News 6 Mashup: July 18, 2022
Here is this week’s News 6 mashup of stories for the week of July 18th, 2022, straight from AWN News 6 Correspondent, Jolene McNutt:
Commissary Savings May Not Be Accurate
The Military Officers Association of America reported that “the Defense Commissary Agency used unreliable and inconsistent methodologies to calculate the annual savings realized by commissary shoppers, resulting in inflated savings figures.” This is according to a Government Accountability Office report that was released in June.
“Since 2016, DeCA has had a global target customer savings rate of 23.7%, which it says has been met or nearly achieved over the last several years. The average savings for CONUS patrons in FY 2021 was 17.7%, compared with 42.5% for OCONUS patrons. When calculated to reflect the 81% of CONUS commissary sales and 19% of OCONUS sales, the average savings rate was 22.4%.”
The report found that CONUS savings were fairly accurate. However, OCONUS savings were muddled and it offered three recommendations to improve the data collection.
DoD Reveals New Website for MWR Libraries
The Department of Defense MWR program has launched a brand new library website! The new site, DoDMWRLibraries.org, offers a massive selection of free resources for children, teens and adults. A snapshot of what you can find includes:
- E-books and audiobooks
- Movies and music
- Newspapers and magazines
- Academic support (prep tests and online tutoring)
- Professional development
- Reference and research
- DIY activities and projects
If you are already a patron of a DoD Library, moving to the new site take just a few steps. First, create a new profile on at the site, then you’ll be prompted to link with existing library accounts where you can review answers to your account questions. Finally, log in and start searching!
NASA Reveals Spectacular Images from Webb Telescope
NASA has released the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope and the results are wilder than I could have imagined! When I first saw the images, they looked like graphic designs – not photographs. One of my favorite images is nicknamed “Cosmic Cliffs” because it looks like an brownish-orange mountain range at night, with a deep blue sky and sparkling stars. But a closer read explains that baby stars are being formed.
“It is the edge of the giant, gaseous cavity within NGC 3324, and the tallest “peaks” in this image are about 7 light-years high [that’s the ‘mountain range we see in the image]. The cavernous area has been carved from the nebula by the intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from extremely massive, hot, young stars located in the center of the bubble, above the area shown in this image.” I’m sharing the image at Army Wife Network and will link to more information at NASA. The images are truly incredible!
Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
NASA’s Webb Reveals Cosmic Cliffs, Glittering Landscape of Star Birth
Located roughly 7,600 light-years away, NGC 3324 was imaged by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).
- NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals emerging stellar nurseries and individual stars in the Carina Nebula that were previously obscured
- Images of “Cosmic Cliffs” showcase Webb’s cameras’ capabilities to peer through cosmic dust, shedding new light on how stars form
- Objects in the earliest, rapid phases of star formation are difficult to capture, but Webb’s extreme sensitivity, spatial resolution, and imaging capability can chronicle these elusive events
This Week in History
Since we’re talking NASA, a throw back to July 20, 1969 to the first moon landing! Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon. Meanwhile, astronaut Michael Collins remained behind in the Columbia, the orbiting command module to make visual and photographic observations.
At 10:56pm EDT, Armstrong climbs down the ladder and proclaims “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Soon after, Aldrin also set foot on the surface. According to NASA, the pair explored the surface for two and a half hours, collected samples and took photographs.
They left behind “an American flag, a patch honoring the fallen Apollo 1 crew, and a plaque on one of Eagle’s legs. It reads, ‘Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon. July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.’”
Photo by: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
