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Maya Angelou (1928-2014) American writer, poet, singer, and civil rights activist

Back when the neighbors had dairy cows, we used to get our milk direct from the udder. Unpasteurized, no growth hormone, no antibiotic whole milk. Course, back then we were told by the FDA and the food scientists that this would increase our chances of heart disease and diabetes. But …! If we took a baby aspirin a day, we could lessen those chances. Sort of like driving over the speed limit but wearing a seat belt. You get in a wreck, you might survive..... More at The Skeeter Daddle Diaries ➜

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Have you ever seen a rocket launch -- from space? A close inspection of the featured time-lapse video will reveal a rocket rising to Earth orbit as seen from the International Space Station (ISS). The Russian Soyuz-FG rocket was launched in November 2018 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying a Progress MS-10 (also 71P) module to bring needed supplies to the ISS. Highlights in the 90-second video (condensing about 15-minutes) include city lights and clouds visible on the Earth on the lower left, blue and gold bands of atmospheric airglow running diagonally across the center, and distant stars on the upper right that set behind the Earth. A lower stage can be seen falling back to Earth as the robotic supply ship fires its thrusters and begins to close on the ISS, a space laboratory that celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2023. Astronauts who live aboard the Earth-orbiting ISS conduct, among more practical duties, numerous science experiments that expand human knowledge and enable future commercial industry in low Earth orbit.

Grand staircase of the Palais Garnier, an opera house in Paris, France that opened on this day 150 years ago.

Benh LIEU SONG, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

rth's orbit around the Sun is not a circle, it's an ellipse. The point along its elliptical orbit where our fair planet is closest to the Sun is called perihelion. This year perihelion is today, January 4, at 13:28 UTC, with the Earth about 147 million kilometers from the Sun. For comparison, at aphelion on last July 3 Earth was at its farthest distance from the Sun, some 152 million kilometers away. But distance from the Sun doesn't determine Earth's seasons. It's only by coincidence that the beginning of southern summer (northern winter) on the December solstice - when this H-alpha picture of the active Sun was taken - is within 14 days of Earth's perihelion date. And it's only by coincidence that Earth's perihelion date is within 11 days of the historic perihelion of NASA's Parker Solar Probe. Launched in 2018, the Parker Solar Probe flew within 6.2 million kilometers of the Sun's surface on 2024 December 24, breaking its own record for closest perihelion for a spacecraft from planet Earth.

Photo by Barden Ridge Observatory

Maloja Pass in the blue hour.

Feel free to use my photos, but please mention me as the author and if you want send me a message. or (rufre@lenz-nenning.at), CC BY-SA 3.0 at, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

clipses tend to come in pairs. Twice a year, during an eclipse season that lasts about 34 days, Sun, Moon, and Earth can nearly align. Then the full and new phases of the Moon, separated by just over 14 days, create a lunar and a solar eclipse. But only rarely is the alignment at both new moon and full moon phases during a single eclipse season close enough to produce a pair with both total (or a total and an annular) lunar and solar eclipses. More often, partial eclipses are part of any eclipse season. In fact, the last eclipse season of 2024 produced this fortnight-separated eclipse pair: a partial lunar eclipse on 18 September and an annular solar eclipse on 2 October. The time-lapse composite images were captured from Somerset, UK (left) and Rapa Nui planet Earth. The 2025 eclipse seasons will see a total lunar eclipse on 14 March paired with a partial solar eclipse on 29 March, and a total lunar eclipse on 8 September followed by a partial solar eclipse on 21 September.

Photo by Josh Dury

Royal Air Force (RAF) Panavia Tornado GR4 ZA607 EB-X flying past Corris Corner in Mach Loop, Wales, United Kingdom.

Julian Herzog (Website), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Recorded during 2024, this year-spanning series of images reveals a pattern in the seasonal drift of the Sun's daily motion through planet Earth's sky. Known to some as an analemma, the figure-eight curve was captured in exposures taken only at 1pm local time on clear days from Kayseri, Turkiye. Of course the Sun's position on the 2024 solstice dates was at the top and bottom of the curve. They correspond to the astronomical beginning of summer and winter in the north. The points along the curve half-way between the solstices, but not the figure-eight curve crossing point, mark the 2024 equinoxes and the start of spring and fall. Regional peaks and dormant volcano Mount Erciyes lie along the southern horizon in the 2024 timelapse skyscape.

Photo by Betul Turksoy