Seeding elements into the interstellar bio-medium

Hubble’s View of Planetary Nebula Reveals Complex Structure

NGC 6891 is a bright, asymmetrical planetary nebula in the constellation Delphinus, the Dolphin. This Hubble image reveals a wealth of structure, including a spherical outer halo that is expanding faster than the inner nebula, and at least two ellipsoidal shells that are orientated differently. The image also reveals filaments and knots in the nebula’s interior, surrounding the central white dwarf star. From their motions, astronomers estimate that one of the shells is 4,800 years old while the outer halo is some 28,000 years old, indicating a series of outbursts from the dying star at different times. 

Hubble studied NGC 6891 as part of efforts to gauge the distances to nebulae, and to learn more about how their structures formed and evolved. NGC 6891 is made up of gas that’s been ionized by the central white dwarf star, which stripped electrons from the nebula’s hydrogen atoms. As the energized electrons revert from their higher-energy state to a lower-energy state by recombining with the hydrogen nuclei, they emit energy in the form of light, causing the nebula’s gas to glow.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Hajian (University of Waterloo), H. Bond (Pennsylvania State University), and B. Balick (University of Washington); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
301-286-1940

Last Updated: Nov 29, 2021

Editor: Andrea Gianopoulos

Tags:  Goddard Space Flight Center, Hubble Space Telescope, Image of the Day, Nebulae, Universe

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Happy Judeo-plutocratic Thanksgiving

Brandon is spending Thanksgiving at the private equity billionaire David Rubenstein's Nantucket mansion

President Biden is spending his Thanksgiving holiday at a private equity billionaire’s Nantucket home, prompting Republicans to slams him as out of touch as inflation soars.

The Bidens touched down on the Massachusetts island Tuesday night and will spend Thanksgiving at the compound of David Rubenstein, a Carlyle Group co-founder.

Spending Thanksgiving in Nantucket is a tradition of the Biden family dating back decades, but it was put on hold last year due to the pandemic. The White House told reporters earlier Tuesday that the Bidens have previously stayed at Rubenstein's home.

Meanwhile, inflation has hit a three-decade high and the average cost of this year's classic Thanksgiving feast has jumped more than 14% from last year's average, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation's annual Thanksgiving dinner cost survey. That's in large part because the cost of a turkey is up nearly 24% from last year. The cost of chicken breasts, meanwhile, has jumped 26% over the past year, according to Labor Department data. 

The industry has largely blamed the price spike on supply chain disruptions and high demand for food, particularly meat

"Not to minimize that – any increase in prices is something the president is concerned about," she said.

Biden’s trip has sparked criticism on both sides of the political aisle, but conservatives have been the most vocal. The Republican National Committee (RNC) published a blog post slamming the president as an out-of-touch "limousine liberal" who "would make Marie Antoinette proud."

"As Biden spends Thanksgiving in ritzy Nantucket, food pantries around the country are struggling to serve those most in need because of his rising prices and supply chain crisis," RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel tweeted.

"Dear President Biden, While you are in Nantucket, enjoying your meals at a billionaire's compound, here are the prices that Americans are paying for their Thanksgiving dinner—the most expensive one in history," House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., tweeted.

"As @POTUS hurries off to his Nantucket vacation, he’s leaving American families to struggle with skyrocketing prices and a brutal energy crisis — resulting in the most expensive Thanksgiving in the history of the holiday. A total disaster," Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., tweeted.

"Joe Biden is enjoying his Thanksgiving at a billionaire’s home in Nantucket," tweeted Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee. "Regular America? Enjoy the expensive gas and groceries!"

"Gas prices are skyrocketing," tweeted Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo. "Thanksgiving dinner will cost more this year. But don’t worry, Joe Biden is heading to Nantucket for vacation today!"

Even journalists took issue with the optics of the Bidens’ visit. Some critics have pointed out that Republican Virginia Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin, who handed an embarrassing defeat to Democrat Terry McAuliffe earlier this month, used to be co-chief executive of the Carlyle group and stepped down last year before announcing his candidacy.

It's a good thing "we" won World War II.

Moscow tells 13 mostly ZOG - U.S. tech firms they must set up in Russia by 2022

MOSCOW (Reuters) Russia has demanded that 13 foreign and mostly U.S. technology companies be officially represented on Russian soil by the end of 2021 or face possible restrictions or outright bans.

The demand, from state communications regulator Roskomnadzor late on Monday, gave few details of what exactly the companies were required to do and targeted some firms that already have Russian offices.

Foreign social media giants with more than 500,000 daily users have been obliged to open offices in Russia since a new law took effect on July 1. The list published on Monday names the companies for the first time.

It lists Alphabet's Google, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and messaging app Telegram, all of which Russia has fined this year for failing to delete content it deems illegal.

Apple, which Russia has targeted for alleged abuse of its dominant position in the mobile applications market, was also on the list.

None of those companies responded to requests for comment.

Roskomnadzor said firms that violate the legislation could face advertising, data collection and money transfer restrictions, or outright bans.

KREMLIN CONTROL

Russia has taken steps this year to support and promote its domestic tech sector over Silicon Valley alternatives, proposing taxes on foreign-owned digital services, tax cuts for domestic IT firms and requiring smartphones, computers and other devices bought in Russia to offer users Russian software on start-up.

The campaign also has a political dimension that critics characterise as an attempt by the Russian authorities to exert tighter control over the internet, something they say threatens to stifle individual and corporate freedom.

Those efforts include repeated fines for banned content and demands that Russian user data be stored on servers in Russia.

Authorities have also objected in the past to political opponents of the Kremlin using foreign social media platforms to organise what they say are illegal protests and to publicise politically tinged investigations into alleged corruption.

