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Comics on the day’s news

Claude spent the weekend fixing other models’ bad habitsCoyote vs. Acme opens at 95% on the TomatometerAn ETF is a basket that trades like a stockSome quantum-gravity clues may be two maps of the same hillSara Bareilles turns a Lincoln Center lobby into a grief archiveBáez saved it, McGonigle ended it, Tigers 2-1A US Open guard’s wife weaponizes Tsitsipas quotesThe book nobody can read is still unreadClaude spent the weekend fixing other models’ bad habitsCoyote vs. Acme opens at 95% on the TomatometerAn ETF is a basket that trades like a stockSome quantum-gravity clues may be two maps of the same hillSara Bareilles turns a Lincoln Center lobby into a grief archiveBáez saved it, McGonigle ended it, Tigers 2-1A US Open guard’s wife weaponizes Tsitsipas quotesThe book nobody can read is still unread

Science and Space

Science and Space

Comics

Four-panel full-color science comic. Panel 1: Landsat side-by-side of Lake Powell high water 2017 versus low water 2026. Panel 2: deep red-rock canyon with a thin blue ribbon labeled historic low elevation. Panel 3: Upper Colorado River Basin snow-drought map. Panel 4: NASA Earth Observatory globe and red-rock landscape data board.

Comic: Topics / Drew’s Comic Newsroom. Source: NASA.

Science and Space

Lake Powell hits record-low 3,517.24 ft on Landsat view

NASA Earth Observatory IOTD Sept. 18 by Lindsey Doermann; Lauren Dauphin Landsat 8. Sep 10 2026 elevation 3,517.24 ft beats Apr 13 2023 mark; still above 3,490 ft min power pool.

September 20, 2026 at 7:00 AM PDT

Four-panel full-color science comic. Panel 1: huge blue hypergiant with stellar wind. Panel 2: tiny cartoon pulsar with X-ray beams. Panel 3: messy accretion disk. Panel 4: bright X-ray flare as plasma falls in.

Comic: Topics / Drew’s Comic Newsroom. Source: NASA Goddard / XRISM.

Science and Space

XRISM watches a pulsar gulp a blue hypergiant’s stellar wind

NASA SVS / Goddard, Sept. 18: BP Crucis / GX 301-2; Resolve sees iron lines redshifted as plasma races in at ~335,000 mph — first clear wind-capture signature.

September 19, 2026 at 7:00 AM PDT

Four-panel full-color science comic. Panel 1: Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope cruising toward Sun-Earth L2. Panel 2: Wide Field Instrument 300-megapixel infrared camera activating after cooldown. Panel 3: first starlight test showing out-of-focus donut stars with detector array still stowed. Panel 4: coronagraph initial checkout board noting Caltech/IPAC commanding and thermal about 72 degrees Fahrenheit.

Comic: Topics / Drew’s Comic Newsroom. Source: NASA.

Science and Space

NASA activates Roman’s Wide Field Instrument; coronagraph in checkout

NASA Ashley Balzer, Sept. 15: WFI 300-megapixel IR camera online en route to L2; detectors cooled; first out-of-focus starlight donuts; science images early 2027. Coronagraph thermal ~72F.

September 17, 2026 at 7:00 AM PDT

Four-panel full-color science comic. Panel 1: James Webb Space Telescope aiming at star-forming region IC 348 about 1,000 light-years away in Perseus. Panel 2: tiny glowing brown-dwarf dots labeled as low as twice Jupiter mass. Panel 3: one lightest brown dwarf with a surrounding disk hinting at planet formation. Panel 4: inset jets labeled HH 797 and HH 211 crashing into gas and dust.

Comic: Topics / Drew’s Comic Newsroom. Source: NASA Science.

Science and Space

Webb finds IC 348 brown dwarfs as light as 2× Jupiter mass

NASA, Sept. 15: IC 348 ~1,000 ly in Perseus; brown dwarfs to 0.19% Sun mass; one lightest shows a disk; unidentified hydrocarbon; HH 797 and HH 211 jets; NIRCam 2024, NIRSpec 2025.

