Contemporary politics,local and international current affairs, science, music and extracts from the Queensland Newspaper "THE WORKER" documenting the proud history of the Labour Movement.
MAHATMA GANDHI ~ Truth never damages a cause that is just.
The
Horsehead Nebula, imaged by the NIRCam instrument on NASA’s Webb
Telescope, features a portion of the horse’s “mane” about 0.8
light-years wide. The blue clouds at the bottom of the image are
dominated by cold, molecular hydrogen. Red wisps above the nebula
represent mainly atomic hydrogen gas.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, K. Misselt (University of Arizona) and A. Abergel (IAS/University Paris-Saclay, CNRS)
The mid-infrared instrument (MIRI), managed through launch by
NASA-JPL, helped reveal for the first time the small-scale structures of
the nebula’s edge.
NASA’s
James Webb Space Telescope has captured the sharpest infrared images to
date of a zoomed-in portion of one of the most distinctive objects in
our skies, the Horsehead Nebula. These observations show the top of the
“horse’s mane,” or edge of this iconic nebula, in a whole new light,
capturing the region’s complexity with unprecedented spatial resolution.
The
“mane” of the Horsehead Nebula is shown here imaged by Webb’s MIRI
instrument. The mid-infrared light captured by MIRI reveals substances
like dusty silicates and soot-like molecules called polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, K. Misselt (University of Arizona) and A. Abergel (IAS/University Paris-Saclay, CNRS)
Webb’s
new images show part of the sky in the constellation Orion (“The
Hunter”), in the western side of a dense region known as the Orion B molecular cloud. Rising from turbulent waves of dust and gas is the Horsehead Nebula, otherwise known as Barnard 33, which resides roughly 1,300 light-years away.
The
nebula formed from a collapsing interstellar cloud of material and
glows because it is illuminated by a nearby hot star. The gas clouds
surrounding the Horsehead have already dissipated, but the jutting
pillar is made of thick clumps of material and therefore is harder to
erode. Astronomers estimate that the Horsehead has about 5 million years
left before it, too, disintegrates. Webb’s new view focuses on the
illuminated edge of the top of the nebula’s distinctive dust and gas
structure.
The Horsehead Nebula is a
well-known photodissociation region, or PDR. In such a region,
ultraviolet (UV) light from young, massive stars creates a mostly
neutral, warm area of gas and dust between the fully ionized gas
surrounding the massive stars and the clouds in which they are born.
This UV radiation strongly influences the chemistry of these regions and
acts as a significant source of heat.
These
regions occur where interstellar gas is dense enough to remain mostly
neutral, but not dense enough to prevent the penetration of UV light
from massive stars. The light emitted from such PDRs provides a unique
tool to study the physical and chemical processes that drive the
evolution of interstellar matter in our galaxy, and throughout the
universe from the early era of vigorous star formation to the present
day.
Due to its proximity and its nearly
edge-on geometry, the Horsehead Nebula is an ideal target for
astronomers to study the physical structures of PDRs and the molecular
evolution of the gas and dust within their respective environments, and
the transition regions between them. It is considered one of the best
regions in the sky to study how radiation interacts with interstellar
matter.
The
“mane” of the Horsehead Nebula is shown here imaged by Webb’s MIRI
instrument. The mid-infrared light captured by MIRI reveals substances
like dusty silicates and soot-like molecules called polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons.
Credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid
Consortium/NASA, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre (CEA
Paris-Saclay), G. Anselmi, NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team
(AURA/STScI), ESA/Webb, CSA, K. Misselt (University of Arizona), M.
Zamani (ESA/Webb)
Thanks to Webb’s MIRI and NIRCam
instruments, an international team of astronomers has revealed for the
first time the small-scale structures of the illuminated edge of the
Horsehead. As UV light evaporates the dust cloud, dust particles are
swept out away from the cloud, carried with the heated gas. Webb has
detected a network of thin features tracing this movement. The
observations have also allowed astronomers to investigate how the dust
blocks and emits light, and to better understand the multidimensional
shape of the nebula.
Next, astronomers intend to study the spectroscopic data
that has been obtained to gain insights into the evolution of the
physical and chemical properties of the material observed across the
nebula.
These observations were taken in the Webb GTO program 1192, and the results were published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
More About the Mission
The
James Webb Space Telescope is the world's premier space science
observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking
beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious
structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an
international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space
Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.
MIRI
was developed through a 50-50 partnership between NASA and ESA. JPL led
the U.S. efforts for MIRI, and a multinational consortium of European
astronomical institutes contributes for ESA. George Rieke with the
University of Arizona is the MIRI science team lead. Gillian Wright is
the MIRI European principal investigator.
