APOD - M33: The Triangulum Galaxy

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2019 December 31

M33: The Triangulum Galaxy
Image Credit & Copyright: Rui Liao

Explanation: The small, northern constellation Triangulum harbors this magnificent face-on spiral galaxy, M33. Its popular names include the Pinwheel Galaxy or just the Triangulum Galaxy. M33 is over 50,000 light-years in diameter, third largest in the Local Group of galaxies after the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), and our own Milky Way. About 3 million light-years from the Milky Way, M33 is itself thought to be a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy and astronomers in these two galaxies would likely have spectacular views of each other's grand spiral star systems. As for the view from planet Earth, this sharp image shows off M33's blue star clusters and pinkish star forming regions along the galaxy's loosely wound spiral arms. In fact, the cavernous NGC 604 is the brightest star forming region, seen here at about the 7 o'clock position from the galaxy center. Like M31, M33's population of well-measured variable stars have helped make this nearby spiral a cosmic yardstick for establishing the distance scale of the Universe.

Tomorrow's picture: a new decade

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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.

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APOD - Messier 20 and 21

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2019 December 30

Messier 20 and 21
Image Credit & Copyright: Stanislav Volskiy, Chilescope Team

Explanation: The beautiful Trifid Nebula, also known as Messier 20, is easy to find with a small telescope in the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. About 5,000 light-years away, the colorful study in cosmic contrasts shares this well-composed, nearly 1 degree wide field with open star cluster Messier 21 (top left). Trisected by dust lanes the Trifid itself is about 40 light-years across and a mere 300,000 years old. That makes it one of the youngest star forming regions in our sky, with newborn and embryonic stars embedded in its natal dust and gas clouds. Estimates of the distance to open star cluster M21 are similar to M20's, but though they share this gorgeous telescopic skyscape there is no apparent connection between the two. In fact, M21's stars are much older, about 8 million years old.

Tomorrow's picture: M31's little sister

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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.

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Hanukkah Stabbing Suspect Appears To Have Been Driven By Anti-Semitism, FBI Says

Citing journals written by the suspect, Grafton E. Thomas, and his Internet search history, the FBI says it appears that he was driven by anti-Semitism.

Hanukkah Stabbing Suspect Appears To Have Been Driven By Anti-Semitism, FBI Says Citing journals written by the suspect, Grafton E. Thomas, and his Internet search history, the FBI says it appears that he was driven by anti-Semitism. Read More You received this message because you're subscribed to Breaking News Alerts emails. This email was sent by National Public Radio, Inc., 1111 North Capitol Street NE, Washington, DC 20002 Unsubscribe  |  Privacy Policy

Support Your NPR Habit Before the Year Ends

Donate to your local NPR station today.

It’s hard to believe that there are only two more days left in 2019 – two more opportunities to start your day with Up First, two more chances to get critical analysis on All Things Considered and just two more days to donate to your NPR station. NPR is your source for news and entertainment, and you are our source of support. It’s donations from people like you that have helped make your NPR station what it is today.  When you make a donation to your NPR station you’ll be powering everything you get here and more. Will you do your part to help keep independent, fact-based reporting coming your way in 2020?   Donate Now Now is the perfect time to support your NPR station. Your year-end contribution of any amount will help fund the next year of reporting, storytelling and music you’ll get from NPR.  Make sure you do your part with a critical donation to your NPR station before the year is over. You received this message because you're subscribed to Best of NPR emails. This email was sent by National Public Radio, Inc., 1111 North Capitol Street NE, Washington, DC 20002 Unsubscribe  |  Privacy Policy

APOD - Cassini Spacecraft Crosses Saturn's Ring Plane

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2019 December 29

Cassini Spacecraft Crosses Saturn's Ring Plane
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, JPL, ISS, Cassini Imaging Team; Processing: Fernando Garcia Navarro

Explanation: If this is Saturn, where are the rings? When Saturn's "appendages" disappeared in 1612, Galileo did not understand why. Later that century, it became understood that Saturn's unusual protrusions were rings and that when the Earth crosses the ring plane, the edge-on rings will appear to disappear. This is because Saturn's rings are confined to a plane many times thinner, in proportion, than a razor blade. In modern times, the robot Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn frequently crossed Saturn's ring plane during its mission to Saturn, from 2004 to 2017. A series of plane crossing images from 2005 February was dug out of the vast online Cassini raw image archive by interested Spanish amateur Fernando Garcia Navarro. Pictured here, digitally cropped and set in representative colors, is the striking result. Saturn's thin ring plane appears in blue, bands and clouds in Saturn's upper atmosphere appear in gold. Details of Saturn's rings can be seen in the high dark shadows across the top of this image, taken back in 2005. The moons Dione and Enceladus appear as bumps in the rings.

