#Infrared captured

[orgasmictomato]

DSC02237 (1)c1 (1)rsz by Jim Via Flickr: This photograph was taken with a Sony HDR-SR12E camera with flash and pointing up to the night sky in Greta NSW Australia... it was during a night sky watch session with dimensional entities and this was after a request to "show themselves" so believe it or not that is a fact... I suggest any that think otherwise, then prove this wrong... Genuine photograph with archived original and all evidence of dimensional entities here able to visit our planet... or is it? They most probably have been here a lot longer than humans... INFRARED DIMENSIONAL ENTITIES Dimensional Entities in Australia's night sky captured by way of IR cameras and Night vision Monocular scopes. Discovered technique by FRJS in 2009.

[istandonsnowpiles]

Been having a truly excellent time in Chicago. The city is gorgeous and romping through it has been truly wonderful!

[jonkwasnyczka]

The Bridge, Great Livermere, Suffolk, England

[belladonna-tristesse]

[fishsticksart]

Love is the Drug, 2012, digital C-print

-Richard Mosse, Irish, born 1980

[nasa]

Astronomers used three of NASA's Great Observatories to capture this multiwavelength image showing galaxy cluster IDCS J1426.5+3508. It includes X-rays recorded by the Chandra X-ray Observatory in blue, visible light observed by the Hubble Space Telescope in green, and infrared light from the Spitzer Space Telescope in red. This rare galaxy cluster has important implications for understanding how these megastructures formed and evolved early in the universe.

How Astronomers Time Travel

Let’s add another item to your travel bucket list: the early universe! You don’t need the type of time machine you see in sci-fi movies, and you don’t have to worry about getting trapped in the past. You don’t even need to leave the comfort of your home! All you need is a powerful space-based telescope.

But let’s start small and work our way up to the farthest reaches of space. We’ll explain how it all works along the way.

This animation illustrates how fast light travels between Earth and the Moon. The farther light has to travel, the more noticeable its speed limit becomes.

The speed of light is superfast, but it isn’t infinite. It travels at about 186,000 miles (300 million meters) per second. That means that it takes time for the light from any object to reach our eyes. The farther it is, the more time it takes.

You can see nearby things basically in real time because the light travel time isn’t long enough to make a difference. Even if an object is 100 miles (161 kilometers) away, it takes just 0.0005 seconds for light to travel that far. But on astronomical scales, the effects become noticeable.

This infographic shows how long it takes light to travel to different planets in our solar system.

Within our solar system, light’s speed limit means it can take a while to communicate back and forth between spacecraft and ground stations on Earth. We see the Moon, Sun, and planets as they were slightly in the past, but it's not usually far enough back to be scientifically interesting.

As we peer farther out into our galaxy, we use light-years to talk about distances. Smaller units like miles or kilometers would be too overwhelming and we’d lose a sense of their meaning. One light-year – the distance light travels in a year – is nearly 6 trillion miles (9.5 trillion kilometers). And that’s just a tiny baby step into the cosmos.

The Sun’s closest neighboring star, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light-years away. That means we see it as it was about four years ago. Betelgeuse, a more distant (and more volatile) stellar neighbor, is around 700 light-years away. Because of light’s lag time, astronomers don’t know for sure whether this supergiant star is still there! It may have already blasted itself apart in a supernova explosion – but it probably has another 10,000 years or more to go.

What looks much like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals previously obscured areas of star birth.

The Carina Nebula clocks in at 7,500 light-years away, which means the light we receive from it today began its journey about 3,000 years before the pyramids of Giza in Egypt were built! Many new stars there have undoubtedly been born by now, but their light may not reach Earth for thousands of years.

An artist’s concept of our Milky Way galaxy, with rough locations for the Sun and Carina nebula marked.

If we zoom way out, you can see that 7,500 light-years away is still pretty much within our neighborhood. Let’s look further back in time…

This stunning image by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features the spiral galaxy NGC 5643. Looking this good isn’t easy; 30 different exposures, for a total of nine hours of observation time, together with Hubble’s high resolution and clarity, were needed to produce an image of such exquisite detail and beauty.

Peering outside our Milky Way galaxy transports us much further into the past. The Andromeda galaxy, our nearest large galactic neighbor, is about 2.5 million light-years away. And that’s still pretty close, as far as the universe goes. The image above shows the spiral galaxy NGC 5643, which is about 60 million light-years away! That means we see it as it was about 60 million years ago.

