Public Posts

Albert Camus ~ (November 7, 1913 - January 4, 1960) ~ French philosopher, author, and journalist

Sonika Agarwal on Unsplash

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

This is a map of the universe. The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) at Kitt Peak National Observatory, Arizona, has finished its five-year survey. It observed more than 47 million galaxies and quasars and created a 3D map centered on the Earth. Today's featured image shows a thin slice of these data: the black gaps indicate where our Galaxy obscures distant objects. The feathery web in the inset shows the large scale structure of the universe. Light of the most distant galaxies shown here travelled for 11 billion years to reach the Earth. Galaxies cluster throughout cosmic history under the competing influences of gravity and dark energy, responsible for the accelerated expansion of the universe. Analysis of early DESI results hinted at the possibility that dark energy, described as a cosmological constant by Albert Einstein, may not be constant after all. But we still have to wait for the analysis of the now complete dataset. The nature of dark energy is the biggest mystery of cosmology.

Saint George; upper altarpiece of the main altar of the parish church St. Georg, built in 1750 - 1751 by Peter Thumb (1681–1767), Hüfingen-Mundelfingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Today is Saint George's Day.

H. Zell, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. View source.

There is no Life or Death,
Only activity
And in the absolute
Is no declivity.
There is no Love or Lust
Only propensity
Who would possess
Is a nonentity.
There is no First or Last
Only equality
And who would rule
Joins the majority.
There is no Space or Time
Only intensity,
And tame things
Have no immensity.

Mina Loy (born Mina Gertrude Löwy; (1882 – 1966) was a Writer. poet, playwright, novelist, actress, designer, painter and a bohemian. Loy was born in London, and she was one of the last of the first-generation modernists to achieve posthumous recognition. As stated by Nicholas Fox Weber in the New York Times, "This brave soul had the courage and wit to be original. Mina Loy may never be more than a vaguely familiar name, a passing satellite, but at least she sparkled from an orbit of her own choosing".

This poem is in the public domain

African Impact on Unsplash

"Giraffes and zebras are often found grazing together in the savannah grasslands in Africa. There is a particular reason for this. Giraffes have the advantage of spotting advancing predators from far away due to their long necks; on the other hand, zebras have incredible night vision. The pair are a formiddable force. Our photography volunteers in the Greater Kruger Area (South Africa) captured this relationship quite well on one of their daily game drives, during the infamous Golden Hour".

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What does it mean for the Earth to set? Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman gave us another spectacular view of Earth from their historic flyby of the Moon. Commander Wiseman's video, taken with an iPhone at 8x zoom, shows our entire planet gradually blocked from view by the Moon. On the Earth, the 24-hour planetary rotation causes the Sun to set below your horizon every night. However, on Artemis II the Earthset was caused not by the Moon’s rotation but by the spacecraft moving behind the Moon (at about 55 seconds in this video). Once rare, views of Earth are now taken many times a day from many spacecraft, including NASA’s SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) satellite tracking freshwater resources and USGS Landsat 8 and 9 satellites supporting water management for farmers, for example. Space agencies around our home planet now work together to provide unique and ever-improving views of our Earth. Celebrate: Earth Day

Glaucidium cuculoides (Asian barred owlet) in Kaziranga National Park, Assam, India.

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