mick laBriola

This image features Arp 72, a very selective galaxy group that only includes two interacting galaxies: NGC 5996 (the large spiral galaxy) and NGC 5994 (its smaller companion, in the lower left of the image). Both galaxies lie approximately 160 million light-years from Earth, and their cores are separated from each other by a distance of around 67 thousand light-years. Moreover, the distance between the galaxies at their closest points is even smaller, closer to 40 thousand light-years. Whilst this might still sound vast, in galactic separation terms it is really very cosy! For comparison, the distance between the Milky Way and its nearest independent galactic neighbour Andromeda is around 2.5 million light-years. Alternatively, the distance between the Milky Way and its largest and brightest satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud (satellite galaxies are galaxies that are bound in orbit around another galaxy), is about 162 thousand light-years.

Given this, coupled with the fact that NGC 5996 is roughly comparable in size to the Milky Way, it is not surprising that NGC 5996 and NGC 5994 — apparently separated by only 40 thousand light-years or so — are interacting with one another. In fact, the interaction might be what has caused the spiral shape of NGC 5996 to distort and apparently be drawn in the direction of NGC 5994. It also prompted the formation of the very long and faint tail of stars and gas curving away from NGC 5996, up to the top right of the image. This ‘tidal tail’ is a common phenomenon that appears when galaxies get in close together, as can be seen in several Hubble images.

[Image Description: A large spiral galaxy with a smaller neighbouring galaxy. The spiral galaxy is wide and distorted, with colourful dust. Its companion lies close by it at the end of a spiral arm, to the lower left. A long, faint tail of stars reaches up from the right side of the spiral galaxy to the top of the image. Several small, distant galaxies can be seen in the background, as well as one bright star in the foreground.]

Gilbert Scott-Heron (April 1, 1949 – May 27, 2011 Chicago) was an American jazz poet, singer, musician, and author known for his work as a spoken-word performer in the 1970s and 1980s. His collaborative efforts with musician Brian Jackson fused jazz, blues, and soul with lyrics relative to social and political issues of the time, delivered in both rapping and melismatic vocal styles. He referred to himself as a “bluesologist”,his own term for “a scientist who is concerned with the origin of the blues”. His poem “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised“, delivered over a jazz-soul beat, is considered a major influence on hip hop music.

Scott-Heron’s music, most notably on the albums Pieces of a Man and Winter in America during the early 1970s, influenced and foreshadowed later African-American music genres, including hip hop and neo soul. His recording work received much critical acclaim, especially for “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”.AllMusic‘s John Bush called him “one of the most important progenitors of rap music“, stating that “his aggressive, no-nonsense street poetry inspired a legion of intelligent rappers while his engaging songwriting skills placed him square in the R&B charts later in his career.”

Scott-Heron remained active until his death, and in 2010 released his first new album in 16 years, entitled I’m New Here. A memoir he had been working on for years up to the time of his death, The Last Holiday, was published posthumously in January 2012. Scott-Heron received a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. He also is included in the exhibits at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) that officially opened on September 24, 2016, on the National Mall, and in an NMAAHC publication, Dream a World Anew. In 2021, Scott-Heron was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a recipient of the Early Influence Award.

NGC 2467, nicknamed the “Skull and Crossbones Nebula“, is a star-forming region whose appearance has occasionally also been likened to that of a colorful mandrill. It includes areas where large clouds of hydrogen gas incubate new stars. This region was one of the areas featured in the book Hubble’s Universe: Greatest Discoveries and Latest Images by Terence Dickinson. 4420ly.

Johann Sebastian Bach (31 March [O.S. 21 March] 1685 – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the Brandenburg Concertos; solo instrumental works such as the cello suites and sonatas and partitas for solo violin; keyboard works such as the Goldberg Variations and The Well-Tempered Clavier; organ works such as the Schubler Chorales and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor; and choral works such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th-century Bach Revival, he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music.

The Bach family already counted several composers when Johann Sebastian was born as the last child of a city musician, Johann Ambrosius, in Eisenach. After being orphaned at the age of 10, he lived for five years with his eldest brother Johann Christoph, after which he continued his musical education in Lüneburg. From 1703 he was back in Thuringia, working as a musician for Protestant churches in Arnstadtand Mühlhausen and, for longer stretches of time, at courts in Weimar, where he expanded his organrepertory, and Köthen, where he was mostly engaged with chamber music. From 1723, he was employed as Thomaskantor (cantor at St Thomas’s) in Leipzig. There he composed music for the principal Lutheranchurches of the city, and for its university’s student ensemble Collegium Musicum. From 1726, he publishedsome of his keyboard and organ music. In Leipzig, as had happened during some of his earlier positions, he had difficult relations with his employer, a situation that was little remedied when he was granted the title of court composer by his sovereign, Augustus III of Poland, in 1736. In the last decades of his life, he reworked and extended many of his earlier compositions. He died of complications after a botched eye surgery in 1750 at the age of 65.

