The JWST calls for some serious rethinking.
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One set of enigmatic objects stood out in the myriad presentations. Some astronomers called them “hidden little monsters.” To others, they were “little red dots.” But whatever their name, the data was clear: When JWST stares at young galaxies — which appear as mere red specks in the darkness — it sees a surprising number with cyclones churning in their centers.
“There seems to be an abundant population of sources we didn’t know about,” said Eilers, an astronomer at MIT, “which we didn’t anticipate finding at all.”
In recent months, a torrent of observations of the cosmic smudges has delighted and confounded astronomers.
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on a friendship
A new(!) piece by John McPhee on his longtime friendship with Bill Bradley.
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When I was preparing this piece, Bill’s daughter surprised me with a letter I had written to Bill fifty-eight years ago—a few days before he graduated from Princeton:
We’ve spent so much time talking together that I’m going to miss it quite a bit. . . . There was always some sort of purpose, something to be accomplished . . . but the thing I learned that impressed me most was that, although your discipline is justly celebrated, you know how to waste time every bit as much as I do, which means that you’re a champion at it. For every hour in which something got done, two went out the window. The best two went out the window.
At Drake’s Corner Road, you will be missed by Laura, Sarah, and Jenny. . . . Martha will have to live down the disappointment of not having been old enough when you were here. Even the older children have no standards by which to judge you except what you’re like when you’re dealing with them, and all of them start acting as if Ringling Brothers is in town whenever you come up the driveway.
. . . I hope that you will be coming up the driveway for years and years. Come to think of it, that is what we’re all going to miss most: the explosive sound of the tires biting into the red gravel; the after-burner cutting in when you reached the big poplar; and, as the car came into view, the impressionistic blur against the green of the trees; then, finally, the relieving sight of the arresting parachute opening out to the rear.
When Yolanda Whitman and I were married, fifty-plus years ago now, the mayor of Princeton officiated on the Princeton campus. We were five in all, and the two others—the witnesses—were my mother and Bill. He is the younger brother I never had, and I am the brother he never had. “Bro” is how he has signed his e-mails to me since soon after e-mail was introduced
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17:21 in General Commentary, just cool | Permalink | Comments (0)