The harvest full moon is out tonight. (The harvest full moon is the full moon that happens closest to the start of autumn).
I gave the picture to Claude AI to look at and point out some of the craters and lunar maria (Latin for ‘seas’, but they are actually ancient solidified lava plains). Claude complained that the resolution of my picture was not good enough, so I went to NASA’s website for a better one.
My own amateur image from tonight, taken with my Sony a7CR and a 5x telephoto lens (and cropped to 2400 pixels by 1800 pixels).From Claude AI, using the image at https://science.nasa.gov/moon/daily-moon-guide: The big crater you’re probably asking about: the bright crater near the bottom of the disk, with rays streaking outward across a huge portion of the visible surface, is almost certainly Tycho. It’s one of the Moon’s youngest large impact craters (about 108 million years old) and is famous precisely for that dramatic, far-reaching ray system — the rays you see radiating up toward the center of the disk are ejecta thrown out during the impact. A few other features I can pick out: Copernicus — the other prominent rayed crater, sitting in the upper-middle-left area of the disk, with its own (smaller but still bright) ray system. Mare Crisium — the distinct, roughly oval dark patch isolated on the right side of the disk (it’s isolated from the other maria, which makes it easy to identify). Mare Serenitatis and Mare Tranquillitatis — the connected grey/dark regions in the center-right, blending into each other (Tranquillitatis is home to the Apollo 11 landing site). Mare Imbrium — the large dark region in the upper-center-left, one of the biggest impact basins on the Moon. Mare Nectaris — the smaller dark patch below and right of Tranquillitatis, near the bottom-right region.
The Star Trek franchise is 60 years old this month.
I found this infographic in the South African newspaper ‘Die Burger’ and enlisted the help of AI chatbot Claude from Anthropic to translate the Afrikaans bits into English.
(For the record: I can read and translate the Afrikaans in the picture as well— but not in 11 seconds flat).
Star Trek movies and television episodes frequently feature robots, androids, and advanced artificial intelligence. Lieutenant Commander Data is a fictional, self-aware android in the Star Trek franchise, best known as the chief operations officer and second officer on the USS Enterprise-D in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
From the Washington Post:
The United States was the only country to vote against the United Nations resolution which encourages the use of an “Equal Earth” map. (The vote was 164-1.)
Yaryna Ferencevych, the U.S. deputy representative to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, described the initiative as part of a broader “radical ideological project” being pursued by the U.N. when it should be focused on “genuine problems of international peace, prosperity, or good relations.”
Ah yes.
Rich comments— from a representative of an United States administration that alienates its allies, wages a war that is upending the world’s economies, and propagates policies that destroy the environment.
Earth 1 and Earth 2.And here is 7.15 pm tonight, with sunset now at 7.41 pm
This Year’s Record-Breaking El Niño in 3 Charts
Reported by Mira Rojanasakul and Chico Harlan for The New York Times
This year’s El Niño is already intense, and it’s not done growing. Scientists expect that by December, when El Niño events typically reach their peak, this one will wind up as the strongest in at least 80 years of precise record keeping. And perhaps as the most powerful in centuries.
The event will alter weather patterns across the planet and could drive an additional 49 million people into hunger, according to a projection by the United Nations’ World Food Program. It will also temporarily boost global temperatures that were already rising because of climate change.
El Niños are essentially anomalies in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Their magnitude is measured by how far temperatures there rise beyond the norm. Temperatures must jump 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above average to qualify as a Super El Niño. But this year’s event is expected to go even further, well exceeding the prior strong El Niños that began in 1997, 2015 and 2023.
It’s unusual to have three strong El Niños in 11 years. And scientists are divided about whether that run is just a coincidence, or whether climate change might be making El Niño events more frequent and intense.