Free Presentation: APOD Editor to show best astronomy images of 2019 -- and the decade -- in NYC on January 3
Tomorrow's picture: nebulae triple play

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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.

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Find A Purpose And Embrace Failure

7 Tips For Starting Fresh In 2020

Michael Driver for NPR 7 Fresh Start Tips For 2020 Don’t fear failure. If you’re trying to get a new routine to stick -- whether it’s exercising more regularly, eating less sugar, or learning to play the ukulele -- scholars who study human behavior say the secret is accepting failure as a part of the process. Expect that at some point you will mess up. And when that happens, don’t give in to the “what-the-heck” effect -- the feeling that since you’ve faltered, your whole plan is a bust. Don’t beat yourself up. Just get back to taking steps toward the goal. Whatever your goals or dreams for yourself and your family, NPR’s Shots team aims to help. Here are six “life recipes” for good mental health from research our reporters covered this year: Cultivate Joy And Gratitude Feeling stressed? Just eight techniques -- a “buffet of life skills” -- can make a significant improvement in well-being, say scientists who taught the techniques to caregivers of people with dementia. These family caregivers -- who learned tips on keeping a gratitude journal, for example, and how to quickly reframe negative experiences in a positive light -- reported impressive decreases in both stress and anxiety.  Janice Chang for NPR Praise, Don’t Tease, Heavy Kids Never, ever make fun of a child or teen about their weight. Even well-intended conversations about dieting can cause long-term physical and psychological harm to overweight kids, studies show.  And it backfires -- young people teased about their weight gain more weight. To help the child, therapists instead suggest the whole family eat and live healthfully. Don’t single out any individual. Extra Angry? You Might Be Depressed Many patients -- and doctors -- associate depression with feelings of hopelessness, sadness, and lack of motivation. But a growing number of psychiatrists say depression is also behind some hypercritical tendencies and outbursts of anger. The good news: This sort of irritability is responsive to counseling and medication.  How To Help Your Anxious Partner You can support a partner who has an anxiety disorder without sinking yourself, say therapists:  First, don’t try to fix things immediately. Instead, acknowledge your loved one’s perspective. “You can move to logic, but not before the person feels like they're not being judged and ... misunderstood," says licensed psychologist Carolyn Daitch. Learning how to gently maintain boundaries is important, too. Saviour Giyorges / EyeEm/Getty Images Fitness Benefits Aren’t ‘All Or Nothing’ Maria Godoy, one of NPR’s editors, learned to love exercise when she realized every little bit counts. “I reframed what I thought of as exercise,” she says. Vacuuming with gusto, taking the stairs -- these little bursts of movement throughout the day add up, like pennies in a piggy bank.  Consider Your Life’s Purpose Having a purpose in life seems to have a more powerful impact on decreasing a person’s risk of premature death than exercising regularly or curbing drinking and smoking. Maybe you find greatest meaning in guarding the environment, raising good children, making music or touching lives through volunteer work. It doesn’t seem to matter what your life’s purpose is, a growing body of research suggests. What matters is that you feel you have one. More of this week's health stories from NPR A Young Woman’s Sickle Cell Journey ​​​​​​​Singing Helps With Dementia​​​​​​​ A $28,000 Head Cold We hope you enjoyed these stories. Find more of NPR's health journalism on Shots and follow us on Twitter at @NPRHealth. May the new year bring you laughter and light. Your Shots editors, Emily Vaughn and Deborah Franklin   What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: shots@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? Check out all of our newsletter offerings — including Goats & Soda, Daily News, Best of NPR and more! You received this message because you're subscribed to Health emails. This email was sent by National Public Radio, Inc., 1111 North Capitol Street NE, Washington, DC 20002 Unsubscribe  |  Privacy Policy

A Kinder, Gentler Kind Of Reality TV; The Honorary Jedi Master; When Does The Decade Really End?

Plus, 100 years of friendship and fun for "the three Dots."