As telescopes look deeper into the universe, they capture snapshots in time from different cosmic eras. Astronomers can stitch those snapshots together to unravel things like galaxy evolution. The closest ones are more mature; we see them nearly as they truly are in the present day because their light doesn’t have to travel as far to reach us. We can’t rewind those galaxies (or our own), but we can get clues about how they likely developed. Looking at galaxies that are farther and farther away means seeing these star cities in ever earlier stages of development.

The farthest galaxies we can see are both old and young. They’re billions of years old now, and the light we receive from them is ancient since it took so long to traverse the cosmos. But since their light was emitted when the galaxies were young, it gives us a view of their infancy.

This animation is an artist’s concept of the big bang, with representations of the early universe and its expansion.

Comparing how fast objects at different distances are moving away opened up the biggest mystery in modern astronomy: cosmic acceleration. The universe was already expanding as a result of the big bang, but astronomers expected it to slow down over time. Instead, it’s speeding up!

The universe’s expansion makes it tricky to talk about the distances of the farthest objects. We often use lookback time, which is the amount of time it took for an object’s light to reach us. That’s simpler than using a literal distance, because an object that was 10 billion light-years away when it emitted the light we received from it would actually be more than 16 billion light-years away right now, due to the expansion of space. We can even see objects that are presently over 30 billion light-years from Earth, even though the universe is only about 14 billion years old.

This James Webb Space Telescope image shines with the light from galaxies that are more than 13.4 billion years old, dating back to less than 400 million years after the big bang.

Our James Webb Space Telescope has helped us time travel back more than 13.4 billion years, to when the universe was less than 400 million years old. When our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launches in a few years, astronomers will pair its vast view of space with Webb’s zooming capabilities to study the early universe in better ways than ever before. And don’t worry – these telescopes will make plenty of pit stops along the way at other exciting cosmic destinations across space and time.

Learn more about the exciting science Roman will investigate on X and Facebook.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[fqntasies]

Just a taste, baby - Feyd Rautha x Reader

summary: You and Feyd-Rautha have been connected through dreams since childhood; a complex inner-working of the Bene Gesserit mothers to join your bloodlines. It binds the two of you in a pull you can't escape (nor do you want to). Feyd is absolutely feral for you.

words: 1,258

disclaimer: characters may be out of character, specifically feyd, considering his desperate softness here. just a forewarning.

You were trapped, breaths coming out of shallow pants as you felt the scratch of the cement structure beneath your palms. He had you against the wall in a hidden alcove; along one of the lengthy corridors of the palace in Giedi Prime. Your mouths were just breaths apart. In fact the Harkonnen before you seemed intent on matching your breaths, mingling them. Tasting your tiny pants as his own. It made your eyes heavy, made you want to tilt your head back and close your eyes, give him access to the expanse of your neck.

"sweetness." He rasped, unable to control himself. The Na-Baron wrapped an arm about your waist, a vice arching you against him as he lowered a wanting mouth to your neck, licking and sucking where the two met. You mewled at the wet heat, felt him growl desperately at the taste.

The two of you hadn't even kissed yet - but the wait; the dreams - you both knew each other to the soul.

---- flashback ----------

The sands of Arakis and Geidi Prime alike carried mysteries of prophesies of the lisan-al-gaib. But midst such tales, the Bene-Geserit mothers also had worked to connect bloodlines through dreams. The Na-Baron and the princess of Arrakis had been bound by such since birth. A well-planned move to align feuds and place power into wanting hands in preparation of war. A web of politcal conspiracy only they controlled. Their plans could not be foiled.

But Feyd couldn't care less about such witchcraft; and neither, if one were honest, could you. The two of you had known of this binding since a young age. And when you had met as children too - the connection had been strong.

"Their line is bright" The reverend mother's voice had burned into your mind, even at 10 years old.

You remembered her cloaked form; a black shadow against the haze of the horizon, a tower above you as she turned from your parents. Her voice had been void of emotion, except for a smugness you didn't understand. But when you turned to glance at the older boy before you (such a uniquely beautiful boy; broad shoulders and smooth skin, black attire across a lithe form), his eyes shone with an intensity that surprised her. Dark, watching, intrigued. He intimidated you. He made you curious.

At 15 years of age, the Na-Baron hadn't spoken in their meeting; but he had felt more than he had imagined. The girl...she had made him feel things. It confused and awakened him to something he had never known. His uncle had never spoken of such a pull. A need.

