astro
catdynamics | September 10, 2007In 1999, David Stevenson wrote a short correspondance to Nature, suggesting that radiogenic heating of free floating planets with thick atmospheres might lead to them having surface temperatures high enough for liquid water
These would be planets which had been ejected from the stellar system in which they formed, and could retain thick, possibly hydrogen rich atmospheres, since there would be no sunlight to drive hydrogen escape.
Natural heating from radioactive elements would provide sufficient heat flux through the surface that with deep enough an atmosphere the temperatures at the surface…
catdynamics | September 6, 2007NRC webcast of the panel report on Beyond Einstein
The press releases are spinning this as all JDEM/SNAP - anyone hear what NASA actually said about launch priorities and LISA after the official report?
catdynamics | September 5, 2007Beyond Einstein
1) JDEM
2) LISA
"Recommendation 1: NASA and DOE should proceed immediately with a competition to select a Joint Dark Energy Mission for a 2009 new start.
The broad mission goals in the Request for Proposal should be 1) to determine the properties of dark energ with high precision and 2) to enable a broad range of astronomical investigations.
The committee encourages the Agencies to seek as wide a variety of mission concepts and partnerships as possible."
My translation of Rec 1.2 is that it tips the scales towards SNAP.
ADEPT and DESTINY are more narrowly focused on Dark…
catdynamics | August 29, 2007"Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud" - congratulations Dr May (Imperial College, University of London).
so Brian (may I call you Brian...?) actually passed his viva.
It is official
Astronomy Really does Rock
catdynamics | August 29, 2007Thus one and all, thus great and small,
the Rich as well as Poor,
And those of place, as the most base,
do stand the Judge before.
They are arraign'd, and there detain'd
before Griffin's Judgement seat
With trembling fear their Doom to hear,
and feel his Anger's heat.
with apologies to Wigglesworth, doesn't scan anymore...
Craig mongers... NASA rumours
"I understand that heads of all major departments will be briefed on Sept. 5th, and the public press conference on the 6th. I also understand that the true result has been leaked and is out there (somewhere); and also that there are…
catdynamics | August 22, 2007Ok, so the USAF knew there was something interesting in Taurus in the summer of 1967, but they didn't tell anyone or follow it up, so it didn't count.
It was an "unknown known"!
So, for a while, were gamma-ray bursts; adaptive optics and public key cryptography.
So... what current unknown knowns do you think we have right now?
That we may or may not hear about 40 years from now?
What discovery, invention or nifty useful or fun science of technology thingie is known by a small number of people out there, but buried by classification or stored in some vast warehouse at an undisclosed location…
catdynamics | August 17, 2007How the US Air Force failed to win the Nobel prize...
I was at the 40 Years of Pulsars conference this week.
Most interesting, with lots of good reviews and new discoveries.
Sounds like anomalous x-ray pulsars and some low mass x-ray binaries are revealing their secrets, and lots of very interesting binary millisecond pulsars in the pipeline - be fun to see what is going on there when the followup observations are done - soon as Green Bank Telescope and Arecibo are back on line.
But, the surprise of the meeting came with the last invited talk - before Joe Taylor's "summary" talk.
A gentleman…
catdynamics | August 16, 2007The Pulsar 2007 conference blog asks:
what are the 10 most interesting pulsar questions that we'd like to see addressed by the time of the next pulsar anniversary meeting?
Question was posed by Franco Pacini, here is my take - biased to radio pulsars, I note, despite the heavy high energy presence locally:
Find a black hole-pulsar binary.
This is the issue of the utmost importance, and all available observational and data analysis resources should be dedicated to it immediately.
Are there sub-millisecond pulsars? Pulsars with spin periods less than a millisecond?
Find a double…
catdynamics | August 14, 2007Ok, end of day two of the 40 Years of Pulsars conference and what have we learned...
Well, pulsar emission mechanism is still a mystery; we still don't have a good handle on strong rotating magnetic fields, reconnection or field evolution; and, the population numbers for various pulsating neutron stars don't quite add up.
It is not quite as bad as I make it sound, a lot of work has been done, and the picture is coming together.
Chatting with a colleague, I get the impression that a lot of old, hard problems are close to solution, some just need an additional insight, or two, others just…
catdynamics | August 14, 2007nothing like 7 am fire alarms to get people awake, especially on top of tall buildings, and since the last hotel fire alarm, at a conference, that I experienced was because the hotel was actually on fire, that got me going.
