Tea at Trianon: Astronomers Detect Oxygen in Distant Galaxy

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, March 28, 2025

Astronomers Detect Oxygen in Distant Galaxy

From Fox19:

Astronomers have made a surprising discovery about oxygen and elements in the most distant known galaxy. The galaxy is called Jades GSZ 14 0. It’s more than 13 billion lightyears away, and experts say it formed in the early days of the universe. The galaxy was first detected in January 2024 using the James Webb Space Telescope. The instrument observes the universe in infrared light invisible to the human eye.
When astronomers followed up on Webb’s initial observations with the ALMA Observatory in Chile, they were stunned to find the presence of oxygen and heavy metals. Their presence suggests galaxies formed more quickly than expected. The results were published Thursday in two separate studies, the Astrophysical Journal and Astronomy and Astrophysics. (Read more.)