When the ship had arrived to his homeworld, and the strange foreigners parted like a sea, Feyd-Rautha found himself straightening to his full height; head lowered as he studied them beneath an angled gaze. Garbs of strange colors - hair he had never seen before in elegant styles. He would be Harkonnen predator. He would be a warrior. Strike fear in these alien people, show the Baron he was not swayed so easily by something new.

But then-

Swathed in layers of white, a girl stepped forward; dainty and gracious above all else; practically floating across the landing platform. Yet her eyes betrayed her; darting to capture the landscape, thrown off perhaps by the infrared of Giedi Prime's black sun above them.

She was drinking in the strange newness before her, and then they found him. Feyd felt his chest tighten. Fists clenched. Heat brimmed under the chestplate of his armor.

She looked like some newborn animal, caught in his gaze. But they both felt it. The familiarity. The warm hum between them. It made you want to slip from the safety of your parents and stand beside him, as though his shadow was more protection than the whole parade your own family brought with them. You wondered if he'd felt the same.

Three nights later, you had dreamed of him. A bit older, hand in his as he raised it to his lips. His eyes had never left yours. As a young girl it made you blush. Now...

--------------------------------

You made a breathy sound as his tongue lathed the mark he had made, moving with a lazy carelessness across your pulse, hungry above all else, uncaring for decorum. He wanted to devour you entirely. He wanted you to see you helpless and delirious against him, just as you were now. As you were in all his dreams.

He knew you'd had them all too. His eyes on you at their wedding. His tongue against yours, moans and tastes and hunger. You watching from the arena as he slaughtered man after man, coated and heaving. He felt like a beast.

"Feyd-" His name barely formed, like a prayer from your lips.

His eyes nearly lolled in his head at the way you sounded, and he dragged his wanting mouth up to meet yours. Wet and wanting. Feyd's free hand shifted to engulf your slender neck, moving your head against his mouth to deepen the kiss, taste all of you. Consume.

The Na-Baron was all muscle and prowess, a looming figure that practically dwarfed you. The spanse of his shoulders alone were sinful, and deep down you loved how it felt to be completely in his grasp. Guiding you in your movements.

Feyd's tongue sought yours as much as he could, controlling and demanding - but you were a needy little thing too, weren't you? In the haze of passion you were pressing into him - leaning just as much towards his heat as he was pushing you both together. You sucked his plush bottom lip into your mouth - unable to help yourself. After all, why was he made so beautiful, if not to kiss? He was quick to follow, biting your own with a growl that made your knees practically give, and following with his greedy tongue.

"You're going to be my wife." the words are a promise, his eyes glittering under the low light; shadows flashign with the coming storm. You part your mouth as though to taste him again, a helpless 'please' slipping past as you arch in his grasp.

Feyd practically took you then and there. Enter the nearest room... make all his dreams a reality. His patience was nearly worn thin. Years of waiting, of hunger. And now it was here. You were in his reach, that tempting little waist; those hips. It made him absolutely insane.

He wets his lips, gaze feverish.

"tomorrow. tomorrow sweetness, hmm? Can wait that long?" He intends to tease you, but he knows he speaks to himself, his jaw locking as he adjusts his arms to press you against him.

You're so fucking soft. It makes him groan. Of all the things he's known in his life, softness was not one of them, save for the flashes of you in his dreams. He craved you like a creature starved. Thoughts of you made him fight better. Made him kill easier.

There's a rumble suddenly of a drone; Harkonnen orders breaking the silence in distorted code. The words don't make sense to your ears. Not yet anyway. You hope to make progress in the language, but it was a challenge; more than others. The variety of tones were a feat for any foreigner to take on; but this was to be your home. A lady of harkonnen would learn her husband's native tongue.

You know he has to leave.

[theofficialastronomy101]

Infrared Uranus, its rings and Moons captured by the monster * 10 meter W. M. Keck Observatory

Telescope in Hawaii

[amnhnyc]

Mantises may be some of the most out-of-this-world-looking critters on Earth, but they’re uniquely adapted to life on this planet. These incredible hunters have repeatedly evolved into “ecomorphs”—groups that aren’t closely related, but share incredible adaptations to similar habitats. These dazzling displays of convergence may have something to tell us about evolution. 

In the latest episode of Insectarium, join host and Museum Curator Jessica Ware as she visits mantis expert and graduate student Lohit Garikipati at the Towson University Mantis Lab to see how researchers are using high-speed infrared cameras to track the movements of mantis prey capture. The similarities (and differences) in hunting techniques can help reveal how environments shape the animals that live in them.

