Steinn Sigurðsson
Professor of Astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University. Science Editor at Astrophysical Journal. Icelandic. Herder of Cats.
catdynamics
Posts by this author
May 29, 2009
magnitude 4.7 earthquake in the southwest of Iceland
in Svartsengi, near the Blue Lagoon,
moderately close to Reykjavík
Svartsengifell is part of a row of volcanic craters on the southwest spur of the Atlantic rift.
The area went through intense series of eruptions about 1,000 years ago, which…
May 29, 2009
There has been a lot of blogospheric buzz about the nomination by President Obama of Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.
Her opponents, of course, try to find something about her they can attack, and there have been gratuitous and poorly sourced attacks on her temperament, intelligence and even…
May 28, 2009
NASA is due to name the 10 panel members of the Augustine panel on human spaceflight and NASA goals, possibly today.
The Orlando Sentinel thinks it knows who most of the members are.
The Write Stuff blog at the Orlando Sentinel names 8 names they claim to know will be on the panel.
Chris Chyba (…
May 27, 2009
it appears that my proposal page production rate is approximately constant at about one page per two cups of coffee
May 26, 2009
Carnivalea and Culture Wars Galore
Carnival of Space 104
Carnival of Space 103 - at Chandra Blog
Chandra Blog also has a neat post on what is hidden in headers of astronomical images
Built on Facts considers the traffic jam problem - he considers the phase transition to jams as a statistical…
May 24, 2009
North Korea is claiming a second, successful, nuclear device test.
Coincident with a shallow medium magnitude earthquake in the test region.
Earthquake is magnitude 4.7 or so on the Richter scale (Swiss are estimating 5.1).
Very shallow, consistent with surface origin, 380 km north east of…
May 24, 2009
Atlantis has landed safely. Hubble servicing mission is finished.
It woke me up coming down.
Atlantis landing had been delayed for two successive days because of weather, so this morning they diverted the landing site to the backup location at Edward's Air Force Base, just over the mountains from…
May 23, 2009
Obama has nominated Charles Bolden for NASA Administrator and Lori Garver as Deputy Administrator
h/t NASAwatch and kos
May 20, 2009
Hubble is let go, and NASA puts out some new must see video from the Solid Rocket Boosters.
Absolutely astonishingly staggering awesome video of the launch, separation, fallback and splashdown.
video shot from one of the Solid Rocket Boosters, during launch up to and including drop off and…
May 20, 2009
Xodus.is has a webcam
showing a Sea Eagle nesting in Iceland
very cute. very very cute.
Remember the timezone, and note the camera is occasionally blurred by salt spray.
h/t Iceland Weather Report
May 19, 2009
"Vaccine" is the title of a book by Arthur Allen
It has languished far too long on my review pile, and recent events spurred me to read through it:
Vaccine
by Arthur Allen
W.W. Norton
ISBN-13: 978-0-393-05911-3 (hardback)
ISBN-13: 978-0-393-33156-1 (paperback)
A primarily historical account, it…
May 19, 2009
Spitzer is out of cryogen.
Cold mission is dead.
Long live the warm mission!
It is official, as of this weekend, the Spitzer Space Telescope is out of coolant (liquid helium), right on schedule.
This will basically end mid-IR observing, MIPS will not be taking data, as I understand it,
nor will…
May 19, 2009
Bob Rutledge and colleagues are blogging the:
Defining the Neutron Star Crust '09 workshop in Santa Fe.
Right now.
X-ray bursts, superbursts and giant flares. Oh my.
Some good stuff, interesting talk summaries.
May 18, 2009
Atlas Hedged
Bankrupt Icelandic gazillionaires
and Woe Is Academia
Atlas Hedged
updating a classic for the modern age - recommended
Peek-a-boo - the Economist explains why Astronomers should have lots of new toys.
Check Out new SciBling "Confessions of A Science Librarian"
PhysioProf's Handy Dandy…
May 18, 2009
Hubble repairs are done.
FGS replaced and blankets installed.
Now it just need to be dropped off in orbit - presumably with as good a reboost as they can manage, and then get Atlantis home safely.
Phew.
The wait for orbit verification, first light and calibration.
May 18, 2009
Rumours are that a new Administrator for NASA may be named this week
h/t NASAwatch (comments are interesting)
General Charles Bolden (USMC)
Annapolis grad. 100+ sorties in an A6 Intruder in Vietnam.
Test pilot; shuttle pilot and commander - 4 trips including HST launch.
Assitant Deputy…
May 17, 2009
Good progress on the first four days of Hubble Servicing
The Atlantis servicing mission to Hubble has really highlighted some uses of social media: the NASA twitter channel has provided near live and accurate updates, providing key points and pointers as things happen - first actual interesting…
May 16, 2009
why are The Jonas Brothers trying to become The Monkees of this decade
and how come I know this?
May 14, 2009
Astonishing photo of the shuttle Atlantis and Hubble passing in front of the Sun
taken from Vero Beach Florida
click to embiggen
bottom left hand corner - really.
not sunspots
ok, here is the blowup
UPDATE: here is a second shot before HST rendevouz of Atlantis alone
click to embiggen
nice…
May 14, 2009
first spacewalk extended - sounds like stiction on the bolts and nuts
now with bonus EVA video!
May 14, 2009
First spacewalk wrapping up, WF/PC2 out, WFC3 in.
Command and Data Handling Unit swapped out.
WF/PC2 removed
Live updates on NASA twitter
WFC3 was installed successfully and signaled it was alive.
SIC&DH is installed.
John is putting on the external attachment for grapples to grab, in case…
May 14, 2009
another successful launch of a major astro mission
Successful launch and payload separation of the far infrared telescope Herschel and the microwave background observatory Planck by the European Space Agency
Ariane 5 launch carrying Herschel and Planck
click to embiggen
May 13, 2009
Obama's commencement address at Arizona State University
"Now, before I begin, I'd like to clear the air about that little controversy everyone was talking about a few weeks back. I have to tell you, I really thought it was much ado about nothing, although I think we all learned an important…
May 13, 2009
Another topical colloquium here at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics...
"Money, It's a Gas"
New Developments in Statistical Mechanics of Money, Income, and Wealth (podcast, video, slides)
by Victor Yakovenko, University of Maryland.
Paper in Rev. Mod. Phys. (arXiv:0905.1518)
Money, of…
May 13, 2009
Atlantis has Hubble...
Lookin' good.
From NASA TV
leading edge of the right wing got dinged by tank foam, apparently,
shallow 50cm line of gashes on the high T tiles
should be ok, expect they'll check it out...
May 12, 2009
ouch
Daily Show takes on ASU Commencement
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
M - Th 11p / 10c
Arizona State Snubs Obama
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes
Economic Crisis
Political Humor
classic
cruel but classic
Tom Hanks interview on antimatter later in the show is also…
May 12, 2009
Iceland made it to the Eurovision final round...
not bad
as Eurovision entries go
May 11, 2009
The Wide Field/Planetary Camera-2 on the Hubble Space Telescope is being decommissioned, since the servicing mission is putting all the nice new toys on the telescope.
To commemorate the occasion, the Space Telescope Science Institute took one last "pretty picture"
Planetary Nebulae K 4-55
click…