A love that was more than love.

the clearest view of neptune's rings in 30+ years :)

~ Courtney Peppernell

Fire in Space : What does fire look like in space? In the gravity on Earth, heated air rises and expands, causing flames to be teardrop shaped. In the microgravity of the air-filled International Space Station (ISS), however, flames are spheres. Fire is the rapid acquisition of oxygen, and space flames meet new oxygen molecules when they float by randomly from all directions – creating the enveloping sphere. In the featured image taken in the ISS’s Combustion Integration Rack, a spherical flame envelopes clusters of hot glowing soot. Without oxygen, say in the vacuum of empty space, a fire would go out immediately. The many chemical reactions involved with fire are complex, and testing them in microgravity is helping humanity not only to better understand fire – but how to put out fire, too. via NASA

And so being young and dipped in folly I fell in love with melancholy.

La migliore offerta (2013)

“Tristan and Isolt (Death)” by Rogelio de Egusquiza (1910)

Rogelio de Egusquiza    Tristan and Isolde (Life)     1912

Robert Downey Jr and Marisa Tomei in Only You (1994)

Lovers in the Grass - Alois Kalvoda

Iron in the Butterfly Nebula : Can stars, like caterpillars, transform themselves into butterflies? No, but in the case of the Butterfly Nebula – it sure looks like it. Though its wingspan covers over 3 light-years and its estimated surface temperature exceeds 200,000 degrees, C, the dying central star of NGC 6302, the featured planetary nebula, has become exceptionally hot, shining brightly in visible and ultraviolet light but hidden from direct view by a dense torus of dust. This sharp close-up was recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope and is reprocessed here to show off the remarkable details of the complex planetary nebula, highlighting in particular light emitted by iron, shown in red. NGC 6302 lies about 4,000 light-years away in the arachnologically correct constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpius). Planetary nebulas evolve from outer atmospheres of stars like our Sun, but usually fade in about 20,000 years. via NASA

Gustav Klimt, Death and Life, 1915

the Tokyo Potted Gardens 東京植木鉢