Exist only to create an Impact

[volatileresidue]

....And not to put your halo down.

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBkblu2J4ww)

[volatileresidue]

Such a brilliant rendition of 'The Sound of Silence'…!

[volatileresidue]

[markruffalo]

Before The Flood is now available on YouTube! This is an incredibly important film that I had the privilege to see and talk about. Highly recommend watching it. 

Also, for every use of #BeforeTheFlood across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram between October 24 – November 18, they’ll donate $1 to Pristine Seas and $1 to the Wildlife Conservation Society!

[justskyesart]

Putting the bones in a figure drawing. This is difficult 😅

[looking-at-the-universe]

Supernova 2015F

[just--space]

Rosetta and Comet Outbound : Not a bright comet, 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko now sweeps slowly through planet Earths predawn skies near the line-up of planets along the ecliptic. Still, this composite of telescopic images follows the comets progress as it moves away from the Sun beyond the orbit of Mars, from late September . Its faint but extensive coma and tails are viewed against the colorful background of stars near the eastern edge of the constellation Leo. A year ago, before its perihelion passage, the comet was less active, though. Then the Rosetta missions lander Philae made its historic landing, touching down on the surface of the comets nucleus. via NASA

js

[volatileresidue]

Politiet og kommunen vurderede hendes billeder som »blufærdighedskrænkende«, hvilket gav stor mediebevågenhed i ind- og udland.

Mathilde Grafström - an utterly brilliant photographer...

[archatlas]

Sarah Maycock

[maggie-stiefvater-deactivated20]

i've always been really struck by how real-feeling your portrayals of anxiety, dissociation, and ptsd are in the raven cycle - it's a big part of why the series resonates so strongly with me. could you talk about your research and writing process for characters with mental illness?

Dear elaphaia,

I can’t, actually.

It’s not that I don’t want to talk about mental illness and recovery in the Raven Cycle. It’s just that I can’t really call it a research process. The people in the Raven Cycle — anxious, obsessive, depressed, manic, shy, addicted, dissociative, abusive, abused —  are that way because I observed them. Not for research. For life. I’ve met these issues or I’ve been these issues. I’ve watched people run from them and be victimized by them and recover from them and embrace them. The Raven Cycle characters aren’t the result of academic research — they’re just the result of thirty-four years of living with interesting, brave, challenging people.

It’s funny, because as a teen writer, the thing I most hated hearing was “age will make you a better writer.” Thanks, I thought, for giving me a piece of advice that is absolutely useless to me now. I didn’t even understand it. What would age do for my writing that all of my practice couldn’t? I was already writing tens of thousands of words each month. I was dissecting story-form and character-building and prose technique. Was I just supposed to wait around until I hit this mystical age of wisdom?

No. Learning how to write stories and learning how to watch the world are two different skills, and you can do the first without the second for years. Sometimes forever. But. I’m a better writer than I was at 16, and I’ll be a better writer at 50 than I am now. Each year that I’m out in the world, living out loud, I meet more people, and I learn more about how their stories brought them to where they are. Each year I find out more about how people become who they are. And that makes it into my novels.

It’s a learned skill, paying attention, especially for a kid like me who wasn’t born particularly empathetic. You learn to look for the truth between words, the anxious squeeze of a fist, the brown scrapes on ankles from a right-handed cutter, the joy tamped by guilt and adversity hidden by pride.

I’m grateful when I hear that readers can see themselves in the mirror of my books. I hope that they don’t peer into the reflective glass and see capital-I Issues, though. I hope they merely see real life peering back at them. I’ve figured out no one’s particularly normal, not even the heroes. Especially the heroes.  

urs,

Stiefvater

[volatileresidue]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf2oMz_ECSQ)

[ellemacpherson]

Spiritual Ecology

A collection of essays edited by Llewellyn Naughan-Lee, Spiritual Ecology is a spiritual analysis of the present ecological crisis. By examining issues of climate change, species depletion and pollution, this book addresses how to respond meaningfully and with heart to the fractured relationship between human beings and nature.

www.spiritualecology.org

[economicsresearch]

pages 33 and 36 - Only by successfully incorporating biological sex markers has this sexy robot been able to sexily infiltrate human society.

[nasa]

Solar System: 2016 Preview

What do we have planned for 2016? A return to the king of planets. A survey of mysterious Ceres. More postcards from Pluto. Anyone who follows solar system exploration in 2016 is in for quite a ride. Last year was one for the record books – and now here are 10 things to look forward to in the new year. See also: what we have planned agency wide for 2016.

Juno Arrives at Jupiter

July 4, 2016 is arrival day for the Juno mission, the first sent expressly to study the largest planet in the solar system since our Galileo mission in the 1990s. Humans have been studying Jupiter for hundreds of years, yet many basic questions about the gas world remain: How did it form? What is its internal structure? Exactly how does it generate its vast magnetic field? What can it tell us about the formation of other planets inside and outside our solar system? Beginning in July, we’ll be a little closer to the answers.

OSIRIS-REx Takes Flight

The OSIRIS-REx mission, short for Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer, sets sail for an asteroid in September. The spacecraft will use a robotic arm to pluck samples from the asteroid Bennu to help better explain our solar system’s formation and even find clues to how life began.

Dawn Sees Ceres Up Close

After an odyssey of many years and millions of miles, in December the Dawn spacecraft entered its final, lowest mapping orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres. The intriguing world’s odd mountains, craters and salty deposits are ready for their close-ups. We can expect new images of the starkly beautiful surface for months.

Cassini Commences Its Grand Finale

In late 2016, the Cassini spacecraft will begin a daring set of orbits called the Grand Finale, which will be in some ways like a whole new mission. Beginning this year and extending into next, the spacecraft will repeatedly climb high above Saturn’s poles, flying just outside its narrow F ring 20 times. After a last targeted Titan flyby, the spacecraft will then dive between Saturn’s uppermost atmosphere and its innermost ring 22 times. As Cassini plunges past Saturn, the spacecraft will collect rich and valuable information far beyond the mission’s original plan.

