catdynamics | February 20, 2011So, got confirmation of initial round of cuts.
NASA HQ is preparing for budget problems by starting to pull back funds already allocated, in anticipation of fiscal year 2010-11 cuts. Between possible government shutdown, and the uncertainty over the Senate response to the House cuts, and a possible veto, it is hard to know what the funding will be in the end, or indeed if there will be any guidance on what to cut.
So...
Major cuts to current ongoing mission operations and data analysis.
Specifcally, Swift and Chandra are cut. I hear three other missions are also cut, but don't know which…
catdynamics | February 18, 2011Is it still friday? It must be friday somewhere still...
So, just how bad is the budget going to be, oh Mighty iPod?
Whoosh goes the iPod.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Introduction: Peter and the Wolf - Philadelphia Orchestra
The Crossing: The Perfect Girl - The Cure
The Crown: Concerto #4in G major: Brandenburg Concertos
The Root: Ég á lítinn Skrýtinn Skugga
The Past: Four Horsemen - Clash
The Future: Spiladósalagið - Todmobil
The Questioner: Roadhouse Blues - Doors
The House: Shake That Shit - Shawna and Ludacris
The Inside: Save a Prayer- Mavericks
The Outcome: Good Feeling - Violent Femmes…
catdynamics | February 15, 2011The American Physical Society just woke up to the budget threat...
To cut a long story short, the US Government has no budget for 2010-2011.
It has been operating under a continuous resolution since Oct 1, and this expires in March.
The House, which originated budget resolutions, generally, wants a high profile cut.
$100 billion in round numbers.
But, not in Social Security, Medicare, debt service, or Military.
So, the $100G is going to be cut out of the $500G discretionary budget.
But, we're half way through the fiscal year, so almost half that money is already obligated,
so we're looking…
catdynamics | February 11, 2011Yes, it is friday again, and once more we go to the Mighty iPod to seek guidance on dark matters...
Oh, Mighty iPod, we ask, topically, is the apparent seasonal modulation in DAMA really truly due to some sort of Light Cold Dark Matter, possibly with substructure?
Whoosh goes the iPod.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Another Nail in My Heart - Squeeze
The Crossing: Ghost Town (12" version) - Specials
The Crown: Dýravísur - various
The Root: Lunge da lei...De' miei bollenti (from La Traviata)
The Past: Ruder Than You - Bodysnatchers
The Future: Jingle Bell Rock - Bobby Helms
The Questioner:…
catdynamics | February 9, 2011The House Appropriations Committee released a partial summary list of the cuts they plan to make relative to Obama's 2011 budget request, in discretionary items.
Note the 2011 budget year is underway on a continuing resolution, holding funding at 2010 levels, which includes appropriations for a number of things that have been cancelled.
Here are some of the science items released so far, apparently more to come.
The Senate will, of course, also have a say.
· NASA -$379M
· NSF -$139M
· National Institute of Standards and Technology -$186M
· NOAA -$…
catdynamics | February 8, 2011So I've been hanging out at the Indirect and Direct Detection of Dark Matter conference this week, and been struck by several things.
It is a good meeting, enthusiastic crowd, definite excitement in the air.
It would have read much better if the title had been "Direct and Indirect Detection of Dark Matter", but that would have been wrong...
This is not my usual turf, though I was on a couple of papers on the adiabatic contraction of collisionless matter during growth of supermassive black holes, which is a way to get very high dark matter densities (QHS95 and SHQ95).
Basically a "spike" in…
catdynamics | February 4, 2011while I contemplate 1200 candidate planetary systems, and a hundred black hole researchers, I turn to the Mighty iPod
ok, so I got no blogging on the new stuff or the backlog done this week
Oh, Mighty iPod One: exoplanets or black holes?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Girlfriend in a Coma - Smiths
The Crossing: Slow Ride - Bonnie Raitt
The Crown: My Feelings - Twin Sister
The Root: Let's Do Rock Steady - Bodysnatchers
The Past: The Muffin Man - Twin Sister
The Future: Jólin, Jólin (Jó)lin Koma Brátt) - Svanhildur Jakobs.
The Questioner: Damaged Goods - Gang of…
catdynamics | January 27, 2011It has been a long time since we dove into the divinations of the Mighty iPod...
but now, the spirit moves me, and we again spin the wheel:
Oh, Mighty iPod One, what oh what will become of JWST?
