Luca Guadagnino Directs Omar Apollo’s ‘Te Maldigo’ Short Film with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

Arts & Culture, Film & TV

Omar Apollo may have made his acting debut with “Queer,” but he’s not limiting his collaborations with Luca Guadagnino at just feature films: The duo have reunited for music video “Te Maldigo,” which Apollo announced as a partnership with A24.The song also brings Grammy-nominated Apollo back with “Queer” composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who also collaborated with Guadagnino on the “Challengers” score.

The video brings audiences into the underground bar scene that “Queer” encapsulates. The video, like the feature, is set in Mexico City post-WWII. Apollo sings onstage in the short film, which debuted at midnight on November 21.

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Produced by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who composed the score for the film, “Te Maldigo” is Apollo’s first song entirely in Spanish since 2022’s “En El Olvido.” The track is the first single from Apollo’s sophomore album “God Said No,” which was released in May 2024.

Apollo wears a custom suit created by LOEWE creative director and “Queer” costume designer Jonathan Anderson in the video for “Te Maldigo,” which embraces the aesthetic of the feature.

Apollo told IndieWire that Guadagnino cast him in “Queer” via social media.

“Somebody DM’d me on their end of things,” Apollo said. “They said, ‘Luca wants you in the film,’ and I was like, ‘OK, tell him I’ll be in it.’ I didn’t even know what it was. I hadn’t met him before, and then a few days later, we’re on a Facetime call with my manager, and then, he tells me about the role, about the scene, and what I would have to do.”

In “Queer,” Apollo plays a one-time love interest of Daniel Craig’s lead character Lee. The sequence starring Apollo involves nudity and an intricately choreographed sex scene.

“I only told a few friends because I honestly didn’t want opinions about, ‘Oh, your first role is a sex scene? I don’t know, bro,’” Apollo said of the part. “I didn’t want that. So I kept it really tight. I told, like, five of my friends; I have tons of friends but, my five, you know, the mains. Then I was just cool with that. I mean, it’s all unfamiliar. It was all new. I was like, ‘Oh, like, how confidential is all this stuff?’ I just really [was thinking] that I didn’t want to lose the role. They don’t really talk to you that much when you’re in the process of getting a role, it’s a lot of waiting on an email or something. It ended up all being fine, and I guess I gossiped the perfect amount.”

He added of appearing in the William S. Burroughs adaptation, “I was taking it in. I was looking around at everyone’s faces. I was humble about that. I’m an artist, I’m from Indiana, and I’m not going to fake being humble. I was like, ‘Yes, watch this. This is a great thing. You should be paying attention, it’s important to William’s life.’ I lent myself to develop his character.”

Guadagnino previously told IndieWire that Apollo’s role is key to the whole film.

“In the book, this is the first person that Lee actually meets in the movie. [It] was so important to be very precise and, at the same time, very iconic,” Guadagnino said. “I always [have] been a fan of Omar. I thought that he could bring this feeling of contemporaneity to a movie that is set in a period that is far from us, because I think a great period drama behaves in relation with the present of the making of the movie. So I think Omar brings that.”

Guadagnino is in talks to make his superhero debut with DC Studios’ “Sgt. Rock,” which will be penned by “Challengers” and “Queer” screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes and “Queer” lead star Craig. Guadagnino also is in post-production on Amazon MGM Studios’ “After the Hunt,” which stars Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield. Guadagnino is set to remake “American Psycho,” which is rumored to star Jacob Elordi.

Additionally, Guadagnino will work with his “Challengers” actor Josh O’Connor (who also stars alongside Craig in “Wake Up Dead Man”) for the “Separate Rooms” adaptation. Léa Seydoux is set to co-lead the feature, a queer drama based on the novel of the same name by late author Pier Vittorio Tondelli.

Check out Guadagnino’s “Te Maldigo” below.

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“Queer” premieres November 27 in select theaters and nationwide December 13.

I Wanted My Four-Year-Old to Love Moviegoing. How Hard Could It Be?