Stories And Podcasts You May Have Missed Alexey Pavlishak/Reuters People can’t agree on when the decade ends. As the world prepares to ring in 2020, many people are arguing over whether a new decade will also begin on Jan. 1 or whether it will actually begin on the first day of 2021. We’ve rounded up a few international stories that you probably missed his year. The topics range from the way mangroves fight climate change to a pop-up pub in China where young patrons learn about sexual consent. Legal experts thought this would be the year we unraveled the liability that drug companies face for the deadly opioid epidemic — and for their role in marketing high-risk prescription pain medications. Instead, the fight over who will pay to clean up the addiction crisis dissolved into confusion and infighting. Two years ago this past week, Republicans in Congress passed a sweeping tax cut that was supposed to be a gift-wrapped present to taxpayers and the economy. But in hindsight, it looks more like a costly lump of coal. Social media moments we loved in 2019. In a year of gloom and doom, disasters and disease, we sure needed a few sweet and funny moments that brightened up our days. Here’s a sampling of the best viral videos, tweets and TikToks from around the world. Newsletter continues after sponsor message The Best Visual Stories of 2019 Claire Harbage/NPR Meet a changing Mongolia. Rivers are dry. Pastureland is giving way to mines. And wintertime smog obscures the famed blue sky. How did the country get here? It’s a story of internal migration and economic transformation in an era of climate change.    Flash floods pose an existential threat to towns across the United States. When a flash flood ripped through Old Ellicott City in Maryland, residents thought it was a freak occurrence. Instead, it was a hint about the future. And adapting to that future has been painful.   Plastics: What’s recyclable, what becomes trash — and why. Knowing what to recycle is confusing. Here's a look at the process, from store to recycling facility.   In 1965, a white minister was murdered in Selma, Ala. For more than 50 years, witnesses buried the truth about what happened. NPR’s podcast White Lies exposed the lies that kept the crime from being solved. This Week's Listens Getty Images What’s one of the germiest places in the airport? Hint: It’s not the bathroom. (OK, OK, it’s the security trays.) Also, we have a few tips on how to stay healthy during your holiday travel. (Listening time, 7:13) Composer and lyricist Jerry Herman wrote cheerful, optimistic songs for Broadway musicals like "Hello, Dolly!", "Mame" and "La Cage Aux Folles." He died Thursday at the age of 88. His lyrics were simple. Critic Bob Mondello says Herman had one trick up his sleeve that always worked on audiences. (Listening time, 3:31) This year, anyone watching television was treated to a kinder, gentler version of a popular genre that has often celebrated gossip, cattiness and cruelty. Here’s why reality TV has a surprising new trend: kindness. (Listening time, 3:38) Through all of the turmoil in Europe this decade, one leader strove to keep it all together — German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She is not a passionate speaker, nor does she arouse the public with big ideas or big promises. But Merkel biographer Stefan Kornelius says her quiet, technocratic style has been a perfect fit for Germany. (Listening time, 4:43) The Weekly Good Courtesy of StoryCorps In 2015, Asma Jama was dining out with family at an Applebee's restaurant in Coon Rapids, Minn., when she was hit in the face with a glass beer mug by another customer. Jama, a Somali American, was wearing a hijab and speaking Swahili when a woman in the next booth demanded she speak English. After the trial, the attacker's sister, Dawn Sahr, spoke out against the attack and reached out to Jama online to see if she was OK. Jama and Sahr met for the first time at StoryCorps in Minneapolis. Imagine the odds of three girls named Dorothy, all born in 1919, growing up in the same hometown (Auburn, Maine), graduating from the same high school in 1937 and celebrating their 100th birthdays together in 2019. The longtime friends have outlived their classmates, their husbands, siblings and even some of their children, and they still get together a couple of times a year to reminisce. A 21-year-old student killed earlier this year when he helped stop a shooter at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte is now part of the Star Wars universe. Riley Howell was a big Star Wars fan and is now being honored by Lucasfilm as a Jedi master in the new book, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker — The Visual Dictionary. On Monday, Howell’s girlfriend posted on TikTok that the Jedi honor “was the best news we’ve gotten all year.” --By Jill Hudson Listen to your favorite NPR Member station live on your Alexa or Google Home device. Just tell your smart speaker to,  “Play NPR.” What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback:  bestofnpr@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? Check out all of our newsletter offerings  — including Daily News, Politics, Health and more! You received this message because you're subscribed to Best of NPR emails. This email was sent by National Public Radio, Inc., 1111 North Capitol Street NE, Washington, DC 20002 Unsubscribe  |  Privacy Policy