Steinn Sigurðsson
Professor of Astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University. Science Editor at Astrophysical Journal. Icelandic. Herder of Cats.
catdynamics
Posts by this author
April 13, 2010
The RNA committee of the Icelandic Alþingi has, finally, issued its Black Report, into the collapse of the Icelandic economy and the events leading up to it.
The entire report, all 2000 pages or so, are being read aloud by a series of actors at the City Theater.
Initial reactions range from the…
April 9, 2010
Been a while since I done one of these...
The single best predictor of academic success; the most fascinating astronomical object you never knew; and so much more...
"Home library size has a very substantial effect on educational attainment,...
This is a large effect, both absolutely and in…
April 8, 2010
The volcanic eruption at Eyjafjallajökull continues, but, for now at least, is a "tourist eruption", as nice as they get, with a huge flood of tourists to the mountain on clear days and a boom industry in getting sightseers out to the mountain.
From rainbowgirl on flickr via fiveprime - click…
April 2, 2010
Final day of the Exoplanet Rising workshop.
Start off with migration theory, then scattering and collisions.
Finish with tidal destruction and future observational prospects.
Lubow and Malhotra.
Then Thommes and Armitage.
Followed by Ogilvie and Traub.
Then we are done.
This is a public service…
April 1, 2010
Exoplanets Rising continues theoretical rumination, as we contemplate formation, migration, water delivery and evolution
Johansen and Lissauer on oligarchic models before lunch.
Then Mayer on collapse of Too Big Too Fail blobs before Chambers and Raymond return to rocks bashing into each other.…
April 1, 2010
Surprise discovery announcement at the Exoplanet UpRising workshop!
In a dramatic change in schedule, Fieffe Menteur, a junior researcher at the French Academy for Keplerian Exoplanets broke embargo and revealed the first discovery of a habitable exoplanet!
Dateline 2010-04-01:
The object,…
March 31, 2010
Second fissure has opened up northwest of the original on Fimmvörðuháls, east of Eyjafjallajökull.
This is NOT towards Katla.
Geologists on site saw the fissure open as it happened. As of this evening it is still growing, with 7 centers of eruption.
Þórsmörk has been closed, lave should flow north…
March 31, 2010
Finding and characterizing habitable exoplanets.
Enric Palle on Earth as an exoplanet.
Drake Deming on using JWST to find exoplanets
Then Lisa Kaltenegger on biosignatures
Jim Kasting on habitability and 3D GCMs.
Missed Palle's talk. It is online...
Talked about transmission spectra, reflectance,…
March 31, 2010
Workshop turns more to theory: planetary structure, crusts and atmospheres; cooling and heating. Well, it is an Institute of Theoretical Physics...
Adamses Burrows and Burgasser start the morning.
We're promised things will be stirred up a bit more.
Diana Valencia on super-earth structure and…
March 30, 2010
Next we review microlensing surveys for planets and then direct imaging surveys.
Scott Gaudi up first on microlensing.
Interesting statistics on preponderance of solar like planetary systems.
Hints of free floating planets seen.
Paul Kalas on direct detections.
Also Graham and Kadsin.
Plus bonus "…
March 30, 2010
Status of CoRoT and Kepler missions is reviewed at the "Exoplanets Rising" workshop at the Kavli Institute, we'll see if there are any news.
CoRoT is up first. Magali Deleuil presenting.
Kepler next with Bill Borucki.
CoRoT nominal mission ends tomorrow!
Extended missions to end of March 2013.…
March 29, 2010
Dave Charbonneau: why transits are cool
Kicking off afternoon session is Josh Winn on transit uses and abuses.
Then Gaspar Bakos on ground based transits.
you get masses, and planetary radii.
Can go to low masses and close in planets, and working to earth masses in habitable zone - Real Soon Now…
March 29, 2010
Debra Fischer talking about correlations between metallicity and mass of stars and planets
Two samples: Coralie data from Santos et al and Lick/Keck data
need to get uniform sampled subsets, looking at giant mass planets
known (cf Santos et al 2004, Fischer & Valenti 2005, Udry & Santos…
March 29, 2010
Marcy next, talking about the ηEarth survey with the Keck.
simulations, under certain assumptions, predict a "planet desert"
roughly for mass range 1-10 MEarth and 0.1-1 AU or so
can populate the desert with some fine tuning of migration parameters etc
but still noticeable deficiency of moderate…
March 29, 2010
Well, I'm back at the Kavli Institute attending the Exoplanets Rising workshop.