So, "small earthquake in Hawaii" - 5.4 is respectable, are the 'scopes ok?!
Oh, and how are, like, the various people and stuff doing?
No fire here, just some workman doing tests, guess he figured since he had to be up, everyone else could damn well be up. (Last time it was just a laundry room fire - barely enough to stink up the hotel and keep us out half the night, in…
catdynamics | August 12, 200740 Years of Pulsars: Millisecond Pulsars, Magnetars and More...
Good meeting so far, good turnout.
There is a conference group liveblog, I'll link to any items of interest I spot.
One of the conference organisers runs the Montreal Poutine website - I am assured it is an experience worth trying, and have been given directions to the "best poutine" place, with instructions to try the poutine with bacon for starters. Apparently a bit of salt and pig fat helps newbies with the dish.
Reception was fun, best spot of the night was someone carrying the cheese plate scooting off just as a starving…
catdynamics | August 10, 2007reports of damage to Endeavour on launch
small loss of tile on underside and possible ice impact on wing
worrying, but too early to tell if it is a serious issue
catdynamics | August 9, 2007For some ineffable reason, the Washington Post's Congress Votes database lets you sort the vote count by astrological sign...
I kid you not!
No, they don't include Ophiuchus.
Bastards.
Apparently piscans and taurids are authoritarians, while scorpions are liberal rebel hippies, or something.
And don't talk to me about those Congressional virgins either...
But, wait, for the plebs in the House the fishes and bulls are all liberals, although the virgins remain authoritarian.
Now, I am all confused, clearly my initial hypothesis is flawed...
Hm, some serious fun could be had with this.
catdynamics | August 8, 2007Congratulations Dr Mandell
Wow, that's an old web page... he must have been busy for the last couple of years...
Here's our old press stuff on the first part of his thesis
The second part will be submitted soon. It is quite interesting also.
So... that was three PhDs in 12 days.
Interesting, not sustainable though. Depletes the source population too rapidly.
catdynamics | August 7, 2007Grauniad Science podcast has Brian May on the effect of taking a 'gap year' on progress on his PhD - how did that work out for him anyway? And how did he cope with London housing prices coming back to Imperial College to finish up and hand in his PhD thesis on "Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud"
The real question, of course, is whether his advisor noticed his absence.
catdynamics | August 1, 2007Congratulations, Dr Micic
"Gravitational radiation from the growth of supermassive black holes"
catdynamics | July 30, 2007NASAwatch reports more top level moves at NASA
time to start managing the crisis that keep popping up
Karl Rove staffer becomes NASA White House liasion
I wonder if she has strong opinions on the Big Bang vs Steady State "controversy"?
Came to White House from Arkansas RNC
UPDATE: she apparently graduated from Wake Forest in '04, which means she should be about 25 years old, three years out of college.
And she is the White House liasion for NASA at the Administrator level, with her work experience being that she spent a couple of years in Karl Rove's office working on the DoJ.
Associate…
catdynamics | July 27, 2007Congratulations Dr Smith!
The Transition from the First Stars to the Second Stars in the Early Universe
catdynamics | July 26, 2007Geoff Andersen is a USAF Academy physicist and he has written a book on the Telescope
The Telescope
by Geoff Andersen
Princeton University Press 2007
ISBN-13: 978-0-691-12979-2
It is an interesting little book, as promised it only has one equation, and it is a useful one, with the rest of the semi-technical material relegated to appendices.
As such, the book is aimed at general audiences, and would be well suited to an interested amateur, enthusiastic teenager or university educated layperson wanting to learn some basics about optical telescopes.
The book focuses on optical telescopes,…
catdynamics | July 26, 2007news reports of an explosion killing two people at the Scaled Composites (makers of
"http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/index.htm">SpaceShipOne) facility at the spaceport in Mojave, near Edwards AFB Ca.
Sounds like a fuel tank rupture, four people injured.
SF Chronicle report - they say it was a NOX explosion.
No info yet on who, everyone echoing the same AP story.
Rich (yes he is a relation) Pournelle from Xcor say they are not affected.
Rand at transterrestrial has running updates
Hope they recover from this.