This Website Lets You Listen To The Sounds Of All Different Forests Around The World 

One of us is dead.

It's dark outside, it's dark inside

I woke up from the crash without you beside.

It's dark outside, it's dark inside

All I can feel is my hand covered in blood that's dried.

A blaze of light, an ear-splitting screech

Before I could grasp, you were out of reach.

A blaze of light, an ear-splitting screech

While we desperately try to hold on to each.

The world upended, everything still

What just happened? Was it real or just a drill?

The world upended, everything still

A feeling down my spine, is it blood or just a chill?

I lay there, feeling the time cease

Exhausted as the pain increased.

I lay there, feeling the time cease

Wishing I could just sleep in peace.

Days skip ahead, Weeks skip ahead,

You don't see the tears I shed.

Days skip ahead, Weeks skip ahead,

You don't hear a word I said.

I lose count, Time skips ahead,

And I realize one of us is dead.

Why are Niall Horan fans called Horan-dogs when we could be Horan-y? I mean... it's right there! how could he miss that?

Black Holes: Seeing the Invisible!

Black holes are some of the most bizarre and fascinating objects in the cosmos. Astronomers want to study lots of them, but there’s one big problem – black holes are invisible! Since they don’t emit any light, it’s pretty tough to find them lurking in the inky void of space. Fortunately there are a few different ways we can “see” black holes indirectly by watching how they affect their surroundings.

Speedy stars

If you’ve spent some time stargazing, you know what a calm, peaceful place our universe can be. But did you know that a monster is hiding right in the heart of our Milky Way galaxy? Astronomers noticed stars zipping superfast around something we can’t see at the center of the galaxy, about 10 million miles per hour! The stars must be circling a supermassive black hole. No other object would have strong enough gravity to keep them from flying off into space.

Two astrophysicists won half of the Nobel Prize in Physics last year for revealing this dark secret. The black hole is truly monstrous, weighing about four million times as much as our Sun! And it seems our home galaxy is no exception – our Hubble Space Telescope has revealed that the hubs of most galaxies contain supermassive black holes.

Shadowy silhouettes

Technology has advanced enough that we’ve been able to spot one of these supermassive black holes in a nearby galaxy. In 2019, astronomers took the first-ever picture of a black hole in a galaxy called M87, which is about 55 million light-years away. They used an international network of radio telescopes called the Event Horizon Telescope.

In the image, we can see some light from hot gas surrounding a dark shape. While we still can’t see the black hole itself, we can see the “shadow” it casts on the bright backdrop.

Shattered stars

Black holes can come in a smaller variety, too. When a massive star runs out of the fuel it uses to shine, it collapses in on itself. These lightweight or “stellar-mass” black holes are only about 5-20 times as massive as the Sun. They’re scattered throughout the galaxy in the same places where we find stars, since that’s how they began their lives. Some of them started out with a companion star, and so far that’s been our best clue to find them.

Some black holes steal material from their companion star. As the material falls onto the black hole, it gets superhot and lights up in X-rays. The first confirmed black hole astronomers discovered, called Cygnus X-1, was found this way.

If a star comes too close to a supermassive black hole, the effect is even more dramatic! Instead of just siphoning material from the star like a smaller black hole would do, a supermassive black hole will completely tear the star apart into a stream of gas. This is called a tidal disruption event.

Making waves

But what if two companion stars both turn into black holes? They may eventually collide with each other to form a larger black hole, sending ripples through space-time – the fabric of the cosmos!

These ripples, called gravitational waves, travel across space at the speed of light. The waves that reach us are extremely weak because space-time is really stiff.

Three scientists received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for using LIGO to observe gravitational waves that were sent out from colliding stellar-mass black holes. Though gravitational waves are hard to detect, they offer a way to find black holes without having to see any light.

We’re teaming up with the European Space Agency for a mission called LISA, which stands for Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. When it launches in the 2030s, it will detect gravitational waves from merging supermassive black holes – a likely sign of colliding galaxies!

