astro
catdynamics | February 2, 2010Ok, peeps, time to 'fess up - pseudonymously
what are people doing with grad admissions?
I'm hearing contradictory stories: some places claim to be doing normal admissions, but some of those same places have also lost TA slots, I hear; I know some places are cutting admissions, by factors of 2 or more - you know who you are, lets hear it; I also hear of at least a couple of places who are sticking their neck out and increasing admissions - true?
The pool of applicants is larger than in recent years, and look strong, it will be an interesting year.
catdynamics | February 1, 2010NASA 2011 budget is out, and with it the new 5 year plan.
It is drastic, bit more so than I expected.
Short version: Constellation is dead, Dead, DEAD!
Ares I, Ares V and Orion are shut down. ~ $10 billion thrown away, again, with nothing to show for it, again.
More money,
I'll backfill the details and provide links later:
basically NASA will fund a serious launcher technology development program for future heavy launch, but for now they are taking the Space Cadets up on their offer - human and cargo LEO launch services will be bid out, with first bids already out - so if the technology…
catdynamics | January 28, 2010Another loss to cosmology, as Geoff Burbidge dies at 84.
Geoff Burbidge was a major figure in the early days of cosmology.
Best known for his B2FH paper on stellar nucleosynthesis, he later became an advocate of Steady State Cosmology with Fred Hoyle, and aggressively skeptical of the cosmological origin of the redshift of quasars.
I last saw Prof. Burbidge at one of the Carnegie Millennial meetings and was reminded how extraordinarily sharp he was, and the breadth of his knowledge of the details of astrophysical phenomena, as he quizzed a number of the speakers on the their assumptions and…
catdynamics | January 23, 2010
Andrew Lange RIP.
Andrew Lange - story at Cosmic Variance
Lange's "How DId the Universe Begin" Segre Distinguished Lecture at Berkeley Nov 2009.
Lange's 2004 KITP talk on "Future Directions in Cosmic Microwave Background Observations"
Audio/Web Cam
catdynamics | January 17, 2010hey y'all - where have the Hubble Fellowships gone?
Einstein has announced (congratulations to the winners)
- the Hubble committee met, I'm told
so where are the offers?
Inquiring minds gots to know.
the rumour mill is grinding and needs some grist
catdynamics | January 12, 2010Apple offers a "login picture", and on many of my accounts I have a selection of astronomical pictures to choose from, rather than the default set.
Mostly HST images, natch.
So... one evening, sitting on the sofa cuddled up with the laptop, the Dynamic Wife leans over and says: "what's that then?".
"My login picture" says I.
"And what is it?" she asks rhetorically.
"er, a supernova..." says I.
She looks at me.
There is silence.
So, now my login picture is a globular cluster...
one of the nice old Messier ones.
catdynamics | January 7, 2010The primary reason to go to the big annual society meetings is, of course
the hot science results
networking for jobs
schmoozing with your peeps
The Swag!
Yes, that is why we go.
The NASA Space Calendars, the Hubble Mission buttons, the institutional logo USB sticks, the 3-D bookmarks, and, of course, the legendary High Energy Astrophysics Red and Black pens.
But each year there are one or two inspired surprise original Swag.
Who can forget the Lockheed Lunar Stress Ball? The foam space shuttle?
The photometrically accurate B,V,R ruler set?
This year the fancy Swag was definitely the…
catdynamics | January 6, 2010more invaluable science nuggets and pretty pictures
The Galileoscope is a very cheap but functional 50mm astronomical refractor kit for introducing kids to optical observing; NB PRICE GOES UP NEXT WEEK!
They can also be donated - through an online click.
But, now Ric and Jean Edelman of Edelman Financial Services have donated $250,000 to the AAS to buy and distribute 15,000 Galileoscopes for distribution to teachers around the US for use in classroom.
Nice one.
Hm. Y'know Goldman Sachs could go a long way towards repairing their public image with a token $250,000,000 donation towards a…
catdynamics | January 6, 2010Infrared sky survey spacecraft WISE releases first light image
few square degrees in Carina
it is gorgeous
full res here
Ned's WISE
NASA WISE
I'll put up a copy of the image soon as I can - only have a printed copy right now in the mean time click through.
catdynamics | January 6, 2010more assorted science results from AAS
Jimmy Irwin et al (UoM) has a Chandra x-ray source in an extragalactic globular - and they have Magellan spectra.
Surprise! No H lines.
There is O and N - WTF is N emission doing there?
Suggestion is that it is a white dwarf tidally disrupted by an intermediate mass black hole...
Maybe. That N emission is bothersome, shouldn't be there.
Press release at Chandra website.
click to embiggen
Nidever et al have Green Bank Radio Telescope data showing the Magellanic stream is quite extended...