Arts & Culture, Film & TV

When it came time to choose a name for our first child, my husband and I had a list of one.
A couple of years before her birth, we’d been on an especially good date to see an Agnès Varda film in repertory; the protagonist’s style, wit and ultimate resilience appealed to us as much as Varda’s own story as a pathbreaking woman in the French New Wave did. We’d seen Varda’s documentary “Faces Places” at New York’s Quad Cinema just a week prior to seeing “Cléo From 5 to 7” at the Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn, and, especially in the spring of 2020, the double bill sat lodged in our minds. Cleo D’Addario turned 4 this past May.

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I’d always assumed that moviegoing would be a part of Cleo’s story, and the story of our parenting her. I grew up movie mad, a town over from an AMC multiplex that’s still standing. That’s where I saw “The Lion King” and “101 Dalmatians” (the Glenn Close version) and “The Parent Trap” (the Lindsay Lohan version); you couldn’t have told me that now-forgotten movies like “Paulie,” “Gordy” or “Bicentennial Man” weren’t huge hits — I saw them as part of a crowd, after all. Visiting on school breaks from college and then after graduation, I saw “The Wrestler” and “Captain Phillips” and “Creed II” with my dad at that AMC — seeing movies together has been part of how we communicate.

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So it was with high hopes that I took Cleo to her first theatrical film last fall. I’d explained to her that in a movie theater, you have to sit quietly and respect other people’s experience, and she understood as best a 3-year-old could; I told her that when it got dark, she might get a little scared, and she could hold my hand. I also informed her of the rich tradition of movie snacks, and when we got to the Regal Union Square in Manhattan, she took full advantage, finagling an ice cream cone as well as a kids’ pack of popcorn, candy and fruit juice from a dad who just wanted her to enjoy “Trolls Band Together.”

The trouble started about midway through the trailers, when Cleo began fidgeting as ad after ad played. I’d explained that these were previews of what we could look forward to, and Cleo did OK for a while. But at some point, a commercial for a car company came on, and Cleo groaned and said, loudly, “Again?” (I was a professional critic when she was born, and perhaps that has rubbed off.) Next came a promo for the musical remake of “The Color Purple,” one that began with foreboding music and went on to feature Colman Domingo’s character screaming and firing a gun into the air. Even those who appreciate “The Color Purple” can perhaps understand that its intended audience doesn’t overlap much with the “Trolls” demographic.

“I want a break,” Cleo said. We left the theater, and she told me that it was too loud and not fun. We eventually went back in and watched just enough of the movie to begin to get the premise — they’re trolls, but they’re also NSYNC — before Cleo announced, “I want to be done.” So we went to the Strand bookstore nearby, where I told her she could buy any book she wanted; instead, she picked out a purple toy cat and named it Sylvia, after one of her classmates.

Maybe it was just the wrong time, the wrong place! Seven months later, I tried again, taking her to a small theater in the NCG chain on a trip upstate. We went to a revival showing of “The Land Before Time” — more snacks, more complaints about the trailer load, a second freakout, vivid and loud in the dark. (The world of the dinosaurs might not be a place for a sensitive 4-year-old.)

“I was just pretending,” Cleo said after we left the screening room for the bathroom break she’d requested. “I don’t need to go. But let’s stay out here.”

Maybe my expectations were too high. Whereas I spent time on the playground shouting movie catchphrases with my friends, Cleo’s peers don’t seem to go to the movies — so much so that when a family we know took their daughter to the Halle Bailey “Little Mermaid,” we were surprised. (Cleo’s younger sister, Iris, has been to three movies in theaters, but that’s just because I took her to “baby day” screenings at Alamo, back when she napped all day.)

The currency among Cleo’s peers is entertainment they control — and my little master of the universe is no different. She pauses movies to rewind to favorite parts: I don’t think she’s ever made it past a scene in “Turning Red” where the heroine trips on her backpack, and “Barbie” exists to her as a star vehicle for Dua Lipa, who has a seconds-long cameo as a mermaid.

