Neptune's Auroras l Hubble and Webb

Michael Whelan cover art for Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov, 1983.

(Humanoid History)

Space header. Natur. May 15, 1922.

Internet Archive.

hey everyone its april fools. but dont worry i dont have anything planned. just going to sit here and...

I LIED !!!! GET PRANKED

POST BELOW ME GET FUCKING WET

Hey guys! Check out this block of pure sodium that I got!

DONT SKIP🚨🇵🇸

I am eshaq from Gaza, 39 years old, Father of 6 children

They were deprived of their most basic rights as children

a place that has seen unimaginable suffering. In a matter of moments, everything I had was taken away. My home, which held all my memories, dreams, and moments of joy, was reduced to rubble in the recent war. I no longer have a place to call home, and the security I once knew is gone. Every day is a struggle—no electricity, no clean water, and a constant sense of fear and uncertainty.

I have lost not just my home, but also my sense of normalcy. The nights are filled with the sounds of war, and the days are spent trying to survive. I never thought I would find myself in this position, where basic human needs are a luxury. But here I am, reaching out to you in one of the most difficult moments of my life.

I am not alone in this. So many of us here in Gaza are trying to pick up the pieces of our shattered lives. Your help means more than just financial support—it’s a message of hope. It’s a reminder that we are not forgotten. Every donation brings us closer to rebuilding not just our homes, but our lives and our future.

Please, stand with us in this dark time. Your kindness can light the way for those of us who are desperately searching for hope. Thank you for your generosity and for giving us a chance to rebuild and recover from this devastation."

Please make a donation your donation makes a huge difference

You can save a life !!

Jupiter: At The Belt-Zone Boundary - March 10th, 1997.

"Jupiter's thick atmosphere is striped by wind-driven cloud bands that remain fixed in latitude - dark-coloured bands are known as belts while light-coloured bands are zones. At Jupiter's belt-zone boundaries, the shearing wind velocities can reach nearly 300 miles per hour. Near infrared images returned by the Galileo Spacecraft were mapped to visible colours in this close-up of a belt-zone boundary, near the gas giant's equator. The colour-mapping reveals different layers, lower clouds are bluish, higher ones pinkish. The smallest features seen are tens of miles across."

In terms of science communication and space exploration advocacy, Elon Musk has sent us back into the fucking Stone Age.

It’s hard enough to encourage the public to see the value in space exploration, especially when the problems facing society right now are so intense that space exploration seems frivolous and needlessly expensive by comparison (keyword “seems”) but now that this clown is the face of the future of space, it’s doubling, hell, tripling down on the idea that space exploration is a fantasy for bored billionaires that would rather fuck off to mars and escape the problems of earthly society (problems that they had a starring role in creating) rather than spend a penny of their wealth to help remedy them. Tale as old as time for a science communicator. Heard it a million times. But now it’s so much harder to get people to understand the other side of the coin because the nightmare scenario is already here and his name is elongated muskrat

To add a little bit of context as to what that value actually is… The thing I hear the most in this conversation is “we need to take care of this planet before we start thinking about other ones.” Yes, I agree. The well-being of our planet and it’s people should be our top priority. But we can’t properly take care of our planet if we don’t fully understand it.

The Earth does not exist in a bubble. It’s part of a dynamic and ever-evolving solar system, and galaxy and universe. He have to look at the earth in that context to be able to know and care for it. To care for a planet, we have to know how planets work. When doctors treat patients they look at the medical record, they look at family history, they look at symptoms and compare them to known diseases to find a diagnosis.

How did the earth form? What was it like in the past? Why did it change? That’s the medical record.

We’ve got the earths siblings in the neighborhood. Why is Mars a frozen desert? Why is Venus a molten hell scape? Could those things happen here? That’s the family history.

What kinds of things are floating around our neighborhood? Could they affect us? All this is necessary to diagnose the Earths problem, to anticipate the direction it’s going, and to help it heal.

And the minute we get an asteroid scare, that’s when folks start asking why we weren’t looking up 🙄

— Carl Sagan

Art by Steve R Dodd ‘Exo-Planet: Dark Side’ (2024, acrylics on canvas board)

The Morning Stars by Sarah Ball Dodson, 1887

Veil Nebula

The Veil Nebula is a stunning supernova remnant located in the constellation Cygnus, often referred to as the "Wings of the Swan" .

It is approximately 1,500 light-years away from Earth and spans about 110 light-years across.

The nebula is composed of ionized gas and dust, and it is known for its intricate and delicate filaments, which are the remnants of a massive star that exploded around 8,000 years ago.

The Veil Nebula is divided into several parts, with the most prominent sections being the Eastern Veil (NGC 6992) and the Western Veil (NGC 6960).

Credits: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

[Link]

Under the "has cleared its orbital neighborhood" and "fuses hydrogen into helium" definitions, thanks to human activities Earth technically no longer qualifies as a planet but DOES count as a star.

I’m gonna have an aneurysm.