We have a full schedule of talks over the week, and I'll be intermittently blogging the events as we amble along.
Bunch of interesting sounding talk on the schedule, and hopefully some interesting news and discoveries…
March 28, 2010
we had the dynamic kids on a neighbourhood easter egg hunt, with a twist,
it was a math hunt
I wish I could say I had thought of this, but I didn't...
So usual stash of eggs was, er, stashed, but rather than sweeties, the eggs contained small slips of paper - each with a simple arithmetic…
March 24, 2010
Blogs, that is.
Sometime in the next 10 days I need to clean my blogroll and add new links.
I have a bunch in the pipeline, but suspect I must be missing many good new blogs.
Obviously any good astro/physics related stuff, but am also on lookout for quirky good stuff on other topics: stuff…
March 22, 2010
So we were chatting, over coffee, as one does,
and we were talking about the nuisance it is when you have Monte Carlo simulations with qualitatively different output branches, and how you can trace outcomes and divergent branches leading to different, and same, outcomes.
The specific examples were…
March 22, 2010
In six words.
Like this:
"Observe extragalactic Cepheids pulsate.
Measure H0."
h/t David Brin with a special thanks to PZ.
No, not that PZ, the real PZ.
March 20, 2010
Eyjafjallajökull erupted tonight.
Small so far, we'll see how it develops, first eruption in 187 years.
Eruptions tracked the microquaking leading up to the eruption - fascinating and very long comment conversation and liveblogging of the precursors to the eruption. Tremendous use of blogging.…
March 16, 2010
Oh someone's really smart
Oh, complete control
yeah, that's a laugh.
Generics, that's the ticket.
March 13, 2010
Ãað mælti mÃn móðir
að mér skildi kaupa
fley og fagrar árar
fara á brott með jeðum
standa upp à stafni
stýra dýrum X-vængi
halda svo til hafnar
höggva mann og annan
Tattúínárdalasaga: aka
The Saga of the People of the Tattooine River Valley
Finally reconstructed from ancient…
March 11, 2010
So... these credit default swap thingies,
they pay out if some credit instrument goes bad, like a bond issue,
and, famously, financial companies buy them as side bets hedges against financial "events", including betting against instruments they are promoting to clients, and deals they have no…
March 10, 2010
compare and contrast
nope, no anger yet...
interestingly, Shelley had better vocal range than Swift...
March 8, 2010
Já, maður reddar þessu bara einhvernveginn...
Diplomatic cable form Reykjavik to Washington - Jan. 2010
UK/NL offer to ISK re: Icesave (PDF)
ISK negotiating team report (PDF)
h/t Evil Henry Paulson on Calculated Risk
March 7, 2010
As the three remaining readers may have noticed, I've been a bit too busy to blog for a couple of weeks.
But other blogs go on, and right now, over on SciBling "Eruptions" there is a fascinating live discussion in the comments on the possibility of an imminent eruption in Eyjafjallajökull.…
February 26, 2010
That is all.
Now get back to writing some bloomin' proposals, you slackers.
February 24, 2010
So, who is taking odds on the Hubble Proposal Cycle 18 Deadline being postponed from this friday to next week because of The Upcoming Monster Storm!
Even if it misses Baltimore, as the current track would have it, our genteel colleagues in Boston might be Not Amused.
Of course none of us are…
February 23, 2010
to answer a question: hiring of senior faculty is a lot like middle school dating.
There's the "if I would, what would you answer?"
followed by the "well, if you were to ask, and I were to answer, what would you do?"
Delicate, tiresome, and occasionally effective.
Sometimes it becomes a non-…
February 19, 2010
NASA's SDO destroys a Sundog on launch.
Cool video.
The Solar Dynamics Observatory was launched, successfully, Feb 11th.
On the way up, the rocket crossed a high altitude layer of ice crystals - a wispy cloud - which was showing a Sundog - the rocket visibly rippled the cloud as it passed through…