Cleo prefers supercuts to movies — YouTube is currently banned in our household, but back when it wasn’t, a video called “Cruella de Vil laughing for 2 minutes,” created by a user named JuanDiva, was what she thought “101 Dalmatians” was. And low-fi content that feels user-created, even if it isn’t, appeals to Cleo more than high-gloss Hollywood product: Her absolute favorite program features two children named Vlad and Nikita running around a Miami mansion screaming incoherently at their beleaguered mom. It also originated on YouTube, and I thought my ban on the platform had done the trick, until I discovered that it had been licensed to Max — Cleo saw it as I was cuing up “Sesame Street.” She refers to this show as “Kids,” and asks if she can watch “Kids” every single night. (Dear David Zaslav: This one is personal.)

Looking around me at both unhappy and uneasy screenings to which I took Cleo (and then a third, months later, of “The Wild Robot”), I saw that I was not the only parent trying to contain a child crawling out of their seat with impatience. If we can’t get kids to sit through a 90-minute movie — if they’re so accustomed to personalizing every element of their entertainment experience — what other communal experiences are they missing out on?

I know this is a silly thing to be worried about, inasmuch as I’m worried at all. A love of films may eventually click in, if the right movie comes along when she’s the right age (if theaters are still around, and I certainly hope they will be). Some of the reasons Cleo doesn’t like the theater — the booming speakers, the enveloping dark, the crowds of people — feel very much of a piece with her cautious, thoughtful nature. And it’s not a comment on Gen Alpha’s attention spans, and what YouTube has done to them, to observe that a 4-year-old is more comfortable in a well-lit room with images closer to human scale.

It’s the element of control that bothers me — the sense that maybe Cleo is simply so accustomed to determining the pacing and the circumstances of every single experience in her life that the great parts of moviegoing simply can’t compare. But if the delivery system for art really is changing — if this younger generation is so immune to its charms that the theatrical experience is going away, then maybe I’ll just be forced to find things to love, or at least to tolerate, in the entertainment Cleo chooses. She’s the one with the control, after all. (By the way, huge box office grosses for the recent “Inside Out” and “Despicable Me” sequels, and early tracking for “Wicked” and “Moana 2,” suggest that the theatrical experience isn’t, yet, going away.)

And if learning to love moviegoing is something that’s going to happen for Cleo, then it’s going to happen as she grows into her ability to follow a story. I know she’s at least curious about what’s going on with great characters; I saw it the first time her eyes lit up when she saw Cruella laugh. (Thank you, Glenn Close; thank you, JuanDiva.) It’ll happen, I think. But I’ve spent enough time in movie theaters to know that the experience really means more if you can’t fast-forward to the good part.

And just as I remember my movie trips with my father fondly, there’s something I cherish about that first trip to the multiplex with Cleo, even if we only caught one and a half troll serenades. On the walk home from the subway, she and I stopped to play catch on the sidewalk, using Sylvia the cat as the ball. As I tossed Sylvia back to her, I asked her what her favorite part of the day was, expecting her to say the bookstore or the subway or riding her scooter around Union Square. Moving so fast that I struggled to keep up, she looked for all the world like the teenager she’ll someday be — hopefully by then someone I’m taking to see big blockbusters and art films and movies she’ll discover and want to show me.

“Well,” she said, “my favorite part of today was when we saw ‘Trolls.’”

It was a start.

Carroll school officials remove 5 more books from library shelves, bringing total to 26 this year

