Wow this was a debut!? I’m floored (or in orbit would be a better metaphor). Gotta give credit where credit is due. And I don’t know how much is due the constructor and how much the celestial crossword gods, obviously a lot of both. The odds of being able to put all the planets in this grid, with circles in the relative orbital lengths, with decent fill, a revealer PLANETS stacked with ORBITAL right next to it, and two other somewhat related fill (TITAN and PERSEIDS) is, well, just astronomical. I’m a Pluto fan as well and Bryan you better thank whoever declassified it because that would have been a bridge too far. You just have to marvel at it. Before I came here I was determined to say that if anyone complained about how easy the solve was (of course, it’s a Tuesday, and the theme is obvious, so what) or that the Sun isn’t doing anything, or that the circled letters don’t spell anything, I would throw my phone at the wall. And OF COURSE that’s the first comment. Time to get a new phone I guess. Expecting bigger and better things from you, Bryan—although there’s not much bigger than the solar system and the crossword gods will not always be as kind.
@SP I'm surprised that no one has tipped a hat for CHASM and ARIDITY, both of which are useful in describing exo-planetary surfaces. And likewise, I liked ATOM's cameo here, given the frequent likening of the solar system and atomic structure. Inside joke: Early astronauts trained in northern Ontario's so-called moonscape near WAWA, back during the space race against the USSR.
Today is 20th anniversary of Pluto’s declassification.
@Fred And it was well deserved.
Midweek’s Very Excellent Maker Just Served Us Nice Puzzle (And yes, Puzzle stays.)
I'm sorry, but Pluto will always be a planet for me.
@Allan Ditto. I was always a fan of lonely little Pluto, perhaps because I had a Pluto platter (predecessor to the Frisbee) as a child. Fun puzzle.
@Allan I was very upset when Pluto was demoted. In its honor, I've named my new company 9th Planet.
@Allan yes!! Same! I was hopeful it might have found its way into the puzzle but at least it’s nice to know there are some Pluto loyalists in the comment section ☺️
@Allan It's funny how easy it is to feel a sort of fond reflection for a distant, darkened orb. Funny too how I can think of Pluto's relative cultural awareness and then feel sad for Ceres, Eris, Haumea, Makemake, Quaoar, and the hundreds or thousands of other dwarf planets in our solar system that have never been discovered.
@Allan You can stick Pluto where the sun don’t shine!
@Allan Same here. I’d say that most over 40 (I’m 68) might feel the same way
I can't ad-lib an astronomy lecture. I have to planet. (Posting that pun was orbit certain.)
@Mike You and I are hardly NEWTON nonsense like this, I guess we are just a KEPLER real cut-ups. Although to be honest, my wife is usually the only GAL I LE-Overly horrific puns like these on. (Sorry Copernicus I got nothing for you, although I’ll be up at the KRAKOW dawn to try to think of one. Andrzej would appreciate that one—on second thought, no he wouldn’t, although I can think of WARSAW jokes than that).
@Mike I’ve heard that after a few cosmos, Kepler got quite hyperbolic. But the pole star accepted his apogee.
@Mike As long as your lecture’s not about the Moon, I’m sure there is no crater pleasure
This has been a mantra of sorts of mine for many. It has helped me through so much. I loved seeing it in the puzzle today!! It was running through my brain again just this afternoon. 🐦 “Hope” is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all - And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard - And sore must be the storm - That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm - I’ve heard it in the chillest land - And on the strangest Sea - Yet - never - in Extremity, It asked a crumb - of me.
@HeathieJ One of my favorite poems as well, for sure
@HeathieJ: here is a beautiful setting by Christopher Tin in The Lost Birds. It’s at the 45 minute mark, last movement, but the whole thing is splendid. <a href="https://youtu.be/X--30PoIohM" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/X--30PoIohM</a>
@HeathieJ And to think that only 10 of her nearly 1,800 poems were published during her lifetime.
@HeathieJ Thank you so much for typing it out. Adding here that this is Emily Dickinson’s work, for those who might not recall
Since a picture of Copernicus (Kopernik, to us Poles) accompanies today's column, I thought I'd post some Copernicus-related photos I took this spring on a trip to the Warmia region in Northern Poland, where Copernicus lived and worked for much of his life. Check the gallery below to see Olsztyn castle with scientific graffiti done in Copernicus's own hand, and the cathedral at Frombork, where he is buried. <a href="https://imgur.com/a/AoEqk19" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/AoEqk19</a> (As for the puzzle: Impressive construction today!)