An El Niño’s magnitude is measured in a vast rectangular zone of the Pacific that runs along the Equator, starting off the coast of South America. Most years, temperatures in that zone hit a peak of around 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit) in May and then gently decline through the Northern Hemisphere summer. But during an El Niño year, temperatures break from that pattern, and this year they are spiking like never before. In no other year on record have temperatures held above 29 degrees Celsius (84 degrees Fahrenheit) in July and August.
This warming is happening in an ocean that has been heating up for decades as it absorbs heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. The effects are not constrained to the Pacific. On Saturday, the daily global average sea surface temperature reached 21.1 degrees Celsius (70 degrees Fahrenheit), according to Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, breaking the previous record set in March 2024.
The heat that builds up near the surface of the tropical Pacific eventually makes the entire planet warmer. The trend takes a while to materialize, but recent El Niños have led to annual global heat records in the year after they form. To that end, scientists broadly expect 2027 to be the hottest year humans have ever experienced. But the heat is altering the trajectory of 2026 as well. The first half of this year, while broadly hotter than in previous decades, generally did not approach the heat records set in 2024. But recent days in August have been warmer than comparable dates in any prior year.
Here are my amateur photos of tonight’s partial lunar eclipse, taken at my house from an upstairs window.
Here in Seattle the eclipse was already underway by sunset.
The moon was low in the sky, looking east-southeast.
As darkness fell, the moon rose higher, and more of it was obscured by Earth’s shadow until it was 95% in the dark by 9.12 pm.
The last photo is a little overexposed, and the light speck below the moon is an airplane.
Danielle Dowling writes for the New York Times: If you missed this summer’s eclipse, don’t worry.
There are still a handful of opportunities to catch the “eclipse of the century” next year. Imagine standing beneath a blackened sun among the ancient Egyptian tombs in the Valley of the Kings or overlooking the Nile at the Hatshepsut Temple. The eerie darkness might fill you with a primeval mix of terror, awe and wonder. In other words, perfection. In the midmorning and afternoon of Aug. 2, 2027, ten countries (and a few territories) on the Mediterranean Sea and in the Middle East and Africa will find themselves in the 160-mile-wide, nearly 9,500-mile-long zone.
In some places, darkness will last as long as an incredible six minutes and 23 seconds.
Danielle Dowling also offers this cruise ship information in the NYT article: If you wish to combine travel around Spain and other nearby destinations with a cruise on the Mediterranean, where totality will last up to five minutes, you have options. Celebrity is offering two cruises: an 11-night Italy and Spain trip, with the eclipse falling on Day 8 (from $3,121 per person), and a seven-night Spain and Morocco journey, with the eclipse on Day 3 (from $4,883 per person). And there are still a few rooms left aboard VACAYA LGBTQ+ Vacations’ 10-day eclipse cruise (from $18,963 double occupancy), which sails from Trieste, Italy, to Barcelona.Aerial view during sunrise of the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, Luxor, Egypt. The mortuary temple built during the reign of Pharaoh Hatshepsut of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. The temple is considered to be a masterpiece of ancient architecture. Its three massive terraces rise above the desert floor and into the cliffs of Deir el-Bahari. Her tomb, KV20, lies inside the same massif capped by El Qurn, a pyramid for her mortuary complex. Across the river Nile, the whole structure points towards the monumental Eighth Pylon, Hatshepsut’s most recognizable addition to the Temple of Karnak and the site from which the procession of the Beautiful Festival of the Valley departed. Image by Diego Delso/ Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0 File:Templo funerario de Hatshepsut, Luxor, Egipto, 2022-04-03, DD 13.jpg Created: 3 Apr. 2022 Uploaded: 27 Nov. 2022 Location: 25° 44′ 17.66″ N, 32° 36′ 23.94″ E
The construction of the twin apartment towers with the wavy outlines at 1200 Stewart St in the Denny Triangle neighborhood started in May 2018.
So it will be 9 years when the 45-story towers with 927 apartments finally open in 2027—six years later than the original timeline had called for.
