New Zealanders celebrate Matariki as public holiday for first time

STORY: New Zealanders celebrate Matariki as public holiday for first time DATELINE: June 23, 2022 LENGTH: 00:01:42 LOCATION: Wellington CATEGORY: SOCIETY SHOTLIST: 1. various of fireworks STORYLINE: New Zealanders celebrated Matariki, or the Maori New Year, as an additional public holiday for the first time on Friday. Matariki will be a distinctly New Zealand holiday, a time for reflection and celebration, and the first public holiday that recognizes the Maori worldview, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said while joining the nation's celebrations at a traditional ceremony early Friday morning. Matariki is a cluster of stars (Pleiades) that rises in mid-winter, marking the start of the Maori New Year, and in recent years has become a time of celebration not just for Maori, but for many people across New Zealand. A Matariki Advisory Group has been established to provide advice on future dates of the public holiday and how it should be celebrated because the date of Matariki changes each year depending on th

First light images taken by Japan's 'Subaru' telescope

First light images taken by Japan's 'Subaru' telescope

This handout photo of the Orion nebula, released by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) on Jan. 29, has been taken using 'Subaru,' one of the world's largest optical-infrared telescopes located in Hawaii. It shows sharp images of four bright stars called Trapezium, which are normally concealed behind gas clouds. The Subaru Telescope, named after the Japanese word for Pleiades, made verifiable observations of objects 5 billion light years away in the Milky Way Galaxy in two hours, compared with the seven hours it took the orbiting Hubble Telescope, NAOJ officials said. ==Kyodo