Hasta La Gadget!

Since the Donald Trump-founded social media platform, Truth Social launched in February, the site’s financial origins have been cloaked in layer of mystery. The company secured an alleged $1 billion in funding, but that money remains inaccessible pending a successful public launch. In the interim, Trump’s media…

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NASA has released another image that the James Webb Space Telescope has captured of the Pillars of Creation. While the picture that the agency offered up last week provided a detailed look at stars forming in the region, the latest one is a spookier and more ethereal image.

Bathed in orange and black, the image that Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) captured is certainly timely, given that Halloween is just a few days away. NASA says the rendering provides a fresh perspective on the Pillars of Creation, with a focus on the region’s gas and dust.

Last week’s image was captured with Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), which was able to look through the columns of dust to observe thousands of new stars in the region in more detail than before. However, many of the stars aren’t bright enough to shine through at the wavelengths MIRI focuses on.

NASA says that, with this image, astronomers have mid-infrared light data at higher resolution than has been available in the past. The agency notes that researchers will look at more precise dust movements to form a fuller 3D landscape of the Pillars of Creation. This will help to develop a deeper understanding of how stars form.

The Pillars of Creation is in the Eagle Nebula, some 6,500 light years away. In case you’re wondering how vast the whole thing is, take a look at the bright red star that juts out from the right side of the top pillar, around halfway up. NASA says the star and its dusty shroud are bigger than our entire solar system, which may or may not spark an existential crisis or two. Have a wonderful Halloween weekend.

A week and a half ago, NASA released a stunning image of the iconic Pillars of Creation taken by the Webb Space Telescope, a $10 billion state-of-the-art space observatory that launched last December.

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Twitter no longer lets you charge users to listen to live Spaces conversations. The social media heavyweight tells The Information in a statement that it has indefinitely “paused” its Ticketed Spaces test. The move will let Twitter concentrate on improving the “core Spaces experience,” the company says. It’s not clear how many eligible hosts were using the service.

The company started public testing of Ticketed Spaces in August last year, three months after it unveiled the feature. Effectively, it was a way for creators to put audio chats behind a paywall. An industry figure could hold a TED-style talk from home, while a star could hold discussions with their most loyal fans. Notably, Twitter’s potential profit was relatively low — it would take just a 3 percent cut from revenue below $50,000, and only demand 20 percent beyond that. While that fee include Apple and Google payouts, it still meant that hosts would take most of the revenue.

This isn’t to say Twitter is shying away from Spaces in general. The company is experimenting with support for live chats inside Communities, and is working on projects like themed stations and daily digests. However, the end to Ticketed Spaces comes as social audio pioneer Clubhouse (the inspiration for Spaces) has been rethinking its strategy and laying off staff. The live voice chat field just isn’t as hot as it was during the early pandemic, and that could make it harder to attract paying users.

What happens next isn’t clear. While the discontinuation of Ticketed Spaces isn’t connected to Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, the incoming leader has promised sweeping changes to the company as he tries to make it a “town square” while boosting its bottom line. We wouldn’t expect paid chats to come back, but they’re not necessarily dead.

Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter is seemingly complete, as the tech CEO has fired a number of Twitter’s top executives. Here’s who got the axe first.