Technologies

This Scrollable Map of the Universe Reminds Us How Tiny We Really Are

It’s a bit unsettling to scroll through this website scientists made to detail the observable universe. I highly recommend doing it.

When you open up Johns Hopkins University Professor Brice Ménard’s «map of the observable universe,» you’re met with a geometric diagram overflowing with thousands of rainbow freckles, each neatly organized by color. At the bottom of this diagram lies an unnerving phrase.

«You are here.»

One negligible, barely visible dot on this graph represents our entire Milky Way galaxy — a realm with billions of stars besides our own sun, and one we occupy such a small percentage of I don’t even want to attempt writing it out.

With a single pixel, Ménard stunningly puts into perspective the cosmic brevity of everything we’ve ever truly known as human beings.

«This map, representing galaxies just as little dots, allows the viewer to basically understand different scales at the same time,» Ménard said in an overview of the interactive mechanism. «Seeing the vastness of the universe — it’s quite inspiring.»

Scrolling around the 200,000 galaxies in the map — placed in accurate, relative positions to one another — is calming because it reframes how inconsequential the footprint we place in the universe is. It’s disturbing for precisely the same reason.

It draws a distinct parallel with Carl Sagan’s famous quote about Voyager 1’s breathtaking image of Earth from 1990, «Pale Blue Dot.»

«Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us,» Sagan said. «On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.»

Though if you’re blown away by the deceptively concise magnitude of Ménard’s map, consider how it doesn’t even account for every galaxy in the universe. In reality, NASA estimates there are something like a hundred billion galaxies unfolding eternities beyond our own.

We’d need an unfathomable level of observable universe cartography to encapsulate the full breadth of the cosmos.

Slice of our universe

Along with a cadre of scientists, Ménard used data mined over two decades by what’s known as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

«Astrophysicists around the world have been analyzing this data for years, leading to thousands of scientific papers and discoveries,» Ménard said. «But nobody took the time to create a map that is beautiful, scientifically accurate, and accessible to people who are not scientists. Our goal here is to show everybody what the universe really looks like.»

Once you click «explore the map» under the Milky Way galaxy label, you arrive at a screen prompting you to «scroll up to travel through the universe.» That such a sentence even exists underscores just how far technology has come.

«From this speck at the bottom,» Ménard said, «we are able to map out galaxies across the entire universe, and that says something about the power of science.»

Even more impressive is how, as you follow the prompt, a ticker at the bottom left of the screen shows you how many billions of years back in time you’ve scrolled. Meanwhile, the dots go from gradients of pale blues to yellows to oranges to reds, ultimately retreating to a cool midnight hue.

«Each dot is a galaxy shown with its apparent color,» the page reads. «Spiral galaxies are faint and blue. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is a blue spiral.»

Elliptical galaxies are shown as yellowish and brighter, while reddened speckles indicate realms that have grown distant enough for the light they emanate to stretch and appear to us on Earth as crimson blurs.

Further back 9 billion years, the map exhibits vivid blue spots to represent quasars rather than galaxies. These are extreme jets of light spewing out from the guts of black holes sitting at the center of certain galaxies.

Basically, it’s really hard to see galaxies from this era of cosmic history, reddened to the point of near-invisibility, but quasars are bright enough to act like flashlights. Their brilliance shines across the universe, revealing scenes otherwise shielded by darkness and softened with distance.

But beyond even those quasars lies a splotch of blackness — evocative of the mysteries lurking beyond the red end of the electromagnetic spectrum. Infrared waters.

«We encounter an epoch during which the universe is filled with hydrogen gas that prevents the propagation of visible light we could observe today. This epoch is called the «dark ages,'» the page reads.

NASA’s magnificent James Webb Space Telescope is such a big deal because it’s built to find secrets hidden in this region invisible to human eyes. Constructed with an army of high-tech infrared sensors, it’s working on detecting galaxies from near the beginning of time stuck in a limbo we cannot see with our minds or machines.

With each Webb discovery, hopefully maps like this one will become populated where their empty spaces currently sit.

And at the very, very top of the page, a marbled photo of the edge of the observable universe. The first flash of light emitted post-Big Bang, nearly 14 billion years ago. The Cosmic Microwave Background.

«We cannot see anything beyond this point,» the map concludes after you scroll back to the beginning of existence. «The light travel time to us is greater than the age of the universe.»

Technologies

This Massive AT&T Data Breach Settlement Could Pay $5K to Some: Find Out if You’re Eligible

Claims will open later in the summer for the settlement AT&T is paying to resolve two major data breaches.