Bach enriched established German styles through his mastery of counterpoint, harmonic, and motivicorganisation, and his adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France. Bach’s compositions include hundreds of cantatas, both sacred and secular. He composed Latin church music, Passions, oratorios, and motets. He often adopted Lutheran hymns, not only in his larger vocal works, but for instance also in his four-part chorales and his sacred songs. He wrote extensively for organ and for other keyboard instruments. He composed concertos, for instance for violin and for harpsichord, and suites, as chamber music as well as for orchestra. Many of his works employcontrapuntal techniques like canon and fugue.

Throughout the 18th century, Bach was primarily valued as an organist, while his keyboard music, such as The Well-Tempered Clavier, was appreciated for its didactic qualities. The 19th century saw the publication of some major Bach biographies, and by the end of that century all of his known music had been printed. Dissemination of scholarship on the composer continued through periodicals (and later also websites) exclusively devoted to him, and other publications such as the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV, a numbered catalogue of his works) and new critical editions of his compositions. His music was further popularised through a multitude of arrangements, including the Air on the G String and “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring“, and of recordings, such as three different box sets with complete performances of the composer’s oeuvre marking the 250th anniversary of his death.

Major “Big Maceo” Merriweather (March 31, 1905 – February 23, 1953) was an American pianist and blues singer. He was mainly active in Chicago through the 1940s.

Born in Newnan, Georgia, he was a self-taught pianist. In the 1920s, he moved to Detroit, Michigan, to begin his music career. He moved to Chicago in 1941, where he made the acquaintance of Tampa Red.Red introduced him to Lester Melrose of RCA Victor and its subsidiary label Bluebird Records, who signed Merriweather to a recording contract.

His first record was “Worried Life Blues” (1941), which became a blues hit and remained his signature piece. The song had elements derived from Sleepy John Estes‘ “Someday, Baby”. Other classic piano blues recordings followed, such as “Chicago Breakdown”, “Texas Stomp”, and “Detroit Jump“. His piano style was developed from players like Leroy Carr and Roosevelt Sykes and from the boogie-woogie style of Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons. He in turn influenced other musicians, such as Little Johnny Jones and Henry Gray, the latter of whom credited Merriweather with helping him launch his career as a blues pianist.

His style influenced practically every postwar blues pianist of significance. His best known song, “Worried Life Blues”, is a staple of the blues repertoire, with artists such as Eric Clapton performing it regularly in concert. It was in the first batch of songs inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in the category Classic Blues Recordings – Singles or Album Tracks, alongside “Stormy Monday“, ‘Sweet Home Chicago“, “Dust My Broom“, and “Hellhound on My Trail“.

Merriweather suffered a stroke in 1946. He died of a heart attack on February 23, 1953, in Chicago and was interred at the Detroit Memorial Cemetery, in Warren, Michigan.

His recordings for RCA Victor/Bluebird were released as a double album, Chicago Breakdown, in 1975. They have since been reissued on various labels.

Abell 31 (also known as Sh2-290) is a planetary nebula of nearly ten light-years wide, located about 2,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Cancer. Although it is one of the largest planetary nebulae of the sky, Abell 31 is not very bright.

Despite their name, planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets. The name of planetary nebulae arose in the 18th century because of the visual similarity between some round planetary nebulae and the planets Uranus and Neptune when viewed through small optical telescopes.

Tracy Chapman (born March 30, 1964) is an American singer-songwriter, widely known for her hit singles “Fast Car” (1988) and “Give Me One Reason” (1995).

She was signed to Elektra Records by Bob Krasnow in 1987. The following year she released her debut album, Tracy Chapman, which became a commercial success, boosted by her appearance at the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute concert, and was certified 6× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. The album received six Grammy Award nominations, including one for Album of the Year, three of which she won: Best New Artist, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for her single “Fast Car”, and Best Contemporary Folk Album. In 1989 she released her second album, Crossroads, which earned her an additional Grammy Award nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Her third album, Matters of the Heart, followed in 1992.

Her fourth album, New Beginning, was released in 1995 and became another worldwide success. It was certified 5× platinum by the RIAA and yielded the hit single “Give Me One Reason”, which earned her the Grammy Award for Best Rock Song. Five years would pass before the release of her fifth album, Telling Stories (2000). Let It Rain and Where You Live followed in 2002 and 2005, respectively. Her most recent studio album, Our Bright Future, was released in 2008. The remastered compilation album Greatest Hits, which she curated, was released in 2015.

In 2023, Chapman became the first Black person to score a country number one with a solo composition, and to win the Country Music Association Award for Song of the Year, when Luke Combs covered her song “Fast Car”.