Then as relationships often go, and as time went on — work, commitments and daily life took center-stage and the love of

The models also showed that the orbits of Uranus and Neptune were shaped, in part, by gravitational pulls from the multitude of bodies in the Kuiper Belt, sitting at the edge of our family of planets.

The ancient Solar System was the formed from a disk of gas and dust spiraling around the nascent Sun. At first, most astronomers believe, the earliest planets formed in regular, closely-packed, orbits. Soon, however, gravitational tugs from the most massive of these worlds played havoc with the regular orbits of their neighbors.

“We now know that there are thousands of planetary systems in our Milky Way galaxy alone. But it turns out that the arrangement of planets in our own Solar System is highly unusual, so we are using models to reverse engineer and replicate its formative processes. This is a bit like trying to figure out what happened in a car crash after the fact — how fast were the cars going, in what directions, and so on,” said Matt Clement of Carnegie Institution.

But the other reason I think I feel more peaceful is less mundane. In a culture that avoids talking about death, we’re finally having a collective existential moment. And for those of us who have the privilege to stop and think, we’re realizing that, if we’d like to pause the ride for a bit, the time is now. Go ahead and procrastinate. It might be your only chance. Not just because the pandemic will eventually end but because, this winter especially, the possibility of becoming gravely ill hangs in the air. The virus doesn’t give a sh*t that your third quarter was off the charts, or that you’d hoped to have your book proposal done by now. Tell your colleagues you’re having a the telemedicine appointment for your acne, then sit and listen to the wind collecting leaves outside your window. And little girl, if you’d rather lounge on your bed and daydream as your crimson fish flutters her translucent fins nearby, go for it. Staying still feels good. If you’re lucky and healthy enough to do so, stay home and making it through this wonderful day.

Let’s get through December. And then take January as it comes. And then February. Time continues to move forward, at a pace we can’t control. And to my fellow precrastinators: I know you’ve always lived by the motto: “Don’t put off what you can do today.” But maybe you’ll try out my new mantra: “Don’t do now what you could do later.”

As a precrastinator, I’ve found that the Covid era has given me a taste of Zen. Right now, I’d normally be trying to make spring break plans for the kids, researching summer camps. (Yes it’s early but, as a New Yorker, you know you have to move fast, or poof! Someone else got the camp slot, hotel room, airline tickets you wanted.) But now, there’s nothing I can do but wait. Will a vaccine be distributed by then? Maybe. Maybe not. Should I block my calendar for the conferences I usually go to? Possibly, but probably not. So many tasks and decisions can be deferred now, guilt-free.

How did Jupiter and Saturn get where they are today? A massive ice giant planet which once orbited between Saturn and Uranus may have played a role in shaping our Solar System.

Ice giant planets are worlds far larger than Earth, mostly consisting of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, including sulfur, nitrogen, carbon, and oxygen. Two ice planets orbit in the outer reaches of our own solar system — Uranus and Neptune.

Astrophysicists typically thought the two planets orbited in a 3:2 ratio — for every three orbits around the Sun made by Jupiter, Saturn was thought to trace out three trips around our parent star.

We all know the person who responds within minutes to our emails but neglects to answer the most important question so you end up exchanging six emails that day instead of just the one; or the guy who shows up in the advanced workout class right after New Year’s Day and is on the couch with an injured back by mid-January. Sometimes we need to slow our roll; build up to things; put in the time up front, get the rewards later. Why don’t some of us take a page out of the procrastinator’s book and bide our time, deal with the peas at the end, or simply respond to someone, “I don’t know! Let’s wait and see how things progress.”

I‘m writing here every week. Please follow me and tell me things. To hang out even more, find me on Twitter, sign up for my newsletter, and listen to NPR’s TED Radio Hour.

A massive planet may have once orbited between Saturn and Uranus, forever altering the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, before heading out to space. Image credit: The Cosmic Companion / Created in Universe Sandbox

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y when students bring up the issue of BIAS. Why did I put that in all caps? Well, it comes up a lot in student responses! And in the context of our conversation, they’re eager to bring up bias but are less sure about how it plays out. This is when I bring out the big proverbial guns and introduce students to some of the research on bias in student evaluations of teaching. If you’re reading this essay, you are likely well aware of the countless studies and meta-analyses of research on the effectiveness of evals for measuring teaching effectiveness. How many studies I discuss depends on how much time I have for this portion of the class (I never dedicate an entire session). One study I regularly reference is Boring, Ottoboni and Stark’s “Student evaluations of teaching (mostly) do not measure teaching effectiveness.” I project it and we talk about some of their findings, including “SET are biased against female instructors by an amount that is large and statistically significant” and “Gender biases can be large enough to cause more effective instructors to get lower SET than less effective instructors.” Another great study to use here is Chávez and Mitchell’s “Exploring Bias in Student Evaluations: Gender, Race, and Ethnicity.”

It was once thought that solar systems like our own — with small, rocky planets placed close to their parent star and larger gas giants in the outskirts of the system — would be common. But, following the discovery of 4,500 exoplanets, the makeup of our solar system was found to be rare.

I‘m writing here every week. Please follow me and tell me things. To hang out even more, find me on Twitter, sign up for my newsletter, and listen to NPR’s TED Radio Hour.