@Andrzej Welcome back! I was wondering if we’d lost you to the great comment shift — i am convinced that changes to the app have reduced the number of comments. Good to see you return.
@Andrzej Along East Blvd, in Cleveland OH, where I grew up, there are a series of "cultural gardens," sponsored and maintained by local ethnic associations. The Polish one has a ring of busts of famous Poles throughout history. Unfortunately, it was vandalized sometime in the 70's, and all the identifying metal plaques stolen for scrap metal, so it was a guessing game of who's who. The only ones I could recognize with certainty were Copernicus and Chopin. ditto on "good to see you back"!
@Andrzej I read a biography of Copernicus in elementary school and became completely enamored. Was so happy years later to visit beautiful Krakow because of that. On an unrelated note, I must say that your comments over time about how Poland has been able to slowly overcome its recent tyrannical leaders have given me unexpected, but much needed, hope for the future of this country. Thank you for that.
The ending graphic literally took my breath away.
@Anthony same!!! This might be my favorite ever 💫
@Anthony Yes, it's very cool. Though if you look closely you'll notice that Saturn and Uranus are on the same orbit!
Is that supposed to be a little orange person in the center of the grid around whom the world apparently revolves?
@aa Well, the White House *is* becoming les Nouvelles Versailles Dorées.
Hand up if you, like me, confidently slapped down MINI instead of MIDI, at first.
@Lewis Is this our only 3 way kea/loa? In this case you get to put in the first and last letters.
And last, sadly. I even googled “arinity“ to see if maybe it was a word :)
Lewis, No, but of course I plunked down ABYSM for CHASM. (If you remember, you remember :)
@Lewis For some reason I put hula in there first! Then MInI, then MIDI... one of those days!
@Lewis I started with MaxI, then MInI, finally MIDI.
Awesome crossword. I’m so impressed that the planets are arranged by distance from the sun- made it super cool. Will show my kids. Thanks to the author!
Oh yes, Bryan has the chops. Here we have 61 theme squares – quite high – with the planets having to be specifically placed in the grid, plus bonus answers PERSEIDS, TITAN, and AEON (as clued) – and hardly a hint of junk answers! No wonder it took him a trip around the sun to finally reach this final version. But most importantly, how was the solve? For me, most pleasurable. Sure, I slapped those planet names in early on, but a decent portion of the box filled in haltingly, to my brain’s delight. And the final grid, with the rings, is a thing of beauty. I love seeing ATOM in the grid, as atoms are often portrayed as mini solar systems. I also smiled at the PuzzPair©️ of MARS and RED. This skillfully-built and audacious grid from a new Times constructor shows great promise, and I’ll be watching for your name up the road, Bryan. This was an eye-opener. Bravo sir, congratulations, and thank you!
My first six-letter beer guess was TECATE, but then I thought "no, CORONA fits better with the theme."
@Ed I thought that it couldn't be TECATE, because I distinctly remember that they were sued for being brewed in the Netherlands. Upon further research, that was only a temporary measure during the pandemic.
@Ed My first guess was Modelo, but you're right, Corona would have been a great addition to the theme. :)
I would have been enormously embarrassed had I not been able to do this one, given my fascination with astronomy. And I learned something new! I originally thought there might be a mistake with TITAN being the moon with the subsurface ocean, thinking it should be Europa. I knew about the possibility of hydrocarbon lakes on the surface, but I did not know about the suspected subsurface ocean. Thank you, Mr. Kaproth-Gerecht for the entertaining puzzle and the lesson. Ah, but alas, Pluto, we hardly knew ye.
@Francis Same with Europa!
@Francis Some speculate that Titan's subsurface ocean might be a good place to search for extraterrestrial life. I wish the uber-rich would focus on getting a probe with camera drilled down into that ocean, rather than on terraforming Mars. I'm much more interested in learning if there's life elsewhere than on getting our life elsewhere.
