mick laBriola

JWST views the Universe, are able to penetrate dust, which gives us a view into regions impossible to see in shorter wavelengths, such as the visible spectrum.

Scientists have, therefore, been very excited to use the telescope to study star formation and learn new details about the process that have heretofore been difficult to see. The new image focuses on a structure called the Orion Bar, running diagonally from the top left to the bottom right. Light from a cluster of young, hot stars called the Trapezium cluster illuminates the scene from the top right corner; this harsh, ionizing ultraviolet light is slowly eroding the bar away.

This is one of the processes involved in what astronomers call feedback – when wind or radiation from a stellar object pushes material away, reducing or quenching star formation. They also produce complex shapes and structures in a molecular cloud, including filaments and cavities, both of which have been captured in the new image.

Other objects in the image include globules (dense clumps of material with baby stars inside) and a young growing star with a disk of material around it. That disk is being evaporated from the outside by the radiation from the Trapezium stars. Nearly 180 of these objects, called proplyds, have been found in the Orion nebula.

The brightest star you see in the image is called θ2 Orionis A, and it’s one member of a multiple-star system next to the Trapezium Cluster, which is also known as θ1 Orionis. Interestingly, θ2 Orionis A is also, in itself, a triple-star system.

Although it appears very bright in the JWST image, θ2 Orionis A can only be seen by the naked eye from Earth in regions not significantly affected by light pollution. Nevertheless, it’s very hot, over 100,000 times more intrinsically bright than the Sun.

Douglas R. Ewart (born 13 September 1946 in Kingston, Jamaica) is a Jamaican multi-instrumentalist and instrument builder. He plays sopraninoand alto saxophones, clarinets, bassoon, flute, bamboo flutes (shakuhachi, ney, and panpipes), and didgeridoo; as well as Rastafarian hand drums(nyabingi, repeater, and bass).

Ewart emigrated to the United States in June 1963 (coming to Chicago) and became associated with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in 1967, studying with Joseph Jarman and Roscoe Mitchell. He served as that organization’s president from 1979 to 1986.

He has performed or recorded with J. D. Parran, Muhal Richard Abrams, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Anthony Braxton, Alvin Curran, Anthony Davis, Robert Dick, Von Freeman, Joseph Jarman, Amina Claudine Myers, Roscoe Mitchell, James Newton, Rufus Reid, Wadada Leo Smith, Cecil Taylor, Richard Teitelbaum, Henry Threadgill, Hamid Drake, Don Byron, Malachi Favors Maghostut, and George Lewis.

In 1992, Ewart collaborated with Canadian artist Stan Douglas on the video installation Hors-champs which was featured at documenta 9 in Kassel, Germany. The installation features Ewart in an improvisation of Albert Ayler’s “Spirits Rejoice” with musicians George Lewis, Kent Carter and Oliver Johnson.

He has lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota since 1990. His father, Tom, was a cricket umpire.

The dark clouds in this image, taken from ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile, almost resemble something supernatural, like the wispy trails of ghosts in the sky. But there is no need to call the ghostbusters! These clouds, known as Barnard 92 (right) and Barnard 93 (left) are dark nebulae: they look pitch black because the dense gas and dust they contain block out the background light, creating these hazy ghostlike features. These nebulae are stellar nurseries, where new stars are born out of the collapsing dense gas and dust. This whole region of space imaged here is actually part of a much larger stellar complex, called the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud (or Messier 24, catalogued by Charles Messier in 1764). This area is so rich in stars that it is clearly visible to the naked eye during dark nights, in the constellation of Sagittarius. This image was taken with an enormous 268 million pixel camera called OmegaCAM on the VLT Survey Telescope. OmegaCAM is designed for capturing wide fields like this image, where you could impressively fit four full Moons. This image is part of the VST Photometric Hα Survey of the Southern Galactic Plane and Bulge (VPHAS+), which has mapped diffuse nebulae as well as both young and evolved stars in our galaxy.

Neil Ellwood Peart OC (/pɪərt/; September 12, 1952 – January 7, 2020) was a Canadian-American musician, songwriter, and author, best known as the drummer and primary lyricist of the rock band Rush. Peart earned numerous awards for his musical performances, including an induction into the Modern Drummer Readers Poll Hall of Fame in 1983, making him the youngest person ever so honoured. Known to fans by the nickname ‘The Professor’, his drumming was renowned for its technical proficiency and his live performances for their exacting nature and stamina.

Peart was born in Hamilton, Ontario, and grew up in Port Dalhousie (now part of St. Catharines). During adolescence, he floated between regional bands in pursuit of a career as a full-time drummer. After a discouraging stint in England, Peart returned home to concentrate on music where he joined Rush, a Torontoband, in mid-1974, six years after its formation. Together they released nineteen studio albums, with ten exceeding a million copies sold in the United States. Billboard ranks the band third for the “most consecutive gold or platinum albums by a rock band”.

Early in his career, Peart’s performance style was deeply rooted in hard rock. He drew most of his inspiration from drummers such as Keith Moon, Ginger Baker, and John Bonham, players who were at the forefront of the British hard rock scene. As time passed, he began to emulate jazz and big band musicians Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich. In 1994, Peart became a friend and pupil of jazz instructor Freddie Gruber.^[9][10] It was during this time that Peart revamped his playing style by incorporating jazz and swing components.

In addition to serving as Rush’s primary lyricist, Peart published several memoirs about his travels. His lyrics for Rush addressed universal themes and diverse subjects including science fiction, fantasy, and philosophy, as well as secular, humanitarian, and libertarian themes. Peart wrote a total of seven nonfiction books focused on his travels and personal stories. He also coauthored with Kevin J. Anderson three steampunk fantasy novels based on Rush’s final album, Clockwork Angels. The two also wrote a dark fantasy novella, Drumbeats, inspired by Peart’s travels in Africa.

On December 7, 2015, Peart announced his retirement from touring in an interview with Drumhead Magazine. In January 2018, bandmate Alex Lifesonn confirmed that Rush had disbanded also due to Peart’s health issues. During his last years Peart lived in Santa Monica, California, with his wife, Carrie Nuttall, and daughter. After a three and a half year illness, Peart died of glioblastoma on January 7, 2020, at age 67.

What really happened?

WR 134 is a variable Wolf-Rayet star located around 6,000 light years away from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus, surrounded by a faint bubble nebula blown by the intense radiation and fast wind from the star. It is five times the radius of the sun, but due to a temperature over 63,000 K it is 400,000 times as luminous as the Sun.