Poem for Saturday

THE TYGER (from Songs Of Experience)

By William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright 
In the forests of the night, 
What immortal hand or eye 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
1794

Oregon Truffle Festival Next January? Bob Contemplates a Career Change

The Oregon Truffle festival has a truffle dog training seminar. This could really be important. Bob may be considering a break from his usual training regimen of elite power napping and mind control to locate delicious truffles next spring. An Oregon truffle:

Song for Friday

Cosmic Exclamation Point for Day 33

Via Brad Harrigan

These two galaxies that are often referred to as Arp 302, are located approximately 450 million light-years from Earth. As you can see, these two photogenic spiral galaxies are in the initial stages of merging into one larger elliptical galaxy, which gives astronomers a front row seat to observe the ultimate fate of the Milky Way when it inevitably collides with its nearest neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy in about 4 billion years.

The two galaxies emit a startling amount of infrared light that's typically hundreds of times more than the amount emitted by typical galaxies, classifying them as luminous infrared galaxies. These galaxies are extremely interesting for astronomers to monitor since the cause of the large amount of infrared radiation emitted by the galaxies is largely unknown. It's believed that at the center of VV 340 North (top) exists a supermassive black hole that is steadily growing in size, yet it's obstructed from our view due to surrounding gas and dust particles. Another theory suggests that the galaxies are subject to an intense bursts of star formation similar to open and globula clusters, which could be the source of the the heightened amount of energy that's being released.

- Jaime 


http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2011/vv340/
http://www.space.com/12625-colliding-galaxies-exclamation-point-photo.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UGC_9618

Destination Venus

Continuing our interplanetary exploration today, we set off to Venus. We'll let you know how it works out. In the mean time check out The Rezillos.

Weird Science: Saturn's Polygon

Advice for a Sunny Monday

Yes, a surfer friend is exactly what you need. We're headed to the gorge to see if we can scare up a decently docile wind-surfer to keep things interesting. See ya there, Lu.