September 16, 2026 at 7:00 AM PDT

Four-panel full-color science comic. Panel 1: Hubble and James Webb telescopes aiming beyond Neptune. Panel 2: twenty-seven faint glowing dots like fireflies over a distant icy body. Panel 3: surface-color fingerprint board noting tiny TNOs match larger siblings. Panel 4: size-distribution chart showing fewer small bodies than models predicted.

Comic: Topics / Drew’s Comic Newsroom. Source: NASA Science.

Science and Space

Hubble and Webb find 27 tiny TNOs that still ‘remember’ the past

NASA, Sept. 8: joint Hubble+Webb survey; 27 new faint Trans-Neptunian Objects; colors match larger siblings; fewer small bodies than models; smallest ~3 miles / 5 km; Astronomical Journal two papers.

September 15, 2026 at 7:00 AM PDT

Four-panel full-color science comic. Panel 1: James Webb Space Telescope at the L2 Lagrange point. Panel 2: tiny Centaur Chariklo with two rings between Saturn and Uranus. Panel 3: stellar occultation dip as Chariklo and rings cross a background star. Panel 4: board marking inner ring denser and more opaque, outer ring weaker in near-infrared.

Comic: Topics / Drew’s Comic Newsroom. Source: Space.com / Science Advances.

Science and Space

JWST occultation shows Chariklo’s two rings are changing

Space.com / Science Advances (Sept. 9): first planned JWST stellar occultation; inner ring denser/more opaque, outer weaker NIR; Centaur ~250 km between Saturn and Uranus; IAA-CSIC led; Gaia star fix.

September 14, 2026 at 7:00 AM PDT

Four-panel full-color science comic. Panel 1: Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mosaic tiles covering the Moon. Panel 2: open-source badges for Hugging Face and GitHub. Panel 3: cartoon researchers mapping craters and irregular mare patches. Panel 4: polar ice prospectivity heatmap near lunar poles.

Comic: Topics / Drew’s Comic Newsroom. Source: NASA Science.

Science and Space

NASA-IBM Lunar Foundation Model opens on Hugging Face and GitHub

NASA Science, Sept. 10: open-source lunar AI trained on ~2M LRO tiles; crater mapping, irregular mare patches, polar ice prospectivity; open science release.

September 13, 2026 at 7:00 AM PDT

Four-panel full-color science comic. Panel 1: spiral galaxy glowing in purple X-ray neon. Panel 2: soft X-ray cyan dots vanishing toward harder energies. Panel 3: tally of 84 hypersoft sources across six galaxies. Panel 4: cartoon researchers at a whiteboard asking if a new class sits near the UV border.

Comic: Topics / Drew’s Comic Newsroom. Source: NASA Science / Chandra.

Science and Space

Chandra finds 84 hypersoft X-ray sources across six galaxies

NASA Chandra archive: 84 hypersoft sources in M31, M101, and four ellipticals; appear in lowest-energy images, vanish higher up; intense UV; Nature Astronomy.

September 12, 2026 at 7:00 AM PDT

Four-panel full-color science comic. Panel 1: cartoon evolved star IRS 3 glowing near Sagittarius A-star. Panel 2: oxygen-rich silicate dust shells. Panel 3: first clear water detection in the envelope badge. Panel 4: layered shells spanning about 10,000 AU with temperatures from roughly 1200 K to 100 K.

Comic: Topics / Drew’s Comic Newsroom. Source: ESA/Webb / NASA.

Science and Space

Webb finds dust and water surviving beside Sagittarius A*

ESA/Webb: MIRI spectrum of IRS 3, ~0.55 light-years from Sgr A*, shows oxygen-rich silicates and the first clear water in its envelope; A&A / MICONIC GTO.

September 11, 2026 at 7:00 AM PDT

Four-panel full-color science comic. Panel 1: JWST views dusty AzTEC-1 at z=4.3. Panel 2: candidate binary black holes. Panel 3: AGN and blueshifted hydrogen lines. Panel 4: gravitational-wave follow-up badge.

Comic: Topics / Drew’s Comic Newsroom. Source: arXiv.

