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Looking through these three windows on history reminds us that while the tools of civilization evolve, the human story continues to be driven by many of the same hopes, challenges, and ambitions that have shaped every generation. Continue reading

State boundaries can be iconic. Many were drawn by human hands, but some of the most recognizable contours were shaped by nature: the boot of southeastern Louisiana, carved by the Mississippi River, or the ocean waves sculpting the hook of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. More at The Conversation➜

Chrysomma sinense (Yellow-eyed Babbler) in Bhigwan, Maharashtra, India.

Tisha Mukherjee, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

By Loïc Fürhoff on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What if you could see the entire sky -- all at once -- for an entire year? That, very nearly, is what is pictured here. Every 15 seconds during 2025, an all-sky camera took an image of the sky over the Netherlands. Central columns from these images were then aligned and combined to create the featured keogram, with January at the top, December at the bottom, and the middle of the night running vertically just left of center. What do we see? Most obviously, the daytime sky is mostly blue, while the nighttime sky is mostly black. The twelve light bands crossing the night sky are caused by the glow of the Moon. The thinnest part of the black hourglass shape occurs during the summer solstice, like today, when days are the longest, while the thickest part occurs at the winter solstice. Equinoxes can also be located in the keogram, for example the northern-spring equinox from one year ago is about three-quarters of the way up.

Bags of organic fertiliser adorn newly-planted fields against a backdrop of the Western Catchment in the Nilgiri mountains. Tamil Nadu, India.

Timothy A. Gonsalves, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

"Only a dad, but he gives his all
To smooth the way for his children small,
Doing, with courage stern and grim,
The deeds that his father did for him.
This is the line that for him I pen,
Only a dad, but the best of men"

Last Stanza from Edgard Guest's Poem "Only a Dad" See complete poem

June 21, 2026 -  A solstice is an event in which earth’s poles are most extremely inclined toward or away from the sun, at about 23.5 degrees. Solstices happen twice per year, June and December, marking the change of seasons to summer and winter. During the June solstice, the sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer at noon and it marks the Northern Hemisphere astronomical beginning of summer with the longest daylight. In the Southern Hemisphere, it marks the beginning of astronomical winter, with the day having the shortest period of daylight. More 

Steve Smith on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Venus is now appearing on the celestial stage as Earth's brilliant evening star, performing with the Moon, other wandering planets, and bright stars in western skies. For evening sky gazers on June 17, the celestial beacon rose after sunset close by a young, slender, crescent Moon. But from some locations the Moon could be seen to occult or pass in front of Venus. And from a backyard observatory in southern British Columbia, Canada, the lunar occultation was played out in daylight. This stunning telescopic snapshot captured a scene in dramatically cloudy skies, following Venus' hour long disappearance, as the evening star emerged beyond the bright lunar limb.

Photo by Debra Ceravolo

Flower of a Geranium sanguineum, bloody crane's-bill. Focus stack of 51 photos.

Agnes Monkelbaan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.