[wonders-of-the-cosmos]

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured a tightly bound pair of actively forming stars, known as Herbig-Haro 46/47, in high-resolution near-infrared light. Look for them at the center of the red diffraction spikes, appearing as an orange-white splotch. Herbig-Haro 46/47 is an important object to study because it is relatively young – only a few thousand years old. Star systems take millions of years to fully form. Targets like this give researchers insight into how much mass stars gather over time, potentially allowing them to model how our own Sun, which is a low-mass star, formed – along with its planetary system.

Credits: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA. Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

[space-pics]

NGC 1365 captured by the James Webb Space Telescope by European Space Agency

Scientists are getting their first look with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s powerful resolution at how the formation of young stars influences the evolution of nearby galaxies. NGC 1365, observed here by Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) is one of a total of 19 galaxies targeted for study by the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby Galaxies (PHANGS) collaboration.

[orgasmictomato]

DSC06610 (c1) (1)rsz tag (left)rszX crop by Jim Via Flickr: These entities are travelling our planets sky, it is just that human vision cannot see them in the infrared dimension. That is without my laser illumination and capture on night vision cameras... A technique I discovered in 2009, but ignored by mainstream science and media both.

[diejager]

hi i love your work so much omg

…what do you think of the scenario of monster!141 x (platonic, if you want, it’s probably for the better) reader that’s made up of thousands of worms/spiders/or whatever creatures. reader is always covered up in clothes that cover up the entire ‘skin’ and they speak extremely weirdly/like everything’s speaking all at once and the voice is just sounding from the mouth but also in the torso? and legs? . the thing is that reader is shy or something and doesn’t want to admit that they’re just a hive mind of creatures, but it’s just kinda obvious not really (well obvious to monster 141). 141 doesn’t really want to comment on it because they’re just nice like that and find ways to help Reader get through some situations lmao (help i’m sleep deprived and i made this thought in 3 AM ish).

i give you a piece of 🧀

Many

Pairing: Platonic Monster 141 + König & Horangi x monster!reader

Cw: spiders, blood, military inaccuracies, canon-typical violence, cannibalism? Eating human, hive mind monster, tell me if I missed any. Wc: 2.9k (A/N): I’m gonna be honest with y’a, I went on a spree and completely forgot what you first asked for but uh… I used some of your ideas and I hope it’s apparent enough?

For someone as decorated as you were, you were awfully timid, shying from human and hybrid interaction like a plague. Perhaps it was unintentional, the stiffness in your shoulders or the constant coverage, but to the world around you, you were nothing but an awkward person whose social cues were lost to time after more than a decade in the force. Starting your days covered head to toe, black over more black, or khaki and brown over more khaki and brown depending on the situation of your stay and deployment. 

Despite your social anxiety, your voice stayed strong and unwavering in the field, a cold, monotone voice that would coordinate the team if needed —you were a prolific intelligence specialist, that found your calling in intelligence gathering from the deepest and darkest pits, and an infiltration specialist that was sought out for your proficiency and successful operations worldwide, especially the undercover Ops done in secrecy. You’ve led a few clandestine Ops with Laswell for 141, the Station Chief letting you lead and direct them, trusting your insights and they always resulted in successful missions, coming back bruised and battered but alive and securing the cargo (or whatever they were sent there for). 

That meant that they knew you, your voice, your confident tone when you directed them, your unwavering decisions and your helpful guidance, but they hadn’t seen you until a few months ago. You were officially assigned to Task Force 141 as their Intelligence and Infiltration specialist, working on and off. This would be the first time you actively moved to the front, standing beside them during infiltrations, slipping into the enemy base with efficiency and silence. You moved as if you were a part of the shadows, melting into the darkness and disappearing from any camera and scans, your body invincible to infrared cameras or heat sensors. 

You moved with fluid motions, your body incredibly - scarily - flexible and seemingly aware of everything around you. To humans, you were probably the most skillful and abnormal human, born with talents that far rivalled those of hybrids, and a saviour to some for being able to keep them alive even through the hardest moments of their capture; but to monsters, to hybrids, you were special, a different type of creature that held a different category in the classes, one that humans knew little outside of the government and military. 

Whereas humans saw you as a stiff and socially awkward human that covered their whole body, TF141 knew better, they could sense it a mile away, the difference in you, the odd aura and smell you projected. Soap and König had mentioned it in the past, in the bustling Mess hall where they shared a table, Soap had noted that you smelled off, of something dead yet alive and König only brought the oddness of you holding thousands of different scents, musks that didn’t originate from one place, but from around the world. 