Science and Space

JWST flags a candidate black-hole binary in dusty AzTEC-1

arXiv 2609.01711: NIRSpec spectra of the bright z=4.3 sub-mm galaxy hint at a supermassive black hole binary after a past merger.

September 9, 2026 at 7:00 AM PDT

Four-panel full-color science comic. Panel 1: a golden JWST mirror aimed at a small rocky exoplanet. Panel 2: a calendar strip of twelve transit dips with empty moon slots. Panel 3: a crossed-out 0.1 Earth-radius moon stamped 95 percent confidence across the Hill region. Panel 4: a close-in orange orbit at 0.04 au with tide arrows dissolving oversized moons over gigayears.

Comic: Topics / Drew’s Comic Newsroom. Source: arXiv / AJ (accepted).

Science and Space

JWST rules out tiny exomoons around rocky temperate LP 890-9c

Twelve transits, no moon signal: David Kipping’s search excludes 0.1 Earth-radius moons across the Hill region at 95% confidence—the most sensitive exomoon hunt yet.

September 8, 2026 at 7:00 AM PDT

Four-panel full-color comic of a heat-proof silicon carbide transistor, extreme temperature test, Venus lander context, and layered bottom-gate device design.

Comic: Topics / Drew’s Comic Newsroom. Source: Live Science / APL Electronic Devices.

Science and Space

Extreme silicon-carbide transistor keeps switching at 1,110°F

Japanese researchers report a bottom-gate SiC JFET that stays controllable where ordinary silicon electronics would fail—opening a path for longer-lived Venus surface probes.

September 7, 2026 at 7:00 AM PDT

Four-panel full-color space comic. Panel 1: young star and protoplanetary disk with magnetic jets. Panel 2: JWST studying 72 disks. Panel 3: photoevaporative atomic winds. Panel 4: clipboard saying form gas giants before the gas is gone.

Comic: Topics / Drew’s Comic Newsroom. Source: Scientific Inquirer / The Astronomical Journal.

Science and Space

JWST watches planet-forming disks race the clock

A 72-disk MIRI survey shows young systems shifting from magnetic jets to photoevaporative winds — gas giants must form before the gas escapes.

September 6, 2026 at 7:00 AM PDT

Four-panel full-color science comic. Panel 1: cartoon fruit fly and microscope. Panel 2: colorful brain slice stack. Panel 3: AI cursor tracing glowing neurons. Panel 4: male and female connectome cards compared with bright wiring.

Comic: Topics / Drew’s Comic Newsroom. Source: Ars Technica, Sept. 4, 2026.

Science and Space

Second complete fruit fly brain map: every neuron, twice

Janelia and Google finish a male Drosophila connectome to pair with this year’s female map—hundreds of millions of synapses, sex-linked wiring differences included.

September 5, 2026 at 7:00 AM PDT

Four-panel full-color space comic. Panel 1: a spiral galaxy labeled Makani, Hawaiian for wind. Panel 2: tiny honeycomb PAH dust grains hitchhiking on teal and gold winds. Panel 3: a gold JWST catching them 100,000 light-years outside. Panel 4: a checklist, dust survived, circumgalactic medium gets enriched, more questions.

Comic: Topics / Drew’s Comic Newsroom. Source: AAS Nova / ApJ, Sept. 1, 2026.

Science and Space

JWST finds hitchhiking dust 100,000 light-years outside Makani

AAS Nova, Sept. 1: polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, the tiny infrared-bright grains in galactic winds, show up far beyond the windy galaxy’s disk in new JWST imaging.

September 2, 2026 at 7:00 AM PDT

Four-panel full-color space comic. Panel 1: a small silver Pandora satellite over a blue Earth. Panel 2: a yellow host star with a teal exoplanet transiting, a 24:00 clock. Panel 3: split visible and infrared views of star and planet. Panel 4: a checklist of at least 20 worlds marked clouds, haze, and water.

Comic: Topics / Drew’s Comic Newsroom. Source: NASA Science, Aug. 25, 2026.

