A Study Break, And Stretch.

NGC 7822, Stars and Dust in Cepheus

Happy #BlackHoleFriday! by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center

There are other women like you. There are other women who think the way you think, who feel the way you feel, who act the way you act. There always have been and there always will be. Womanhood isn’t whatever shallow archetype the world has tried to convince you that it is. It’s going to be okay.

This unusual planetary nebula, NGC 7027, is one of the smallest, brightest, and most unusually shaped planetary nebulas known. Given its expansion rate, NGC 7027 first started expanding, as visible from Earth, about 600 years ago. For much of its history, the planetary nebula has been expelling shells, as seen in blue in the featured image.

In modern times, though, for reasons unknown, it began ejecting gas and dust (seen in red) in specific directions that created a new pattern that seems to have four corners. What lies at the nebula's center is unknown, with one hypothesis holding it to be a close binary star system where one star sheds gas onto an erratic disk orbiting the other star. NGC 7027, about 3,000 light years away, was first discovered in 1878 and can be seen with a standard backyard telescope toward the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus).



Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Joel Kastner (RIT) et al.; Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Barnard 33, Horsehead Nebula

Some menaces 😈

Hubble Ultra Deep Field

The Hubble Space Telescope has taken many spectacular pictures over the years, but this is one of its most well known images. It shows about 10,000 galaxies, some of which are nearly as old as the universe itself.

Image Credit: NASA

if you’re butch in public you’re showing kids what kind of woman they can be. you’re a marvel and an open door. you are something they might have thought was impossible. you are the proof little butch girls need that they can exist grown up and happy and handsome without changing a single thing

I think this is the most beautiful representation of a woman’s reproductive system, that I have ever seen till date!

(By Jennifer O’Toole: @cellsdividing )

Her official website: https://www.cellsdividing.com/

Oh, am I taking a lot of shirtless photos lately? I’m mostly just asserting the normality of the naked female body. It’s gotten real hip and trendy in our community right now to talk about “not being defined by gender.” I understand the sentiment; we’ve all been fed a lot of shit about what it means to be female, to be a woman, for so long that it just seems to be inherently true instead of fabricated by patriarchal society. I can understand wanting to stand strong, be seen, and say “these assumptions do not hold true for me.” The problem is, when that’s framed as the individual being “not defined by gender” or simply not being female, it throws other females under the bus. It says “I am not this way, but this is true about women, so therefore I am not woman and not defined by being a woman.” I’m gonna stand here instead and say that I manifest my own reality, but my reality and manifestation are not in any way limited by the fact that I am female. I refuse to conform to these bullshit expectations the same as I refuse to throw the female sex under the bus by claiming separation from my sisters. I see the strength in all of you, I see your determination and perseverance and willpower. I stand with you, in solidarity, always ✌🏻️