Arts & Culture, Books

Carroll County’s public school system announced that it has removed five more books from school libraries, bringing the county’s banned book total to 26.“A Clash of Kings,” by George R.R. Martin, “House of Sky and Breath,” by Sarah J. Maas, “Tricks,” by Ellen Hopkins, “Let’s Talk About It,” by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan, and “Storm and Fury,” by Jennifer Armentrout were removed from Carroll County school library shelves after the most recent round of evaluations by the system’s Reconsideration Committee, according to an email Wednesday from school officials.The Meridian 1974 version of “The Holy Bible,” “Oryx and Crake,” by Margaret Atwood, “Lighter than my Shadow,” by Katie Green, “A Stolen Life,” by Jaycee Dugard, “All The Things We Do In The Dark,” by Saundra Mitchell, “The Haters,” by Jesse Andrews and “Sold,” by Patricia McCormick, were retained.The committee retained “Lucky,” by Alice Sebold, but students will need parental permission to check out the book, after an appeal to the superintendent.The committee has been evaluating 61 requests for removal since last August. Public schools communications coordinator Brenda Bowers said on average two books per year were directed to the Reconsideration Committee for review in the past. Most of the current removal requests have come from the Carroll County chapter of the conservative group Moms for Liberty.The system’s Reconsideration Committee is tasked with making book-removal decisions. It includes a nonvoting chair, two school media specialists, two school-based administrators, one teacher and three parents. Three high school students are also included when the committee reviews books previously deemed appropriate for high schoolers. All members are appointed by the superintendent.Books banned or retained by the Carroll County reconsideration process cannot be re-evaluated for school use for three years after the initial request for reconsideration, according to CCPS policy. Any decision to remove a book is final, but a decision to retain a book can be appealed to the superintendent within 10 days of receiving a decision.Assistant Superintendent of Instruction Nicholas Shockney acts as Superintendent Cynthia McCabe’s designee when reviewing books that were appealed to the superintendent. Shockney said he reads each of those books and renders his decisions in accordance with the school system’s Policy IIAA, which governs the selection, evaluation and adoption of instructional materials, including supplemental instructional materials like library books.The Carroll County Board of Education unanimously voted Jan. 10 to update Policy IIAA, banning all library books and instructional materials that include “sexually explicit” content from public schools. The updated policy defines sexually explicit content as “unambiguously describing, depicting, showing, or writing about sex or sex acts in a detailed or graphic manner.”The Maryland State Board of Education on July 23 denied a parent’s appeal of Policy IIAA, but expressed concerns about how the policy could be used to violate the First Amendment rights of students, according to state appeal documents.Have a news tip? Contact Thomas Goodwin Smith at [email protected].