Gaz and Horangi gave off-handed comments about sudden movement under your clothes, a slight - near invisible - ripple under your neck or on your arm, their eyes zoning to the smallest of movements. Gaz brought it up first, his voice hesitant and confused, frowning down at his plate when he mentioned it to the others, only to feel reassured that he wasn’t imagining it, the small ripple that no one else perceived, when Horangi shared his own observations. Horangi had seen small black spots moving over your shirt and under the tight mask hiding your face, tiny-legged creatures climbing over you and vanishing under your clothes as if they were never there. 

Rudy was the best at understanding people, sympathising with both monsters and humans, but you just seemed lost, a shy creature that always hid from others when you weren’t needed. He and Alejandro remembered when they spoke to you after an Op, catching up to you before you fled to hide in your room, your tone was soft and shy, but it seemed to come from everywhere, never staying in one place as if there wasn’t a source to your voice. One moment your voice would come from your face, and then the next, it’d be down your abdomen, every word you spoke came out of a different area, but your chin never moved, face still and unmoving. 

They brought it up to Ghost, who’d sit with them at their table, pushed against the wall for privacy around human soldiers, since he - leaving out Price - knew you best, having worked with you a few times in the past where they needed your expertise in infiltration and hostage securing. They had hoped that Ghost could give them a few insights on you, whether it be about your kind or your uniqueness, they wanted something - anything - to quell their growing curiosity. Not only was Ghost one of their only sources of information, but he was also a paranoid one, always demanding an operator's file before and after they joined, his mind going through loops to calculate the danger of the new addition. Ghost was a guarded and walled-up character, ensuring that they wouldn’t betray him in the long run.

Unfortunately, Ghost knew as little as they did, Price was stricter with your information, keeping it under a hard lock and key. Only he and Laswell held information about you, your little quirks and details were a secret to anyone who wasn’t in the higher-ranked stations or the commanding rank and station chief. They had nothing to go on but theories, little hypothesis until Price or Laswell - whichever caved first to their incessant pleading - disclosed your personal file. So they did what they could with their observations, combining up with different monsters they’ve crossed paths with. You could’ve been one of those crossbred hybrids where they coupled for specific perks, or an experiment, seeing that you had an aversion to physical touch and human interactions. The least possible one, by far, was that you were an Eldritch being, a creature of horror and madness. 

“Classified for now, sergeant,” was all Price had told Soap when he cracked, his puppy-like excitement getting the best of him. “You’ll have to ask them, yeah?”

That left them with little to no choice but to watch you more closely, to observe their surroundings for any clues and to note anything bizarre since they couldn’t necessarily outright ask you. You fled seconds after anyone tried to start a conversation, head down and feet moving too swiftly to not seem like you were avoiding them or any long discussion as if you knew what they were planning. You seemed to have eyes at the back of your head, reacting instantly when one of them would follow you wherever you went, slinking from one shadow to the other, trying their best to hide from your sight and sense, but you were an expert in your own right, knowing and aware of undercover tactics when one was used against you.

Fortunately for them, other clues helped, subtle signs that most people wouldn’t even catch. The first one was small, jerky spiders that weren’t local to the UK or any continent, they weren’t like any arachnid they’d ever found, that was the first thing they noticed when they came across one, but the true challenge was to catch one of those pesky things. They were quick and small, evading them as if they had a mind of their own, their bites painful if one of them tried to grab it with a hand, the tiny fangs piercing through the thick material of their gloves, but once Soap got his paws on one, he made sure to keep it in the glass container. The spider was small, its exoskeleton so dark that it seemed to swallow any light rather than reflect it, a shade of black so black that it didn’t let any colours out. It didn’t look hairy, the shell so smooth and spotless that it seemed like two circles if they ignored the scrawny legs. 

Those spiders were almost everywhere, yet they went unnoticed by the people walking around the base and them until now. Other than the spiders, your aversion to physical contact and socialising, and favouring your privacy much more than anyone on the TF. You didn’t eat with them —you never seemed to eat at all. Your voice moved so often that the possibility of you having many mouths came to mind a lot. Your body was extremely nimble, bending in odd - sometimes painful for others - ways. Over other observations, everything they took notice of you were things that were inhuman, it made you a minority in the military - much like them - and a mystery to your team. 

They went on for months, unbothered that they might have seemed slightly obsessive, a stalker following his obsession. They weren’t worried about others calling them out, humans would chalk it up to monster stuff with a sneer and look the other way when Ghost or König glared at them. That didn’t escape you, Price or even Laswell’s eyes and ears around the world. 

