The Webb Space Telescope Finds Romulan Neutral Zone

I’m sure it’s one of the wide diversity of galaxies at the beginning of the universe. If you see one of these buried in the pictures below, run. Look for a cloaking device also.

Actually, it the telescope took excellent photos from a long time ago.

New data from the Webb Space Telescope and presented this week at an astronomy conference has found that galaxies in the early universe exhibit much of the same range of shapes and morphologies seen in the recent universe, a result that was not expected.

The image to the right comes from the press release. You can read the research paper here [pdf].

The study examined 850 galaxies at redshifts of z three through nine, or as they were roughly 11-13 billion years ago. Associate Professor Jeyhan Kartaltepe from Rochester Institute of Technology’s School of Physics and Astronomy said that JWST’s ability to see faint high redshift galaxies in sharper detail than Hubble allowed the team of researchers to resolve more features and see a wide mix of galaxies, including many with mature features such as disks and spheroidal components.

“There have been previous studies emphasizing that we see a lot of galaxies with disks at high redshift, which is true, but in this study we also see a lot of galaxies with other structures, such as spheroids and irregular shapes, as we do at lower redshifts,” said Kartaltepe, lead author on the paper and CEERS co-investigator. “This means that even at these high redshifts, galaxies were already fairly evolved and had a wide range of structures.”

The results of the study, which have been posted to ArXiv and accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, demonstrate JWST’s advances in depth, resolution, and wavelength coverage compared to Hubble. Out of the 850 galaxies used in the study that were previously identified by Hubble, 488 were reclassified with different morphologies after being shown in more detail with JWST. Kartaltepe said scientists are just beginning to reap the benefits of JWST’s impressive capabilities and are excited by what forthcoming data will reveal.

“This tells us that we don’t yet know when the earliest galaxy structures formed,” said Kartaltepe. “We’re not yet seeing the very first galaxies with disks. We’ll have to examine a lot more galaxies at even higher redshifts to really quantify at what point in time features like disks were able to form.”

In other words, it appears galaxies of all shapes, as we see them today, already existed 11-13 billion years ago, shortly after the universe was born. This defies most theories about the formation of the universe, which predict that these early galaxies would be different than today’s.

The data however at this point is sparse. Webb has only begun this work, and as Kartaltepe notes, they need to look a lot more galaxies.

Courtesy of Behind the Black

Captain Kirk Finally Gets to Go Into Real Space, The Final Frontier – But May Return Alone Or The Only One Alive

This morning, William Shatner will ride aboard Blue Origin at 90 years of age to be the oldest person ever in space. He missed being the first actor in space by a week as the Russians did that to shoot a movie.

Anyone who knows Star Trek fully gets that the red shirts are the ones who get it on away missions.

He isn’t the first Star Trek Alumni to go to space, just the first one that is alive. Some ashes of Scottie and Gene Roddenbery were sent up a few years back.

There is always the Who is the best Star Trek captain or best series. I am in the TOS camp. The rest use the TOS playbook, but with less daring, panache, creativeness and conquest. For Picard, Sisko, Janeway and Archer fans, they wouldn’t be Captains in the running if there wasn’t a Kirk, end of story.

Even in the movies, the best one is always the Wrath of Khan. It has the best villain, ironic ending and mano a mano story.

I have been a huge Trekkie all of my life. I was alive and watched it during it’s actual first run. When Chekov discovered the Botany Bay on Ceti-Alpha 5, I had goose bumps in the Theater.

The only thing that bothers me about this is that the Enterprise NCC-1701 was a cool ship. Blue Origin looks like a flying dick.

Anyway, live long and prosper.

Blue Origin Employees Accuse Jeff Bezos' Company of ...

The Connection Between Golf And Outer Space

I’m not fazed by water. Instead, I use it to my advantage.

I’ll get a brand new ball out to hit over the water and I try to hit first. Once safely over the water hazard I tell the other players not to worry about the water. Inevitably, one of them will hit it in and be pissed at me the rest of the day. I make sure to laugh at them on purpose.

These are the head games of golf. There are many. This one is just a fun one that will put you in the head of the player who hit the water, especially on the next water hole.

Enjoy the next time you do this. Hopefully it is early in the round so you can enjoy the day.

Sayings – Thank You Captain Obvious (Covid-19 related)

“The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.” – Kilgore Trout

 

I didn’t label this as great.  It is however, a break from the anarchy going on right now.

About the only positive I can take from the rioting is that we’re going to see real quickly if social distancing is necessary anymore.  It’s surely not happening in a lot of places at once.

It seems like history is repeating itself.  There were protests in the 60’s at the same time we sent men to the moon.  Space-X just had a successful launch on Saturday.