Technologies

Southern Delta Aquariid meteor shower provides a perfect Perseid preview

This season’s spectacle of shooting stars is just getting started.

The most anticipated night of the year for shooting-star spotting is still a couple of weeks away. It happens on Aug. 11, when the Perseids peak, but this week still offers a welcome warm-up courtesy of the Southern Delta Aquariid meteor shower.

Technically, the Delta Aquariids are visible in the Northern Hemisphere but make for better viewing from southern latitudes, hence the name. The shower peaked on Wednesday night and Thursday morning but itshould still be visible in the night sky for the next few evenings and early mornings.

«The Delta Aquariids are another strong shower best seen from the southern tropics,» says the American Meteor Society.

When viewed from further north, these meteors typically appear at lower rates and closer to the southern horizon. They’re also less bright than the more spectacular Perseids and produce fewer fireballs, but they can still make for a good training run for the more popular shower next month.

As the shower peaks, NASA says, you might expect to see up to 20 meteors per hour. That number will quickly slip to just a handful as the days proceed.

The source of the Delta Aquariids is thought to be the comet 96P Machholz, which swings through the inner solar system roughly every five years, leaving behind a trail of dust and debris. Each July, Earth passes through this cloud of cometary detritus, and tiny pebbles and other little leftovers smack into our atmosphere and put on a brief light show as they burn up.

This year, the shower will be competing a bit with a partial moon in the night sky. Your best bet is to go out in the evening before the moon comes up, and find a spot with a broad view of the sky and no light pollution.

Give your eyes at least 20 minutes to adjust to the dark and then lay back on a blanket our lounge chair, relax and just watch. If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, best to orient yourself toward the southern horizon.

Set aside at least an hour for a viewing party, and enjoy, keeping in mind that the night skies get only more exciting in the coming weeks!

Follow CNET’s 2021 Space Calendar to stay up to date with all the latest space news this year. You can even add it to your own Google Calendar.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Saturday, June 7

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for June 7.

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.

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword could be tricky. 1-Down and 5-Down stumped me for a while, but the other letters filled it in for me. Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Read on. 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: Yoga class need
Answer: MAT

4A clue: Umlaut, rotated 90°
Answer: COLON

6A clue: «That is shocking!»
Answer: OHMYGOD

8A clue: «___ You the One?» (reality TV show)
Answer: ARE

9A clue: Egg cells
Answer: OVA

10A clue: One of two «royal» sleeping options
Answer: KINGBED

12A clue: Bar seating
Answer: STOOL

13A clue: Favorite team of the «Chicago Pope,» for short
Answer: SOX

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Slices of life
Answer: MOMENTS

2D clue: Olympic gymnast Raisman
Answer: ALY

3D clue: Request at the end of a restaurant meal
Answer: TOGOBOX

4D clue: Hayes of MSNBC
Answer: CHRIS

5D clue: Medium for Melville or McCarthy
Answer: NOVEL

6D clue: Wood used for wine barrels
Answer: OAK

7D clue: June honoree
Answer: DAD

11D clue: Sticky stuff
Answer: GOO

How to play more Mini Crosswords

The New York Times Games section offers a large number of online games, but only some of them are free for all to play. You can play the current day’s Mini Crossword for free, but you’ll need a subscription to the Times Games section to play older puzzles from the archives.

Technologies

Despite War of Words, Trump May Funnel Billions to Musk’s Starlink With BEAD Changes

Technologies

Square Enix’s Next Game Blends Among Us-Like Murder Mystery With Bloody Carnage

Unveiled at Summer Game Fest, Killer Inn is an upcoming multiplayer murder mystery pitting players against each other in the search for the true killers.

Bet you didn’t have this one on your bingo list. Developed by Tactic Studios in partnership with Square Enix, the game was unveiled during the Summer Game Fest livestream, and it’s far from the famed RPG maker’s bread and butter. Killer Inn, as it’s called, is a multiplayer murder mystery that takes Among Us-like gameplay and ratchets it up by handing players knives, guns and many other weapons to kill or be killed while they search for the original killer.

Killer Inn might be one of those games that is best understood after playing a few matches, but even from the reveal trailer, there’s a lot going on. In each match, 24 players enter a sprawling castle-turned-hotel to determine who the real killers are as they’re picked off one by one. There’s deduction and mayhem aplenty.

Killer Inn’s play phases are patterned after detective-style games, from Among Us to Ultimate Werewolf to Mafia. A match begins with most players as cooperative participants («lambs,» in Killer Inn’s parlance) mixed with a few secret killers («wolves»). Players complete tasks to earn tokens redeemable for items and weapons, while the killers quietly go about their business — until someone discovers a body. On the corpse are clues left by the killer, so the lambs can try deducing the true culprit (or culprits).

Then it’s all about collecting clues and identifying the wolves — but unlike Among Us, there’s no group discussion to present evidence or vote them out. Killer Inn skips the parlor scene and dives straight into action: If you’re sure someone’s the killer, take them out. Use those token-bought guns and blades to put down the villain. Unless you accidentally murder one of your innocent teammates — in which case, you’re turned to stone for the rest of the match. Bummer.

Lambs have another win condition: assembling four keys to escape on the ship that brought them to the murder island. There are other mechanics, too, like finding relative safety in rooms with hotel staff, who will identify any wolves that kill lambs in their line of sight.

Players can choose between 25 premade characters that each have their own unique appearances and abilities, the latter of which improve as the match goes on, often reflecting the nefarious dark sides of the participants. For example, Winston is a surgeon who kills more efficiently with knives and, when leveled up, deals extra damage while covered in blood. The Otaku, by contrast, gains 25 HP from finding clues and eventually builds resistance to status effects. Levels don’t carry over between matches — everyone starts fresh at level one.

Killer Inn doesn’t have a release date, but the game will kick off a closed beta test over Steam in the near future.