“You boys don’t know when to stop, hmm?” Price wore a frown, brows cocked questioningly. His tone was one of a tired and relenting to their months-long search. “You’re lucky they weren’t mad about this.”

“So you’ll tell us, boss?” Ghost hid his excitement better than the rest, his chest rumbling lowly and eyes narrowed darkly, but not with a dangerous gleam. 

“Better if you see it yourself,” he sighed, crossing his arms, hunching against his chair, lip quirking at a corner. It was a cheeky lopsided smile, teasing them with having to wait longer. “It’s hard to explain in words. It’s quite the sight.”

And a sight it was! Watching you melt to the ground, your body scattering in thousands of small spiders that moved towards the body lying before you. You’d been paired with Ghost and Soap for this Op, leading them down a path you knew didn’t have any hostiles, getting intel back from the many spiders scattered around the area. They were the first to watch you eat, arachnids swallowing up the bodies, devouring them at record speed. You ate flesh and bones, ligaments and tendons melted by your acidic bite that only left clothes behind as an indication that someone died here. They were the lucky ones to see you eat, to bear witness to your monstrosity in the flesh and your moment of weakness where you had to sustain yourself, shedding off the shape of a human body.

It left Soap filled with awe, seeing you break away in thousands of individual bodies and come back together as one, and Ghost’s mind strewed with questions, some answered when you told them that you were self-conscious, a hive mind made up of spiders to form a body. You weren’t hiding away because you were afraid of them or that you hated socialising, you were simply too self-aware of your making, of the natural fear of eight-legged creatures. So you hid, shying away from people, thinking that they’d hate you for being what you were, a colony of undocumented spiders working as one. 

Horangi, Rudy and Alejandro caught you in action on the second covert operation when you were given the signal to lead your small squad into enemy lines. They watched the clothes you wore ripple, little critters bulging out from under your protective gear and rolling down your body in waves, black masses dropping off and separating. You were spread around the place, everyone acting as an extension of your mind and body, and they were —thousands of spiders sharing one mind. You shrank lightly, your body mass lower than it was with your body spanned across the area, working as your eyes and ears from afar like cameras worked for Laswell, except that your reach was farther and more potent. 

It was expected, but not less surprising to the three, watching your body shorten and little spiders crawl all over you. It would’ve made the hardiest monster shudder in fear or repulsion, feeling hundreds of legs moving about over their body, it would’ve made them slightly apprehensive, knowing from Soap and Ghost that your bite could be acidic, melting tough muscle and robust bone. It made more sense as to why you were so nimble and so observant, you had parts of yourself scattered around, working to map out everything and see everything. You were what made you so sought after for your skills in clandestine missions and covert infiltrations, it was scarily inspiring.

Gaz and König were the unlucky ones, being in the wrong place at the wrong time to see you “die”. With how unlucky his streak with helicopters was, it wasn’t a surprise that he was falling from another one, his wing bleeding from a bullet wound, the copper piercing through the meat and grazing the bone. It had him handicapped for the next few missions, staying on base until it healed completely unless he wanted to cause a bigger issue with his third pair of limbs. You were medevaced, watching Gaz grunt and groan, holding his wounded wing against his chest with a face screwed in pain. He’d been in an unfortunate situation, being purposely targeted by the enemy, and the situation couldn’t get any worse. 

The helicopter was shot down, and the flares deployed too late to stop the missile. It was a fiery mess, there was screaming and the loud crack of metal breaking, you could hear Laswell yell out in the coms, her worried and frantic voice trying to reach you and Gaz in the falling blaze. Most harpies feared fire, the flames burning their feathers and scarring the skin, making it impossible to regrow feathers on some rare occurrences. Gaz couldn’t remember much after the fall, waking up in pitch darkness, his skin crawling with shivers and invisible hands. He couldn’t make out left from right, he didn’t know if he was lying face down or on his back, and he wasn’t even sure he was conscious, seeing that all he could see was black. Then he felt sudden movement, a prickly sensation covering his body until light broke through.

He could feel his arms and his legs, he could stretch his wing out when he sat up, he wasn’t burned or hurt more than what he had before the crash, but he couldn’t see you when he looked around. He palmed the ground, feeling around the rough floor for you, your small, black spiders. You were on and around him, slowly climbing off him and flocking to a large mass. Your clothes were gone, burned to ashes in the mess while you shielded him, taking the brunt of the heat and burns. He swallowed down the quake that wracked his body and rushed to you, frantic to see whether or not you were in pain. Rather than forming back into a human, your appearance resembles more of a large mammal on four, clawed legs. Seeing that you were fine - or so he thought - he called back for evac, getting cover with your prone figure guarding him until the other helicopter and support came back.

