Latest news with #Balmer
Scoop
17-07-2025
- Sport
- Scoop
Heady Rise For Young Pulse Defender
On the brink of playing in the Elimination Final, Te Wānanga o Raukawa Pulse defender Laura Balmer is still taking stock of her short but adventurous introduction to life in the ANZ Premiership netball league. The Pulse take on the Tactix in Christchurch on Sunday evening to decide who will meet the Northern Mystics in the league's Grand Final, a week later. Sailing close to the wind at times to get to this position, the Pulse have another big challenge in store against a seasoned Tactix side, who remain unbeaten at home this campaign and have remained largely injury-free. The pair has met twice this season with a win apiece. ``Our last three games have kind of been do-or-die so we're not strangers to that situation, we know how to come together and win each moment,'' Balmer said. ``You can't go into it thinking who won what, it's a complete clean slate. Our focus is, respect your opposition, do all the game prep and analysis to the best of our ability, and go in with our game faces on.'' Hoping to nail a spot in the NZ U21 team to contest the World Youth Cup in September, it has been a whirlwind seven months for Balmer, 21, who at the beginning of the year expected to be playing for the Southern Blast in the National Netball League (NNL) and continuing her medical studies in Dunedin. It was a pinch-me-moment when she was drafted into the Pulse as a replacement player ahead of the season, her life taking a completely different turn and which, subsequently, has included many more pinch-me-moments. In the wake of injury to Parris Mason, that included her first start last weekend in the largely unfamiliar position of goal defence, the match won in dramatic fashion by the Pulse with a last-gasp super shot against the Magic. ``I did not get much sleep the night before but it was so exciting,'' she said. ``I was very nervous, especially coming up against Ameliaranne (Ekenasio) who I've grown up watching but it was so cool. It was such a team effort and they all backed me to do my job, so I just went on confident but nervous. ``It's been a hectic ride but it's just been amazing. Obviously, I was apprehensive moving to Wellington because I just didn't know what to expect. I was excited but I thought it could go terribly. But I have just loved it. The coaching, the city, the team……I think the team culture here is just amazing. ``I'm very much a family person and coming here, you just automatically get a family in your team and that's been fantastic. There's been lots of learnings, lots of steep learning curves but everyone's very supportive and encouraging, so it's been a fun journey.'' Having switched from playing in the NNL, where netball is fitted in around work or study, to full immersion and the expectations of what's required at ANZ Premiership level, Balmer is living the dream. ``Coming into the ANZ Premiership, everything is about performance and netball, so that's what your sole focus is and you're paid to do it,'' she said. ``It has just exceeded all my expectations. It's like being with a fun group of people all day every day playing the sport you love.'' Due to illness and injury, the Pulse have had to dig deep into their resource well at various times which has meant tinkering with line-ups and some players covering several positions, including the invaluable contribution Gabi Simpson has provided the team. Dropping her life in Brisbane to accommodate the Pulse in their hour of need, the former Diamond has gained universal admiration for her professionalism and adaptability, seamlessly stepping into goal defence and centre, positions she has not played much of at the elite level, and her more familiar wing defence role. ``I could literally talk on Gabi all day,'' Balmer said. ``I have so much respect for her. She can play pretty much any position you put her in and also she's just one of the wisest people that I've met. ``We do lots of coffee dates where I just question her all the time. She is so respected in this group because she just brings such knowledge and wisdom but is so humble with it. She's always very team focused and will do anything for the team, and is such a selfless player.''