Bob Young, F.C. Business Leader, Dies at 82

Business News

Currents throughout the City of Falls Church’s corridors of government, education, economic development and general good will were shaken to learn of the passing this Monday night of Robert A. “Bob” Young, for two dozen years a ubiquitous fixture in the life of the Little City as a first-rate developer of commercial and residential properties but more than that, as an advisor, prophet and doer of much of the good that has befallen the City in this era.A true Renaissance Man in the manner true to what that term was meant to represent, Young brought to the City beginning in the late 1990s and forward the first representations ever seen here of Art Nouveau in buildings he put up, renovated and managed. He was also chair of the Economic Development Authority (EDA) who directed that organization through some of its most creative contributions to the Little City, the most visible being the wayfinding signage that are now landmark parts of the City fabric.He attended and led, albeit virtually, his last meeting of the EDA at City Hall last month, and for years to that point also had a perfect attendance record at the News-Press’ Monday information sharing lunches, except for travel to visit his family in California and South Africa.A communique from his family was submitted to the News-Press yesterday which stated the following:“With heavy hearts, we announce the passing of Robert A. Young. Robert passed away peacefully on the evening of Monday, November 18 at the age of 82 following a courageous battle with cancer. In the coming days, we look forward to celebrating his extraordinary life and the lasting legacy he left for the City of Falls Church and its citizens. A tribute honoring his remarkable contributions will appear in an upcoming edition of the Falls Church News-Press.” Respectfully, Peter Young (son), Courtney Alston (daughter), Leah Young (daughter-in-law), Vernetta Alston (daughter-in-law), and his grandchildren Gillian, Grant, Reese, and Davis.A native of LaJolla, California, Young attended the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and worked years for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) before going into the real estate development business first in McLean and then coming to Falls Church in 1999.In Falls Church, he applied the use of newly-developed Mixed-Use Redevelopment (MUR) guidelines resulting in the groundbreaking development that brought the city’s first mid-rise residential condominium. That same project brought a rethinking use of the site’s existing office building at 450 West Broad, allowing renowned establishments like Panera entry to our community.Development and construction of the Art Nouveau-styled Read Building at 402 W. Broad brought dedicated workforce housing to the City for the first time. That same building, recognized in 2007 with an Environmental Stewardship Award, also brought the concept of a living green roof to the City.That feature was continued when Young’s firm developed and built the Art Nouveau-inspired so-called “Flower Building” at 800 W. Broad which continues to house the U.S. Post Office for the City. It won acclaim as the City’s first “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design” (LEED) certified structure in the City.Young’s development work in the City also included buildings enhanced with stories-tall flowers of many varieties: yellow lilies at Fairfax Square and the Scramble building, and tulips at the shops at 300 S. Washington. Adaptive reuse of existing buildings was part of his process. An award from the City for the Most Improved Commercial Property was given for the transformation of Washington Market, which houses the Elevation Burger.His transformative eye guided both Washington Commons’ and Fairfax Square’s reclamation transformations, and most recently turned a former bank building on West Broad into a drive-through Smoothie King and physical therapy use. Young’s assemblage of parcels and enablement brought the Hilton Garden Inn, the first new hotel development in the City in decades.His pioneering push extended to the now acclaimed Railroad Cottages community of 10 scaled houses developed for the 55+ active adult community, a project that has brought award recognition both by the Urban Land Institute and American Planning Association.  Another side to his commitment to community development here led to his role as a founding member of the Falls Church Education Foundation, established to support the school system and its teachers.His guidance given the EDA helped oversee and played an important title role in the remarkable West End 10-acre project still under construction. His steady hand is credited with guiding the whole process successfully through the trying times of the Covid pandemic.His work in the City secured recognition from the F.C. Chamber of Commerce as a recipient of their Pillar of the Community award bestowed with the text, “with appreciation for distinctive contribution to the enrichment of life within the greater Falls Church area.”Young built his personal home on Poplar Drive in the City built along Art Nouveau guidelines and it contains many artistic works of the German WMF Metalworks company from over a century ago. He lived at his Falls Church home with his much-beloved English Springer Spaniel, Brandy, who almost always accompanied him to the offices of The Young Group in the “Flower Building.”Falls Church Mayor Letty Hardi, who was strongly supported by Young since the early days of her foray into local politics, submitted the following statement to the News-Press yesterday:  “I am terribly sad about Bob’s passing. It’s hard to imagine a Falls Church without him. Falls Church knew Bob as a visionary, passionate real estate developer and businessman, often with strong opinions about city happenings because he cared about getting things done for the betterment of all.“We were his chosen home for over 20 years and he saw the potential in Falls Church from the beginning. I also knew Bob as a neighbor and friend. He was a quiet, ardent supporter of the schools, small businesses, and affordable housing.“Those who truly knew him also know that the time and energy he gave was both limitless and selfless. He was a proud parent, brother, and grandfather – he beamed when he shared with me stories about his travels with his family, his kids’ professional accomplishments, the aftermath of the grandkids visits, and his Covid-puppy Brandy. “Bob leaves a remarkable legacy that will shape Falls Church for years to come, not just in the physical spaces around the Little City but also in the lives of so many, including mine. Our hearts go out to his family and friends as we mourn this huge loss together.Other statements on the passing this week of Bob Young included this one from his colleague on the EDA, Ross Litkenhous:“Bob was a force of nature. He shared a passion and tenacity for advancing economic development in this city that only comes along once in a generation. While Bob was known primarily for his expertise and passion in real estate, he quietly yet generously supported many of the most cherished institutions in our Falls Church community including the arts and schools. Bob worked tirelessly to elevate our city’s standing in the region, doing whatever he could to support growth and prosperity within our business community until the very end of his life. Bob Young will be missed, and I’m personally grateful to him for his many meaningful contributions to this community over the years.”Falls Church City Manager Wyatt Shields added the following: “Among many community leadership roles, Bob Young served as Chairman of the Economic Development Authority for many years. He helped guide the City to be a welcoming place – supporting City businesses, working to expand affordable housing for people who work in the City, and making the public spaces in our business districts more beautiful. He didn’t accept things as they are and challenged us to see things as they could be. When he was impatient with our progress, which was frequently the case, we knew it came out of his deep love for the City. We will miss him very much.”Joe Wetzel of The Young Group, former Chamber chair who’s worked with Young for the entire time he was in Falls Church, told the News-Press that there will be small, family-only ceremony this coming weekend, and that a larger celebration of life will be next month to which the larger Falls Church community will be invited.

