What I Learned Today

Exoplanets are generally discovered in indirect ways, by the slight wobble they impart to their host star, or by passing in front of the star and briefly dimming its light.

But here we have a glorious compilation of seven images taken from Earth over seven years, in which four exoplanets are directly imaged!

These planets are all orbiting a star named HR 8799, in the constellation Pegasus. The images were collected by the Keck Observatory in Hawaii. The source images were used to infer and interpolate the planets’ orbits. (This planetary system seems to be nearly perpendicular to us. Not all of them are, naturally.) Magical to watch.

So you have a flat tire and want to try out Fix-a-Flat, a spray can that claims to seal and re-inflate your tire for temporary use until it can be repaired. Your first and biggest challenge is… how to get the cap off.

You squeeze and fiddle and twist and squeeze some more, with no success. You then go to the Internet and discover that this is such a common problem that the Fix-a-Flat website (but NOT the can) comes with instructions on how to get the cap off. They recommend wedging the can under a non-flat tire for leverage so you can wiggle the cap off.

“Sometimes our Fix-a-Flat caps suffer from separation anxiety and don’t want to come off.”

It turns out, this works. It would have been nicer if they’d designed a cap that could be removed with human hands, which seems like a well solved problem. But I guess if you ever encounter another kind of problematic cap, you could try this technique there!