Sunday World
01-07-2025
- Sunday World
Woman avoids jail for money laundering after Snapchat account offered ‘quick cash'
Caithlin Balmer (26) arrived at her local garda station and told Garda Harry Hockney that she engaged with the snapchat account called mrdotmakemoney4u A woman has been sentenced for money laundering after she engaged with a man on Snapchat who offered her 'quick cash'. Caithlin Balmer (26) arrived at her local garda station and told Garda Harry Hockney that she engaged with the snapchat account called mrdotmakemoney4u, an account which was posting stories asking if anyone would be willing to allow the man to use their bank account. The man claimed that he would compensate the bank account holder between €750 to €1,000. Balmer, formerly of Grange Abbey Grove, Donaghmede, Dublin 13, came forward to Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on signed pleas of guilty from the District Court. She pleaded guilty to three charges of being in possession of the proceeds of criminal conduct, totalling €21,400, on three separate dates in August 2022. Caroline Latham BL, prosecuting, told Judge Pauline Codd that the State accepts Balmer's pleas on the basis of recklessness. She said of the total cash stolen from the victim's bank account, €16,409 was transferred or withdrawn. The victim was compensated by the bank and the bank managed to recoup some of the balance that remained in Balmer's bank account. The money was stolen from the woman's bank account following a phishing scam. She knew she was due to pay custom charges for some shopping she had bought online and responded to a bogus text purporting to be from An Post to confirm those payments. There was no victim impact statement before the court. Gda Hockney told Ms Latham that Balmer confirmed that she had allowed her bank account to be used and withdrew some of the funds transferred. She met with an unknown man to hand over the cash. She said other funds were withdrawn from her account by someone else. It was accepted that the most Balmer received from this person for her role was €175. She said she had become friends with this man on Snapchat in April 2022 and interacted with him before he approached her the following August and asked for her bank account details. It was accepted that Balmer had no involvement in gathering the information on the victim's account or taking the money from her account. Gda Hockney agreed with Seoirse Fennessy BL, defending, that Balmer has since moved to Listowel in Kerry where she is working as a nursing care assistant in a nursing home. He acknowledged that she was in fear of the person she had interacted with and that was why she reported her involvement to gardaí. Caitlin Balmer Today's News in 90 Seconds - July 1st Mr Fennessy told Judge Codd that his client had €5,000 in court as a genuine expression of her remorse, adding that this sum of money would have been difficult for her to get together. He asked the court to accept that her early pleas of guilty were significant and that she had co-operated with the garda investigation. 'The criminals involved in this saw her as expendable,' Mr Fennessy submitted to the court. Judge Codd said that Balmer had been 'actively involved' in this offence and it was a significant amount of money that had been stolen. She accepted Balmer acted as a money mule but added 'she did get involved because there was free money effectively offered'. 'She was highly naïve. She realised she was getting in over her head and was scared to withdraw,' Judge Codd said before she gave credit to Balmer for going to the gardaí herself. Snapchat. (stock image) She set a headline sentence of two and half years before she took into account mitigation including Balmer's deep and genuine remorse and the fact that she is highly thought of by her current employer. Judge Codd noted that Balmer has always been determined and compassionate and 'her work has been directed towards compassion and a willingness to help others,' which she said had been referenced in various testimonials before the court. 'A message of general deterrence has to go out. There are constant ads on the radio warning people about these types of scams,' Judge Codd said before she acknowledged that Balmer didn't financially gain from the offence. 'She was highly reckless, highly foolish and highly naïve engaging in this situation,' Judge Codd said before she imposed a 12 month sentence which she suspended in full on strict conditions.
