OGN Friday
- Jan 2
- 4 min read
Some tasty bite-sized chunks of positive news to brighten the day.
Cosmic Collision
When the solar system began to form, everything was chaos. A slew of rocky material was smashing together in a maelstrom that would eventually become the baby protoplanets, comets and asteroids that make up our cosmic neighborhood. And now NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured a similar violent clash occurring around another star some 25 light-years away. The star, Fomalhaut, stands out as one of the brightest in the night sky and is known to be shrouded in bands of dust and debris. This and other observations of Fomalhaut and its surrounding debris could offer new clues to how planetary systems like our own coalesce and evolve.
Still Razor-Sharp
Archaeologists investigating an old Roman settlement in Lincoln, central England, made a very surprising find when they unearthed a 5,000-year-old highly polished Neolithic stone axe head, that still has a razor-sharp edge. Archaeologist Chris Clay said: "We expected this to be a Roman site, and that's what we've got, but we've also got hints of much earlier activity going back to about 3,000 BC." That is about 3,000 years before Roman Britain began. "This is a high-status item and wouldn't have been used to chop down trees, it was much too valuable," he said. "Perhaps this site was a meeting point for communities to come together at a special event. It's very likely that the axe head was exchanged or traded as a commodity."
Happy New Year
Queen Bey is entering 2026 with a new title: billionaire. Beyoncé has officially joined the 10-figure club, ending the year by crossing into a threshold that includes the likes of Taylor Swift, Rihanna, and Bruce Springsteen, Forbes reported. Another member of that group is her husband, Jay-Z, who became hip hop’s first billionaire in 2019. The singer’s jump into $1 billion territory was bolstered by her Cowboy Carter tour, the highest-grossing concert tour of the year, says Forbes.
French Follow Aussies
France intends to follow Australia and ban social media platforms for children from the start of the 2026 academic year. A draft bill preventing under-15s from using social media - and a ban on mobile phones in high schools, where 15- to 18-year-olds study - will be submitted for legal checks and is expected to be debated in parliament early in the new year. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has made it clear in recent weeks that he wants France to swiftly follow Australia’s world-first ban on social media platforms for under-16s, which came into force in December. It includes Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube. Phones have already been banned in primary and middle schools.
The Last Unmarried
For the 11th year in a row, one man has continued a holiday tradition that many people can’t help but relate to - being the last unmarried member of his family. He shared the latest edition of his annual Christmas photo on Reddit under the username TheDeepBlueZ, jokingly titled “Another Christmas As The Last Unmarried In My Family.” The photo shows him standing between his married siblings and their spouses, a tradition that has become a lighthearted family staple since 2015.
Stromlinienwagen
Auction house RM Sotheby’s says it is responsible for selling 2025's most expensive car. The vehicle in question was this gorgeous 1954 Mercedes-Benz W 196 R Stromlinienwagen - or Streamliner - that hammered down for just over $53 million at a special one-car sale at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, becoming the second most expensive car ever sold at auction. The open-top racer was famously driven by the legendary Stirling Moss and Juan Manuel Fangio, with the latter taking it to victory in the 1955 Buenos Aires Grand Prix. But, brace yourself, the most expensive car ever sold was the 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe that sold for $142 million in the spring of 2022 - as part of a charity auction that was also held at the automaker’s museum.
“If I had my way, I would remove January from the calendar altogether and have an extra July instead.” Roald Dahl
On This Day
2 January 1839: First photo of the Moon, taken by French photographer Louis Daguerre, using his daguerreotype process, but this original image was unfortunately lost in a laboratory fire later that year. While Daguerre's attempt was pioneering, American scientist John William Draper is credited with capturing the first successful and preserved detailed astrophotograph of the Moon in March 1840.
Today's Articles
Interesting Discovery: Silver medieval seal matrix - with a Roman carved gemstone - inscribed with the words 'Richard's Secret'.
Mood Boosting Video
Kelp Forests: The importance of 'The Sequoias of The Sea.'
