On this night in 1846,following the marvellous calculations of Le Verrier of Paris and Adams of Cambridge concerning the celestial phenomenon known as the perturbations of Uranus, Herr Gaulle of Berlin discovered the existence of a new planet, one of the greatest triumps of theoretical astronomy. The planet was named Neptune“
Book of Days by Elizabeth & Gerald Donaldson
I glanced round the bus.
Though the windows were closed, and soon muffed, the bus was full of light. It was cruel light.
I shrank from the faces and forms by which I was surrounded. They were all fixed faces, full not of possibilities but of impossibilities, some gaunt, some bloated, some glaring with idiotic ferocity, some drowned beyond recovery in dreams; but all, in one way or another, distorted and faded.
One had a feeling that they might fall to pieces at any moment if the light grew much stronger. Then-there was a mirror on the end wall of the bus – I caught sight of my own.
And still the light grew.
The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis
Thousands of operations are performed before the rocket can leave the launch pad, and dozens of engineering cameras track these operations.
This is also a good preview of NASA’s super heavy-lift launch vehicle, the Space Launch System (SLS), mankind’s new vehicle for the next trip to the Moon.
The first flight of Artemis and the full Orion spacecraft is scheduled to launch on SEP 05.
Update: The launch date was actually Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 6:47 AM (UTC).
The officer standing in the center of this group of Union soldiers after the battle of Antietam is Lt. Alonzo Cushing, who died less than a year after this group portrait while fighting in Gettysburg during Pickett’s Charge.
Sitting at left is Evan Thomas, who was killed in ambush by the Modoc Indians a decade later in California.
When you’re in a place of natural silence, you’re not alone, and you can feel it. Whether it’s birdcalls from miles away or the proximity of a giant tree whose warm tones you can feel, there’s a presence, It’s a quieting experience.
–Gordon Hempton, in August 2023 Sun Magazine
Five Good Minutes
by Brantley & Millstine @ New Harbinger Books
Although this road winds tortuously at times, and even appears to turn back upon itself so that we seem to return again and again to the same place, patient plodding does result in progress.
OUR REBEL EMOTIONS by Bernard Mobbs (1970)
