It's a good day. I was going to email you about Liz, but the idea made me dread so much that I decided to do the mysteries of the universe.
Thirty years after its conception, the James Webb space telescope was launched from French Guiana. It passed the moon on December 28th. After five minutes of firing its thrusters, it settled into its final position about 1.5m away. It produced its first image on July 12th, showing us distant galaxies that were 13 billion years old.
Since then, the telescope has been adding to this amazing start. The most detailed images of Jupiter we have ever seen are just a short distance away.
All of these pictures are proof of humanity's ability for discovery and total insignificance at the same time. They have a lot of new discoveries about the universe. Today's newsletter takes you through five stories told by the author. The headlines are here
Companies at the center of the global grain trade have enjoyed a record bonanza, prompting calls for a windfall tax. Concerns of profiteering and speculation in global food markets can put staple foods beyond the reach of the poor.
An attempted public murder of a senior gang member caused a nine-year-old girl to be mistakenly shot dead while being shielded by her mother. There were bouquets and cards left outside the home of the woman who was killed.
Liz Truss wouldn't say if she would appoint an ethics adviser if she became prime minister. Christopher Geidt quit as ethics adviser in June after Boris Johnson admitted that he may have broken the ministerial code.
The student nurse who had been missing for seven weeks has been found. Since she was last seen, there have been concerns about her safety.
There were twice as many deaths related to Covid this summer as there were last summer. The number of Covid deaths has fallen in the last few weeks.
The size of telescopes in deep space has always been limited by the dimensions of a rocket. Nasa and their partners at the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency used a solution that was fraught with risk to get the $10 billion telescope. You can watch a visualization of it assembling to its full size in space.
The engineers had to build it the wrong shape so that it would warp to the right one because they knew it would change shape once it was in the extreme conditions of space. If any tiny thing went wrong, the entire mission would have been scrapped. It was a long time of worry.
The need to burn valuable fuel was one of the major sources of uncertainty after the satellite launch. It was flawless. We will get 20 years of data instead of five. It's amazing.
The potential to learn more about their interaction with the formation of galaxies is exciting for Smethurst. What formed first should be answered by it. She asked if it was the stars or the black holes. It is similar to an astrophysics chicken or egg.
Here are some of the images that the telescope has produced, and what they show about how it works and the universe itself.
It was the first deep field.
Joe Biden revealed the first image of the telescope, showing a cluster of stars. A single grain of rice is held at arm's length on the surface of the Earth. The most powerful telescope until now, Hubble, can only see things in a small patch. You are going to find something in the background if you look at the sky.
Like all of the images produced by Webb, what you can see here is not visible light, but signals in the infrared spectrum captured by the satellite in mono, sent back to Earth as one and zeros, and then reconstructed. The wavelength of the signals tells us how hot the source was. It's easier for scientists to find areas for further study if the images are coloured like this.
The star at the center of this picture is in our own universe. The fuzzy white dots are from the SMACS-0723 cluster, which was 4.5 billion years ago. As far as 13 billion light years away, the cluster in the centre is a kind of magnifying lens for other galaxies. As the arcs streaking across the image show, red objects are caked in Cosmic Dust, a crucial ingredient of star formation, while green ones are full of hydrocarbons.
There is a constellation called the Carina Nebula.
The image of a large cloud of dust and gas studded with stars is similar to the one captured by Hubble. The Carina Nebula is a part of our own universe. It looks like the Lake District to me. The value of this image is in what it shows us about the benefits of looking at things in the dark.
It allows you to pierce through the dust because it scatters light so that you can't see the stars that have formed. We can see through the dust to the three-dimensional structure of the nebula.
Stephan's quintet.
The image was created from more than 150m of data and shows a group of galaxies in the Pegasus constellation and gives scientists the means to see how their interaction causes the formation of stars. It is relevant to my work and is my favorite. One of the four galaxies is interacting with a black hole while the other is not. If you zoom in you can see individual stars, which is amazing since we have barely been able to do that with our closest galaxy, Andromeda, and these are far away.