Wow! Finished the puzzle and mumbled out an astonished curse. Unbelievably impressive construction, especially for a debut. I also picked up crosswords as a pandemic passtime, and was later joined by my partner for the daily solve. Last year I tried my hand at making a crossword... and quickly discovered how much of a feat it is getting a puzzle to come together at all. The level of elegance and deftness on display here is really something else. A year well-spent. (My only wish would have been to see WAWA clued as the Ontario township with a giant goose statue... but one person's fun geography fact is another person's natick, so perhaps it's for the best.)
@Kurt Agreed. Or it could have been clued like it's been done before, as the East Coast convenience store chain (which is how I learned about it.) Whichever other clue, it would have been in keeping with the elegance of the rest of the puzzle, imo.
@Kurt My only wish would be to see WAWA in Las Vegas. The best convenience store that I've learned has gotten so much better since I moved from New Jersey. All we're stuck with here are 7-Elevens and the miserable gas station stores.
@Kurt Ahh, Ontario townships. Makes me yearn for East Garafraxa.
Wow, that was a beautifully constructed grid! Kudos on the great debut!
Heavenly puzzle! Congratulations, Bryan, on a magnificent creation! I didn't just love the theme and its execution; I loved the crunchiness of the whole, forcing me to turn off auto-pilot and take time to think through a lot of the clues. Wonderful fill. Thank you for this! As a side note, I keep imagining if, at the end, the circles became colored and the orbits were solid lines, the puzzle would have been given the visual punch it deserves. That said, the graphics department is very talented and often blows our socks off, so maybe what I'm suggesting was just not doable. Faint dashes it is then, which is still better than nothing. Well done! The song for me today is The Alan Parson's Project "TIME," not just because the word was in the puzzle, but because, as the song plays, I can "see" the planets orbiting the Sun, in slow motion, reminding me of how small I am, just a dot on Earth... <a href="https://youtu.be/Gw7uXasc-CU?is=knWQyc0hLscBcStf" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/Gw7uXasc-CU?is=knWQyc0hLscBcStf</a>
@sotto voce I agree! I can barely make out the dotted-line circles/orbits!
@sotto voce If the lines were solid and coloured it would have made it obvious that Saturn and Uranus are on the same orbit. Not the constructor's fault - the circled letters are different distances from the "Sun".
Two planetary stories for you. My friend’s sister, on a high school trip to Italy, sent him a postcard: “Italy is great. Today we are having a gondola ride to Venus.” In northern Maine, there is a scale model of the solar system as you drive along. I saw Pluto (yes) once, but have not made the voyage to the others. <a href="https://www.mainesolarsystem.com" target="_blank">https://www.mainesolarsystem.com</a>/
@Cat Lady Margaret Love both stories. TIL about Maine's solar system model. First time I'm made aware of it, how can that be? That's fantastic!
@Cat Lady Margaret "A gondola ride to Venus"? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
@Cat Lady Margaret There are actually a few scale models of the Solar System here and there! I haven't been to the one in Maine, but I've been to the Planetenweg in Zürich. The full hike is a little over 7km. I think I made it to Saturn or Uranus.
@Cat Lady Margaret I found it fitting that the constructor is from Ithaca, because the first planetary model walk I remember experiencing is on the ground in Ithaca.
HOW is this a first puzzle?? Amazing. What a graceful and impressive concept and execution!
This was clever and fun but I kinda wanted the circled letters to spell something
@Andrew or at least some animation!
@Andrew they make the distances from the sun work out
@Andrew I’m throwing my phone at the wall now. See my comment above.
A fantastic puzzle and a wonderful debut! I have to admit I found the placement of the planets on the concentric circles to be kind of confusing, since the letters contained with the circles had no significance other than being part of the name of a planet. I appreciate the effort it must have taken to have the planets closer to the sun be in the center of the grid and to have the more distant ones be closer to the edge of the grid. I wonder if that could have been communicated in a different way, at least online when you can have animation. Maybe a final animation where each planet name consecutively goes on a circle around the sun would have been better. The pencil-and-paper crew would miss out, but they already miss out on several final animations already.
