Technologies

Catch a Rare Planetary ‘Smiley Face’ in the Stars This Week: Here’s How

Look to the eastern sky late Thursday, and a clear horizon will show you this unusual, grinning planet alignment.

A rare celestial event on April 24-25 will give skygazers a creative way to see a smiley face in the early morning sky. Though it’s not exactly an emoji, this interesting grouping will show a crescent moon plus two rising planets, Venus and Saturn, close to the horizon. Together they’ll form a quirky sideways «smile» for watchful viewers, creating plenty of potential for amateur photographers with the right angles.

«Find Venus, Saturn, and the crescent moon gathered low in the east as dawn warms the morning sky. Mercury is also visible below them for those with a clear view to the horizon,» NASA said in this month’s skywatching tips.

This isn’t quite a lunar occultation, where the moon fully obscures the planets, but the event is very close to one. If you want the best chance of seeing this interesting convergence, you should head out before twilight.

When CNET reached out to Amateur Astronomer’s Association for advice, they let us know, «Thank you for reaching out! Stargazers all across the US will be able to see this conjunction in the early morning hours. They should look towards the eastern sky just before sunrise, local time. … All stargazers need is an open view of that eastern horizon and clear skies» The club also recommended using the Stellarium Web site as a tool to calculate the exact best time to view for your location.

When you’re ready, start with a few simple steps:

Go out while it’s still fully dark, well before dawn in your location.
Ensure you have a clear view of the eastern horizon (where the sun rises). Clouds or morning fog may obscure the event.
Find a higher spot with a clear view of the horizon. Nearby hills or mountains could hide the event, so the clearer, the better.
Find the moon’s crescent at the bottom of the horizon.
Look to the upper right of the crescent and watch for two bright lights to shine. You may think they’re stars, but they’re planets. Venus should be significantly brighter than Saturn, giving the smile a fun, lopsided look.
If you’re taking photos, wait until the brightening twilight has started to obscure nearby stars while the planets still remain easily visible.

The smiley face is part of Venus’ continual shift from an evening spectacle to a morning event throughout April. Mercury will also be making an appearance if you have a horizon view that includes especially low stars.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for April 22, #211

Hints and answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, No. 211, for April 22.

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.

Connections: Sports Edition is the most up-and-down puzzle for me of all the New York Times online games. Sometimes I ace it (not that often), and other times, it stumps me. The usually tough purple category was OK for me today, but I had to let the blue category fill in itself, because it contained a word I’d never even seen before (Babolat). 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: Not footgear.

Green group hint: City of Brotherly Love.

Blue group hint: Think Venus and Serena Williams.

Purple group hint: Spacey team names.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Headgear.

Green group: Philadelphia teams.

Blue group: Tennis racket brands.

Purple group: Sports meets outer space.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is headgear. The four answers are hat, helmet, mask and visor.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is Philadelphia teams. The four answers are 76ers, Flyers, Phillies and Union.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is tennis racket brand. The four answers are Babolat, Head, Prince and Wilson.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is sports meets outer space. The four answers are Astros, Galaxy, Stars and Sun.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Tuesday, April 22

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for April 22.

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.

My husband hasn’t played the NYT Mini Crossword that much, as I discovered when I heard him yell out, «Two of these clues are the same!» Yes, and it’s not a typo — that’s how tricky the puzzle creators are. 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 at those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Work like a ___
Answer: DOG

4A clue: Work like a ___
Answer: CHARM

6A clue: Voice type that falls between soprano and alto, informally
Answer: MEZZO

7A clue: Black-and-white snacks
Answer: OREOS

8A clue: Move one’s head in agreement
Answer: NOD

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Totally out of it
Answer: DAZED

2D clue: Rice-shaped pasta
Answer: ORZO

3D clue: Engineered crops, for short
Answer: GMOS

4D clue: «You can’t be serious!»
Answer: CMON

5D clue: Villain’s counterpart
Answer: HERO

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

Researchers Shoot Lasers At People’s Eyes To Help Them See A New Color

The new color, olo, is described as a «blue-green of unprecedented saturation.»

Think you’ve seen all the colors that exist? Maybe not. Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Washington have created a new system that controls the eye’s photoreceptors to help it see new colors, as reported in the journal Science Advances last week.

Researchers didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The system, called Oz, works by activating cone cells in the retina — in short, firing laser pulses at researchers’ eyes — to push the eye past «spectral sensitivities» and to «elicit a color beyond the natural human gamut.»

In this case, respondents described the color as a «blue-green of unprecedented saturation.»

Even those who worked on the research were impressed.

«We predicted from the beginning that it would look like an unprecedented color signal but we didn’t know what the brain would do with it,» said Ren Ng, an electrical engineer at the University of California, Berkeley, in an interview with The Guardian. «It was jaw-dropping. It’s incredibly saturated.»

The researchers say it’s impossible to fully convey this color over a monitor, but a swatch they shared with The Guardian resembles a bright turquoise.