Category: technology

To mark its third anniversary, the team behind the James Webb Space Telescope has released an image of the Cat’s Paw nebula, and it’s incredible!

Below is a dramatically scaled down version of the image to make things easier on readers who may have slower connections or tend to visit PITB on mobile devices. The original is 30mb and can be found here.

It really is worth viewing at maximum resolution, where you can see details of the stellar nursery and the thick plumes of ionized gases that comprise the radiant, multi-hued structure of the nebula.

The dark red areas are dense concentrations of gases, the clouds from which stars are born. The blue stars are the cosmic newborns, and if you scroll through the image at maximum resolution, you can see those young stars floating in seas of their golden brethren in interstellar expanses stretching thousands of light years. In this image, we’re looking at an area of our galaxy between about 4,000 and 5,500 light years away.

Here’s the small version:

And here are images that better illustrate why it’s called the Cat’s Paw, with a view oriented in the “correct” way to trigger our brains’ pattern recognition processes, the mechanisms that make us think “Oh yeah, that does look like a cat’s paw!”

We’re fortunate there is no cosmic-scale feline floating out there. Just imagine entire star systems batted around for fun, or a section of the galaxy reserved as a litter box.

I know this can seem overwhelming to some people, while others see images like this and think “What’s the big deal? Haven’t we seen things like this before?”

And the truth is no, we haven’t. That’s the beauty of the James Webb Space Telescope. We’re not only seeing galaxies and structures previously undiscovered, we’re also seeing familiar cosmic locations in detail and resolution that was previously impossible.

In a very real way, we’ve upgraded from standard definition Cosmic TV to the HD version.

The scope is in orbit, at a gravitationally stable position known as Lagrange point 2. In plain English, it’s a special place a million miles from Earth where the gravitational dance between our planet and our sun effectively cancel each other out.

Or, as NASA puts it, Lagrange points are “positions in space where objects sent there tend to stay put.”

It took decades of planning and the engineering talents of thousands of humanity’s best to create the JWST, which is also a spacecraft. The scope was built to travel to L2 without anyone aboard, then unfold itself in a delicate ballet of almost innumerable moving parts. The JWST’s ability to transform, like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, is an engineering marvel in and of itself, and that’s before it began providing us with a better view of the cosmos than we’ve ever had in the history of our species.

Cheers to the scientists and engineers at NASA, who have repeatedly demonstrated they’re cat-loving people!

Header image credit: Texas Tech University Department of Physics and Astronomy

The fury of the Budster

Casa de Buddy has a new vacuum, desperately needed during this hot summer as Bud has been shedding more fur than usual.

I could have made another cat from all the hair the new vac picked up from the area rugs, couches and pillows, but Buddy wasn’t happy.

As PITB readers know, vacuums are high on the list of things Buddy despises. He’ll start hissing the moment he sees one, even if it’s not plugged in. He thinks they are angry nemesis machines created to infiltrate his territory and torment him.

Usually I try to lure the little dude into another room with treats and lock him in for a few minutes while I vacuum, but he was nowhere to be found, so I thought he’d spotted the vac and retreated voluntarily.

Tragically, I was mistaken.

Shortly after I began vacuuming my bedroom, I heard a low growl, then Buddy leaped from his hiding spot under my desk and shrieked his high-pitched, baby-like battle cry as he launched himself at the evil vacuum!

It was comical. His little face was twisted into a mask of rage, his ears were pinned back, and he slapped the hell out of the vac: SLAP SLAP SLAP SLAPPP!!! with his little paws.

Here’s a reimagining of the ghastly incident, since it would be cruel to repeat it just to get photos. It’s Buddy — or the “model” of Buddy I’ve built using dozens of photos — exacting his wrath on the evil machines that disturb his peace:

I turned the vacuum off and tried to calm him down by reassuring him in a soft voice that he was safe. Nothing to be worried about, pal!

But I couldn’t stop laughing, which didn’t help the situation. Little man does not like to be mocked, and I’m convinced he fully understands when I’m laughing at instead of with him.

Ah, well. Next time there will be no assumptions and I’ll get him safely out of harm’s way before using the evil contraption.