Floodpinging my own server `ping -fi5 example.com ` which prints a dot every 5 seconds when there is no answer. So this command normally prints nothing. Currently each 5 seconds a new dot.
Electricity in Rotterdam (house) is down. Just when you think things are back to a bit normal.
James Webb Space Telescope posted a photo:
Comets and cosmic perspective
Getting the opportunity to study a comet from outside our solar system is like getting to study an artifact from an ancient culture. It gives you direct insight into that distant time and place but also allows for comparison to your own. Webb’s observations of the composition of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is showing how unusual our own solar system might be.
The data on the composition of 3I/ATLAS imply that it might have originated in a very cold stellar system, and from much earlier in the history of our galaxy. In fact, this comet could have formed as long ago as 10-12 billion years, during the universe’s “cosmic noon,” when star formation was at its height. It’s possible the system it originated in was within a relatively cold, dense cloud, and the comet was ejected as it aged and warmed up.
There’s only one planet we know of with life - our own. Getting to study objects that formed in a different system than our own is a rare opportunity for learning how common, or uncommon, the conditions are for the evolution of life elsewhere in the universe.
This image: Measurements of specific element varieties by the NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope show how different the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is from comets originating in our own solar system. Researchers used NIRSpec to measure carbon-13, which contains an extra neutron, relative to the more common carbon-12. They also measured the abundance of heavy hydrogen, which is a hydrogen atom with an added neutron.
Webb’s NIRSpec found surprisingly high ratios of heavy hydrogen and heavy carbon, indicating that 3I/ATLAS came from a place very different from our solar system. Researchers say early analysis of these results indicates that 3I/ATLAS was ejected from its origin system billions of years ago.
Read more: science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-finds-clues-to-...
Image Credit: Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Martin Cordiner (CUA, NASA-GSFC), Leah Hustak (STScI)
Image Description: Infographic showing differences in measured ratios of heavy carbon and heavy hydrogen between solar system comets and interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. Title text reads Comet 3I/ATLAS, Composition Compared With Solar System Comets. Top portion of the infographic has headline Heavy Carbon, plus a horizontal scale in increments of 50 ranging from zero to 250 measuring the ratio of Carbon-12 to Carbon-13. Three solar system comets appear just below 100 on the scale, while 3I/ATLAS appears above 150 for carbon monoxide and about 170 for carbon dioxide.
Bottom portion of infographic has headline Heavy Hydrogen and a horizontal scale ranging from 10 to the negative fifth power on the left to approximately 10 to the negative first power on the right, though 10 to the first is not labeled. This scale is labeled Ratio of Heavy Hydrogen Measured in Water. Eleven solar system comets appear on the graph, all falling to the right of 10 to the negative fourth power. Comet 3I/ATLAS appears at 10 to the negative second power.
James Webb Space Telescope posted a photo:
Comets and cosmic perspective
Getting the opportunity to study a comet from outside our solar system is like getting to study an artifact from an ancient culture. It gives you direct insight into that distant time and place but also allows for comparison to your own. Webb’s observations of the composition of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is showing how unusual our own solar system might be.
The data on the composition of 3I/ATLAS imply that it might have originated in a very cold stellar system, and from much earlier in the history of our galaxy. In fact, this comet could have formed as long ago as 10-12 billion years, during the universe’s “cosmic noon,” when star formation was at its height. It’s possible the system it originated in was within a relatively cold, dense cloud, and the comet was ejected as it aged and warmed up.
There’s only one planet we know of with life - our own. Getting to study objects that formed in a different system than our own is a rare opportunity for learning how common, or uncommon, the conditions are for the evolution of life elsewhere in the universe.
This image: The NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope can map specific chemical and molecular signatures, as seen here in its three images of comet 3I/ATLAS, each highlighting a part of the comet’s contents.
Researchers use NIRSpec’s Integral Field Unit, which provides a spectrum of every image pixel, to dive deeper into the details of cosmic objects than they can with the telescope’s imaging instruments alone. This is crucial for a rare object like 3I/ATLAS, which is only the third comet from outside the solar system ever studied, and the first to be observed by an instrument capable of capturing as much detail as NIRSpec. With NIRSpec’s data, researchers can build a picture of where the comet may have come from and what its home system was like and then compare that to familiar conditions in the solar system.
Read more: science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-finds-clues-to-...
Image Credit: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Martin Cordiner (CUA, NASA-GSFC); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
Image Description: Comparison of three telescope images side by side. They are roughly spherical but pixelated, with more intense color saturation in the center. From left to right: smallest sphere is blue and labeled H2O, orange is larger and labeled CO2, and red is largest and labeled CO. A scale bar at the lower left is labeled 1300 km/1 arcsecond and is about one fourth of each of the three images. A compass at the lower right shows north pointing up to 12 o’clock, east pointing left to 9 o’clock, and a fainter arrow labeled to Sun pointing down to 8 o’clock.