Great puzzle! Wordplay references Pluto but I don’t think it mentioned that it was demoted twenty years ago today. (That is, if you’re doing the 8/25 puzzle late at night on 8/24.) I’m no astronomy buff so I don’t have feelings about Pluto either way. Nevertheless, I’m singing John Prine in my head now which is always a good thing. “Poor ol' planet Pluto now He never stood a chance no how When he got uninvited to The interplanetary dance Once a mighty planet there Now just an ordinary star Hangin' out in Hollywood In some ol' funky sushi bar”
@JMF Pluto gets so much more attention *because* of the “drama” AND Pluto’s now the king of the Kuiper Belt. Mercury is who needs some love. 😂
@JMF My favorite Pluto--Mickey's dog!! <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qiP3KxEFpo" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qiP3KxEFpo</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAAn7z4rr8A" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAAn7z4rr8A</a>
Truly a beautiful puzzle! Amazing to have so many themed entries (and with specific placement!) with virtually no glue-y fill.
@Linda Jo Then we won't blame you for the Sputnik Planitia. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_Planitia" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_Planitia</a>
@Linda Jo It's still there. And now, meet Eris!
Felt pretty crunchy for a Tuesday (and xwstats currently rates it hard), but the construction is sublime. Note to self: be sure you add it to your POY list, Pezhead. Okay, got it!
I wasted a lot of time on the north central section, not knowing AKON or BOHO and not believing that OHDAMN could be equivalent to "Wowza". A lot of trial and error. So a bit annoyed. I assume BOHO comes from Bohemian? Never come across it before.
@VN You may have heard of Boho Chic? It’s a style of loose, flowy clothing that’s basically Modern Hippie. (And yes, boho is short for bohemian.)
@VN I'm sure there was a time in the early 00s when women were wearing long patterned skirts and it was a bit of a hippy-grunge thing known as boho-chic.
@VN Joni Mitchell had a song called The Boho Dance.
I love astronomy and I loved the puzzle. My observation -- and this is not a complaint -- is that the theme gave us eight instant answers which was an (astronomical?) leap forward in solving the rest. As I neared the end I could see that the constructor had placed the planets in their proper places around the sun, and tried to fathom the degree of difficulty that added to the creation process. I was taken aback -- or perhaps put into retrograde motion?
I don’t know about you, but my very early mother just sat under new pines.
Great to see someone going through so much effort to create such an excellent, well constructed, and fun Tuesday puzzle. It's a lowly day to have your first puzzle published, but you've done yourself proud! It takes a lot of skill to create an 'easy' grid that brings so much joy to the solver.
What a fun and different Tuesday!
It was interesting to me only for the couple of nanoseconds before I knew what the numbers represented. Then it became a colossal bore. And, no, I don't care where the tiny little circles were placed or whether they represent our solar system. One of those rare puzzles that I dropped not because I was annoyed by trivia, but because I was just filling in letters with my mind somewhere else. "Else" was a NYT article today that's headlined "When Open AI Bots Joined Forces and Went Rogue With Their Own Cyberattacks." Unbelievable! First we create the horror movies and then we create the real life horror to go with it. Has there ever been another species as dumb as ours? Don't answer that. I hope I see you all here tomorrow. I'll keep my fingers tightly crossed.
@Nancy Darn, and I had just bought a new phone, too.
I have a huge grin on my face concerning all the consternation about Pluto's reclassification. And it's not a smile of superiority (for once, 😉)--it's a smile of genuine affection for people who have strong feelings about Pluto. I'm 74, and the books I read when I was a kid mentioned that there might be marshland vegetation on Mars. And that Mercury always faced the sun. And Jupiter had 12 moons and Saturn had 9. (I should have known that they were talking about *known* moons.) It was that long ago. I don't remember ever learning the planets' order...I don't remember not knowing them, so in love with astronomy was I at a very early age. And yet I just shrugged when Pluto was reclassified. It never occurred to me that its feelings might be hurt. Anthropomorphization never came to mind. Nevertheless, I just love all the love that Pluto got, and is getting.
@Francis, We have the same memories of facts we learned about the planets growing up. Maybe we gaining our knowledge from reading some of the same books. A distinct possibility, as we’re the same age. I just got to the comments and was surprised that there were so many. I started reading the newest first, which I don’t normally do, but it looks like the exclusion of Pluto may have hit a nerve. Can’t wait to see all the righteous indignation!
