Lichtenstein's Sandgrouse

Consider the Weasely Twins just messing around and deciding to create a silly toy that makes everyone who touches it get a weird accent for half an hour. George finds it hilarious and it’s carrying it everywhere. When they get captured by Voldermort everything else is taken away from them except for the toy that seems harmless

And then there is Voldermort in their dungeon giving his monologue before he kills them . Fred thinks that since they would both be dead soon anyway they might as well go out in style so he grabs the toy from George’s pocket and throws it at Voldermort

The Dark Lord is unimpressed and goes straight for the kill:

“Afada Kefadra…..”

“Afada Kefdara…..”

Voldermort is baffled as to why he suddenly can’t pronounce his favorite spell. He tries a non verbal spell but even in his own mind he can’t seem to do anything but think in a ridiculous accent. And then he suddenly becomes very well aware that he can’t currently do magic and he is locked in a cell with two teenagers who are at their physical prime while he is a shoddily constructed body courtesy of Wormtail. Long story short the Weasely Twins kick the shit out of Voldermort

Butterfly Repopulation Station in Portland

Free seeds, information and also a patch of milkweed for Monarch Butterflies

The Stellar Buddy System

Our Sun has an entourage of planets, moons, and smaller objects to keep it company as it traverses the galaxy. But it’s still lonely compared to many of the other stars out there, which often come in pairs. These cosmic couples, called binary stars, are very important in astronomy because they can easily reveal things that are much harder to learn from stars that are on their own. And some of them could even host habitable planets!

The birth of a stellar duo

New stars emerge from swirling clouds of gas and dust that are peppered throughout the galaxy. Scientists still aren’t sure about all the details, but turbulence deep within these clouds may give rise to knots that are denser than their surroundings. The knots have stronger gravity, so they can pull in more material and the cloud may begin to collapse.

The material at the center heats up. Known as a protostar, it is this hot core that will one day become a star. Sometimes these spinning clouds of collapsing gas and dust may break up into two, three, or even more blobs that eventually become stars. That would explain why the majority of the stars in the Milky Way are born with at least one sibling.

Seeing stars

We can’t always tell if we’re looking at binary stars using just our eyes. They’re often so close together in the sky that we see them as a single star. For example, Sirius, the brightest star we can see at night, is actually a binary system (see if you can spot both stars in the photo above). But no one knew that until the 1800s.

Precise observations showed that Sirius was swaying back and forth like it was at a middle school dance. In 1862, astronomer Alvan Graham Clark used a telescope to see that Sirius is actually two stars that orbit each other.

But even through our most powerful telescopes, some binary systems still masquerade as a single star. Fortunately there are a couple of tricks we can use to spot these pairs too.

Since binary stars orbit each other, there’s a chance that we’ll see some stars moving toward and away from us as they go around each other. We just need to have an edge-on view of their orbits. Astronomers can detect this movement because it changes the color of the star’s light – a phenomenon known as the Doppler effect.

Stars we can find this way are called spectroscopic binaries because we have to look at their spectra, which are basically charts or graphs that show the intensity of light being emitted over a range of energies. We can spot these star pairs because light travels in waves. When a star moves toward us, the waves of its light arrive closer together, which makes its light bluer. When a star moves away, the waves are lengthened, reddening its light.

Sometimes we can see binary stars when one of the stars moves in front of the other. Astronomers find these systems, called eclipsing binaries, by measuring the amount of light coming from stars over time. We receive less light than usual when the stars pass in front of each other, because the one in front will block some of the farther star’s light.

Sibling rivalry

Twin stars don’t always get along with each other – their relationship may be explosive! Type Ia supernovae happen in some binary systems in which a white dwarf – the small, hot core left over when a Sun-like star runs out of fuel and ejects its outer layers – is stealing material away from its companion star. This results in a runaway reaction that ultimately detonates the thieving star. The same type of explosion may also happen when two white dwarfs spiral toward each other and collide. Yikes!

Scientists know how to determine how bright these explosions should truly be at their peak, making Type Ia supernovae so-called standard candles. That means astronomers can determine how far away they are by seeing how bright they look from Earth. The farther they are, the dimmer they appear. Astronomers can also look at the wavelengths of light coming from the supernovae to find out how fast the dying stars are moving away from us.

Studying these supernovae led to the discovery that the expansion of the universe is speeding up. Our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will scan the skies for these exploding stars when it launches in the mid-2020s to help us figure out what’s causing the expansion to accelerate – a mystery known as dark energy.

Spilling stellar secrets

Astronomers like finding binary systems because it’s a lot easier to learn more about stars that are in pairs than ones that are on their own. That’s because the stars affect each other in ways we can measure. For example, by paying attention to how the stars orbit each other, we can determine how massive they are. Since heavier stars burn hotter and use up their fuel more quickly than lighter ones, knowing a star’s mass reveals other interesting things too.

By studying how the light changes in eclipsing binaries when the stars cross in front of each other, we can learn even more! We can figure out their sizes, masses, how fast they’re each spinning, how hot they are, and even how far away they are. All of that helps us understand more about the universe.