New Horizons Sends More Postcards from Pluto

We have stared slack-jawed at the images and discoveries from last year’s Pluto flyby, but the fact is that most of the data that New Horizons collected remains on board the spacecraft. In 2016, we’ll see a steady release of new pictures — and very likely some expanded answers to longstanding questions.

Mars Missions March Forward

With five of our missions continuing their Martian quests, 2016 should be a good year for discoveries on the Red Planet.

Mars Odyssey

Mars Opportunity

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Mars Curiosity

MAVEN

Mercury Transits the Sun

A transit is a very rare astronomical event in which a planet passes across the face of the sun. In May, Mercury will transit the sun, on of only thirteen Mercury transits each century on average.

LRO Keeps an Eagle Eye On the Moon

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) will extend its run in 2016, scanning the moon’s surface with its sharp-eyed instruments, investigating everything from lava tube skylights to changes at the Apollo landing sites.

Spacecraft Fly Under Many Flags

Our partner agencies around the world will be flying several new or continuing planetary missions to destinations across the solar system:

Akatsuki at Venus

ExoMars

Mars Express

Mars Orbiter Mission

Rosetta at Comet 67/P

Technology Demonstration Missions Push the Envelope

We’re always looking for new frontiers on distant worlds, as well as the technology that will take us there. This year, several missions are planned to take new ideas for a spin in space:

Deep Space Atomic Clock

NODES

LDSD

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

[ellemacpherson]

Surface Matters

In this group exhibition, the physical texture, gravity, and density of pigment in colour and how it interacts with surface is explored as a portal to abstract energy or emotion. Colour here is active – it oozes, punctures or drapes, challenging how we view the nature of liquids.

www.mfa.org

[nasa]

Ten Awe-Inspiring Photos

We’ve taken 10 of our top Instagram posts and put them here for your viewing pleasure. Now, your next 10 cell phone backgrounds can be found in one place.

10. Water on Mars

With 210,000 likes, this image is a favorite on Instagram. New findings from our Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) provide the strongest evidence yet that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars. Dark, narrow streaks on Martian slopes such as these at Hale Crater are inferred to be formed by seasonal flow of water on contemporary Mars. The streaks are roughly the length of a football field.

9. Smoke Ring for a Halo

With 210,000 likes, this image shined on Instagram. Two stars shine through the center of a ring of cascading dust in this image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The star system is named DI Cha, and while only two stars are apparent, it is actually a quadruple system containing two sets of binary stars. As this is a relatively young star system it is surrounded by dust.

8. Pluto’s Largest Moon, Charon

With 216,000 likes, a lot of people thought this image was interesting on Instagram. Our New Horizons spacecraft has returned the best color and the highest resolution images yet of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon - and these pictures show a surprisingly complex and violent history. This high-resolution enhanced color view of Charon was captured just before closest approach on July 14. The image combines blue, red and infrared images; the colors are processed to best highlight the variation of surface properties across Charon.

7. Veil Nebula

With 220,000 likes, many people favorited this image  on Instagram. This is the expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago. This view is a mosaic of six pictures from our Hubble Space Telescope of a small area roughly two light-years across, covering only a tiny fraction of the nebula’s vast structure. This close-up look unveils wisps of gas, which are all that remain of what was once a star 20 times more massive than our sun.

6. Messier 94 Galaxy

With 234,000 likes, this image is a favorite on Instagram. This image shows the galaxy Messier 94, which lies in the small northern constellation of the Hunting Dogs, about 16 million light-years away. Within the bright ring or starburst ring around Messier 94, new stars are forming at a high rate and many young, bright stars are present within it.

5. Solar ‘Pumpkin’

With 247,000 likes, many followers enjoyed this image on Instagram. This photo was posted on Halloween and shows active regions on the sun combined to look something like a jack-o-lantern’s face. The image was captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory in October 2014, which watches the sun at all times from its orbit in space.

4. Italy from the International Space Station

With 251,000 likes, this image captivated many of you on Instagram. Before drifting off to sleep, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly (@stationcdrkelly) captured this images from the International Space Station and wrote, “ Day 180. Moonlight over Italy. #BuonaNotte Good night from @ISS! #YearInSpace.”

3. Cosmic Archaeological Dig

With 286,000 likes, this image dazzled many of you on Instagram. Peering deep into the Milky Way’s crowded central hub of stars, researchers using our Hubble Space Telescope have uncovered for the first time a population of ancient white dwarfs – smoldering remnants of once-vibrant stars that inhabited the core. Finding these relics at last can yield clues to how our galaxy was built, long before Earth and our sun formed. This image is a small section of Hubble’s view of the dense collection of stars crammed together in the galactic bulge.

2. Super Blood Moon

With 310,000 likes, this image was very popular on Instagram. It shows the Super Blood Moon behind the Washington Monument on Sunday, Sept. 27, in Washington, DC. The combination of a supermoon and total lunar eclipse last occurred in 1982 and will not happen again until 2033.

1. Pluto

With 363,000 likes, this image is one of our most popular pictures on Instagram. The dwarf planet sent a love note back to Earth via our New Horizons spacecraft, which traveled more than 9 years and 3+ billion miles. This was the last and most detailed image of Pluto sent to Earth before the moment of closest approach, which was at 7:49 a.m. EDT Tuesday, July 14 - about 7,750 miles above the surface – roughly the same distance from New York to Mumbai, India - making it the first-ever space mission to explore a world so far from Earth.

For more pictures like these, follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nasa/ 

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

[weeefeee]