Dancer With A Fan By Edgar Degas

page 590 of “Science and literature in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance” (1878)

The Pork Butcher by Camille Pissarro

Size: 66x54 cm Medium: oil on canvas

Ancient Buddha statue emerges in E. China reservoir

Archaeologists have started an underwater detection project after villagers in eastern China’s Jiangxi Province found the head of a Buddha statue emerging from the surface of a local reservoir.

The head was spotted at Hongmen Reservoir, Nancheng County in the city of Fuzhou, at the end of last year when a hydropower gate renovation project lowered water levels in the reservoir by more than 10 meters.

Judging from the head design, the statue was carved during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), said Xu Changqing, head of the provincial research institute of archaeology.

He said that the researchers had also found rectangular holes carved on the cliff, obvious marks of architecture, which meant that a temple could have existed there. Read more.

Mausoleum of Augustus

Rome, July 2015

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The eight planets of our solar system image credits: [x]

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Holiday Lights from the Universe

Although there are no seasons in space, some cosmic vistas invoke thoughts of a frosty winter landscape. Here are a few stellar images of holiday wonderlands from across the galaxy…

Located in our galaxy about 5,500 light years from Earth, this region is actually a “cluster of clusters,” containing at least three clusters of young stars, including many hot, massive, luminous stars.

The outstretched “wings” of this nebula looks like a soaring, celestial snow angel. Twin lobes of super-hot gas, glowing blue in this image, stretch outward from the central star. This hot gas creates the “wings” of our angel. A ring of dust and gas orbiting the star acts like a belt, clinching the expanding nebula into an “hourglass” shape.

At this time of year, holiday parties often include festive lights. When galaxies get together, they also may be surrounded by a spectacular light show. This pair of spiral galaxies has been caught in a grazing encounter. This region has hosted three supernova explosions in the past 15 years and has produced one of the most bountiful collections of super-bright X-ray lights known.

What do the following things have in common: a cone, the fur of a fox and a Christmas tree? Answer: they all occur in the constellation of the unicorn (Monoceros). Pictured as a star forming region, the complex jumble of cosmic gas and dust is about 2,700 light-years away.

Resembling festive lights on a holiday wreath, this Hubble Space Telescope image of a nearby spiral galaxy is an iconic reminder of the impending season. Bright knots of glowing gas light up the spiral arms, indicating a rich environment of star formation.

The Hubble Space Telescope captured two festive-looking nebulas, situated so as to appear as one. Intense radiation from the brilliant central stars is heating hydrogen in each of the nebulas, causing them to glow red…like a holiday light.

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Fright Night, The Witches Hour & The Darkest Hour by DVerissimo - Like it? Find out more and buy HERE (t-shirts, phone & laptop cases, prints, pillows, stickers, mugs, calendars, etc…)

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GODS AND GODDESSES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD: Enki (Sumerian god of wisdom, water, magic, creation and chaos) 

ENKI (also known as Ea, Enkig, Nudimmud, Ninsiku) was the Sumerian god of wisdom, fresh water, intelligence, trickery and mischief, crafts, magic, exorcism, healing, creation, virility, fertility, and art. 

Iconography depicts him as a bearded man wearing a horned cap and long robes as he ascends the Mountain of the Sunrise; flowing streams of water run from his shoulders, emphasizing his association with life-giving water, while trees representing the male and female principle stand in the background. The streams are interpreted as the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers which, according to one myth, were formed from Enki’s semen. His name means “Lord of the Earth” and his symbols are the fish and the goat, both representations of fertility.

Read More 

Article by Joshua J. Mark on AHE

2017 January 14

Stardust in the Perseus Molecular Cloud Image Credit & Copyright: Lorand Fenyes

Explanation: Clouds of stardust drift through this deep skyscape. The cosmic scene spans nearly 2 degrees across the Perseus molecular cloud some 850 light-years away. A triangle of dusty nebulae reflecting light from embedded stars is captured in the telescopic field of view. With a characteristic bluish color reflection nebula NGC 1333 is at left, vdB13 at bottom right, and rare yellowish reflection nebula vdB12 lies at the top. Stars are forming in the Perseus molecular cloud, though most are obscured at visible wavelengths by the pervasive dust. Still, hints of contrasting red emission from Herbig-Haro objects, the jets and shocked glowing gas emanating from recently formed stars, are evident in NGC 1333. At the estimated distance of the molecular cloud, legs of the triangle formed by the reflection nebulae would be about 20 light-years long.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170114.html

Hubble Chases a Small Stellar Galaxy in the Hunting Dog

by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center   On a clear evening in April of 1789, the renowned astronomer William Herschel continued his unrelenting survey of the night sky, hunting for new cosmic objects — and found cause to celebrate! He spotted this bright spiral galaxy, named NGC 4707, lurking in the constellation of Canes Venatici or The Hunting Dog. NGC 4707 lies roughly 22 million light-years from Earth. NGC stands for “New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars.” Over two centuries later, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is able to “chase down” and view the same galaxy in far greater detail than Herschel could, allowing us to appreciate the intricacies and characteristics of NGC 4707 as never before. This striking image comprises observations from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), one of a handful of high-resolution instruments currently aboard the space telescope. Herschel himself reportedly described NGC 4707 as a “small, stellar” galaxy; while it is classified as a spiral (type Sm), its overall shape, center, and spiral arms are very loose and undefined, and its central bulge is either very small or non-existent. It instead appears as a rough sprinkling of stars and bright flashes of blue on a dark canvas. The blue smudges seen across the frame highlight regions of recent or ongoing star formation, with newborn stars glowing in bright, intense shades of cyan and turquoise.