The
MIRI cryocooler development was led and managed by JPL, in
collaboration with Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, California, and
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The Channel Country transformed after floodwaters.(ABC Western Queensland: Hannah Walsh)
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Behind
the bar of the Betoota Hotel, Robert "Robbo" Haken is this year
fielding a common question from tourists passing through on their way to
Birdsville.
"They're all just [asking], 'Where's the desert?'," he said.
"They can't see the desert because all the green is growing over the sand."
Robbo Haken bought the Betoota Hotel in 2017.(ABC Western Queensland: Hannah Walsh)
Famously
"red dirt country", Queensland's far west is instead a blanket of vivid
green, the result of months-long flooding through the desert.
The
dusty single-lane highway into Birdsville, 1,500 kilometres west of
Brisbane, is lined with lush grass, dotted with yellow and purple
wildflowers.
Yellow and purple wildflowers scatter the desert.(ABC Western Queensland: Grace Nakamura)
For Mr Haken, it's a special sight.
" I don't think you're ever gonna see it quite as pretty as what it is at the moment," he said.
"It's just something totally different from what we're used to seeing."
Earlier
this year, ex-tropical cyclone Kirrily drenched the state's north, with
water travelling hundreds of kilometres south to the Channel Country
towards the Kati-Thanda Lake Eyre basin in South Australia.
The best view of the Channel Country is from the sky.(Supplied: Jonathan Rae)
Birdsville,
a town of 110 in the Channel Country — where the Northern Territory,
Queensland and New South Wales borders meet — became an inland sea.
And when the water receded, the landscape bloomed.
The highway to Birdsville from Windorah.(ABC Western Queensland: Hannah Walsh)
Tourists 'flabbergasted'
Behind Birdsville's iconic red sand dunes, the horizon slowly changes into a wetland.
Big Red Tours owner Alex Oswald said tourists were "flabbergasted."
Alex Oswald started his tour business around three years ago.(ABC Western Queensland: Hannah Walsh)
"I've never seen so many pelicans," he said.
There are squadrons of pelicans at the old Diamantina Crossing at Birdsville.(ABC Western Queensland: Hannah Walsh)
"It
doesn't go hand in hand with [the desert] that we've got pelicans
flying over the top and having a good feed on the Diamantina Crossing
that's usually dry.
"If you fly over the area, it's just a massive carpet of green."
The view through the window of a plane.(ABC Western Queensland: Hannah Walsh)
Tourist Brie Dickson said it was a different picture to the one she had imagined.
"It's a bit of mixture between red and green, which is really cool to see, two contrasting colours like that," she said.
Ms Dickson has been on the road since 2022.(ABC Western Queensland: Hannah Walsh)
"It definitely would have been less green in my mind."
Pilot Jonathon Rae has the best view in Birdsville as he flies tourists over the flourishing country.
"It's just exploded with colours," he said.
Jonathan Rae is back for his second season as a pilot in Birdsville.(ABC Western Queensland: Hannah Walsh)
"All
the dormant seedlings that lay underneath that cracked claypan just
explode to life, so you get this abundance of colours, greenery,
wildflowers shooting through."
From the air, the meandering pathways of floodwaters glisten in the rising sun.
"You wouldn't believe that it was in the middle of the desert," Mr Rae said.
"You really have to see it from above to believe it."
A change of fate for graziers
While
the sights are not always this pretty, seasonal flooding in the outback
is not out of the ordinary, with tourism and agriculture depending on
the annual inflows.
Despite the flooding, Diamantina remains one of the only two drought-declared shires in the state.
Cattle around Birdsville are fat on feed.(ABC Western Queensland: Grace Nakamura)
Before
the flood, fifth-generation grazier Kerry Morton was in the process of
destocking his cattle on Roseberth Station from 8,000 to 5,000.
"Now I'm sitting sweet," he said.
"I'm hoping [the feed] will hold me for maybe eight months."
Mr
Morton has seen floods and droughts in the outback, but said it was
still "nerve-wracking" to watch water fill the distant horizon.
Kerry Morton runs Roseberth station with his father.(ABC Western Queensland: Grace Nakamura)
"It behaved a bit like 2019 where it came through as a wall," he said.
"I thought it was going to come through quick but it actually travelled forward and slow."
Roads damaged but tourists welcome
While the floodwaters are a blessing for tourism and agriculture, they have been a headache for the local council.
Diamantina Shire mayor Francis Murray said the water damage to the roads was "in the millions".
He was aware there was a ticking clock on these repairs with the tourist season commencing this month.
Lush greenery lines tracks around Birdsville.(ABC Western Queensland: Grace Nakamura)
"It's important that we get those roads sorted before the influx of caravans," he said.
But according to the mayor, the region looks "as good as you'll see".
