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Friday, July 15, 2022

On Monday, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and US President Joe Biden presented the first image (see left) obtained by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), an instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope.

The image, named Webb’s First Deep Field, shows thousands of galaxies in the SMACS 0723 galaxy cluster, about 4.6 billion light-years away from Earth. However, the area shown by the image is only a small portion of the Southern Hemisphere sky. The blended image (at left) resulted from the stitching together of numerous smaller images obtained at multiple wavelengths with far greater depth than achieved by the Hubble Space Telescope, the predecessor to James Webb.

The telescope entered its current orbit around the L₂ Lagrange point from January 24, about 1,500,000 kilometers (932,057 mi) from Earth, on the opposite side of Earth from the Sun. This followed a month-long journey that began in late December 2021, following years of delays and several cost overruns. For its expected five- to ten-year service life, it is intended to study the most distant, and therefore the earliest galaxies formed after the Big Bang.

During its journey, dubbed “30 days of terror” by Sky & Telescope, the telescope successfully unfurled its 21 feet (6 m) wide mirror, deployed its sunshield and cooled down to below 50 degrees Kelvin as it traveled to the L₂ Lagrange point.

L₂ is a secure location for spacecraft where the gravitational pull of the Sun and the Earth is balanced. Full scientific operations will involve thirteen teams of scientists. The primary mission is to find the most distant and earliest galaxies formed after the Big Bang to help study the origins of the Universe. The nominal mission time is five years, with a goal of ten. The location of its orbit is very different to the Hubble Space Telescope, which orbits much closer to Earth. James Webb’s instruments face away from the Sun, giving a greater clarity to the images it will obtain compared to Hubble.

An Ariane 5 launch vehicle carried the telescope to space on December 25 from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana, after arriving at the launch site in October. The launch date was delayed by a week due to unfavorable weather.

The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) began project development in 1996, planning for a launch in 2007 at a cost of USD550 million. After NASA contracted Northrop Grumman to build the telescope, mission managers estimated a 2010 launch would cost between one and 3.5 billion USD. Redesigns to reduce technical requirements pushed launch plans to 2013 for an estimated cost of USD4.5 billion. The US Congress ordered a project review in 2010 which delayed the launch again to 2015.

Due to an estimated cost of USD6.5 billion, the United States House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies proposed canceling the telescope altogether in 2011. After a plan was made for a 2018 launch at a cost of USD8.8 billion, technical errors found in the telescope and the subsequent COVID-19 pandemic pushed the launch date to 2021.

Monday, January 8, 2007

A family has a video of what they claim to be “Tigger” punching their son. Visiting the Disney-MGM Studios on Saturday, Jerry Monaco Jr. of New Hampshire alleges that Tigger purposely punched him without provocation. The footage was caught on the family’s video camera, and the Monacos and their attorney are demanding an apology from the actor.

The costumed character actor at the time was employee Michael J. Fedelem.

The contact between the actor’s mitted hand and the teen’s face is brief. The video shows the following sequence of events:

• Monaco Jr.’s left arm is moving behind Tigger, while Tigger’s right arm is on Monaco Jr’s shoulders.
• Tigger abruptly moves his right arm down and around, sweeping Monaco Jr.’s left arm off of his back, pinning Monaco Jr.’s arm to his body.
• Tigger then starts rotating clockwise, wherein Tigger’s left arm moves across his body. It appears that Tigger briefly pulls down on his chin, in what looks like a move to possibly prevent the head from flying off.
• Monaco Jr. stumbles, in combination with his arm being pinned and Tigger’s rotation.
• Tigger’s left hand appears to hit Monaco Jr.’s head or face.
• Monaco Jr. appears to hit Tigger in the head area with his free right hand.

The footage is very brief. It shows little before or after the punch, a total of only four seconds.

Jean Erik Redrupp, General Manager of Park Operations, stated to Local 6 that “I just wanted to follow up with you and let you know that we have spoken to the cast member in question and have reacted very strongly toward him.”

Monaco Sr. told the station that “The general manager apologized to me. Everybody will come up and apologize to me but Tigger. He won’t be a man about it and get out of the costume and come out and apologize to my son. I didn’t want VIP treatment. I didn’t want an extra day at Disney. I didn’t want any of that. I wanted him to apologize and that is the one thing that they won’t do.” In the statement, he did not clarify whom “everybody” was.

Both Disney and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office launched investigations on Saturday. Fedelem has been suspended by the company until the investigation is complete. Disney commented in a statement to CBS News that: “We received the complaint alleging that a character struck a guest; guest and character altercation is not tolerated. The Orange County sheriff is launching an investigation and we are conducting our own investigation and we have suspended the cast member pending the outcome.”

Monaco Sr. took his son to the hospital the night after the altercation. Monaco Jr. claimed that he had neck pains. “I’m a little sore and most of the pain is gone because I have medicine,” he told the CBS Early Show today.

In footage, Monaco has no visible bruising.

The videotape was in regular rotation on news stations on Sunday and Monday. As of 4:00 pm ET 8 January 2007, Google News listed over five hundred news outlets filing stories on the incident.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Cars drove home the big prize last night, from the 34th Annual Annie Awards. The animation industry’s highest honor, ASIFA-Hollywood’s Annies recognise contributions to animation, writing, directing, storyboarding, voice acting, composing, and much more.

As mentioned, Pixar took home the big prize last night, after facing stiff competition from four other Happy Feet, Monster House, Open Season, and Over the Hedge.

But the biggest winner of the night didn’t get a “Best Animated Feature” nod at all. Flushed Away won five feature animation categories including Animated Effects (Scott Cegielski), Character Animation (Gabe Hordos), Production Design (Pierre-Olivier Vincent), Voice Acting (Sir Ian McKellan as Toad), Writing (Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Chris Lloyd, Joe Keenan, and Will Davies).

Over The Hedge won awards for Directing (Tim Johnson and Karey Kirkpatrick), Storyboarding (Gary Graham), and Character Design (Nicolas Marlet).

Of little surprise, Randy Newman won an Annie for Cars in the “Music in an Animated Feature Production” category. Newman has won many Oscars for his movie music, and has a nomination this year for the song “Our Town”. Newman didn’t attend the Annies, instead picking up a Grammy for “Best Song Written For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media”.

DisneyToon Studios’ Bambi II won “Best Home Entertainment Production”, while “Best Animated Short Subject” went to Blue Sky Studios’ No Time For Nuts, which is based on Ice Age.

“Best Animated Video Game” went to Flushed Away The Game, while a United Airlines ad named “Dragon” won a “Best Animated Television Commercial” Annie for DUCK Studios.