That’s a decommissioned United Airlines Boeing 747-400 fuselage mounted 14 feet (4.3 m) above the walkway between the towers.
It will house a little office space for Westbank, the project’s developer.
The fuselage was purchased from a scrapyard in Victorville, California, cut into 39 sections, and trucked up to Seattle.
It’s Tesla-Tesla-Tesla in the sunset photo that I took from the Melrose Avenue overlook.
The first total solar eclipse in decades in Europe swept across the continent on Wednesday, turning day to dark across several countries as crowds watched from hilltops, coastlines and other open spaces.
The coincidence of Earth, the moon and the sun falling into perfect alignment — a fleeting celestial event known as totality — created a frenzy across the region. People paid exorbitant hotel rates to be in the inner part, or umbra, of the lunar shadow. Along that path, where the sky was clear, the sun became a black disk ensconced in a hazy corona, surrounded by planets and stars.
– Jason Horowitz reporting for the New York Times from Castrillo de la Reina, Spain
The sun is completely obscured by the moon. A view of the eclipse from Castrillo de la Reine in the north of Spain.The total solar eclipse was visible in parts of Siberia, Greenland, Iceland, and Spain. Some Icelanders saw the total eclipse, and other did not, because of clouds overhead. [Graphic by Adine Renner/ The New York Times]
A powerful earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday morning, rattling much of the country, killing more than 100 people and sending residents fleeing from swaying and crumbling buildings in multiple major cities. As rescuers searched the rubble of damaged buildings and officials warned of possible aftershocks, the death toll appeared likely to rise.
The 7.4 magnitude earthquake occurred at 7:34 a.m. local time, according to the United States Geological Survey and Colombia’s geological service, with the epicenter roughly three miles east of San José del Palmar, a town of some 5,000 people in a rural part of the Chocó region, where officials reported significant damage. Videos showed collapsed and partially collapsed buildings in the major cities of Pereira, Manizales and Cali.
– Genevieve Glatsky and Julie Turkewitz reporting for the New York Times from Bogotá, Colombia
This one in Colombia occurred seven weeks after the devastating 7.5 magnitude earthquake in Venezuela, and does not appear to be related to it.
The epicenters are some 800 miles (1,200 km) apart and on different plates.
There are 15 to 20 earthquakes of this magnitude or greater every year around the world.
A constellation of cities in the foothills of the Andes sustained heavy damage from a major earthquake that struck western Colombia on Monday morning, photos and videos show. Residents of Colombia’s largest cities, Bogotá and Medellín, reported intense shaking, but both appear to have been spared the worst of the damage. [Reporting and map from the New York Times]
It was toasty outside here in the city of Seattle, yesterday and today: 92°F (33°C).
It will cool down tomorrow, though. Elsewhere in the United States there are communities that deal with much warmer days, with flash floods and with tornadoes.
And look at the cheeky post of German magazine Die Zeit on X, about a First World soccer fan’s dilemma:
‘The big question after the World Cup: What gives life structure now, with no more football on TV?’
Answer: All right, I guess I’d better go return the deposit bottles now.
Happy Friday.
I’m reading up about the stamps from Greenland that had I bought at the stamp show from a friendly guy from Nuuk, at the Greenland booth at the stamp show.