Tatooine worlds

Thanks to observatories such as our Kepler Space Telescope, we know that worlds like Luke Skywalker’s home planet Tatooine in “Star Wars” exist in real life. And if a planet orbits at the right distance from the two stars, it could even be habitable (and stay that way for a long time).

In 2019, our Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) found a planet, known as TOI-1338 b, orbiting a pair of stars. These worlds are tricker to find than planets with only one host star, but TESS is expected to find several more!

Want to learn more about the relationships between stellar couples? Check out this Tumblr post: https://nasa.tumblr.com/post/190824389279/cosmic-couples-and-devastating-breakups

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

being a mess can get you a date  — edmund pevensie

Request: Hi :) can you write an Edmund x reader where he’s running late for a meeting. So his hair is disheveled, his crown is crooked, and his buttons are in the wrong places. So y/n is super close to him, fixing his hair and stuff. Awkward Edmund <3

Setting: Golden Age Contains: fluff? I guess?

Sorry if it’s not that great! ;u; I wanted to try to get this one out as soon as possible since it’s my first one and all! ;u; I really kinda don’t like this one so I might redo it?

[reposting from my 2016 blog, this one brings memories back since, like old me said, it was my first post. also like this one somehow got almost 2000 notes and im like huh?]

Keep reading

Hogwarts House Crisis

Me: Pshhh! I’m not part Slytherin, I’m a full on Ravenclaw. Pottermore rarely puts me in Slytherin.

Also Me: *Re-starts every card game on my phone if I don’t like my cards just so I can win.*

Me Again: *Trying to chase my life dreams at the young age of 15*

Me the Third: *Wants to move out of the house because my family is irritating and I want to leave the house and provide for myself and live by myself and avoid annoying people*

Me the Fourth: *Loves every Hufflepuff out there*

(No hate to slytherin though, I just have always thought of myself as a Ravenclaw)

“Scientists come in two varieties, hedgehogs and foxes. I borrow this terminology from Isaiah Berlin (1953), who borrowed it from the ancient Greek poet Archilochus. Archilochus told us that foxes know many tricks, hedgehogs only one. Foxes are broad, hedgehogs are deep. Foxes are interested in everything and move easily from one problem to another. Hedgehogs are only interested in a few problems that they consider fundamental, and stick with the same problems for years or decades. Most of the great discoveries are made by hedgehogs, most of the little discoveries by foxes. Science needs both hedgehogs and foxes for its healthy growth, hedgehogs to dig deep into the nature of things, foxes to explore the complicated details of our marvelous universe. Albert Einstein and Edwin Hubble were hedgehogs. Charley Townes, who invented the laser, and Enrico Fermi, who built the first nuclear reactor in Chicago, were foxes. It often happens that foxes are as creative as hedgehogs. The laser was a big discovery made by a fox. The general public is misled by the media into believing that great scientists are all hedgehogs. Some periods in the history of science are good times for hedgehogs, other periods are good times for foxes. The beginning of the twentieth century was good for hedgehogs. The hedgehogs—Einstein and his followers in Europe, Hubble and his followers in America—dug deep and found new foundations for physics and astronomy. When Fermi and Townes came onto the scene in the middle of the century, the foundations were firm and the universe was wide open for foxes to explore. Most of the progress in physics and astronomy since the 1920s was made by foxes.”

— Freeman J. Dyson, A Many-Colored Glass: Reflections on the Place of Life in the Universe

life’s too short to be embarrassed you read x reader fan fiction. live ur life and date as many imaginary boys as u want

A Snowy Day With Edmund Would Include...

A/N: SHIT I FORGOT IT WAS DECEMBER ENJOY THE START OF 25 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

Edmund gets cold easily but also loves the snow because he thinks it’s pretty

almost as pretty as you

You both would wake up early in the morning from the light streaming in through the windows

“Mmgh.. Bunny, close the blinds.”

“I didn’t open them, Ed.”

Once you and Edmund opened your eyes and peeked out the window, you two would see snow falling with no ground to be seen

Your eyes would light up at the sight while squeezing Edmund’s arm

“We have to go outside and make a snowman!”

“What are we? Five?”

“Yes!”

After you and Edmund get dressed and you dragged him outside, you would instantly sink into the soft yet freezing snow because of how deep it was

edmund wearing 6 layers of clothes

“Cold!”

“Darling, it’s snow!”

Edmund would laugh at you and help you out of the snow

edmund would be mesmerized about how you looked in the snow

Edmund throwing a snowball at you while started the snow man

You would look over and see Edmund acting totally oblivious

“Edmund!”

“What?”

“You know what.”

Kisses

Once you two finished the snowman, you would snatch Edmund’s hat and put it on

“Edmund Jr.”

“You couldve named him that without taking my hat, love.”

“Oh, stop whining.”

Once you two went inside, you would go to the library and sit by the fire to warm up

Edmund would bring you into his chest and pull a blanket over you two

“Your hands are like ice!”

“Well we were just outside.”

Kissing Edmund’s hands so they can ‘warm up’

The rest of the day would be spent cuddling, reading books, and drinking tea

Bonus!

Lucy walking into the library to see you and Edmund asleep on the small couch with the blankets and books scattered across the floor

“Aw... I have to get Susan. She’ll love this!”