Picture of the day for August 14, 2020

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Wikipedia picture of the day on August 14, 2020: Interior of the church of St Felix, Torralba de Ribota, province of Zaragoza, Spain. The church, of mudéjar and late gothic style was built between 1367 and 1420. The church is a national heritage monument in Spain (known as Bien de Interés Cultural) since 2006. https://ift.tt/2DTbpj3

NGC 5189: An Unusually Complex Planetary Nebula

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Why is this nebula so complex? When a star like our Sun is dying, it will cast off its outer layers, usually into a simple overall shape. Sometimes this shape is a sphere, sometimes a double lobe, and sometimes a ring or a helix. In the case of planetary nebula NGC 5189, however, besides an overall “Z” shape (the featured image is flipped horizontally and so appears as an “S”), no such simple structure has emerged. To help find out why, the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope has observed NGC 5189 in great detail. Previous findings indicated the existence of multiple epochs of material outflow, including a recent one that created a bright but distorted torus running horizontally across image center. Hubble results appear consistent with a hypothesis that the dying star is part of a binary star system with a precessing symmetry axis. NGC 5189 spans about three light years and lies about 3,000 light years away toward the southern constellation of the Fly (Musca). via wordpress https://wp.me/p4wJUi-7ce

Jupiter and Saturn rising

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What planets are those behind that unusual rock spire? Saturn (lower left) and Jupiter.  This month, after sunset, the bright planetary duo are quite prominent toward the southeast.  Now your view of our Solar System’s largest planets might not include a picturesque hoodoo in the foreground, nor the spectacular central band of our Milky Way Galaxy across the background, but should be quite eye-catching anyway.  The featured image is a composite of consecutive foreground and background exposures all taken in late May with the same camera and from the same location — the badlands of the  Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah Wilderness in the San Juan Basin in New Mexico, USA.  The rock spire, informally dubbed ‘Alien Throne’, stands about 3 meters tall. Saturn and Jupiter will remain visible together after sunset for several months. via wordpress https://wp.me/p4wJUi-7c0

Wikipedia article of the day for August 14, 2020

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Wikipedia article of the day is Almost There (album). Check it out: https://ift.tt/2PPI7nX Summary: Almost There is the first studio album by the American Christian rock band MercyMe (singer and drummer pictured), released on August 14, 2001, by INO Records. Characterizing it as contemporary worship and pop rock, music critics praised the album’s songwriting, especially on “I Can Only Imagine”, but gave its sound mixed reviews, ranging from “fresh” and “innovative” to derivative. CCM Magazine cited it in the 25th anniversary edition of their 100 Albums You Need to Own list. “Bless Me Indeed (Jabez’s Song)” was released as the album’s lead single, but it underperformed on the charts. The second single, “I Can Only Imagine”, boosted sales for the album, and crossed over to mainstream radio in 2003. The album peaked at number 39 on the Billboard 200 and number one on the Billboard Christian Albums chart. Billboard ranked it as the fourth best-selling Christian album of 2000–2009 in the United States. Both the album and the single “I Can Only Imagine” have sold more than 3 million copies.

Wikipedia article of the day for August 13, 2020

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Wikipedia article of the day is Westgate-on-Sea. Check it out: https://ift.tt/3fZOdwR Summary: Westgate-on-Sea is a seaside town and civil parish in northeast Kent, England, with a population of 6,996 at the 2011 Census. It is within the Thanet local government district and borders the larger seaside resort of Margate. Its two sandy beaches have attracted tourists since the town’s development in the 1860s from a small farming community. The local St Mildred’s Bay was the site of a Royal Naval Air Service seaplane base, which defended the Thames Estuary coastal towns during World War I. The town is the subject of John Betjeman’s poem “Westgate-on-Sea”. Residents have included the 19th-century surgeon Erasmus Wilson and former Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple. The artist William Quiller Orchardson painted several of his best-known pictures while living in Westgate-on-Sea. The British composer Arnold Cooke and Eton headmaster Anthony Chenevix-Trench attended local schools as children during the early 20th century.