Rogue black holes

So we have a few ways to find black holes by seeing stuff that’s close to them. But astronomers think there could be 100 million black holes roaming the galaxy solo. Fortunately, our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will provide a way to “see” these isolated black holes, too.

Roman will find solitary black holes when they pass in front of more distant stars from our vantage point. The black hole’s gravity will warp the starlight in ways that reveal its presence. In some cases we can figure out a black hole’s mass and distance this way, and even estimate how fast it’s moving through the galaxy.

For more about black holes, check out these Tumblr posts!

⚫ Gobble Up These Black (Hole) Friday Deals!

⚫ Hubble’s 5 Weirdest Black Hole Discoveries

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

nina: I’m cold.

matthias: have my jacket.

inej: I’m cold.

kaz: *gets wylan to set ketterdam on fire*

A Vampire Fever Dream. 👀

Centuries ago, one chilly winter night,

You smiled, held my hand in yours to leave behind,

Memories that twists my heart like a dagger,

While I wish my every sigh to be the last one

Since then I searched those amber eyes everywhere,

The color of maple leaves during the fall

I searched for you knowing that you are nowhere

Until I met someone who understood my pain.

Years passed away, and my companions with it.

I stayed the same, and so did our memories.

The only immortal things I've come across.

The living me, and the intangible us.

Now centuries later, this chilly winter

With this lovely human curled up next to me

I feel mortal. Not alive, just plain mortal.

Every second prized, every moment precious

With those same amber eyes, like a setting sun

One that threatened to burn me eons ago.

Have I wished for you often and hard enough?

That you had no other choice but to come back.

when stephen chbosky wrote "we accept the love we think we deserve" and hanya yanagihara wrote "x = x, he thinks. x = x, x = x."

At that point in my life where I FINALLY understand why people cry when they hear certain songs.

Exhibit A:

Doesn't a word look weird when we stare at it long enough? Doesn't the alphabet look slightly meaningless when we write it over and over again? Here's one: CLING C-LING, C-L-ING, C-L-I-NG, C-L-I-N-G. Does this make sense? It doesn't sound like a word the more you say it. It doesn't look like a word the more you write it. The curves and strokes, dots and dash!

Isn't it how the name of the people you love changes? At some point, it stops being a name, a word that belongs to them. It becomes a feeling that belongs to you. It stops sounding like a word or a random string of letters. It becomes a string of feelings you cling to when life falls apart. Their name on your phone screen stops looking like a word. Every notification and phone call conjures an image of them looking at you and smiling before you can even look at it twice. That particular string of curves and strokes, dots and dash Once belonged to them and is now beloved by you Which you randomly write in the air because it gives you comfort.

Sometimes we take names for granted without realizing the power it holds. When all it takes is that one word to appear on your screen to get you through another tiring day.

SCRIBBLE AND SCRATCH

With a cup of tea, a pen, and my book

I sat to write at my favorite nook.

Head filled with voices trying to get out,

And a heart humming with tunes of doubt.

I scribble, and scratch then my words fade,

As I suppress the thoughts that make me afraid.

So I go back to the books that give me relief.

To find my answers within someone else's grief.

There are many problems within these books.

And in that world, solutions aren't mine to look

Within worn-out, annotated, and yellow pages,

I forget my fright as I did for ages.

Soon I'm drawn back to my nook

Holding on to empty pages of the notebook

I scribble, and scratch but the words don't fade

For I've let my thoughts out of its shade.

Sunshine In Disguise 🌤

Standing in the middle of a crowd

struggling to find my sound

I put my heart on a silver platter,

every wound unbound.

Endlessly wanting to do furthermore,

to feel a sense of belonging.

Until one day, I was worn out

wishing for an exemption from that longing.

It took me ages to comprehend

that it takes only one soul

willing to give you a corner of their heart,

to pull you out of that black hole.

Someone who'll sit with you

until you're ready to talk.

Someone you can hold on to

until you're ready to walk.

They'll give you an unfeigned smile,

the one that reaches their eyes.

And that is how you'll know

that's your sunshine in disguise.