed IC 4601 is visible surrounding two stars above and to the right of the image center.

Photo by Antoine & Dalia Grelin

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What's happening to this spiral galaxy? Just a few hundred million years ago, NGC 2936, the upper of the two large galaxies shown at the bottom, was likely a normal spiral galaxy -- spinning, creating stars -- and minding its own business. But then it got too close to the massive elliptical galaxy NGC 2937, just below, and took a turn. Sometimes dubbed the Hummingbird Galaxy for its iconic shape, NGC 2936 is not only being deflected but also being distorted by the close gravitational interaction. Behind filaments of dark interstellar dust, bright blue stars form the nose of the hummingbird, while the center of the spiral appears as an eye. Alternatively, the galaxy pair, together known as Arp 142, look to some like Porpoise or a penguin protecting an egg. The featured re-processed image showing Arp 142 in great detail was taken recently by the Hubble Space Telescope. Arp 142 lies about 300 million light years away toward the constellation of the Water Snake (Hydra). In a billion years or so the two galaxies will likely merge into one larger galaxy.

I remember the event,
not by date, just a peep.
of saying "Get in the car girls,"
They said, "Get lost you creep."

Those words spoken
to my friends and I,
by my future wife
and her friend. Sigh!

Visiting my wife,
she was asleep,
as it usually is.
Too tired to weep.

Round it up.
Turn it down.
Don't act normal.
Be the Clown.

Enjoy your life,
times running short.
Get it together,
don't abort.

Play hard,
every day.
Do it now or,
it's going away.