2025 The 75th Anniversary of the SIRIUS Patrol Issued Jan. 31, 2025 Perf. 13 | Design: Miki Jacobsen | 40 mm x 30 mm | Offset Lithography | Printing: Gutenberg AG | Paper: FSC SecurPost 110g/ m2 | No watermark 01100788 19.00 Kr | Multicolored | SIRIUS Patrol with provisions and dog sled
The headquarters of the SIRIUS patrol is Daneborg, located on the east coast of Greenland, close to 74 degrees north latitude. The headquarters is completely cut off from the outside world. To get there, you have to fly in a small propeller plane from Iceland. At the station, twelve men and 80 sled dogs are each other’s only company for a radius of about 250 kilometers. There are not many distractions outside of work. There is mail from home six to seven times a year. SIRIUS’ northernmost station is called Station Nord. Five men are stationed here year-round. The main task is to keep a large runway free of ice, but there are also many other tasks. On the patrols, the menu is freeze-dried food, powdered milk, chocolate and rye bread, but after arriving at the station, there is food in abundance, as well as videos, music and even a shower. Everything is in sharp contrast to the patrols’ harsh living conditions. Station Nord is therefore a very popular place to stay for the patrols. In a modern era, when surveillance of Northeast Greenland could easily be carried out using satellites or aircraft, the SIRIUS patrol may seem redundant. However, the fact is that, according to international conventions, sovereignty can only be enforced by entering the areas that a country possesses. So the unique Danish military unit will probably continue to operate in Greenland’s northernmost regions in the future. [Sources: stampworld.com, stamps.gl/greenland-collector, Google AI]2025 Greenlandic Dog Sleds Issued Jan. 31, 2025 Perf. 13 | Design: Konrad Nuka Godtfredsen | 56 mm x 33 mm | Offset Lithography | Printing: Gutenberg AG | Paper: FSC SecurPost 110g/ m2 | No watermark 895 AEK 3.00 Kr | Multicolored | East Greenlandic sled 896 AEL 38.00 Kr | Multicolored | Greenlander with East Greenlandic sled [Sources: stampworld.com, Google AI]2025 EUROPA Stamps – National Archaeological Discoveries Issued May 26, 2025 Perf. 13 | Design: Maya Sialuk Jacobsen | 30 mm x 40 mm, 40 mm x 30 mm | Offset Lithography | Printing: Gutenberg AG | Paper: FSC SecurPost 110g/ m2 | No watermark 902 AER 25.00 Kr | Black and white | Boy with animal skin clothing from the Thule culture More: Qilakitsoq is an abandoned Inuit settlement on the Nuussuaq Peninsula on the West coast of Greenland, about 450 km north of the Arctic Circle. The settlement is renowned for the discovery of eight mummified bodies from the Thule culture in 1972. The discovery was made by two local reindeer hunters, Hans and Jokum Grønvold. In two graves were the mummies of six women and two boys. They comprise three generations with close familial links across the graves. Although the causes of death are unknown, they probably died at the same time in the Autumn shortly after arriving at the Winter settlement. They were wrapped in animal skins and fully clothed. They were equipped for a long journey to the underworld, carefully prepared according to ancient, traditional rites. They had extra skins and clothing to afford them a safe journey and a good life in the realm of the dead. The five oldest women have almost identical facial tattoos that can express both kinship and social status. The youngest woman of about 20 years is not tattooed. Perhaps she was either unmarried or childless. Tattoos have been in common use among Inuit women for thousands of years. There were amulets on and among their clothing. The Inuit probably employed these amulets to muster strength and protection from evil spirits. The mummies from Qilakitsoq have since afforded valuable insights into the life of the Inuit who lived in the area some 500 years ago. The stamp reproduces the most recognisable and most iconic of the eight mummies. It is presumed to be a small boy of about six months. While the gender is based on the clothing, the age has been ascertained from the development of teeth and bones through radiographic examination.
