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3I/Atlas coming to a planet near you!
https://www.space.com/news/live/interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-closest-to-earth-flyby-week-dec-18-2025 Discovered on July 1 by the NASA-funded ATLAS telescopes in Chile, 3I/ATLAS is only the third confirmed interstellar object known to have passed through our cosmic neighborhood, following 1I/‘Oumuamua in 2017 and comet 2I/Borisov in 2019. Its trajectory shows that it originated from beyond our solar system and will eventually travel back into interstellar space. https://www.space.com/astronomy/comets/interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-makes-its-closest-approach-to-earth-on-dec-19-heres-what-you-need-to-know […]
Geminids, Geminids, Geminids!
It’s been several months since I last posted…too much work and no play! Until this past Sunday. Whew. After a morning lecture about ancient Japanese myths and “deliberately forgotten” kings (maybe), I was grateful to be able to take a quick power nap… …so that the family could go up a nearby mountain and watch […]
Life on Trappist 1e?
In two separate papers published Monday in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, astronomers zeroed in on the TRAPPIST-1 system, which consists of seven rocky planets that orbit a single star. Both studies outlined initial results from observations by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, suggesting that one planet in particular, known as TRAPPIST-1e, may have a nitrogen-rich atmosphere like Earth’s, […]
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© Matthew Apple and Taking Leave, 2009-2020. Duplication of this material without express and written permission is strictly prohibited. If you would like to post or copy brief excerpts from the blog, please provide a link to the original URL along with an author’s credit.
Tag Archives: child-raising
Shika Kenshin – Stage One
The first stage of three A few days ago, I took my daughter to a scheduled dental checkup (shika kenshin), sponsored by our local municipal citizen’s welfare department. Like all the other health check ups (at seven months, a year, … Continue reading
On the Pond
This past Sunday, my wife, daughter, and I joined in an outdoor barbecue at a prefectural park originally built for a Japanese emperor. Sounds impressive, I guess…Taisho Tenno wasn’t a particularly long-lived emperor by modern standards, and was in poor … Continue reading
Grand Auto Envy
Driving in New York again this past summer after a three-year interval was…interesting. I got my driver’s license at the age of 17, and then took my high school’s Driver’s Ed class. To get the reduced auto insurance premiums, of … Continue reading
Taking Leave 