I Know This Is Like,, A Bellarke Thing But Can I Also Just Put Klance Out Here Real Quick

Character: is a white man. That’s it.

Fandom: how dare you dislike this femme-coded female-coded gay-coded disabled-coded mentally ill-coded icon

Five times the two kings sought an alliance through marriage and the one time they didn’t… but got it anyway! (aka a prince!merlin au nobody asked for but got it anyway) Part 1 | Part 2

If Hayley Kiyoko is Lesbian Jesus can I be one of her Apostles?

Concussions are part of the Mandalorian code. 🚑✨

The Opportunity to Rove on Mars! 🔴

Today, we’re expressing gratitude for the opportunity to rove on Mars (#ThanksOppy) as we mark the completion of a successful mission that exceeded our expectations.  

Our Opportunity Rover’s last communication with Earth was received on June 10, 2018, as a planet-wide dust storm blanketed the solar-powered rover’s location on the western rim of Perseverance Valley, eventually blocking out so much sunlight that the rover could no longer charge its batteries. Although the skies over Perseverance cleared, the rover did not respond to a final communication attempt on Feb. 12, 2019.

As the rover’s mission comes to an end, here are a few things to know about its opportunity to explore the Red Planet.

90 days turned into 15 years!

Opportunity launched on July 7, 2003 and landed on Mars on Jan. 24, 2004 for a planned mission of 90 Martian days, which is equivalent to 92.4 Earth days. While we did not expect the golf-cart-sized rover to survive through a Martian winter, Opportunity defied all odds as a 90-day mission turned into 15 years!

The Opportunity caught its own silhouette in this late-afternoon image taken in March 2014 by the rover’s rear hazard avoidance camera. This camera is mounted low on the rover and has a wide-angle lens.

Opportunity Set  Out-Of-This-World Records

Opportunity’s achievements, including confirmation water once flowed on Mars. Opportunity was, by far, the longest-lasting lander on Mars. Besides endurance, the six-wheeled rover set a roaming record of 28 miles.

This chart illustrates comparisons among the distances driven by various wheeled vehicles on the surface of Earth’s moon and Mars. Opportunity holds the off-Earth roving distance record after accruing 28.06 miles (45.16 kilometers) of driving on Mars.

It’s Just Like Having a Geologist on Mars

Opportunity was created to be the mechanical equivalent of a geologist walking from place to place on the Red Planet. Its mast-mounted cameras are 5 feet high and provided 360-degree two-eyed, human-like views of the terrain. The robotic arm moved like a human arm with an elbow and wrist, and can place instruments directly up against rock and soil targets of interest. The mechanical “hand” of the arm holds a microscopic camera that served the same purpose as a geologist’s handheld magnifying lens.

There’s Lots to See on Mars

After an airbag-protected landing craft settled onto the Red Planet’s surface and opened, Opportunity rolled out to take panoramic images. These images gave scientists the information they need to select promising geological targets that tell part of the story of water in Mars’ past. Since landing in 2004, Opportunity has captured more than 200,000 images. Take a look in this photo gallery.

From its perch high on a ridge, the Opportunity rover recorded this image on March 31, 2016 of a Martian dust devil twisting through the valley below. The view looks back at the rover’s tracks leading up the north-facing slope of “Knudsen Ridge,” which forms part of the southern edge of “Marathon Valley

There Was Once Water on Mars?!

Among the mission’s scientific goals was to search for and characterize a wide range of rocks and soils for clues to past water activity on Mars. In its time on the Red Planet, Opportunity discovered small spheres of the mineral hematite, which typically forms in water. In addition to these spheres that a scientist nicknamed “blueberries,” the rover also found signs of liquid water flowing across the surface in the past: brightly colored veins of the mineral gypsum in rocks, for instance, which indicated water flowing through underground fractures.

The small spheres on the Martian surface in this close-up image are near Fram Crater, visited by the Opportunity rover in April 2004.

For more about Opportunity’s adventures and discoveries, see: https://go.nasa.gov/ThanksOppy.

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

When They See Us Rant

I don’t think I’ve cried this much in a long time.

PLEASE WATCH When They See Us on Netflix.

‘When They See Us’ is a horrifying story of racism and the treatment of black people in this country, told beautifully through film. The story is a true story about five young boys; Kevin Richardson, Antron Mccray, Raymond Santana Jr., Korey Wise and Yusef Salaam. These young black and brown boys were no older than 16 when they were wrongfully convicted and accused of the rape and attempted murder of Trisha Meili, a 28-year-old, white woman. Kevin Richardson, the youngest of the five, was only FOURTEEN when he was beaten, detained, and illegally coerced by the NYPD in 1989.

The case was known as the Central Park Jogger Case and the five men the Central Park Five. The only thing these boys were guilty of was being black and brown in Central Park that night.

Kevin Richardson, Antron Mccray, Raymond Santana Jr., Korey Wise and Yusef Salaam, spent the end of their childhood incarcerated.

This past year I’ve seen other shows telling true stories, like The Bundy Tapes, receive raving reviews and advertising. I have not seen a thing about When They See Us. Now this would surprise me, if it weren’t for the constant systematic oppression of people of color in this country.

This series is not getting the attention it deserves, cause, quite frankly, too many white people get uncomfortable and turn off anything that makes them feel bad for being white. The problem is not that you’re white, it’s that you’re not using the privilege that comes with the color of your skin, to stand up for or at least learn about the experiences of other people.

So, to all the white kids following me; LEARN, learn the things you’re not being taught because media won’t show them and history won’t teach them.

Learn about the injustices that are coming in every direction at our siblings of color. Learn the history of oppression in this country, and systematic racism that has been built over centuries by other white people.

Use your privilege to do something for people who can’t do anything without getting a bullet in the chest or a life-sentence on their head.

Know your privilege and use it.

I was today years old. That is disgusting.

No Child Left Behind is one of the worst things to ever be incentivized in schools. It was signed into law when I was 14. Reading Rainbow was my show as a kid. LeVar Burton played a big part in why I became an avid reader to date. The joy of it. It's an adventure around the globe and through different time periods without stepping on a plane or time machine.

Children parrot behavior. In grade school, I always wanted to read the same amount of books as my teachers (50 books) and managed to double that each year. Before No Child Left Behind, book fairs and Scholastic catalogs were a serious matter like your grandma's Fingerhut catalogs. Libraries were (and still are) a wonderland.

Reading comprehension and proficiency in schools has been declining for decades. A crisis. The joy of books isn't pushed anymore and I'm always saddened by it. It's one of the reasons why I post my book reviews and recommendations on here, as well as posts from others to encourage reading and (novel) writing. Kids will parrot your behavior while the education system sadly fails to return as that example.

I made a meme.

Suzanne collins wrote a trilogy where a main media propaganda strategy was to market a horrific act of violence as a love story to distract ppl and then it got adapted into a box office breaking movie and ppl made it all about the love triangle. so then since they didn’t get the point the first time Suzanne collins wrote a prequel story about the main dictator and she makes it so that you as a reader want it to be a genuine love story so badly even tho it’s so very clearly not and instead feels extremely unsettling to make her point even more meta which then gets adapted into another box office breaking film and now ppl are making romantic snowbaird tik toks. do u think she’s gonna write another book that’s somehow even more blatant or just give up and start executing ppl? hard to say but I wouldn’t blame her for the second one