It’s a tough time for AT&T — especially with the recent conference call troubles for Donald Trump — but their struggles could be your gain thanks to the $177 million settlement it’s agreed to pay to customers that fell victim to data breaches in 2019 and 2024.

On Friday, June 20, US District Judge Ada Brown granted preliminary approval to the terms of a proposed settlement from AT&T that would resolve two lawsuits related to the data breaches. The current settlement would see AT&T pay $177 million to customers adversely affected by at least one of the two data breaches.

The settlement will prioritize larger payments to customers who suffered damages that are «fairly traceable» to the data leaks. It will also provide bigger payments to those affected by the larger of the two leaks, which began in 2019. While the company is working toward a settlement, it has continued to deny that it was «responsible for these criminal acts.»

For all the details we have about the settlement right now, keep reading, and for more info about other recent settlements, find out how to claim Apple’s Siri privacy settlement and see if you’re eligible for 23andMe’s privacy breach settlement.

What happened with these AT&T data breaches?

AT&T confirmed the two data breaches last year, announcing an investigation into the first in March before confirming it in May and confirming the second in July.

The first of the confirmed breaches began in 2019. The company revealed that about 7.6 million current and 65.4 million former account holders had their data exposed to hackers, including names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth. The company began investigating the situation last year after it reported that customer data had appeared on the dark web.

The second breach began in April of 2024, when a hacker broke into AT&T cloud storage provider Snowflake and accessed 2022 call and text records for almost all of the company’s US customers, about 109 million in all. The company stressed that no names were attached to the stolen data. Two individuals were arrested in connection with the breach.

Both of these incidents sparked a wave of class action lawsuits alleging corporate neglect on the part of AT&T in failing to sufficiently protect its customers.

Who is eligible to file a claim for the AT&T data breach settlement?

As of now, we know that the settlement will pay out to any current or former AT&T customer whose data was accessed in one of these data breaches, with higher payments reserved for those who can provide documented proof that they suffered damages directly resulting from their data being stolen.

If you’re eligible, you should receive a notice about it, either by email or a physical letter in the mail, sometime in the coming months. The company expects that the claims process will begin on Aug. 4, 2025.

How much will the AT&T data breach payments be?

You’ll have to «reasonably» prove damages caused by these data breaches to be eligible for the highest and most prioritized payouts. For the 2019 breach, those claimants can receive up to $5,000. For the Snowflake breach in 2024, the max payout will be $2,500. It’s not clear at this time how the company might be handling customers who’ve been affected by both breaches.

AT&T will focus on making those payments first, and whatever’s left of the $177 million settlement total will be disbursed to anyone whose data was accessed, even without proof of damages. Because these payouts depend on how many people get the higher amounts first, we can’t say definitively how much they will be.

When could I get paid from the AT&T data breach settlement?

AT&T expects that payments will start to go out sometime in early 2026. Exact dates aren’t available but the recent court order approving the settlement lists a notification schedule of Aug. 4, to Oct. 17, 2025.

The deadline for submitting a claim is currently set at Nov. 18, 2025. The final approval of the settlement needs to be given at a Dec. 3, 2025, court hearing for payments to begin.

Stay tuned to this piece in the coming months to get all the new details as they emerge.

For more money help, check out CNET’s daily tariff price impact tracker.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Saturday, July 12

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for July 12.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? It’s one of those long Saturday puzzles, and a few clues are tricky. Read on for the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

The Mini Crossword is just one of many games in the Times’ games collection. If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Havana’s home
Answer: CUBA

5A clue: Last word in many bowling alley names
Answer: LANES

6A clue: Lots and lots
Answer: SOMUCH

7A clue: Left-leaning social media site
Answer: BLUESKY

8A clue: Hepburn of «Breakfast at Tiffany’s»
Answer: AUDREY

9A clue: Word after «break» or «banana»
Answer: BREAD

10A clue: Car loan figs.
Answer: APRS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: They always shoot their shot
Answer: CAMERAS

2D clue: Brand-new
Answer: UNUSED

3D clue: Woman with «the good hair,» in a famous Beyoncé lyric
Answer: BECKY

4D clue: In need of moisturizer
Answer: ASHY

5D clue: «We can’t hear you back here!»
Answer: LOUDER

6D clue: Drink noisily
Answer: SLURP

7D clue: ___ ghanouj
Answer: BABA

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for July 12, #292

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for July 12, No. 292

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition has one of those classic purple categories, where you probably won’t figure it out before you’ve answered all the others. Need help? Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Show Me State.

Green group hint: Old Line State.

Blue group hint: Gridiron greats.

Purple group hint: Names begins with a certain creature.