Time of India
15-06-2025
- Science
- Time of India
NASA's Webb finds cold giant planet caught in cosmic tug of war: Here's why it intrigues scientists
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has snapped a direct image of a frozen world with an orbit so off-track it's left astronomers puzzled. Named 14 Herculis c , this distant planet lies about 58.4 light-years away in the constellation Hercules and appears to be drifting through a celestial crime scene. "This is a totally new regime of study that Webb has unlocked with its extreme sensitivity in the infrared," said William Balmer, a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University and co-lead author of the new paper. A cold giant in Deep Space At minus 3°C, 14 Herculis c is among the coldest exoplanets ever directly imaged. Unlike the majority of observed exoplanets—usually hot and young—this one is roughly four billion years old and frigid. It is seven times as massive as Jupiter and orbits its star at a vast distance of about 1.4 billion miles. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 45세 이상이신가요? 느긋하게 쉬려면 이 게임을 플레이해 보세요 (지금 플레이해 보기) Taonga: 아일랜드 팜 플레이하기 Undo In the JWST image, it appears as a faint orange dot. That faintness is a surprise, given its size and age. 'The planet's actually significantly fainter than what we'd expect,' said Balmer. 'We don't think that this is a problem with the evolutionary models, however.' Live Events The brightness—or rather, the lack of it—may be explained by what's happening deep within the planet's atmosphere. A misaligned and violent orbit What's truly unusual is how this planet moves. The 14 Herculis system has two known planets that orbit their host star at sharply different angles. Instead of sweeping around their star in neat loops like our solar system, the planets cross paths in an 'X' pattern. 'This is the aftermath of a more violent planetary crime scene,' Balmer said. 'It reminds us that something similar could have happened to our own solar system, and that the outcomes for small planets like Earth are often dictated by much larger forces.' Scientists believe the skewed orbit might be the result of a third planet that once existed in the system but was violently ejected during its early evolution. The remaining two appear to be locked in a long-term gravitational tug-of-war . 'These wobbles appear to be stable over long time scales,' Balmer added. 'We're trying to understand what kinds of planet-planet scatterings could produce such an exotic configuration of orbits.' What the atmosphere reveals Using JWST's Near-Infrared Camera and coronagraph—tools designed to block out starlight and catch faint planetary signals—astronomers were able to detect traces of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide in the planet's atmosphere. "Added information, like the perceived brightness in direct imaging, would in theory support this estimate of the planet's temperature," said Daniella C. Bardalez Gagliuffi, co-author of the paper. Gagliuffi explained that 14 Her c behaves more like a brown dwarf than a planet in terms of atmospheric chemistry . Normally, at such low temperatures, methane would dominate. But instead, carbon molecules created in warmer atmospheric layers appear to have been churned upward before they could convert. 'This is explained by churning in the atmosphere,' she said. 'Molecules made at warmer temperatures in the lower atmosphere are brought to the cold, upper atmosphere very quickly.' The result is a planet that appears cooler and dimmer than it actually is—wrapped in a kind of cosmic disguise. Rethinking planetary evolution Most directly imaged exoplanets are young, bright, and close to their stars. But the strange tilt and great distance of 14 Her c made it a perfect target for Webb's advanced imaging techniques. "This is great news for direct imaging," Balmer said. "We could confidently predict that JWST could resolve the outermost planet in the system." With this image, JWST has expanded the known frontier of observable planets to include cold, mature giants. The discovery is more than a milestone—it's a gateway into understanding how solar systems form, clash, and settle. "We want to understand how these planets change," said Balmer, "because we want to understand how we got here." The team's findings have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and were recently presented at the 246th American Astronomical Society meeting in Anchorage, Alaska. This isn't just about a frozen gas giant orbiting far away. It's about understanding how planetary systems form, how they fight, and how they survive. Earth's place in the cosmos may have been secured not by order, but by surviving early chaos—and Webb's sharp new eye just gave us a glimpse of what that chaos looks like elsewhere.
Economic Times
15-06-2025
- Science
- Economic Times
NASA's Webb finds cold giant planet caught in cosmic tug of war: Here's why it intrigues scientists