By North America correspondent Barbara Miller in New York
Posted
The National Enquirer's publisher gave evidence about how he tried to help Trump's 2016 campaign.(ABC News graphic: Shakira Wilson)
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There's
something deeply meta about a bunch of journalists sitting in court
bashing out detailed notes on the behind-the-scenes workings of
chequebook journalism.
Most of us not in that world know money changes hands – but $US10,000 ($15,306) without any questions being asked?
David
Pecker, the former CEO of American Media (AMI), said that's how much
leeway he gave the editors of his publications when he was boss.
If any "source" was asking for more for some salacious piece of celebrity news, it had to be okayed by him.
The
revelation is certainly going to make me feel less bad next time I have
to tell my editors I didn't manage to secure an interview with a key
player in some huge story.
And
it's just one of the many lessons given to jurors about the dark arts of
tabloid journalism during Donald Trump's criminal trial.
Dubious headlines
The
first week of evidence has centred on what was going on at Pecker's
National Enquirer – a gossip rag which was sold at supermarket
check-outs, specialising in celebrity scuttlebutt, true crime drama and
chequebook scoops.
Before the
2016 election, it added another specialty: pumping up Trump, and tearing
down anyone who threatened his path to the presidency.
The National Enquirer ran hit jobs on Donald Trump's opponents.(ABC News)
Some
of this was traditional tabloid campaigning — promoting Trump through
headlines like how he'd be the "Healthiest Individual Ever Elected", and
smearing rivals like "Bungling Surgeon Ben Carson" (accused of leaving a
sponge in a patient's brain) and "Pervy Ted Cruz" (who was supposedly
caught cheating with five mistresses).
Those
dubious headlines were displayed in the courtroom this week – evidence,
prosecutors argued, of the unusual relationship between Trump and the
tabloid.
At
the time — after Cruz suggested Trump was behind the five-mistresses
story — Trump issued a statement that said: "I have nothing to do with
the National Enquirer." And AMI told CNN "no-one influences" its
reporting other than its reporters and editors.
But
during his week in the witness stand, Pecker laid out a secret deal he
made in 2015 with Trump and Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, that ceded
extraordinary control over what went to print.
Bearing witness
It's
fascinating to have a front-row seat in the first criminal trial of a
US president, and a surreal insight into what it's like being in the
proximity of a very, very important person.
There's
a long wait and several security checks before you get into the
courtroom, and once you're there, it's frequently locked down.
That means no-one is able to go in or out because the former president is on the move nearby.
Eating and drinking anything but water is strictly forbidden, and toilet breaks are infrequent and tightly controlled.
People
desperately raise their hands like kids in a classroom to ask if they
may use the toilet. Reporters scoff food in the line for the bathroom
during breaks, because there's no time to both eat and relieve yourself.
Donald Trump is required to attend every day of the trial.(Sarah Yenesel/Pool via Reuters)
"A
bunch of us have been eating PB&Js [peanut butter and jam
sandwiches] in the restroom because they won't let us eat in the
hallways," I hear a male reporter confide to a colleague in the line to
get into the court.
It's in that line I run into Lachlan Cartwright, an Australian reporter for whom the word "meta" probably doesn't go far enough.
He
worked for Pecker as executive editor at the National Enquirer at the
time. He now characterises the paper as a "criminal enterprise".
He's gone public about its inner workings —
the front-page headlines Pecker would come up with that reporters would
have to write stories to match, the photos of Hillary Clinton doctored
to make her look terminally ill, and the now infamous "catch and kill"
scheme that protected Trump from bad press.
Under
the deal Pecker said he made with Trump and Cohen, Pecker would "catch"
negative stories by buying the exclusive rights, and "kill" them by
making sure they never got to print.
A
key player in the scheme, according to Pecker's testimony and other
evidence (as well as Cartwright's whistleblower accounts), was another
Australian editor — Dylan Howard.
Dylan Howard reporting on drug use by AFL players, as revealed by
private medical records that were bought by Channel Seven, in 2008.(ABC News)
The
former Channel Seven reporter was no stranger to controversy — he
parted ways with Seven in 2008, shortly after reporting on unnamed AFL
players' stolen private medical records.
The
records, which revealed drug use, were said to have been found in a
gutter by a member of the public, who sold them to Seven.
Victoria Police investigated, and two people pleaded guilty to "theft by finding". Howard was not charged.
Secret payments
Many
of the "catch-and-kill" practices at the National Enquirer have been
public knowledge for years, and they were most extensively detailed in
journalist Ronan Farrow's 2019 book, Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a
Conspiracy to Protect Predators.
Howard
criticised the book — which also detailed his work helping filmmaker
Harvey Weinstein cover up stories — as "false and defamatory", and
threatened Farrow and the book's publisher with legal action.
"I don't know what Ronan Farrow's smoking," Howard told a podcast after the book's release.