LACK OF CLARITY

But exactly what kind of representation the companies need to have in Russia is unclear, said Karen Kazaryan, head of analysis firm Internet Research Institute.

"There is no explanation in the law, no clarification as to what the legal form of the organisation's representation should be," Kazaryan told Reuters on Tuesday.

Roskomnadzor, when asked for more clarity, referred Reuters to its statement.

In addition to having representation in Russia, firms must open an account on the regulator's website and have a feedback form for interacting with Russian users, Roskomnadzor said.

"Foreign entities are required to limit access to information that violates Russian legislation," said Roskomnadzor, without providing further details.

Abp. Viganò calls for Anti-Globalist Alliance to stop global enslavement of humanity

Polish nationalists skewered and burned a historical book that said Jews could legally live in Poland

• Video shows a Polish nationalist skewering a book that symbolizes the protection of Jews' rights in Poland. 
• The Polish nationalist, Wojciech Olszański, then drenched it in oil and set it on fire.
• As he burned the book, the crowd shouted, "Death to Jews," according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

A video shared to social media shows Polish nationalists at a rally burning a book that symbolizes the right to live in Poland for Jews.

The video shows a rally in Kalisz on Thursday, where far-right activist Wojciech Olszański holds up a red book and skewers it through a stick held by another participant. Olszański then drenches the book in what appears to be oil and sets it on fire.

"Death to Jews," the crowd shouted, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a news wire service used internationally by Jewish outlets. 

The book immortalizes a 1264 document guaranteeing Jews protection and the right to live in Poland. The statute was signed by Prince Bolesław the Pious and established a formal legal standing between Jews and non-Jews. 

"The Statute tackled the issues of authority over the Jewish population and defined rules under which Jews were allowed to engage in lending and trade, as well as norms related to their relations with Christians," explained an exhibition page from the Museum of the History of Polish Jews. "The Statute provided for penalties for desecration of a Jewish cemetery or a synagogue. It also contained provisions concerning blood libel directed against Jews."

The rally was one of many events scheduled by Polish nationalists to commemorate National Independence Day in the country, the anniversary of Poland's sovereignty, JTA reported.

The book-burning event shocked observers. Rafal Pankowski, one of the leaders of a prominent anti-racism group in Poland, told JTA that it reminded him of book burning during Nazi Germany, during which university students burned nearly 25,000 "un-German" books.

"Having monitored antisemitism for more than 25 years, I have never seen anything like that," Pankowski told JTA.

Laws of Logic Lead to New Parameters on the Big Bang

Physicists are translating commonsense principles into strict mathematical 

constraints on how our universe must have behaved at the beginning of time.

“The closer we get to the real world, the fewer tools we have and the less we understand the rules of the game,” said Daniel Baumann, a cosmologist at the University of Amsterdam.

But some Escher advances may finally be starting to bleed through. The universe’s first moments have always been a mysterious era when the quantum nature of gravity would have been on full display. Now multiple groups are converging on a novel way to indirectly evaluate descriptions of that flash of creation. The key is a new notion of a cherished law of reality known as unitarity, the expectation that all probabilities must add up to 100%. By determining what fingerprints a unitary birth of the universe should have left behind, researchers are developing powerful tools to check which theories clear this lowest of bars in our shifty and expanding space-time.

Unitarity in de Sitter space “was not understood at all,” said Massimo Taronna, a theoretical physicist at the National Institute for Nuclear Physics in Italy. “There is a huge jump that has happened in the last couple of years.”

Spoiler Alert

The unfathomable ocean that theorists aim to plumb is a brief but dramatic stretch of space and time that many cosmologists believe set the stage for all we see today. During this hypothetical era, known as inflation, the infant universe would have ballooned at a truly incomprehensible rate, inflated by an unknown entity akin to dark energy.

Cosmologists are dying to know exactly how inflation might have happened and what exotic fields might have driven it, but this era of cosmic history remains hidden. Astronomers can see only the output of inflation — the arrangement of matter hundreds of thousands of years after the Big Bang Seed, as revealed by the cosmos’s earliest light. Their challenge is that countless inflationary theories match the final observable state. 

Patterns in the ever-expanding arrangement of galaxies might reveal secrets of the universe’s first moments.

Yet the task may not be impossible. Just as currents in the Escher-like ocean can be deciphered from their shadows on its boundary, perhaps theorists can read the inflationary story from its final cosmic scene. In recent years, Baumann and other physicists have sought to do just that with a strategy called bootstrapping.

Cosmic bootstrappers strive to winnow the crowded field of inflationary theories with little more than logic. The general idea is to disqualify theories that fly in the face of common sense — as translated into stringent mathematical requirements. In this way, they “hoist themselves up by their bootstraps,” using math to evaluate theories that can’t be distinguished using current astronomical observations.

One such commonsense property is unitarity, an elevated name for the obvious fact that the sum of the odds of all possible events must be 1. Put simply, flipping a coin must produce a heads or a tails. Bootstrappers can tell at a glance whether a theory in the Escher-like “anti-de Sitter” space is unitary by looking at its shadow on the boundary, but inflationary theories have long resisted such simple treatment, because the expanding universe has no obvious edge.

Physicists can check a theory for unitarity by laboriously calculating its predictions from moment to moment and verifying that the odds always add up to 1, the equivalent of watching a whole movie with an eye for plot holes. What they really want is a way to glance at the end of an inflationary theory — the film’s final frame — and instantly know whether unitarity has been violated during any previous scene.

But the concept of unitarity is linked closely to the passage of time, and they’ve struggled to understand what shape the fingerprints of unitarity would take in this final frame, which is a static, timeless snapshot. “For many years the confusion was, ‘How the hell can I get information about time evolution … in an object where time doesn’t exist at all?’” asked Enrico Pajer, a theoretical cosmologist at the University of Cambridge.

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Entire article available here.