The rain is here now, eventually.

Kerrie afval... sacrilege for someone born in the old Northern Cape, with grandternals from Gordonia & Mkambati districts.

The spectacular star-forming region of Sharpless 305, 13,000 lightyears away:
www.flickr.com/photos/markm...
Also captured is the protostar RAFGL5232, 11 solar masses and 13,000 times brighter than our Sun.
via @badastronomy.beehiiv.com.web.brid.gy

Someday when this is all over, our atoms will lose cohesion and drift apart, and that's ok.
They'll combine with other atoms to form new gnarled oaks, fainting goats, and haunted cottages that float through the woods, wreathed in moss & gloom.

Swirling clouds of dust, a reddish colour, are prominent on the right-hand side of the scene. To the left, the bluer colours are areas of less dust, blown away by newborn stars.

Here's a little bit of cosmic beauty for your Monday—a portion of the Trifid Nebula, imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope.

This is a star-forming region about 5,000 lightyears from Earth. This field of view is four lightyears across, or about the distance from the Sun to the Alpha Centauri system.

Close-up photo of circular patterns and dust on a reddish stone surface.

Alien markings on Mars.

(We're the aliens. The Curiosity rover has been using its drill. Image taken yesterday.) science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-...

... I remember this...

😊
Sal hom volgende naweek 'n kans gee dalk...
Musiek is soms sleutels, vir deure wat net aan sekere mense behoort.

Nie vanaand nie, Theuns. Hier's te min rooiwyn...

Apollo Soyuz checklists

Apollo Soyuz.

Frank N Furter drawing

Happy 80th Tim

A street lamp on a tree-lined street at dusk. A thin crescent moon and bright, star-like Venus in the sky. Photo: Bill Dunford

Lamplight

This volcano is not active. Doesn’t mean it’s not fun to squint and imagine those days…

Wrong

🤔

A closeup photo of a fingertip. The skin is dry and sore. Under the fingernail, what appears like several tiny mussels are growing. The larger of them is using its foot to shimmy outside.

The tiny larvae dig under the skin and nails, growing until their juvenile stage. They then wait for the host to wash their hands to float back into the water and continue their life cycle.
Due to modern plumbing, some attach to pipes, which causes disastrous damage to homes and infrastructure.

An underwater photo of a hand reaching for what appears to be a large coin. The coin appears to be a lure, attached to the body of a large freshwater mussel.

A photo taken right after the previous one. The coin lure on the mussel has split in two, releasing a cloudy explosion in the hand's direction. The hand appears to be reeling back, now surrounded by a swarm of microscopic mussels.

If you see an old coin under the water, be aware of the Counterfeit Mussel (Lampsilis denarius) before reaching for it.
This freshwater mussel filters metal from the river to create a convincing coin-shaped lure. When a hand approaches, it releases thousands of its parasitic larvae in its direction.

"Is this all that I am?"
#warframe #captura
#warframecaptura

🐸

"“Sometimes I lie awake at night and I ask, “Is life a multiple choice test or is it a true or false test?” …Then a voice comes to me out of the dark and says, “We hate to tell you this but life is a thousand word essay.”"

Charles M. Schulz, Charlie Brown

This work © 2026 by Lee Zimmerman is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Lovers

A person walks in the street between the shadow of two buildings. In this strip of light, the person's shadow is cast as a stark silhouette. Its edges are wrong, stringy, its texture squirms is like hundreds of worms or a slime mold. The shadow is interrupted by two points of light, like piercing eyes looking back at the camera.

My shadow isn't mine anymore. It still follows me. It has the right shape. But I know it's not me.
I see its edges fray when I move. I see it squirm when I'm still. I know that when I look at it, it watches back.
Can't remember the time it took over. I'm afraid to think it has always been there.

Lifeline from a da Gee EYE Joe, he lookin at a da Zombie leg and is a no lookin’ so good!

“Be honest. This look infected to you?”

Now that the Blood Lily and March Lily have stopped flowering, the leaves are appearing

Earthset captured through the Orion spacecraft window at 6:41 p.m. EDT, April 6, 2026, during the Artemis II crew’s flyby of the Moon. A muted blue Earth with bright white clouds sets behind the cratered lunar surface. The dark portion of Earth is experiencing nighttime. On Earth’s day side, swirling clouds are visible over the Australia and Oceania region. In the foreground, Ohm crater has terraced edges and a flat floor interrupted by central peaks—formed when the surface rebounded upward during the impact that created the crater.

Earthset captured through the Orion spacecraft window at 6:41 p.m. EDT, April 6, 2026, during the Artemis II crew’s flyby of the Moon.

Credit: NASA [link in post above]

This is a JWST Space Telescope near infrared image of a star forming region and a nearby protostar. A vast expanding cloud like formation fills the scene set against the dark of space dotted with countless background stars and galaxies. Parts of the cloud rise in uneven shapes that resemble ridges. The cloud appears soft and mist like with its inner regions glowing in bluish tones while the outer edges fade into warmer orange hues.

Star forming region Sharpless 305 and protostar RAFGL5232 by JWST Space Telescope NIRCam

Full 170MP image: flic.kr/p/2s6Uqff 🧪🔭

Processing: Andrea Luck CC BY
Credit: Mark McCaughrean (@markmccaughrean.bsky.social),MPIA/NASA,ESA,CSA/STScI/j.Roger ( @landru79.bsky.social)

1'st real Saturday off since the new provider's contract was decided upon.

I have a job.
I have Someone moving closer.
I have a nice shiraz.

Yet the melancholy persists.

I am sure the astronauts are all VERY GOOD SPORTS and are more than happy to do whatever is asked of them for the sake of science but COME ON 😭

“We will explore. We will build ships. We will visit again. We will construct science outposts. We will inspire—but ultimately, we will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other.”

- Christina Koch, Artemis II astronaut