3 Remote Side Hustle Business Ideas That Cost $0 To Start In 2025

Business News

There’s never been a better time to start a side hustle and grow your small business—even if you’re working full-time. Full-time professionals can leverage advanced technology, the array of digital platforms that are available across the internet, and the on-demand, drag-and-drop, mobile accessibility of features that years ago, would have been next-to-impossible to achieve while working a day job.

And you don’t even need to create a hole in your bank account either.

3 Online Side Hustles/Business Ideas That Cost Zero Upfront In 2025
If you’ve been dreaming of starting your own business but never knew what idea to start with, or how to begin without splurging out money you don’t even have, here are three easy ideas to get you started:

1. Virtual Assistant Business
Virtual assistants handle most of the routine tasks that businesses and individual professionals don’t have the time or resources to deal with on their own. You’re essentially enabling businesses, especially entrepreneurs with just a few team members working with them, to cost-effectively reduce their workload and concentrate on the important aspects of their business.

Initially, virtual assistance was usually connected to simply managing administrative tasks such as handling inbound emails and messages and providing customer service support as well as appointment bookings. Today, virtual assistants provide much more comprehensive services. In fact, the more multifaceted your business, the better. If you have skills in social media management, marketing inventory and e-commerce management, events management and coordination, or even project management, you could find yourself in high demand with several streams of income from your virtual assistance business.

It would be good for you to think about what are your strengths and skills within these areas, and how best you can support small businesses and entrepreneurs with your virtual assistant services. Try to focus on a niche; for example, do you work with coaches and consultants, designers, tech entrepreneurs, or ecommerce businesses? Perhaps you could create a bespoke package that would directly address their needs. And if you have prior experience and knowledge within those industries, that certainly helps to boost your credibility and insight into what your clients would actually need from you.

2. Online Course Creation Business
Online courses will never go old. People are constantly seeking to learn something new every day—whether it’s a skill for work, for their personal lives, or to help them make more money and grow a business. As a course creator, you can develop courses on any topic and share them on platforms such as Udemy, which at the time of writing, does not charge for course creators to publish on their platform. Instead, Udemy takes a percentage commission from each sale you make.

Don’t be satisfied with just creating one course; create two, three, four, even 10 of them. The more students love your courses, the better, as they will naturally want to learn more and enrol on your other courses. You can design the resources for the course using Canva and even create faceless videos for the course using AI tools. Many course creators have gone on to make thousands each month in passive income through developing and selling online courses.
So what’s stopping you from being the next?
3. Remote College Prep Business
Another highly profitable business idea is starting a college prep business, especially for students who have strong ambitions to be attend highly ranked universities in their desired field. College prep can involve tutoring would-be students on several problem areas to strengthen their chances of being admitted to their colleges of choice; for instance, you could tutor them for a GMAT exam, or offer guidance on what to expect and how to present themselves at admissions interviews for places at leading colleges and universities.
You can put together a prep package or offer individual services, and deliver this entirely online, through courses, YouTube tutorials, and 1-2-1 coaching via videoconferencing software such as Google Meet (which is free up to an hour).College admissions prep is a lucrative side hustle that can see you making up to thousands of … [+] dollars each monthgetty
There you have it. Get started with one of these business ideas and let it grow on the side of your main job. After some time, you will be able to scale it to the point where you may not even need to work your day job anymore—and you can go full-time into working in your passion and fulfilling your career and financial dreams.

Data science examined: AI and data in detail

Science and Health

image: ©WANAN YOSSINGKUM | iStock Dr Clare Walsh, Director of Education at the Institute of Analytics, highlights data science in a discussion that also includes comments on artificial intelligence (AI) Near the end of 2024, decision intelligence is recognised across industries, with 98% of employers now seeking digital and data skills amongst graduates (1), whatever…

James Webb Space Telescope spots 1st ‘Einstein zig-zag’ — here’s why scientists are thrilled

