Wikipedia article of the day for September 24, 2021

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Wikipedia article of the day is Star Control 3. Check it out: Article-Link Summary: Star Control 3 is an action-adventure game developed by Legend Entertainment and published by Accolade. The third and final official entry in the Star Control trilogy, the game was released for MS-DOS on September 24, 1996, and Mac OS in 1998. It features a single-player campaign combining space exploration, alien dialogue, and ship-to-ship combat; the player engages in top-down battles between starships with unique abilities. To create this sequel, Accolade hired Legend (president pictured) after series creators Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford decided to pursue other projects. Legend was selected for their familiarity with Star Control and experience with interactive fiction writing. They designed the game in consultation with fans, replacing features from Star Control II that had received negative feedback. Star Control 3 was considered a critical and commercial success upon release, but later suffered from comparisons to the award-winning Star Control II.

Harvest Moon Trail

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Famed in festival, story, and song the best known full moon is the Harvest Moon. For northern hemisphere dwellers that’s a traditional name of the full moon nearest the September equinox. Seen from Saunderstown, Rhode Island, planet Earth, this Harvest Moon left a broad streak of warm hues as it rose through a twilight sky over the Newport Bridge. On September 20 its trail was captured in a single 22 minute exposure using a dense filter and a digital camera. Only two days later the September equinox marked a change of season and the beginning of autumn in the north. In fact, recognizing a season as the time between solstice and equinox, this Harvest Moon was the fourth full moon of the season, coming just before the astronomical end of northern summer. via NASA https://ift.tt/3zxbbVF

Wikipedia article of the day for September 23, 2021

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Wikipedia article of the day is Turf Moor. Check it out: Article-Link Summary: Turf Moor is an association football stadium in Burnley, Lancashire, England, which has been the home of Burnley F.C. since 1883. This unbroken service makes Turf Moor the second-longest continuously used ground in English professional football. The stadium is situated on Harry Potts Way, named after the manager who won the 1959–60 First Division with the club, and has a capacity of 21,944. The Turf Moor site has been used for sporting activities since at least 1843, when Burnley Cricket Club moved to the area. In 1883, they invited Burnley F.C. to use a pitch adjacent to the cricket field. A grandstand and terraces were added in 1885. During the 1990s, the Longside and the Bee Hole End terraces were replaced by all-seater stands following the recommendations of the Taylor Report. The stadium’s record attendance was set in 1924, when 54,775 people attended an FA Cup third round game between Burnley and Huddersfield Town.

Equinox on a Spinning Earth

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When does the line between night and day become vertical? Today. Today is an equinox on planet Earth, a time of year when day and night are most nearly equal. At an equinox, the Earth’s terminator — the dividing line between day and night — becomes vertical and connects the north and south poles. The featured time-lapse video demonstrates this by displaying an entire year on planet Earth in twelve seconds. From geosynchronous orbit, the Meteosat 9 satellite recorded these infrared images of the Earth every day at the same local time. The video started at the September 2010 equinox with the terminator line being vertical. As the Earth revolved around the Sun, the terminator was seen to tilt in a way that provides less daily sunlight to the northern hemisphere, causing winter in the north. As the year progressed, the March 2011 equinox arrived halfway through the video, followed by the terminator tilting the other way, causing winter in the southern hemisphere — and summer in the north. The captured year ends again with the September equinox, concluding another of billions of trips the Earth has taken — and will take — around the Sun. via NASA https://ift.tt/3CBp332

Wikipedia article of the day for September 22, 2021

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Wikipedia article of the day is The Triumph of Cleopatra. Check it out: Article-Link Summary: The Triumph of Cleopatra is an oil painting by the English artist William Etty, depicting a scene from Plutarch’s Life of Antony and Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, in which Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, voyages to Tarsus to cement an alliance with the Roman general Mark Antony. The painting shows a large group of people in various states of nudity, watching her ship’s arrival. First exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1821, the painting was an immediate success and made the then-obscure Etty famous almost overnight. Although some commentators considered it offensive and indecent, the painting’s success prompted Etty to spend the next decade painting further history paintings containing nude figures, becoming well known for combining these with moral messages.

Sun Spot Hill

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Is this giant orange ball about to roll down that tree-lined hill? No, because the giant orange ball is actually the Sun. Our Solar System’s central star was captured rising beyond a hill on Earth twelve days ago complete with a delightfully detailed foreground. The Sun’s disk showed five sunspots, quite a lot considering that during the solar minimum in solar activity of the past few years, most days showed no spots. A close look at the hill — Sierra del Cid in Perter, Spain — reveals not only silhouetted pine trees, but silhouetted people — by coincidence three brothers of the photographer. The trees and brothers were about 3.5-kilometers away during the morning of the well-planned, single-exposure image. A dark filter muted the usually brilliant Sun and brought up great detail on the lower sunspots. Within a few minutes, the Sun rose far above the hill, while within a week, the sunspots rotated around the Sun, out of view. The captured scene, however, is now frozen in time for all to enjoy. via NASA https://ift.tt/3EF3m3Q

Wikipedia article of the day for September 21, 2021

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Wikipedia article of the day is Banksia sceptrum. Check it out: Article-Link Summary: Banksia sceptrum, the sceptre banksia, is a plant that grows in Western Australia near the central west coast from Geraldton north through Kalbarri to Hamelin Pool, extending inland almost to Mullewa. It is generally a shrub up to 4 m (13 ft) in diameter and 2–4 m (7–13 ft) high, sometimes reaching 5 m (16 ft). First collected and grown by early settler James Drummond in Western Australia, it was described by Swiss botanist Carl Meissner in 1855. In nature, B. sceptrum grows in deep yellow or pale red sand in tall shrubland, commonly on dunes. It is killed in bushfires and regenerates by seed, the woody follicles opening with fire. B. sceptrum is one of the most striking yellow-flowered banksias, with tall bright flower spikes (inflorescences) that are well displayed on the ends of branches. Flowering is in summer, mainly December and January, though flowers are occasionally seen at other times.