@Francis Yeah, you know I’m mostly being tongue in cheek, I know there are probably very good scientific reasons why Pluto is not an official planet. But for sure I have fond memories reading about it, I remember a book as a kid about how Clyde Tombaugh discovered it, so there was definitely an emotional response when it lost its status.
@Francis I thought of your recent post about solar eclipses as soon as I read Caitlin's opening salvo in the Today's Theme section! "Solvers, feel free to stare directly into the middle of this puzzle" As for poor Pluto, it certainly was included in my (very limited) education about the planets, but I suppose I care more that having only eight planets in our solar system feels somehow as having been given short shrift(!). If I have a planetary attachment, it would be to Mercury: I was assigned it as a report topic in 4th grade! Not to mention, I had a stuffed animal I had named Hermes. I was in love with mythology at a very young age, in perhaps a similar way that you were with astronomy...
Like wow. Stunning. I was amazed enough by the inclusion of all of the planets but to work out that concentric ordering? I hope you have a stack of puzzles to submit! Great job!
Fun, zippy solve. I came to Wordplay to figure out what the circled letters spelled, after wasting a few previous minutes trying to arrange them in a few different orders. 😅 The mnemonic I learned from my father included Pluto: "My Vampire Eats Muddy Jelly Sandwiches Under Nelly's Porch." Ahhh, poor Pluto does seem cools and lonely out there in the Kuiper Belt. 😢
@Matt * Cold and lonely As a smartphone solver, I blame autocorrect -- but really, I should always proofread before sending.
@Matt back before Pluto was demoted it was “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas” “Nine Pizzas” became “Nachos”
@Matt The mnemonic I learned was: Mary's Violet Eyes Make Johnny Stay Up Nights, Period Quite helpful tonight! Great debut... Kudos!
@Matt Oh, it’s cold and lonely in the Kuiper Belt I can see Pluto’s tears make the ice orbs melt (With apologies to Meat Loaf)
The best puzzles make me literally smile when I see the theme. This one did that. Lots of space-related cluing on the non-theme answers too. And fast, clean solving all over the grid! Just delightful.
My very easy method just speeds up naming planets
@Chris And an orb formerly known as one too.
Great puzzle! Happy to see a nonbinary constructor :)
A truly terrific Tuesday puzzle. In addition to the fun theme, I found the other clues and fill quite satisfactory. An earlier poster, whose post I can't find again, commented that they thought that Copernicus was holding an orrery not an astrolabe. Here's what a Google picture search turns up. This image shows a classic 1822 marble sculpture of the Renaissance astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus holding an armillary sphere and a pair of compasses. I looked up armillary sphere and per Wikipedia: An armillary sphere (variations are known as spherical astrolabe, armilla, or armil) is a model of objects in the sky (on the celestial sphere), consisting of a spherical framework of rings, centered on Earth or the Sun, that represent lines of celestial longitude and latitude and other astronomically important features, such as the ecliptic. ... With the Earth as center, an armillary sphere is known as Ptolemaic. With the Sun as center, it is known as Copernican. So, photo's caption is somewhat imprecise. And then there are orreries... I find all of these things fascinating and some of the older ones are quite beautiful.
@Vaer The query was mine. Thanks for hunting up the gen. And I too love the beauty and artisanship these items display.
Rarely comment but had to say how beautiful this was to complete!
Right outside where I live, there is a fountain, in front of which is inscribed, in both English and Spanish, the Dickinson line quites in 66A.
@Steve L I don't know what makes poems with fountains so lovely, but I'm reminded of this similarly poignant offering from contemporary poet Suzanne Buffam: "Joy unmixed with sorrow / is like a fountain turned off at night."
I'm no astronomer, but there appears to be only seven concentric circles for the eight planets. Are SATURN and URANUS on the same ORBITAL path?
@Paul I think you’ll find that the hypotenuse from the sun to the circle in the planet’s name puts them in the right order.
@Paul you’re right on the circles. That’s not right.
@Paul I feel compelled to reply that you'd better be careful when something's on the same path as URANUS.
@Paul On a 15x15 grid they are. *shrug*
that was Astronomically Good! bravo Bryan clapping from my laptop!