903 AES 28.00 Kr | Black and white | The Kingittorsuaq rune stone More: The Kingittorsuaq rune stone was found in 1824 by a man called Pelimut. The discovery was made on top of the mountain on the small island of Kingittorsuaq about 20 km north of Upernavik. At the highest point of the island, he saw three collapsed cairns placed in a triangle formation. Near the largest of the cairns, he spotted a stone with several markings that he did not recognise. The stone, which is known as the Kingittorsuaq Runestone, bears medieval rune inscriptions. It is conclusive evidence that Norsemen in Greenland on their fishing trips along the West coast of Greenland reached as far North as North of the present-day town of Upernavik. The stone, which currently resides in the National Museum in Copenhagen, has been dated to the Middle Ages between 1250 to 1333 AD. The last part of the runic script remains undecipherable as it appears to be a group of meaningless characters. However, the first part of the writing on the runestone translated from Old Norse reads: “Erling, son of Sigvath and Baarne Thordar’s son and Enriði Á’s son, on Saturday before Rogation Day raised this stone and rode…” [Sources: stampworld.com, europe-stamps.blogspot.com, Google AI]2025 Dove of Peace Issued Sep. 12, 2025 Woven cloth with embroidery | 100% Recycled polyester | 55 mm x 42 mm | Mfg. by Hämmerle & Vogel (Austria) | Self-adhesive 909 AEY 75 Kr | Stylized, white-and-blue embroidered dove carrying an olive branch Part of an international joint initiative where multiple postal services worldwide issued identical embroidered stamps. It features the exact same dove motif across over a dozen postal organizations (including the UN, Switzerland, Austria, and the Faroe Islands) with only the country name and local currency varying. [Sources: stampworld.com, Google AI]2026 Boston World Expo Issued May 23, 2026 Perf. 13 | Two stamps in minisheet (140 mm x 80 mm) | Design: Martin Mörck | Stamps 40 mm x 30 mm | Offset Lithography | Printing: Gutenberg AG | Paper: FSC SecurPost 110g/ m2 | No watermark 01100819 25.00 Kr | Multicolored | Leif the Lucky’s discovery of Vinland* 01100820 37.00 Kr | Multicolored | Thor Solberg’s flight aboard the Leif Eriksson biplane**
*Leif Eriksson, also known as Leif the Lucky, was a Norse explorer who is thought to have been the first European to set foot on continental America, approximately half a millennium before Christopher Columbus did. Vinland is the coastal region of North America (Newfoundland & eastern Canada) explored and temporarily settled by Norse Vikings around 1000 CE. **Thor Solberg was a Norwegian-born aviation pioneer who made the first successful flight from the United States of America to Norway in 1935. He made the journey, which started in New York City, in an open-cockpit single-engine aircraft with no landing instruments. [Sources: stampworld.com, stamps.gl/greenland-collector, Google AI]
A suspected outbreak of the rare hantavirus on a cruise ship in the Atlantic kills 3 people
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — A deadly outbreak of the rare hantavirus unfolded over the course of weeks on a cruise ship that sailed from Argentina toward Antarctica and then across the Atlantic Ocean, stopping at or near remote islands on the way as passengers and crew members fell sick, according to information from the cruise operator, the World Health Organization and ship tracking data.
It shows nearly a month passed between when an elderly Dutch man fell sick and died in the South Atlantic and laboratory tests in South Africa — more than 3,500 kilometers (2,174 miles) away — confirmed hantavirus infections.
Three passengers in total have died, one is in intensive care in a South African hospital, and three other people still on the cruise ship have shown symptoms and were waiting for evacuations. Nearly 150 passengers and crew members from 23 countries were on the ship, which is waiting off the coast of West Africa.
– Reporting by Associated Press
I am following the hantavirus outbreak on the polar cruise ship MV Hondius.
I hope there is a resolution soon for those trapped on the ship.
Authorities do not know if the passengers that fell ill contracted the virus while on excursions away from the ship, or from rodents on the ship itself. The hantavirus is not really contagious except for one specific type: the Andes virus, found in long-tailed pygmy rice rats.
Reporting from the New York Times. An update on Wed 5/6: As of May 6, 2026, three people have died and eight cases (three confirmed) of hantavirus are linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship. Three symptomatic patients were evacuated to the Netherlands, and the vessel is heading to the Canary Islands with roughly 150 passengers in cabin isolation. The Andes strain, capable of rare person-to-person spread, was identified. – Google AI Overview/ PBSThe MV Hondius started out in Ushaia, Argentina, on April 1. It is highly likely that individuals on the MV Hondius were already infected with the hantavirus at that time, although they were not showing symptoms at the time of departure. [Graphic by Bloomberg]
World Quantum Day is an international celebration held annually on April 14 (4.14, a nod to Planck’s constant*, to promote public awareness and understanding of quantum science and technology.