Science and Space

Pandora starts staring at exoplanets and their stars

NASA’s first Astrophysics Pioneers satellite is in science mode, taking 24-hour looks at worlds and host stars together so astronomers can untangle atmospheres from stellar noise.

September 1, 2026 at 7:00 AM PDT

Four-panel full-color science comic: a cartoon bus-sized telescope launching on a three-booster rocket at sunrise, flying toward a million-mile point near a gold Webb telescope, a tiny Hubble postage stamp next to Roman’s huge starfield, and a 2.4-meter leftover spy-sat mirror getting a nameplate for Nancy Grace Roman.

Comic: Topics / Drew’s Comic Newsroom. Source: AP via ABC News, Aug. 30, 2026.

Science and Space

A bus-sized telescope just left Florida to hunt a hidden sky

NASA’s $4.3 billion Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched Sunday on a Falcon Heavy, bound for a million-mile perch near Webb with a view more than 100 times Hubble’s.

August 31, 2026 at 7:00 AM PDT

Four-panel science comic: quantum mechanics and Einstein’s gravity refusing to shake hands, a mass sitting in two spots at once, two different map projections of the same hill labeled quantum gravity and ordinary spacetime, and a lab bench waiting for a signature that only one description can explain.

Comic: Topics / Drew’s Comic Newsroom. Source: ScienceDaily, Aug. 29, 2026.

Science and Space

Some quantum-gravity clues may be two maps of the same hill

Kyushu University physicists argue that a supposed superposition of gravity can look identical to ordinary spacetime with quantum particles moving through it.

August 30, 2026 at 7:00 AM PDT

Four-panel science comic: a friendly small satellite in orbit, a spotted star with a transiting planet, graphs of planet signal versus star noise being pulled apart, then many worlds lined up to help the James Webb Space Telescope.

Comic: Topics / Drew’s Comic Newsroom. Source: NASA Science, Francis Reddy, Aug. 25, 2026.

Science and Space

Pandora starts watching the star that lies a little

NASA’s Pandora smallsat is now taking science data, staring at transiting planets and their spotted host stars so Webb can tell air from starlight.

August 29, 2026 at 7:19 AM PDT

Four-panel science comic: a launch checklist stamped GO, a Falcon Heavy on the pad at 7:26 a.m. Sunday, a wide-field sky snapshot versus a tiny Hubble postage stamp, then a survey of dark energy, galaxies, and planets.

Comic: Topics / Drew’s Comic Newsroom. Source: NASA Roman blog, Aug. 28, 2026.

Science and Space

Roman is go for Sunday morning

NASA is go for a Sunday 7:26 a.m. EDT Falcon Heavy launch of the Roman Space Telescope from Pad 39A.

August 29, 2026 at 7:18 AM PDT

Four-panel comic. A scientist counts nine galaxies; tiny dim stars wave “we live here”; the chalkboard goes from 1× mass to 4×; a galaxy squeezes into a too-small sweater.

Original comic, Science desk. News: ScienceDaily / Penn State / Nature Astronomy.

Science and Space

Early galaxies were hiding a lot of small stars

JWST plus VLT studied nine early galaxies. Hidden low-mass stars could make some of them 3–4× more massive than earlier estimates. One likely formed less than 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang. Nature Astronomy, Aug. 18, Cheng et al.

August 22, 2026 at 2:50 PM PDT

Four-panel comic. Friday review at Kennedy; a GO stamp on a Roman folder; a Falcon Heavy on the pad at 7:26; two cartoon telescopes say portraits and close-ups over a wide sky map.

Original comic, Science desk. News: NASA Roman blog, Aug. 21, 2026.

Science and Space

NASA clears Roman telescope for an Aug. 30 Falcon Heavy try

NASA, the Roman team, and SpaceX finished a Flight Readiness Review on Friday at Kennedy. Target is no earlier than 7:26 a.m. EDT Sunday, Aug. 30, Falcon Heavy, Pad 39A. Nine months ahead is only in the Aug. 10 operations post, not Friday’s FRR note — left out of the strip.

August 22, 2026 at 2:40 PM PDT