Steinn Sigurðsson
Professor of Astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University. Science Editor at Astrophysical Journal. Icelandic. Herder of Cats.
catdynamics
Posts by this author
January 18, 2007
There is a curious phenomenon in our general subject of study, which I have anecdotally noted over the years.
Some sub-fields self-reinforce, people working in them are all very impressed with each other, they all think, or say, that what everyone else is doing is terribly clever and they're all…
January 18, 2007
It is friday, already, in some time zones anyway, and I am entering my fourth day of being closely confined with rather too many of my dear colleagues for 10-12 contiguous hours at an undisclosed location...
...so, it must be time to go to the Mighty iPod One and ask a subtly mysteriously topical…
January 17, 2007
Ok, we did a press release at the AAS, it was basically rehash of the old Exotic Earth result from September, but with new improved simulations and a Real Paper (in press) to go with it this time. AAS press office picked it out, and you don't say no to Maran if he asks, dood knows what he is doing…
January 17, 2007
First Hubble Fellowships awards are out, haven't heard how many were made.
NSF Fellowships should be announced early/mid next week.
I hear that Chandra selection cmt met and they hope to make offers next week.
Rumour Wiki continues with news
January 17, 2007
President Bush did do a signing statement on HR 5631 - the 2007 defence appropriations bill
Part of the President's Signing Statement:
"Sections 8007, 8084, and 9005 of the Act prohibit the use of funds to initiate a special access program or a new start program, unless the congressional defense…
January 16, 2007
The Astrophysical Data System, sponsored by NASA, is hideously useful.
It is, essentially, a searchable database of all the astronomical literature, of all time, with links to current and past papers (some current papers are behind subscription walls for fixed or indefinite periods), and to the…
January 16, 2007
GRBlog provides a handy live feed of the Gamma Ray Burst circulars - the GCN notices.
Same bunch has the Texas Supernova Search online. Using ROTSE-III(b) to find optical supernovae, piggybacking on the gammar ray burst optical transient searches.
January 16, 2007
The Astro Rumour Wiki page has gone hyperactive as rumours flood in.
But, no word still of the Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra Fellowships?!
Getting late in the game.
If you heard, comment, rumourmonger on the wiki, or e-mail me.
We gots to know.
January 14, 2007
Global Security has a Iran "strike time line", including countdown clock to earliest possible time for strike, they think (seen on Gilliard's News Blog)
So, er, what they say.
They identify early Feb as the first opportunity, if Stennis moves out soon.
They identify Nimitz as the third carrier…
January 12, 2007
I'm up anyway...
Magnitude 8.1 +/- 0.2 earthquake off the Kurile islands in the north pacific.
Tsunami warnings for east coast of Japan's northern island and for parts of Alaska.
Parts of Russia and various islands also under a tsunami watch
We'll hear in the morning if anything happened. Hm,…
January 12, 2007
Watching Countdown rerun...
I predict that the next budget passed by Congress affecting the armed forces, whether a continuing, supplemental or by agency, will have a very interesting, and possibly cryptic signing statement.
Bush will use his signing statement precedents (as yet untested in court)…
January 12, 2007
Friday again? Too much.
So, mighty iPod one, let us know is there bleached life on Mars?
Whoosh goes the randomiser.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Up the Junction - Squeeze
The Crossing: Come Back to Camden - Morrissey
The Crown: Run through the jungle - Creedence Clearwater Revival
The Root: Street…
January 12, 2007
I never knew Brian May wrote that...
Via NASAwatch we find the following
..."We will find what we believe are the lowest priority half-billion dollars in content, and we'll extract it, across the agency," he says, stressing that does not mean programs at the core of the redirected U.S. space…
January 12, 2007
Prof Don Osterbrock, of the University of California at Santa Cruz former director of the Lick Observatory had a heart attack and passed away yesterday, Jan 11th 2007.
There will be a shot remembrance at lunch today at UCSC, with a more formal celebration of his life to be scheduled at a later date…
January 11, 2007
The Baatan Expeditionary Strike Group (marines and amphibious assault ships) just formed up and is heading in the general direction of the mid-east;
the Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group is already in the Persian Gulf, routine rotation in theatre.
The Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group is in theater…
January 11, 2007
Astroprof stuck it out till the bitter end at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle.
Apparently it did not end well. The Convention Center staff took down everbodies' posters at lunch and piled belongings in the lobby.
It was a fun, and exhausting meeting, but I have to say it was…
January 10, 2007
Jason Kalirai et al see stars within stars:
a globular cluster system around a distant elliptical galaxy is seen in a Hubble image through the nearby globular cluster NGC 6397
Very cool.
January 10, 2007
Chandra data suggests Kepler's Supernova was actually a type Ia supernova
Type Ib, Ic and II supernovae occur during the gravitational collapse of a massive star, the core forms a neutron star or in some cases black hole and the associated energy release blows off the outer layers.
In contrast…
January 10, 2007
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
Lord Tennyson
Spitzer data suggests a supernova shockwave is about to…
January 9, 2007
FASEB has put together a resource package to defend evolution and fight intelligent design.
Seen in Science, Support Evolution Education is here
January 9, 2007
Shri Kulkarni is the McArthur Professor at Caltech.
He has about 300 refereed publications, and is in the close vicinity of a major numerological birthday anniversary.
Of his papers, about fifty are in Nature!
PS: I just saw Shri at the AAS.
He did it - fifty Nature papers before the deadline...…
January 9, 2007
Life at the American Astronomical Society meeting, in Seattle, is interesting.
In addition to the science and jobs and collaboration meetings, there is socialization and politicking.
At some level, a fraction of the guiding input into multibillion dollar multiyear national policies happen here. In…
January 9, 2007
Interesting American Astronomical Society meeting here in Seattle.
The "big" result is undoubtedly the COSMOS collabortion release, although there were several other significant "big" results announced.
Nothing earth shattering, so to speak, but that happens only every 2-3 years, can't have it…
January 9, 2007
Does NASA really want to launch the Hubble servicing mission on 9/11?
Maybe scheduling it then is the only way to guarantee it won't launch on that date...?
January 9, 2007
Dr Alan Whiting writes some advice to young astronomers
He also offers interesting commentary on doing astronomy.
He can order marines around, navigate a cruiser through the straits of Hormuz, break Iranian crypotgraphy and do a PhD in theoretical astrophysics under Lynden-Bell's supervision. And…
January 9, 2007
LISA had a booth at the American Astronomical Society Meeting in Seattle, handing out some very popular laser pointers - far superior to the competing Beyond Einstein mission concept team swag...
In an idle moment, we built a GigaHertz gravitational radiation detector (ok, we didn't mode lock or…
January 9, 2007
Ok, new Mac PhotoBooth works...
This is the JWST full size mockup that Northrop brought to the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle.
If things work out as promised I may get "JWST covered in snow" later today. Or not.
The person in the foreground is the current JWST crew on guard,…
January 9, 2007
From American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle:
Keck has found three quasars near each other
Normally we'd expect that this is the lensed image of a single quasar, but they have not been able to fit a lens model to the data.
It is possible that these are three physically associated quasars…
January 9, 2007
Here at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seatthle, the very well organised Villanova crowd (who apparently just gave Sean a medal or something), have an intriguing paper on quiescence in α Cen A
To cut a long story short, x-ray flux from α Cen has plummeted by almost a factor of 100,…