König’s accident was more vicious than Gaz’s, losing control of his urges, letting himself shift and rampage through the area, ripping apart both enemy and ally. You were another body in his path, his claws tearing through your chest with sharp, bloodied hands. The others panicked, watching you scatter into pieces, falling apart from the seams as if someone had pulled out the only string that held you together. Instead of blood and guts, intestines that should’ve called out in a bloody mess, you broke apart, some fell to the ground, crushed under König’s weight, and others clung to him, swarming to stop him before he caused more chaos. 

It looked like a futile attempt from outside viewpoints, watching the beast stumble blindly, his face covered, your thousand pairs of legs locked to keep his mouth closed from causing more harm to others with his serrated teeth made to gnaw through bone and break flesh and muscle to consume and feed his big appetite. They could only stare at König trash around, limbs slowly being locked together, bounding his arms from flailing and slashing at people and his leg from blindly ambling and rushing towards his next victim. You rippled around König, a mass becoming a full-body restraint containing the hybrid’s grunts and growls, unmoving and unrelenting against him. 

You kept König’s rampage in check, keeping him contained while they moved both you and him to the aircraft and back to base where they could wait out the shift, the burst of rage in the hybrid. Gaz had thrown you a bundle of clothes after König fell asleep, you slipped off and crawled to your clothes, reappearing in a human shape under all your protective layers. Although they knew you could take extensive damage and survive unscathed, they still worried, would your strength still held together with a chaotic mix of human resilience and percht invulnerability.

You seemed to have let yourself go a bit, letting Soap or Gaz drag you around the base, letting Rudy and Alejandro strike up a conversation, letting Ghost or König sit with you in silence, and letting Horangi get the jump on you and follow you soundlessly because he was curious (and answering his questions). You might not eat with them, but you swallowed down your fright and agreed to sit at their table while they ate, digging into their preferred meal and occasionally replying to their friendly banter. You were still nervous about spending so much time in public, the looming fear of being faced with disgust from your allies was still possible, but you - with the supporting pat on the shoulder from Price - worked through your storming thoughts and insecurities. 

Tag list: @craxy-person @crowbird @dead-cipher @iwannabealocalcryptid @iizx7y @mxtokko @yeetusspagheetus @capricorn-anon @perfectus-in-morte @sae1kie @yeoldedumbslut @tallmanlover @distracteddragoness @vxnilla-hxrddrugs @konigsblog @havoc973 @angelcakes-22 @cassiecasluciluce @ramadiiiisme @ramblingsofachaoticthinker @ki-cant-spel

[apod]

2024 October 22

M16: Pillars of Star Creation Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Processing: Diego Pisano

Explanation: These dark pillars may look destructive, but they are creating stars. This pillar-capturing picture of the Eagle Nebula combines visible light exposures taken with the Hubble Space Telescope with infrared images taken with the James Webb Space Telescope to highlight evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs) emerging from pillars of molecular hydrogen gas and dust. The giant pillars are light years in length and are so dense that interior gas contracts gravitationally to form stars. At each pillar's end, the intense radiation of bright young stars causes low density material to boil away, leaving stellar nurseries of dense EGGs exposed. The Eagle Nebula, associated with the open star cluster M16, lies about 7000 light years away.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap241022.html

[thepastisalreadywritten]

With the addition of Saturn, the James Webb Space Telescope has finally captured all four of our Solar System's giant worlds.

JWST's observations of the ringed planet, taken on 25 June 2023, have been cleaned up and processed, giving us a spectacular view of Saturn's glorious rings, shining golden in the darkness.

By contrast, the disk of Saturn is quite dark in the new image, lacking its characteristic bands of cloud, appearing a relatively featureless dim brown.

This is because of the wavelengths in which JWST sees the Universe – near- and mid-infrared.

These wavelengths of light are usually invisible to the naked human eye, but they can reveal a lot.

For example, thermal emission – associated with heat – is dominated by infrared wavelengths.

When you're trying to learn about what's going on inside a planet wrapped in thick, opaque clouds, studying its temperature is a valuable way to go about it.

Some elements and chemical processes emit infrared light, too. Seeing the planets of the Solar System in wavelengths outside the narrow range admitted by our vision can tell us a lot more about what they have going on.

