THE spices and other ingredients needed to make nasi tumpeng, a towering cone of yellow rice, were still in the kitchen of an apartment in the city of Heidelberg, Germany. The inhabitant was getting ready to prepare the dish to celebrate his team’s success in discovering an extrasolar planet orbiting the star known as TW Hydrae. “There was no special celebration. Just tumpengan,” said Johny Setiawan to Tempo, on Monday last week.

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