March 2024

  • Be sure to attend the mini reunion in Hanover on Green Key weekend, May 17 – 19, 2024. Here’s the schedule of events. Email John Engelman if you plan to attend the dinner where the Give a Rouse awards will be presented.
  • Check out the report and photos of the 2024 Big Sky Montana western ski trip mini reunion.
  • Video minutes of the March 30, 2024 Arts Legacy Committee meeting are available.
  • Warren Cooke reports on his trip to a remote area in Panama in search of the Harpy Eagle. Don’t miss Warren’s great story and accompanying photos.
  • There are many new additions to the D’68 author’s page.
  • Minutes from the 10/7/23 Class Committee meeting and the agenda for the 2/10/24 meeting have been posted.
  • Minutes from the 2/24/24 Arts Legacy Committee meeting have been posted.
  • Webinars news: (1) the March 25 Author’s Workshop was well attended and extremely well received. If you missed, see the recording on the webinar videos page; (2) we have a full summer 2024 schedule. The first of the summer series, Peace Corps, date has been set.
  • Looking back: while preparing the website conversion discussed below, I had occasion to review the virtual art show presented at our 50th reunion. I highly encourage you to view the show presenting the work of some of our incredibly talented classmates and their spouses. Pro tips: (1) before watching an individual’s presentation open their artist’s statement to see details about each photo; and (2) each presentation is accompanied by music. You must click the play pause button below the photos to start the music since your browser is almost certainly set to NOT automatically play sound when you open a web page. ENJOY!
  • The conversion to the new class website platform has begun. The first thing you’ll notice is that site navigation has changed significantly. The menu on the left side of the screen will disappear as I convert major website sections like News, Events, etc. The menu will now be located on the top of the screen and will only give you access to the major sections. The top page for each section will contain links to sub-pages within the section. Only Featured Site Links on the Home page will take you directly to specific sub-pages. After navigation on the old site is converted, you’ll begin to see new pages based on WordPress, the new class website platform. I’ll share more as progress continues.

Scroll down to learn more about this month's featured image from the James Webb Space Telescope and to see more site updates.

Click on the image to enlarge

Southern Ring Nebula; two photos; different light filters
This side-by-side comparison shows observations of the Southern Ring Nebula in near-infrared light, at left, and mid-infrared light, at right, from NASA’s Webb Telescope. This scene was created by a white dwarf star – the remains of a star like our Sun after it shed its outer layers and stopped burning fuel through nuclear fusion. Those outer layers now form the ejected shells all along this view. In the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) image, the white dwarf appears to the lower left of the bright, central star, partially hidden by a diffraction spike. The same star appears – but brighter, larger, and redder – in the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) image. This white dwarf star is cloaked in thick layers of dust, which make it appear larger. The brighter star in both images hasn’t yet shed its layers. It closely orbits the dimmer white dwarf, helping to distribute what it’s ejected. Over thousands of years and before it became a white dwarf, the star periodically ejected mass – the visible shells of material. As if on repeat, it contracted, heated up – and then, unable to push out more material, pulsated. Stellar material was sent in all directions – like a rotating sprinkler – and provided the ingredients for this asymmetrical landscape. Today, the white dwarf is heating up the gas in the inner regions – which appear blue at left and red at right. Both stars are lighting up the outer regions, shown in orange and blue, respectively. The images look very different because NIRCam and MIRI collect different wavelengths of light. NIRCam observes near-infrared light, which is closer to the visible wavelengths our eyes detect. MIRI goes farther into the infrared, picking up mid-infrared wavelengths. The second star appears more clearly in the MIRI image, because this instrument can see the gleaming dust around it. The stars – and their layers of light – steal more attention in the NIRCam image, while dust plays the lead in the MIRI image, specifically dust that is illuminated. Peer at the circular region at the center of both images. Each contains a wobbly, asymmetrical belt of material. This is where two “bowls” that make up the nebula meet. (In this view, the nebula is at a 40-degree angle.) This belt is easier to spot in the MIRI image – look for the yellowish circle – but is also visible in the NIRCam image. The light that travels through the orange dust in the NIRCam image – which looks like spotlights – disappears at longer infrared wavelengths in the MIRI image. In near-infrared light, stars have more prominent diffraction spikes because they are so bright at these wavelengths. In mid-infrared light, diffraction spikes also appear around stars, but they are fainter and smaller (zoom in to spot them). Physics is the reason for the difference in the resolution of these images. NIRCam delivers high-resolution imaging because these wavelengths of light are shorter. MIRI supplies medium-resolution imagery because its wavelengths are longer – the longer the wavelength, the coarser the images are. But both deliver an incredible amount of detail about every object they observe – providing never-before-seen vistas of the universe.

The featured images on this and other site update pages are taken from the James Webb Telescope images page. Click here to see many more images on the Webb Space Telescope page.

Recent Site Updates

October 2024

Topics Updated

  • Class Projects, Meeting Minutes, Obituary, Reunion Report, Travelogue

Click here to open the monthly update details page. On the details page you will also have access to all monthly updates back to January 2023.

September 2024

Topics Updated

  • Alumni Mag Column, Class Projects, Meeting Minutes, Newsletter

Click here to open the monthly update details page. On the details page you will also have access to all monthly updates back to January 2023.

August 2024

Photograph of planet Neptune with moons and rings

Topics Updated

  • Meeting Minutes, Reunion Announcement

Click here to open the monthly update details page. On the details page you will also have access to all monthly updates back to January 2023.
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