Inverse - 🌌 New Webb image just dropped

T.G.I.F.

Oct 14 2022

Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide,
No escape from reality
Open your eyes,
Look up to the skies and see....
A brand new Webb image!

You would be forgiven for thinking that the latest James Webb Space Telescope image is an artist's concept, or an optical illusion. Even the scientists who made the observation saw the image and thought... nope. But it isn't an illusion — those 17 bright rings emanating in near perfect sequence from the central bright star system are really there.

These rings, or shells as the scientists call them, are much like the rings inside a tree, charting a span of cosmological time and progress as two stars orbit one another in a dance that brings them close together every 8 years or so, causing them to cast off dust and debris into the interstellar medium. But the real beauty in the image is what it tells us about our own origin story. To discover why, read on, and keep scrolling for more stupendous stories from Inverse. Happy Friday, friends.

What's New

WEBB WATCH

Science

Startling Webb Telescope image may reveal an elusive source of stars and planets

At first, astronomer Ryan Lau thought there must be some mistake. A lead scientist on the Webb Telescope’s Early Release Science program, Lau had spotted a pattern in the light around a binary star system he thought so remarkable it had to be a trick of the light. Seventeen rings formed concentric haloes around the star system, like luminous ripples emanating from its central light.

But what Lau saw in his observations was no optical illusion but the after-effects of a cosmic dance between the two stars that compose Wolf-Rayet (WR) 140, the binary star system at the center of the observations.

In a fresh image released by the Webb Telescope team on October 12, one can see the strangely perfect light rings around WR 140 emanating into the darkness of deep space.

Inverse Interview

Entertainment

Avenue 5 creator Armando Iannucci would make a Star Wars show — with one condition

It took less than two minutes for Armando Iannucci to blow my mind.

Despite watching 17 episodes of Avenue 5, the sci-fi social satire from the man behind Veep and The Death of Stalin, I hadn’t realized what the title actually meant until I sat down with its creator for coffee on a rainy Monday in New York.

Of course, Avenue 5 is the name of the spacefaring cruise ship that veers off course, trapping its 6000 passengers onboard for years instead of months. But it’s also a subtle reference to the controversial politician who inspired Iannucci’s current HBO series: Donald Trump.

“It was partly called Avenue 5 because of Trump's quote about, I can shoot a guy in the face on Fifth Avenue and nothing would happen,” Iannucci tells me. As my eyes widen at the realization, he adds, “I really don't expect anyone to pick that up.”

Speaking to Inverse, Iannucci discusses the new season, whether Avenue 5 will ever crossover with Veep, and his Andor-inspired pitch for a Star Wars original series.

Read the full interview

Virtual Reality

Gear

How legs became one of Meta's make-or-break VR features

If there was one piece of news other than the new Quest Pro virtual reality headset that really drew attention at this week’s Meta Connect, it was legs.

Finally, after over a year of VR avatars that were just torsos, arms, and heads, Meta showed off what being “fully-embodied” should look like on its various VR platforms, alongside a bunch of new updates to Meta Avatars.

To sum it up in a tweet from the official Horizon World’s account: “Legs are coming soon! Are you excited?”

But how did legs become a feature worth celebrating? And how exactly is Meta bringing legs to VR? Well, you could say it started with a Facebook post.

Learn more

Review

Movies

Halloween Ends is the Michael Myers finale we need — and the one we deserve

In my opinion, the best kind of movies are the ones where after you see one you have no idea if it was a bad movie or a good one. Halloween Ends is one of those movies.

As the third and final entry in David Gordon Green’s Halloween trilogy, Ends has a lot resting on its shoulders. It has to live up to the brilliance of his 2018 reboot, which featured the exact right levels of self-awareness while also basically being a remake of the original. It has to make up for the disaster that was Halloween Kills. And it has to provide closure to fans (at least until the studio reboots the entire thing a few years from now).

Defying all expectations, Halloween Ends manages to do all three. It’s also one of the weirdest movies I’ve ever seen.

Read our review

Cars

Gear

The Polestar 3 electric SUV has an official price

Polestar’s debut of its fully-electric SUV comes with much-anticipated pricing details and specs. The Volvo-backed EV maker officially revealed its Polestar 3 that has a starting price of $83,900, but offers up the option for a performance trim for $6,000 more.

There’s a lot to like about the Polestar 3, but its starting price places it firmly in the luxury SUV category. Polestar’s CEO Thomas Ingenlath previously said that the Polestar would start at $76,000, which was apparently a conservative estimate.

After its first two EV models, Polestar is still trying to grab some of the EV market share from Tesla. The Polestar 3 SUV falls in a weird spot between Tesla’s compact Model Y SUV, and its more premium Model X SUV.

Inverse - 🌌 New Webb image just dropped

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