Lyra

Five years since the Kepler Space Telescope was retired, a team of astronomers believe they’ve found exoplanets captured by some of the veteran observatory’s last light.What Is Planet Nine and Why Can’t We Find It?Kepler launched to space in 2009 with one essential task: find new worlds. In its nearly decade-long tenure in solar orbit, Kepler found over 2,600 exoplanets, including some that lurk in the so-called “Goldilocks Zone” of habitability, suggesting that they may have conditions suitable for fostering life.Kepler…

In 1959, Carlos Lyra’s musical partner and lyricist Ronaldo Bôscoli said that bossa nova is a state of mind. Lyra thought he was talking nonsense. “Today, I’m actually agreeing with him,” he reflects more than six decades later, while vividly narrating a flashback of the genre’s early days in 1950s Rio de Janeiro. “With our guitars and bottles of homemade drinks, we used to go to the beach at sunset and stay singing through the night. The next day, we would do it all over again. It was a joyous, carefree atmosphere.”Lyra,…

If you haven’t read or watched His Dark Materials, it’s hard to explain how weird it is. This is its greatest strength, I believe, but also its biggest weakness, because while each part is intensely creative, when more closely examined in isolation, these parts can be utterly bizarre. Case in point: I just watched…Read more... If you haven’t read or watched His Dark Materials, it’s hard to explain how weird it is. This is its greatest strength, I believe, but also its biggest weakness, because while each part is…

An artist’s rendition of the Kepler-138 system, with the Earth-like water world Kepler-138d in the foreground.Illustration: NASA, ESA, L. Hustak (STScI)Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have observed two exoplanets that may be examples of a long-hypothesized planetary classification: a water world.The planets are known as Kepler-138c and Kepler-138d and are located in a star system 218 light-years away, according to a release from the European Space Agency. The team, led by Caroline Piaulet of the Institute for…

There is a scene in Alison Millar’s film about Lyra McKee, the murdered Northern Irish journalist, where she interviews supporters of a man charged with involvement in the killing. They cluster outside a courthouse shouting insults at police. It is cold and wet. Some men in the crowd shield their faces but two women speak openly to the camera.Like a daughter … Alison Millar and Lyra McKee. Photograph: Courtesy of Alison MillarThe suspect is innocent, they insist. Millar tells them Lyra, who was shot during a riot in Derry…

Here is an admirable documentary about the brilliant life and tragic death of author and journalist Lyra McKee, shot dead in 2019 at the age of 29 by a stray bullet from the New IRA as she covered riots in Derry’s Creggan estate. Apart from being a grotesque homicide, perpetrated by swaggeringly unrepentant and clumsy extremists, the McKee killing represented a culture clash and a generational collision. An inspirational young LGBTQ writer, McKee came from a Republican community in Belfast, had written on depression among…

TESS has been discovering alien worlds outside of our solar system.Illustration: NASAIn the midst of surveying thousands of stars to spot exoplanets, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) entered into safe mode on Monday. It’s not yet clear what happened to the spacecraft, but engineers are trying to resuscitate the planet hunter. What’s Your First Fandom? | New York Comic Con 2022The spacecraft is stable, but early investigations suggests it suffered from a computer glitch, NASA announced on Wednesday. The…

Image: HBOIf you’ve never read Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials book trilogy but have watched the HBO series, you must have been bewildered at how season two ended. Mrs. Coulter (Ruth Wilson) kidnapped her daughter Lyra (Dafne Keen), who might be a second Eve and somewhat dead; literal angels have appeared; and Lyra’s father Asriel (James McAvoy) has been planning to stage a coup against the Authority, aka God. As this first trailer for season three reveals, things are only going to get wilder.His Dark Materials Season…

Earlier this week, we discovered that Winamp, our media player of choice during the heyday of MP3s, is back from the dead and revitalized to run on modern Windows PCs. Whipping the llama’s ass again also got us feeling nostalgic for when our digital music collections first went mobile.Read more... Earlier this week, we discovered that Winamp, our media player of choice during the heyday of MP3s, is back from the dead and revitalized to run on modern Windows PCs. Whipping the llama’s ass again also got us feeling…