‘If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable.’
From _Letters to a Young Poet (1929), a collection of letters written by Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke to Franz Xaver Kappus, another aspiring poet_.
A composite of 72 long-exposure photographs taken by NASA astronaut Don Pettit from the International Space Station (ISS) as it passed over South America. Due to the long exposure, stars appear as circular arcs around the poles of the rotating ISS. The horizontal lines are made of pale yellows from the artificial lights of cities and deeper oranges that are likely from small fires burning in South America. The bright white spots towards the horizon are flashes of lightning from thunderstorms, while the green arc above is airglow, a faint ambient light emitted at night by gases in the Earth’s atmosphere.