"I am not aware of any story about the president that has not been published," he added.
But
Pecker, who was Howard's boss at the Enquirer, said Howard played a key
role in buying former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal's story about an
alleged months-long affair with Trump.
Howard
spoke to McDougal and assessed her claims to be true before Pecker
agreed to pay her $US150,000 for the story, and bury it. (Trump says the
story is false.)
Dylan Howard was editor-in-chief of the National Enquirer.(Reuters: Lucas Jackson)
Pecker
also said it was Howard who called him on a Saturday night in October
2016 and told him porn star Stormy Daniels was shopping her story about
an alleged sexual encounter with Trump (which he denies).
"Woman
wants 120k. Has offers from Mail and GMA [Good Morning America],"
Howard said in a message to Pecker the next day. "I know the denials
were made in the past – but this story is true."
This time, Pecker was reluctant to pay.
"I
said we already paid $30,000 to the doorman, we already paid $150,000
to Karen McDougal," Pecker told the court. "I am not a bank."
Pecker instead advised Cohen to pay Daniels for the story and "take it off the market", which he ultimately did.
David Pecker was on the stand for most of the week.(Reuters: Jane Rosenberg)
Howard later said in a text message, according to prosecutors: "At least if he wins, I'll be pardoned for electoral fraud."
Howard
has returned to Australia and is unlikely to give evidence in the
trial. The court has been told he has a spinal condition and cannot
travel overseas. His lawyer, John Harris, said New York court rules
meant witnesses in the case could not give evidence remotely.
Mr
Harris told the ABC: "Dylan Howard has always fully cooperated with
government inquiries regarding his former employer's relationship with
Donald Trump, and the actions he was directed to do. But for Mr Howard’s
inability to travel, he would have again, voluntarily, answered
questions."
'We would embellish a little'
This week's evidence included more stunning claims about the control Trump's lawyer had over the Enquirer's content.
Pecker
told the court Cohen would call him and request a negative article on a
political rival. "He would send me information about Ted Cruz or about
Ben Carson or Marco Rubio, and that was the basis of our story, and then
we would embellish it a little," Pecker said.
He often provided Cohen with drafts of stories, so he could provide feedback.
The
defence argues any dealings between Trump, Cohen and Pecker were
nothing sinister. Questioned by Trump's lawyer Emil Bove on Friday,
Pecker agreed the term "catch and kill" was not used during their 2015
meeting, nor was any "financial dimension" discussed.
Donald Trump is on trial for falsifying business records.(Reuters: Jane Rosenberg)
Beyond
the stories it "killed", there's no way of measuring how helpful the
Enquirer ultimately was to Trump's campaign. Pecker told the court the
relationship — which saw Trump give him inside information about The
Apprentice and tip him off about events and parties he should attend —
was "mutually beneficial".
Put simply, Trump stories boosted sales of the Enquirer, and Trump benefited from the publicity.
These days, the tabloid's readership is a small fraction of the millions it once was.
But
Todd Belt, an expert in mass media and public opinion at George
Washington University, says that's not necessarily the measure of its
influence.
"As the National
Enquirer has become less important as a publication, it still plays an
important role in terms of what we call 'pack journalism' here in the
United States," he said.
"It
sets an agenda – it puts certain people front and centre in the public
discourse, and then other publications will run after the same story."
Much
of this evidence is secondary to the central felony allegations. The
prosecution is trying to make the case that Trump not only paid hush
money, but covered it up in a way that effectively amounts to election
fraud.
Crucial to their case is
the payment Cohen made to Stormy Daniels after the Enquirer refused to,
and Trump's knowledge and intentions relating to that payment. Trump's
lawyers have argued it was personal and unrelated to his election
campaign, but prosecutors argue it was campaign expenditure that
shouldn't have been covered up.
Trial continues
Unless something unexpected happens, Trump will spend another month or more attending court.
All heads turn when he enters and exits the courtroom.
For
a man of his age, he appears in the flesh imposing and strong, almost
menacing, as he slowly makes his way to and from the defence bench.
Pecker's
testimony takes us back to a time when he ruled in this town – a
reality TV star, a tycoon who lived in a Midtown high-rise named after
him.
The former publisher said he discussed with Trump the idea of him running for president.
A National Enquirer poll found 80 per cent of readers backed the idea of a Trump run.
Trump, he said, cited the poll when asked soon after about his intentions.
Was the tabloid king egging on the reality TV star in the hope of further boosting ratings?
Interest in his then-friend, he said, "skyrocketed" after he announced his campaign.
Trump has long been estranged from the city where he made his name and built his fortune.
As
he sits day after day in a bleak Manhattan courtroom, I wonder if he
ever wishes the results of that tabloid poll had come back differently.
