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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What are those unusual streaks? Some images of planet Earth show clear bright streaks that follow the paths of ships. Known as ship tracks, these low and narrow bands are caused by the ship's engine exhaust. Water vapor condenses around small bits of exhaust known as aerosols, which soon grow into floating water drops that efficiently reflect sunlight. Ship tracks were first discovered in 1965 in Earth images taken by NASA's TIROS satellites. Multiple ship tracks are visible across the featured image that was captured in 2009 over the Pacific Ocean by the MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra satellite. Inspired by ship-tracks, some scientists have suggested deploying a network of floating buoys in the worlds' oceans that spray salt-aerosol containing sea-water into the air so that, with the help of the wind, streams of sunlight-reflecting clouds would also form. Why do this? These human-made clouds could reflect so much sunlight they might help fight global warming. Today is: World Oceans Day

Lonely the one
most dear to you.
Hard to see loneliness
when you are lonely too.

I turned on the faucet
until the water was hot,
soaking my hands,
for arthritis I've got.

"In ways big and small — in schools, in homes, in every facet of life — the United States fails to protect and support its children". Read more

Sometimes, it is good to revisit the past postings.

Born thee tomorrow,
born thee today.
Pull back the someone
and go far away.

I miss all the laughter,
all the hugs and the sighs.
I don't like it when
memories seep from her eyes.

Where are all the tomorrows?
What happened to the yesterdays?
How hard is it to keep living,
when the love has gone away?

Burn the air brightly,
Let the bells ring,
for no one knows,
what tomorrow will bring.
Look for the music,
which will make
the World sing.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Do dragons fight on the altar of the sky? Although it might appear that way, these dragons are illusions made of thin gas and dust. The emission nebula NGC 6188, home to the glowing clouds, is found about 4,000 light years away near the edge of a large molecular cloud unseen at visible wavelengths, in the southern constellation Ara (the Altar). Massive, young stars of the embedded Ara OB1 association were formed in that region only a few million years ago, sculpting the dark shapes and powering the nebular glow with stellar winds and intense ultraviolet radiation. The recent star formation itself was likely triggered by winds and supernova explosions, from previous generations of massive stars, that swept up and compressed the molecular gas. Joining NGC 6188 on this cosmic canvas, visible toward the lower right, is rare emission nebula NGC 6164, also created by one of the region's massive O-type stars. Similar in appearance to many planetary nebulae, NGC 6164's striking, symmetric gaseous shroud and faint halo surround its bright central star near the bottom edge. This impressively wide field of view spans over 2 degrees (four full Moons), corresponding to over 150 light years at the estimated distance of NGC 6188.

Photo by Shaun Robertson

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Will our Milky Way Galaxy collide one day with its larger neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy? Most likely, yes. Careful plotting of slight displacements of M31's stars relative to background galaxies on recent Hubble Space Telescope images indicate that the center of M31 could be on a direct collision course with the center of our home galaxy. Still, the errors in sideways velocity appear sufficiently large to admit a good chance that the central parts of the two galaxies will miss, slightly, but will become close enough for their outer halos to become gravitationally entangled. Once that happens, the two galaxies will become bound, dance around, and eventually merge to become one large elliptical galaxy -- over the next few billion years. Pictured here is a combination of images depicting the sky of a world (Earth?) in the distant future when the outer parts of each galaxy begin to collide. The exact future of our Milky Way and the entire surrounding Local Group of Galaxies is likely to remain an active topic of research for years to come.

A calmness covered the dining room,
while off in the distance came a shrill
cry, as if it came from an injured Loon.
It wasn't the noise of a bird we heard
but the cry of a resident, unable to speak.
What problems prevail on this dreary day, creating memory loss in those who're weak?