Het Openbaar Ministerie heeft twaalf jaar celstraf geëist tegen drie directieleden van het Zeeuwse overslagbedrijf Bulk Terminal Zeeland voor grootschalige cocaïnesmokkel, witwassen en lidmaatschap van een criminele organisatie. „Dit is ondermijning in zijn zuiverste vorm.”
/s3/static.nrc.nl/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/23094614/230626BIN_2034675152_BTZ.jpg)
Serie ‘The Bear’ is bedolven onder de Emmy’s, de belangrijkste Amerikaanse televisieprijzen. Wilfred Takken kan zich vinden in die lof. Coen van Zwol ziet vooral sluikreclame voor de Amerikaanse prestatiemoraal van zelfoptimalisatie.
/s3/static.nrc.nl/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/29105552/300626CUL_2034771012_thebear.jpg)
Vanwege het beëindigen van het Nationaal Sportakkoord en de afbouw van een veelgebruikte subsidie voor bouw en onderhoud van sportaccommodaties verkeren veel verenigingen in onzekerheid. Deze dinsdag debatteert de Tweede Kamer over het sportbeleid. „Juist nu investeringen het hardst nodig zijn, wordt er bezuinigd.”
/s3/static.nrc.nl/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/29103535/290626SPO_2034667196_atletiek4.jpg)
The expanded 2026 World Cup format prompted fears that the tournament’s quality would be diluted. While the final round of group-stage matches did little to dispel those concerns, the last 32 promises a slate of heavyweight clashes.
Brazil and Japan will face off in a game that could be one of the most compelling of the World Cup. Both teams have demonstrated their quality in the matches they have played so far and have sights set on a deep run at the tournament.
Complete guide to all the players
A visual guide to every stadium
Continue reading...Teresa Ribera blames ‘ideologically driven’ falsehoods, driven by those with vested interests in fossil fuels, for attacks on green policy
The heatwave wreaking chaos across Europe is a “dramatic warning” to reject climate naysayers, a European Commission vice-president says.
Teresa Ribera, executive vice-president for a clean, just and competitive transition, lambasted those who listened to the “vested interests” of the fossil fuel industry rather than scientists and their own citizens.
Continue reading...Novels were starting to seem like a thing of the past for me, until I found a book I couldn’t put down. Is there anything better?
I never decided to stop reading novels; I just fell out of the loop. You need to meet a few basic conditions to disappear into a story: a medium amount of patience, some free time, enough inner peace that a made-up person’s tribulations are more engrossing than your own. You need to stop worrying about the world, stop making to-do lists, stop reading nonfiction about trade wars and regular wars, stop rewatching old episodes of The West Wing with your kid in a bid to explain, over hours of whip-smart dialogue, how the political philosophy of the third way leads really slowly but directly to the coming of the fascist overlords.
Spend enough time in no fit state for fiction and it becomes your thing: someone will ask whether you’ve read The Safekeep, and rather than simply say, “Not yet,” you’ll say, “I don’t really read novels any more because, come on, that person didn’t really walk into a room. That person is imaginary.”
Continue reading...Jury found Trump liable in 2023 for sexually abusing former magazine columnist and defaming her
The US supreme court declined on Monday to hear Donald Trump’s bid to overturn a $5m verdict in favor of E Jean Carroll in a case in which a jury found him liable for sexually abusing the former magazine columnist and then defaming her.
The justices turned away the president’s appeal after a lower court upheld the 2023 jury verdict and rejected Trump’s arguments that the trial was unfair because the judge impermissibly let jurors hear evidence of his alleged past sexual misconduct.
Continue reading...
George Russell found his way back to the top spot with an impressive victory in a thrilling Austrian Grand Prix, but as he sunk some champagne, many of his rivals were itching to escape after wilting in the heat. Lawrence Barretto selects his winners and losers from the Red Bull Ring.
On Friday, I got a bee in my bonnet that this t-shirt should exist and so I made it and now you can buy it. The shirt is simple, straightforward, $25 (+s&h), and ships all over the world.
A promotion. Making a new friend. Or the big cork-popping event; you know the one. Today could be the day!
Maybe it’ll even happen before the shirt reaches your mailbox! We should be so lucky.
Thanks to Dan Cederholm at SimpleBits for his Free Lunch font and to Fourthwall for handling the shopping, printing, and fulfillment.
Oh, and I also zhuzhed up the Goods page, where you can still get the Hypertext, Process, and Choppke’s tees. More fine not-hypertext products to come soon.
Tags: fashion · kottke.org