Science and Health

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered the first “Einstein zig-zag,” an image of one quasar repeated six times in a single image. The arrangement was created thanks to an effect first proposed by Albert Einstein in 1915 called “gravitational lensing,” and it could help scientists avert a crisis in cosmology.This system, designated J1721+8842, is comprised of a quasar — which is an extremely luminous galactic core — lensed by two widely separated, but perfectly aligned, galaxies. Not only is this sighting incredibly rare, marking a fascinating example of a curious spacetime-bending phenomenon introduced in Albert Einstein’s magnum opus theory of gravity, general relativity, but the J1721+8842 zig-zag also has a power that standard gravitational lenses don’t.The first Einstein zig-zag seen by humanity could help scientists tackle two of cosmology’s greatest mysteries. The first mystery concerns is the nature of dark energy, or the force driving the accelerating expansion of the universe that accounts for around 70% of the cosmic energy and matter budget, and the second has to do with a disparity scientists find when measuring the value of the speed of the universe’s expansion: the Hubble constant.”I am thrilled, not only because this is a fascinating natural phenomenon but also because this system is incredibly promising for measuring cosmological parameters,” Martin Millon, discovery team member and a Stanford University cosmologist, told Space.com. “This lens system offers the potential to place stringent constraints on both the Hubble constant and the dark energy equation of state, something that is generally not possible”What is a gravitational lens anyway?General relativity states that objects with mass cause a curvature in the very fabric of space and time, united as a single entity called “spacetime.”  The greater the mass of an object, the greater the “dent” it causes in spacetime. As gravity arises from this curvature, the more mass an object has, the larger its gravitational influence.