Press release at NRAO
Pretty Picture!! - click to embiggen…
catdynamics | January 6, 2010Random snippets from the AAS.
My apologies - a lot of this is press release fodder you can find on any random science aggregator or pop-sci blog.
I usually prefer to find my own topics and news to write about, but I was busier than usual with real life and crap, so I will channel the highlights, just in case you missed some:
John Grunsfeld, astronaut and physicist, and Hubble repairman extraordinaire, appointed Deputy Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute - go John.
Crockett (Lowell, UCLA) et al find a 6 MJ/sin(i) planet in a 0.1 AU (14 d e~ 0.5) orbit.
Around a 1 Myr T-Tauri…
catdynamics | January 5, 2010time to check in on the Sun, eh?
hey, there is a little black spot on the sun today (click to embiggen)
but it is very little.
We are now in a somewhat unusual protracted and low solar minimum - the Sun has cycled, the few small spots seen have reversed from the previous cycle - but this is getting a wee bit worrying.
Current Solar Cycle - from NOAA (click to embiggen)
The current minimum is starting to get people worried about whether the Sun is gone back into a protracted low activity phase, like during the Maunder minimum, and the associated "Little Ice Age".
A protracted solar…
catdynamics | January 5, 2010Prof. Sion and collaborators at Villanova think they have found a genuine progenitor system for type Ia supernova, in our neighbourhood, in the Milky Way.
Type Ia supernovae are thermonuclear detonations of white dwarfs which acquire more mass, somehow, and go over the Chandrasekhar limit (about 1.4 solar masses).
Type Ia supernovae are not as common as the core-collapse type II/Ib/Ic supernovae from massive young stars.
They are astrophysically important, since most should involve the detonation of a Chandrasekhar mass of light elements, probably O/Ne/Mg mixture, to iron, with associated…
catdynamics | January 5, 2010NASA Administrator Charles Bolden addressed a packed room filled with anxious astronomers at lunch today.
It was interesting, both in what he said and in what was omitted.
I'll get to actual science at the AAS Real Soon Now , so more politics in the meantime.
Bolden's talk was primarily a scripted speech, and he acknowledged as much.
There were no announcements of new initiatives, mission commitments or statements on funding - evidently the White House has not yet settled on a plan for NASA, in particular how to handle "Exploration" - ie human spaceflight.
The preamble anecdote on HST…
catdynamics | January 4, 2010The annual AAS meeting opened up with the award of the van Biesbroeck Prize of the society to Father Dr George Coyne, former director of the Vatican Observatory.
The van Biesbroeck Prize is for extraordinary service to astronomy, in particular his role organizing the Vatican Observatory Summer Schools, and the role he has played at the juncture of science and religion.
A topic that occasionally stirs sciencebloggers, and their readers, from torpor.
Dr Coyne gave a brief and gracious speech, but touched on what I thought was a bit of a strawman: he appealed, and I paraphrase, for people to…
catdynamics | January 4, 2010liveblogging the AAS...
It is freezing in DC, but at the Marriott hotel across from the National Zoo the action is hot and heavy as 3000+ astronomers swarm to the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
This is for the 7 astronomers who phoned it in, literally in one case, you know who you are.
Or, in case you got stuck in the exhibit hall lobby at 9:17 this morning and never found your way out of the basement again. Hope the WiFi signal is holding up down there.
There is a flurry of new results, though through some freudian mishap I just typed "flurry on few results" instead…
catdynamics | December 31, 2009On New Year's Eve, 2009, the Moon will be full, for the second time in december.
A Blue Moon?
Well, not really...
although colloquially, it is, now.
A full Moon looks full because it's directly opposite the Sun in the
sky, from our viewpoint on Earth, so its whole sunlit side faces us.
Photo by Gary Seronik / SKY & TELESCOPE magazine.
Sky & Telescope explains, with a mea culpa:
"..."In modern usage, the second full Moon in a month has come to be
called a 'Blue Moon.' But it's not!" says Kelly Beatty, Senior
Contributing Editor for SKY & TELESCOPE magazine. "This colorful term…
catdynamics | December 22, 2009Set the focus on infinity!
A new one from the photomixers...
"I need a space telescope,
ain't got time to wait"
...
"My mind is busting,
and I got a PhD!"
catdynamics | December 21, 2009There are, of course, two types of thesis advisors: which should you want to have; and which are you, or will you become?
There is type I and type II.
There are "cat advisors" and "dog advisors".
Cats are independent, and only, grudgingly, need the occasional superior technical skills (eg can opener operation) and resources ($ for pouncie crunchies and tuna) provided by their so-called masters servants.
Dogs need big fenced yards, walks every day or more often, and to be members of a well defined hierarchical group.
Which is it?
Or, if you insist, there are also both, and neither.
Or, there…