Saturn

As we saw last week, when we clapped eyes on the raw JWST Saturn images, the observations involved filters that dimmed the light of the planet, while allowing light from the rings and moons to shine brightly.

This is so a team led by planetary scientist Leigh Fletcher of the University of Leicester in the UK can study the rings and moons of Saturn in more detail.

They hope to identify new ring structures and, potentially, even new moons orbiting the gas giant.

The image above shows three of Saturn's moons, Dione, Enceladus and Tethys, to the left of the planet.

Although dim, the disk of the planet also reveals information about Saturn's seasonal changes.

The northern hemisphere is reaching the end of its 7-year summer, but the polar region is dark. An unknown aerosol process could be responsible.

Meanwhile, the atmosphere around the edges of the disk appears bright, which could be the result of methane fluorescence, or the glow of trihydrogen, or both. Further analysis could tell us which.

Jupiter

Jupiter was the first of the giant planets to get the JWST treatment, with images dropping in August of last year – and boy howdy were they stunning.

The spectacular detail seen in the planet's turbulent clouds and storms was perhaps not entirely surprising.

However, we also got treated to some rarely seen features: the permanent aurorae that shimmer at Jupiter's poles, invisible in optical wavelengths, and Jupiter's tenuous rings.

We also saw two of the planet's smaller, lesser-known moons, Amalthea and Adrastea, with fuzzy blobs of distant galaxies in the background.

"This one image sums up the science of our Jupiter system program, which studies the dynamics and chemistry of Jupiter itself, its rings, and its satellite system," said astronomer Thierry Fouchet of Paris Observatory in France, who co-led the observations.

Neptune

Observations of Neptune arrived in the latter half of September 2022.

Because Neptune is so very far away, it tends to get a little neglected; you're probably used to seeing, if anything, the images taken by Voyager 2 when it flew past in 1989.

JWST's observations gave us, for the first time in more than 30 years, a new look at the ice giant's dainty rings – and the first ever in infrared.

It also revealed seven of Neptune's 14 known moons, and bright spots in its atmosphere.

Most of those are storm activity, but if you look closely, you'll see a bright band circling the planet's equator.

This had never been seen before and could be, scientists say, a signature of Neptune's global atmospheric circulation.

Uranus

Uranus is also pretty far away, but it's also a huge weirdo. Although very similar to Neptune, the two planets are slightly different hues, which is something of a mystery.

Uranus is also tipped sideways, which is challenging to explain too.

JWST's observations, released in April 2023, aren't solving these conundrums.

However, they have revealed 11 of the 13 structures of the incredible Uranian ring system and an unexplained atmospheric brightening over the planet's polar cap.

JWST has a lot to say about the early Universe; but it's opening up space science close to home, too.

As its first year of operations comes to an end, we can't help but speculate what new wonders will be to come in the years ahead.

Top: Jupiter - Neptune / Bottom: Uranus - Saturn

Credit: NASA

[spacefrontier]

Space Shuttle Discovery launches off the pad during STS-85. August 7, 1997.

The prime payload of STS-85 was the Cyrogenic Infrared Spectrometers and Telescopes for the Atmosphere Shuttle Pallet Satellite 2 (CRISTA-SPAS-2), which had flown previously on STS-66 in 1994. CRISTA-SPAS-2 was deployed from Discovery's payload bay and measured trace gasses and the dynamics of Earth's middle atmosphere with its three telescopes and four spectrometers. The satellite was recovered by Discovery following a 9 day free-flight.

CHRISTA-SPAS-2 during its 9th and final day of free-flight, prior to capture by Discovery's Remote Manipulator Arm.

Additional payloads included the Manipulator Flight Demonstration sponsored by NASDA, the Japanese Space Agency (later known as JAXA). The demonstration tested a newly designed robotic arm that would later be installed on the Japanese Kibo module of the International Space Station.

The sun sets on day 8 of STS-85.

STS-85 crew on orbit. Top row, from left: Payload Specialist Bjarni Tryggvason (CSA), Mission Specialist Stephen Robinson, Mission Commander Curtis Brown. Bottom row, from left: Mission Specialist Robert Curbeam, Jr., Payload Commander N. Jan Davis, Pilot Kent Rominger.

Landing was originally schedule for August 18, but ground fog at the Kennedy Space Center pushed the landing date to August 19.

Discovery returns to Earth, successfully completing the 12-day STS-85 mission.

NASA 1, 2, 3, 4, 5