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Gravitational lensing occurs when light from a background source travels past a massive lensing body on its way to Earth, and therefore follows the resulting curvature in space, causing its own path to curve. The light from this background source thus takes different paths around a gravitational lens, approaching the lensing mass at varying distances being curved in different amounts. This means this light from the same background source can arrive at different times to the same telescope.As a result, a single background light-emitting body can appear at multiple places in a single image. These objects can form arrangements like Einstein rings, Einstein crosses, and, in this currently unique case, an Einstein zig-zag.A diagram shows how the curvature of spacetime leads to gravitational lensing. (Image credit: NASA, ESA & L. Calçada)The JWST wasn’t actually the first telescope to spot J1721+8842. The lensed quasar, which is more specifically composed of brightly glowing gas and dust around a feeding supermassive black hole, was spotted by Cameron Lemon in 2017 using the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) located at Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii.At first, the quasar appeared to be lensed just four times. However, the sensitivity of the JWST has revealed that two galaxies are actually lensing this distant quasar six times, with the more distant galaxy in this arrangement also being lensed by the closer galaxy.”Typically, gravitational lenses created by a single galaxy form either two or four images of the background source, depending on the alignment. In this case, there is an exceptional alignment between two galaxies and a background quasar, forming a rare six-image configuration,” “We called it an ‘Einstein zigzag’ because the optical path of two of the multiple images passes by the first galaxy on one side before being deflected by the second galaxy on the other side. This optical path creates a zigzag pattern between the two galaxies.”Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!J1721+8842 as seen as part of the Pan-STARRS project in 2017 appearing to consist of just four instances of a lensed quasar. (Image credit: Pan-STARRS/ Lemon (2017))Research lead author and EPFL Laboratory of Astrophysics scientist Frédéric Dux told Space.com that this is the first time that scientists have found such a perfect alignment between three different bodies that create a gravitational lens.”Typically, a gravitational lens would involve only two objects, say a galaxy acting as a lens, and another galaxy behind, acting as a source, whose light is bent by the foreground one,” Dux said.  “Of course, there are many instances of lensing occurring due to multiple galaxies at once, such as in galaxy cluster lenses. In those cases, the effects of the different deflectors are combined in a weak way. You wouldn’t find a single galaxy acting as a perfect lens on its own. The alignment just isn’t good enough.”That isn’t the case with J1721+8842, though. The closest galaxy in this lens is so distant its light has been traveling to Earth for 2.3 billion years, while light from the more distant galaxy has been traveling to us for 10 billion years. Yet, despite the vast distance between these two galaxies, Dux said they provide an alignment so good that they both act to detect light from a quasar source located around 11 billion light-years away, while the foreground galaxy also acts to lens light from the intermediate galaxy.”This is rare. We expect that one in 50,000 lensed quasars would have such a configuration … and we only know of about 300 lensed quasars in total, so we were very lucky to find this one!” Dux said. “We might not find another one for a long time, if ever.”Einstein zig-zag could address a cosmological crisisDux explained that the team is already working on updated models of J1721+8842 to measure the Hubble constant.”Most lensed quasars can be used for this purpose, but the fact that this one has two different lenses makes the lensing model a lot better constrained, and the uncertainty in the Hubble constant value will be smaller,” Dux said. “This is very interesting in a time when cosmology is in a potential crisis due to what we call the Hubble tension.”The Hubble tension arises from the fact that measuring the Hubble constant in the very early universe and extrapolating the evolution of this value forward through 13.8 billion years of cosmic history (using the best cosmological model) should lead to the same value that astronomers measure when they observe the local universe and thus measure the Hubble constant at its current age. However, there is a strong disparity between the two results.”There could be measurement errors in either, so before declaring a definite crisis, we need to keep hunting for potential errors and refining our measurements,” Dux said.By reducing the uncertainties in these measurements, this Einstein zig-zag lens could bring the arrived-at value and the observed value of the Hubble constant closer together.An image of J1721+8842 with the six appearances of the background quasar indicated with letters A to F. (Image credit: Dux, et al, 2017)”Additionally, this lens can also be used simultaneously to constrain the equation of the state of dark energy of the universe,” Dux said. “This is very interesting as this quantity, and the Hubble constant, are typically degenerate, meaning we can ‘move both knobs’ in different directions and still fit the observational data well. With this system, we might be able to break this degeneracy.”That would allow for both values to be determined simultaneously using J1721+8842, something generally not possible. The researcher added that this is something presently in progress, but much theoretical work and technical infrastructure development are needed before the team can measure the two values they want to examine in a “safe” way, avoiding potential biases and errors.”J1721+8842 has other applications, such as studying the more distant lensing galaxy,”  Dux said. “Because it acts both as a lens and as a light source, appearing as the distorted red arc, we can precisely infer its mass. We also have a beautiful spectrum from the JWST observation to study this galaxy’s star formation history and the clumpiness of its matter. This is the first real chance to answer such questions for a galaxy this far away.”Related Stories:Although the JWST was integral in discovering the true nature of J1721+8842 as an Einstein zig-zag, it may not be the best instrument for hunting for more of these elusive arrangements.”The JWST provides crazily deep observations for small patches of the sky. For the discovery of more Einstein zig-zags, we need to survey the entire sky,” Dux said. “Gaia and sky surveys, such as Pan-STARRS, Euclid, or the future Vera Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), are the right tools for this search.”We will keep looking for lensed quasars! We expect to find many more with the Vera Rubin LSST and the Euclid mission. Whether we stumble across another zigzag will be a matter of luck.”The team’s research is available in pre-print on the paper repository arXiv.

Teacher & Business Networking Breakfast: The Duston School shaping the future

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Watch more of our videos on ShotsTV.com and on Freeview 262 or Freely 565Visit Shots! nowAre you a business leader looking to inspire and influence the next generation? Don’t miss this fantastic opportunity to connect with educators and shape tomorrow’s workforce!Join us at The Duston School in Northampton for our Teacher & Business Networking Breakfast on Monday 6th January from 8:00am to 10:00am. This event is designed to bridge the gap between businesses and education, helping local companies collaborate with teachers to develop real-world opportunities for young people.Why attend?Networking photo by Product School on UnsplashNetwork with diverse businesses and employers.Discuss industry skills gaps with teachers.Explore new ways to collaborate and boost recruitment strategies.Diane Fisher, Lead Practitioner for Careers, says: “Businesses and education should be working together, and this is a chance for local businesses to help shape the next generation of leaders.”Location: The Duston School, Berrywood Road, Northampton.Headteacher Sam Strickland adds:“We are thrilled to welcome as many business providers and employers as possible. We are passionate about developing close ties and synergy between The Duston School and the world of business.”We hope you’ll join us in making a lasting impact on both the future of your industry and the success of our students!We look forward to welcoming you to The Duston School. Continue Reading