It features global events, including lectures, lab tours, and workshops, aiming to make quantum physics more accessible.
*The value of Planck’s constant is about 4.135667696×10^−15 eV⋅Hz−1.
There is another value for it, in SI units— the one that we used in science class in high school, which came to approximately 6.62607015×10^−34 J⋅Hz−1 .
Ten to the power minus 34 is an infinitesimally small quantity and we would say about something annoying or boring ‘I care less about it than Planck’s Constant, ha ha ha 😁’ as a little inside joke, understood and appreciated by the science class nerds.
A major advance in the understanding of atomic structures began in 1924 with a proposition made by Fench physicist and nobleman Prince Louis de Broglie (pronounced ‘de broy’). It was already known at the time that light is dualistic in nature— behaving in some situations like waves and in others like particles. De Broglie proposed that this duality should hold for matter in general. Electrons and protons, he said (thought of as particles at the time), may in some situations behave like waves. This was the start of a revolution in thinking about physics at the sub-atomic level— a detailed theory called quantum mechanics. The foundational, modern quantum mechanics of the 1920s was primarily laid by Werner Heisenberg (matrix mechanics), Erwin Schrödinger (wave mechanics), Max Born (probability interpretation), and Paul Dirac (transformation theory/relativity). They built on earlier quantum theories from Max Planck and Niels Bohr, with key contributions from Wolfgang Pauli and Louis de Broglie. Above are diagrams of the 1s, 2s, and 3s hydrogen-atom wave functions. These are solutions to the Schrödinger equation describing an electron in the lowest orbital angular momentum state (l=0) at different energy levels. The wave functions are spherically symmetric (no angular dependence), decay exponentially with distance from the nucleus, and possess n-1 radial nodes, representing increasing energy and distance from the nucleus.
Earthset captured through the Orion spacecraft window at 6:41 p.m. ET on April 6 during the Artemis II crew’s flyby of the moon. A muted blue Earth with bright white clouds sets behind the cratered lunar surface. The dark portion of Earth is experiencing nighttime. In the foreground, Ohm crater has terraced edges and a flat floor interrupted by central peaks. Central peaks form in complex craters when the lunar surface, liquefied on impact, splashes upward during the crater’s formation. [Image and caption supplied by NASA, and was posted at npr.org]Reported by the staff from National Public Radio at npr.org:
The Artemis II astronauts are making their way back to Earth after the lunar flyby.
The crew became the first astronauts in over 50 years to fly around the far side of the moon. They also experienced a solar eclipse.
During the mission’s loop around the moon, the crew took geological observations of places of interest on the lunar surface with their own eyes and snapping thousands of photos of the surface.
The crew will return to Earth on Friday and splash down off the coast of California. NASA says a landing on the lunar surface won’t happen until 2028, at the earliest.
NASA posted this image of Earth on X, taken yesterday from the Orion spacecraft by Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman.
The picture was taken with a Nikon D5 with a wide-angle zoom lens (14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8) at ƒ/4.0 with focal length 22.0 mm at 1/4 s and ISO 51,200*. *This is an extremely high ISO, necessary for the very low level of light. At this moment, this side of Earth is dark with the sun behind it. With the naked eye none of these colors would be visible, but the extreme sensitivity of the camera sensor produces this image.
The large brown mass visible on the left side is Africa (the Sahara Desert), with the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and the Mediterranean Sea in the lower-left quadrant of Earth’s disk.
The South Pole is oriented toward the top of the frame, so the prominent green glow at the top of the atmosphere is aurora australis (the southern lights). A second, fainter aurora (aurora borealis, the northern lights) is visible near the bottom-left edge of the planet’s image.
