Steinn Sigurðsson
Their Way
Posted by Steinn Sigurðsson on April 14, 2013 “I came with all my books, lived in dorms, followed directions. I worked, I studied hard, met lots of folks who had connections. I crammed, they gave me grades, and may I say not in a fair way. But more, much more than this, I did it their way.” Many years ago, I heard this,…
Hi-z Tidal Disruption: Special Lunch Talk
Posted by Steinn Sigurðsson on April 1, 2013 The department of Astronomy & Astrophysics is proud to announce a special colloquium by a distinguished visitor: TITLE: Emission Lines Accompanying Gamma-Ray Flares from the Tidal Disruption of Dyson Spheres by Binary Intermediate-Mass Black Holes at z ~ 10. Special Lunch Talk, Monday, April 1, 2013 by Professor Rajesh Koothrappali, Circumference Institute [Host: Hofstadter] ABSTRACT:…
topsy turvy universes and other stories
Posted by Steinn Sigurðsson on March 21, 2013 this is not a Planck post… Visalization of the Gödel Universe WMAP-9 Who Wrote Shakespeare’s Plays? – Astrophysicist lets you pick the priors and decide… Harvard did WHAT? “Detection of Carbon Monoxide and Water Absorption Lines in an Exoplanet Atmosphere” – Konopacky et al Science (sub) – HR8799 good S/N spectra “Direct imaging discovery of…
Where do you want to be in 30 years?
Posted by Steinn Sigurðsson on March 19, 2013 Answers on a single sheet double spaced 12 pt font, by monday, please, including figures. The NASA Advisory Council, subcommittee on Astrophysics, has started a Roadmap Exercise. The roadmap exercise was called for at the February 2013 meeting. The roadmap is intended to: Articulate NASA’s astrophysics vision looking out 30 years Science-based -> identify key…
All Your Planets Are Belong to Us
Posted by Steinn Sigurðsson on March 12, 2013 Planets, planets everywhere and on some there will be drops to drink. An interesting confluence of research occurred over the last few months, leading to: “A revised estimate of the occurrence rate of terrestrial planets in the habitable zones around Kepler M-dwarfs” by Ravi kumar Kopparapu PSU (arXiv), ApJLetters in press Bottom line: about half…
Sunstones
Posted by Steinn Sigurðsson on March 12, 2013 Inspired by Tim Hamilton’s facebook post I played a bit with my old bit of silfurberg this weekend In particular, I was curious to test whether there was some plausibility to birefringent calcite being the “
exoplanetology sundries
Posted by Steinn Sigurðsson on March 11, 2013 There were a number of interesting results reported today, the start of what promises to be an interesting week: IR spectra of HR 8799 planets – Scharf at SciAm blogs reports on the Oppenheimer et al paper using the P1640 at the Palomar telescope. Their interpretation of the rather low signal-to-noise low resolution spectra is…
Welcoming the New Neighbours
Posted by Steinn Sigurðsson on March 11, 2013 I think we should take some pie over, in person. Discovery of a Binary Brown Dwarf at 2 Parsecs from the Sun – Kevin Luhman, ApJLetters in press. That is just over 6 light years away, making it the third closest system from the Sun, and the closest known substellar system, only the α Cen…
Silfurberg
Posted by Steinn Sigurðsson on March 11, 2013 When I was about 9 years old, my grandmother gave me a piece of Iceland Spar, it had belonged to my grandfather and she felt I ought to have it. This is the piece, my kids have it now, somewhere along the way it broke into three pieces while in storage. She showed me the…
Linkedy Links XI
Posted by Steinn Sigurðsson on March 10, 2013 My quasi-periodic dump of interestingee thingees off the intertoobz “The Most Precise Extra-Galactic Black-Hole Mass Measurement” A. Gould (ApJ submitted) aka the most talked about paper in astronomy this week… How to kill your audience – apparently fake Wolverine claws are essential… Time to Rethink Cosmic Inflation? – and you thought CDM vs MOND was…