The galaxy to the left of the formation is closer to the stars than the other ones. A black hole is 24 times the mass of the sun. The source of light is bright. The black hole is lit up in all its glory, thanks to the gas swirling around it.
WasP-96b is aspectrum.
This isn't an image, but it's still exciting to astrophysicists The data shows that this planet is 1,150 light years away.
The gas giant has taken away some of the starlight as it passes through its atmosphere to reveal the unique signature of water.
The results show what the telescope is capable of. The planet is very close to its star. It is easier to see the light passing through the atmosphere when it is in front of the star. It suggests that with the harder ones that are further away and less likely to pass in front of their star, you won't be wasting your time. It is the idea of finding a twin that looks great for life.
You have to sign up for the first edition.
Every weekday morning, Archie and Nimo take you through the top stories.
Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system.
It turns out that the primary purpose of the project is to tell us more about light that came from distant stars billions of years ago, but also to produce stunning images of our own solar system. I thought it would be washed out because it is so bright, but I was surprised by the level of detail here. They used different wavelength to capture different things.
The red haze at the planet's north and south poles are caused by particles from the sun interacting with the planet's magnetic field. The Great Red Spot is white because it reflects so much sunlight. There are areas where the light has pierced further into the atmosphere.
Images like this are important for their beauty and will be valuable for scientists. She said that everyone is interested in the world they live in. I wondered if that was the right word to use. Maybe it is that the telescope expands our sense of where we are in the universe.
Owen Jones argues in a comment piece that Britons do not challenge their government to address the cost of living crisis because they think rioting is in order. Jones is calling for large-scale protests. There is a production editor.
Water company CEOs are responsible for pumping sewage into our rivers. She suggests that their pay should be dependent on swimming in the same water. You would really want to read this article. There is a person named Archie.
Having recently spent six hours in the car with a fleeing toddler, I am grateful for Guardian readers tips on entertaining them. It involves snacks and stickers. It was cruel.
As a young host on The Word in the 90s, de Cadenet fled for America to escape the scrutiny of the tabloids. She talks about how she regained her faith in men with the help of the movie star. There is a person named Archie.
A portrait of a female boxing champion from Venezuela and her fight to turn pro in the face of poverty is the subject of Little Warrior. It was cruel.
It was the third time in four years that Crawley had knocked out a team from the top flight in the Carabao Cup. The English Football League has Kevin Betsy's team at the bottom.
Ellen White became the second Euro 2022 winner to retire in a day. She will end her career with 161 England caps.
The England Test captain has been praised for his courage in dealing with his offpitch issues in a new documentary. He said that he wasn't aware that there was a lot in there.
This morning's Guardian front-page lead is "Fury as grain giants profit from 'unjust' hunger crisis" Most of the papers have something to say about the case of the nine-year-old who was killed in a gangland hit. The Mirror says it's "unbearable" and the Sun says it's "gunned down and left to die". "Just a child: innocent victim of gun wars" and "Youngest victim of gangland killings" are both used by the Express. The Daily Mail carries a picture of innocence to shame Britain. The Times has a story about the Red Arrows and the Telegraph has a story about the EU. The main story in the Financial Times is about shielding families from fuel bill shocks.
The Division: New Orleans.
New Orleans will be changed in 2020. The city elected a black prosecutor who promised to reckon with the past. The civil rights division was set up by him. The case of Kuantay Reeder is taken by the division and the assistant district attorney can view it. There will be evidence to support his claim of innocence.
The world is not all bad.
The last thing you would want to eat is a wind turbine blade. With the next generation of generators set to be made from a material that can be melted down into gummy bears, you may want to snack on them. Researchers in the US have found a way to make a plant-derived and synthetic material that can be recycled into new blades or products. Many of the blades end up in landfill. John Dorgan of Michigan State University said that the beauty of the system was that it could be dissolved at the end of its use cycle so that it could be used over and over again. The circular economy is about that.
You can sign up for a weekly recap of The Upside here.
The Guardian's crosswords can be found on the Guardian's Puzzles app for mobile devices. It will be until tomorrow.
The crossword was quick and to the point.
There is a cryptic crossword.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