The image also captures zodiacal light (a faint glow from sunlight scattering off interplanetary dust) in the bottom-right corner, appearing as Earth partially eclipses the Sun from the perspective of the Orion spacecraft.
The bright rectangular cluster of spots in the middle of the image is probably a reflection of something from inside the Orion spacecraft.
From Google AI Overview:
The main event on Day 2 of the Artemis II* mission (April 2, 2026) was the successful Translunar Injection (TLI) burn, which sent the Orion spacecraft and its four-person crew out of Earth orbit and onto a trajectory toward the Moon.
*In Greek mythology, Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo.
Artemis I was launched on November 16, 2022, at 1:47:44 a.m. EST. The uncrewed mission lifted off from Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, marking the first integrated flight test of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft.
Key Details of Day 2: The Burn: The Orion spacecraft ignited its main engine for 5 minutes and 50 seconds, beginning at 7:49 p.m. EDT, 25 hours after launch. Significance: This maneuver marked the first time humans have left Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972. Trajectory: The burn placed Orion on a free-return trajectory, ensuring the spacecraft would loop around the Moon and return to Earth. Other Activities: The crew also worked on preparing the spacecraft, initiated early space-to-ground video communication, and began adapting to the space environment.
The Artemis II crew during a video-conference call today. The crew consists of four astronauts (from left to right)—NASA’s Reid Wiseman (Commander), the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen (Mission Specialist), Christina Koch (Mission Specialist), and Victor Glover (Pilot).
It is a soggy start to April here in the Emerald City.
There was a beautiful sunbreak at 6.50 pm, as I stood on the corner of Thomas St and 13th Avenue East on Capitol Hill.
Tonight, there is a full moon in the sky.
Very appropriate— with the Artemis II mission to the moon launch that happened just a few hours earlier from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Happy Friday. Happy vernal equinox and happy autumn equinox (for those in the southern hemisphere), as well.
The rain brought on by the atmospheric river from the Pacific Ocean has finally stopped here in Seattle. Several rivers and low-lying areas are under flood conditions today, which will continue into the weekend.
The vernal (spring) equinox in 2026 occurred this morning at 7.46 am Pacific Daylight Saving Time (PDT) here in the United States. It marks the official astronomical start of spring in the Northern Hemisphere and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. Today, the Sun passes directly over Earth’s equator, creating nearly equal lengths of day and night everywhere. [Graphic from USA Today online]
My time in Mazatlán was over on Friday morning 😢.
My stuffed axolotl from the Gran Acuario Mazatlán gift shop went into the suitcase with my clothes, and now I am at Mazatlán airport.
I will try to get a few airplane pictures before we board.
Update at Sat 12.30 am:
I made it home.
That connection to Seattle for international arrivals into LAX is quite something.
We arrived at the gate at LAX at 5.55 pm.
The flight to Seattle was going to leave at 7.40 pm.
First, there is a very long walk through a labyrinth of walkways and hallways to get to the US Customs and Border Control point. I said to a friendly official that they need to put more signs up for us, to which she replied – oh, but you should ‘just look for open doors’ if you don’t know where to go next.
(The problem was that I had no crowd to follow. A group of people in front of me on the airplane took so long to disembark, that the rest had disappeared completely out of sight by the time I stepped off.
Where did everyone go? 😱)
Anyway, there was no Global Entry kiosk open at Customs and Border Control (they are part of the partial government shutdown that still has not been resolved). So instead, there was a facial recognition photo check for everyone, regardless if you had Global Entry credentials or not. The camera did not recognize everyone and those were then directed to an official for a manual passport check.
Now I still had to pick up my bag from the international arrivals carousel for rechecking it for the flight to Seattle. That took a very long time as well, after which you get ejected into the public area at Terminal 6.
So now you go up the escalator, to go through the standard domestic flight security check again— which ate up the remaining time I had for the connection.