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has snapped a direct image of a frozen world with an orbit so off-track it's left astronomers puzzled. Named 14 Herculis c, this distant planet lies about 58.4 light-years away in the constellation Hercules and appears to be drifting through a celestial crime scene."This is a totally new regime of study that Webb has unlocked with its extreme sensitivity in the infrared," said William Balmer, a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University and co-lead author of the new paper. At minus 3°C, 14 Herculis c is among the coldest exoplanets ever directly imaged. Unlike the majority of observed exoplanets—usually hot and young—this one is roughly four billion years old and frigid. It is seven times as massive as Jupiter and orbits its star at a vast distance of about 1.4 billion the JWST image, it appears as a faint orange dot. That faintness is a surprise, given its size and age.'The planet's actually significantly fainter than what we'd expect,' said Balmer. 'We don't think that this is a problem with the evolutionary models, however.' The brightness—or rather, the lack of it—may be explained by what's happening deep within the planet's truly unusual is how this planet moves. The 14 Herculis system has two known planets that orbit their host star at sharply different angles. Instead of sweeping around their star in neat loops like our solar system, the planets cross paths in an 'X' pattern.'This is the aftermath of a more violent planetary crime scene,' Balmer said. 'It reminds us that something similar could have happened to our own solar system, and that the outcomes for small planets like Earth are often dictated by much larger forces.' Scientists believe the skewed orbit might be the result of a third planet that once existed in the system but was violently ejected during its early evolution. The remaining two appear to be locked in a long-term gravitational tug-of-war. 'These wobbles appear to be stable over long time scales,' Balmer added. 'We're trying to understand what kinds of planet-planet scatterings could produce such an exotic configuration of orbits.'Using JWST's Near-Infrared Camera and coronagraph—tools designed to block out starlight and catch faint planetary signals—astronomers were able to detect traces of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide in the planet's atmosphere."Added information, like the perceived brightness in direct imaging, would in theory support this estimate of the planet's temperature," said Daniella C. Bardalez Gagliuffi, co-author of the paper. Gagliuffi explained that 14 Her c behaves more like a brown dwarf than a planet in terms of atmospheric chemistry. Normally, at such low temperatures, methane would dominate. But instead, carbon molecules created in warmer atmospheric layers appear to have been churned upward before they could convert. 'This is explained by churning in the atmosphere,' she said. 'Molecules made at warmer temperatures in the lower atmosphere are brought to the cold, upper atmosphere very quickly.'The result is a planet that appears cooler and dimmer than it actually is—wrapped in a kind of cosmic directly imaged exoplanets are young, bright, and close to their stars. But the strange tilt and great distance of 14 Her c made it a perfect target for Webb's advanced imaging techniques."This is great news for direct imaging," Balmer said. "We could confidently predict that JWST could resolve the outermost planet in the system."With this image, JWST has expanded the known frontier of observable planets to include cold, mature giants. The discovery is more than a milestone—it's a gateway into understanding how solar systems form, clash, and settle."We want to understand how these planets change," said Balmer, "because we want to understand how we got here."The team's findings have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and were recently presented at the 246th American Astronomical Society meeting in Anchorage, isn't just about a frozen gas giant orbiting far away. It's about understanding how planetary systems form, how they fight, and how they survive. Earth's place in the cosmos may have been secured not by order, but by surviving early chaos—and Webb's sharp new eye just gave us a glimpse of what that chaos looks like elsewhere.
NDTV
15-06-2025
- Science
- NDTV
'Strange' Planetary System With Unusual Orbit Intrigues Scientists
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured a clear and direct image of a distant planet in a planetary system which is described by scientists as "abnormal", "chaotic" and "strange". The planet named 14 Herculis c (or 14 Her c) is an exoplanet located approximately 58.4 light-years away in the constellation of Hercules in the Milky Way galaxy. The planet was formed around four billion years ago and has a frigid atmospheric temperature of just minus 3 degrees Celsius. The exoplanet is one of the coldest captured to date. "The colder an exoplanet, the harder it is to image, so this is a totally new regime of study that Webb has unlocked with its extreme sensitivity in the infrared," William Balmer, co-first author of the new paper and graduate student at Johns Hopkins University, was quoted as saying by NASA. "We are now able to add to the catalog of not just hot, young exoplanets imaged, but older exoplanets that are far colder than we've directly seen before Webb," Balmer added. The planet 14 Herculis c is a gas giant, roughly the same size as Jupiter but much more massive, with a mass of 7.1 Jupiter masses. The planet orbits its star, 14 Herculis, at a distance of about 27.4 astronomical units (AU), taking around 142.8 years to complete one orbit. In the latest image taken by JWST, 14 Her c appears as a faint orange dot. Its colour is a result of heat radiating from its atmosphere, which translates into visible hues. Why is this planetary system misaligned? NASA revealed that there are two planets in this system - 14 Herculis b is closer to the star. But they have an unusual orbit as these planets cross each other like an 'X', with the host star at the centre. For the first time, an image of a misaligned system has been taken, leaving scientists worried about how the planets got so "off track". "The early evolution of our own solar system was dominated by the movement and pull of our own gas giants. They threw around asteroids and rearranged other planets. Here, we are seeing the aftermath of a more violent planetary crime scene. It reminds us that something similar could have happened to our own solar system, and that the outcomes for small planets like Earth are often dictated by much larger forces," added Balmer.