Whoosh goes the iPod.
Whoosh!
The Covering: The Hen - Jean-Philippe Rameau
The Crossing: Once in Royal David's City - King's College Choir
The Crown: Sweet Jane (Live) - Lou Reed
The Root: Always Look on the Bright Side - Monty Python
The Past: Cover Me - Björk
The Future: Joy To The World - Irish Tenors
The Questioner: Carol of the Bells - Barlow Girl
The House: Hong Kong Garden - Siouxsie and the…
catdynamics | January 13, 2011So all good things must come to an end, and the 3000 or so astronomers disperse from SEA-TAC to destinations worldwide.
It was a good meeting, though light on major announcements.
I have a backlog of press releases that I may or may not get round to picking over.
Some nice pretty pics in there.
Think I did ok for myself, we'll see how it goes.
As we were wrapping up and heading for the last couple of exoplanet sessions, John (no not that John, the other John) pointed out a couple of poignant remnants
Wery Silli
The large astrophysics missions were doing Silli Band swag:
a LISA constellation…
catdynamics | January 12, 2011The science is interesting, the schmoozing is essential, the students are promising, but, at the end of the day, it is The Swag that is cool.
Last year's winner, the LSST little blue pedometer is back, with the promise of another piece of etched optical glass to the winner of the drawing from the ten-mile hikers.
But, as the arbitrary arbitrator of the contest, there can not be a repeat winner...
so, what have we got?
There's the usual calendars and poster, postcards and bookmarks, not to mention the luggage tags and key chains. Good basic swag, handy for handing to kids, marking books and,…
catdynamics | January 11, 2011assorted bits of stuff from AAS, or that I was reminded of at the meeting
Astro Better - interesting blog/wiki/tweetnode
I'd noticed them before, mostly because they assimilated the Astro Rumour Mill, but hadn't really taken in what they were doing till I saw their AAS poster on monday
Wish they'd frontpage the Rumour Mill - have to dig down a bit to find it
Scott Ransom delivered a very good Warner Prize lecture, it was the first time I had heard Time correctly described as a Helix of Something Sparkly or Another...
Sloan Survey has put out Data Release 8, with a mega mosaic image:…
catdynamics | January 11, 2011Kepler announces discovery of transiting hierarchical triple.
Extremely weird, with bonus cute animation...
KOI-126 is an interesting object.
It is a massive star (F main sequence if I caught the numbers right) primary, with two low mass M-stars orbiting it.
The M-stars orbit each other in a very tight orbit, and their center of mass in turn orbits the primary, with both secondaries transiting the primary, providing very complex and fascinating light curves.
Exquisite.
No idea how such a system could come to be.
It is very compact, could even have planets further out, and very hard to see how…
catdynamics | January 10, 2011Kepler 10-b, announced at the Annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society today, has a mass of 4.6 Earth masses and a radius of 1.4 Earth radii. Density of 8.8
Kepler 10b: Exoplanet Catalog
Kepler Mission website - 700 more to go.
Kepler 10b - Mission catalog data
20 hour orbital period around an old, slightly metal poor ( Z ~ -0.15) G dwarf.
500 light years away.
Kepler 10b - artist's conception
Paper is Batalha et al (ApJ in press) - expect it will be on arXiv tonight.
Lightcurve ought to be interesting, will really tell us how deep Kepler is going to go.
11th magnitude host star…
catdynamics | January 10, 2011The AAS is off to a good start:
Reines et al have found a good supermassive black hole candidate in Henize 2-10 - an irregular bulgeless dwarf galaxy about 10 Mpc away.
A dwarf irregular, with a diameter of only about 1 kpc, Henize 2 is in starburst. It contains a number of
massive, very young super star clusters.
SMBH are seen in almost every galaxy and, in the local universe, are correlated with the galactic bulge mass.
One of the open issues is which came first, the black hole or the galaxy.
Henize is bulgeless, and if it genuinely has a real SMBH, that would strongly hint that the black…
catdynamics | January 6, 2011I really look forward to reading by what right Congress keeps naming local post offices.
Ok, I.8.7 could be argued to implicitly give them the right, as part of the establishing of such, but you gotta be careful with those "implicit" rights these politicians keep assuming for themselves.
I, for one, would like to hear Scalia's take on the issue, after the new Congress explains in the next such bill just by what constitutional right they presume to go around naming post offices.