My flight to Seattle was already into boarding Group E by the time I had gone to the restroom and taken a few bites out of a sandwich and banana that I had bought hastily.
There were puffy white clouds in the view of the Pacific Ocean by Olas Altas beach this morning. From Wikipedia: The axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) is a species of paedomorphic mole salamander. They mature into the terrestrial adult form without undergoing metamorphosis; the adults remain fully aquatic with obvious external gills. This trait, although somewhat unusual among the majority of amphibians, is not unique. Axolotls originally inhabited a system of interconnected wetlands and lakes in the Mexican highlands. They were known to inhabit the smaller lakes of Xochimilco and Chalco, and are also presumed to have inhabited the larger lakes of Texcoco and Zumpango. These waterways were mostly drained by Spanish settlers after the conquest of the Aztec Empire, leading to the destruction of much of the axolotl’s natural habitat, which is now largely occupied by Mexico City. Despite this, they remained abundant enough to form part of the staple in the diet of native Mexica during the colonial era. Today, due to continued urbanization in Mexico City, which causes water pollution in the remaining waterways, as well as the introduction of invasive species such as tilapia and carp, the axolotls are now near extinction. The species has been listed as critically endangered in the wild, with a decreasing population of around 50 to 1,000 adult individuals. A large captive population of axolotls currently exists, though, with the specimens being used extensively in scientific research for their remarkable ability to regenerate parts of their body, including limbs, gills and parts of their eyes and brains.
The Gran Acuario Mazatlán hosts over 250 species of fish. It is the is the largest aquarium in Latin America.
It contains a marine museum, the Gulf of Mexico Oceanic Fish Tank, a walk-through aviary, a boardwalk along the lagoon outside, crocodile exhibits, and a capybara petting area. The penguin area and flamingo area are currently closed.
The new Gran Acuario Mazatlán opened to the public in May 2023. This large new set of concrete structures and spaces were designed by architecture firm Tatiana Bilbao Estudio from Mexico City, and replaced the old municipal aquarium. [Image from tatianabilbao.com/projects]Here is the main courtyard inside the new Gran Acuario Mazatlán complex.A shallow round tank with cownose rays (Rhinoptera bonasus), a species of eagle ray commonly found in aquariums. A beautiful pyramid sea star (Pharia pyramidata). About 1,900 species of starfish form the taxonomic class Asteroidea. These creatures live on the seabed and are found in all the world’s oceans, from warm, tropical zones to frigid, polar regions. They can occur from the intertidal zone down to abyssal depths, at 6,000 m (20,000 ft) below the surface. [Source: Wikipedia]Two long-spine porcupinefish (Diodon holocanthus) alongside a sea urchin. This is a large cylindrical tank. A yellowtail surgeonfish (Prionurus laticlavius or Prionurus punctatus).A blackspotted puffer (Arothron nigropunctatus), also known as the dog-faced puffer. The Gulf of Mexico Oceanic Fish Tank, with a little group of elementary school students.The blue blubber jellyfish (Catostylus mosaicus) swimming in a tank. A young slender-snouted crocodile (Mecistops cataphractus), a critically endangered species native to Africa. A finescale triggerfish (Balistes polylepis).The Mexican beaded lizard (Heloderma horridum) or beaded lizard is a species of venomous lizard in the family Helodermatidae, one of the two species of venomous beaded lizards found principally in Mexico and southern Guatemala. (The other is the similar-looking Gila monster, Heloderma suspectum, which is found in the southweatern United States as well).A great egret (Ardea alba) perched on the boardwalk fence by the lagoon. A green iguana (Iguana iguana) catching the sun on the water’s edge. This monster in the bushes does not prey on smaller animals. Iguanas are strict herbivores that eat a diet consisting almost exclusively of leafy greens, vegetables, and fruit.The capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) or greater capybara is the largest living rodent, native to all countries in South America except Chile. Together with the lesser capybara, it constitutes the genus Hydrochoerus. [Source: Wikipedia]
