astro
catdynamics | June 4, 2012In which NASA gets presented with two Hubble class wide field space telescopes...
Oh my. So some of the mysterious maneuverings at NASA's Astrophysics division can now be better understood.
The National Reconnaissance Office was sitting on a couple of spare space telescopes they are willing to transfer to NASA.
These are presumably late block Keyhole reconnaissance satellite spares, maybe even the two extras orders a few years ago at the end of the program.
So, state of the art as of 10-20 years ago.
We are looking at two partial telescopes, with a Hubble size primary mirror, 2.4m, but…
catdynamics | May 24, 2012The word came out last night that the GEMS Small Explorer Class Mission has been cancelled.
GEMS is an x-ray polarimetry mission, using new detector technology, and the rumours (from the "Astronomers" group on fb) are that an Independent Cost Estimate showed the mission blowing its budget.
The mission passed a design review earlier this spring, but was red flagged on the mission chart at a recent NASA Astrophysics status presentation.
Now, some of you may remember the flap over the NASA Senior Review last month.
A review of ongoing missions recommended that all be continued at present level…
catdynamics | May 23, 2012Just a quick heads-up for those who don't know yet: there is closed group "Astronomers" on facebook. It is by invitation only, ie some existing member must add any new member. You must have an fb account to be added.
The group has about 4,000 members, most all professional astronomers from around the world.
There is some interesting discussion going on in that group and some useful info being passed around.
The closed group feature seems to work well for some combination of intensity of topic focus and size - not too small, not too big.
'fraid I wouldn't tell how to monetize the feature…
catdynamics | April 17, 2012The European Space Agency has made its selection for the next Large Mission to be flown by ESA, with a launch window in about 2022
and the winner is... JUICE
Jupiter moons orbiter.
Formerly known as Laplace.
The losers were ATHENA - a descoped version of IXO, the third version of the next generation x-ray observatory, and, NGO, aka eLISA - the descoped version of the much beloved LISA, the long proposed space based gravitational wave observatory.
Some residual funding for x-ray optics, and laser systems will be provided to provide technological readiness for future mission opportunities…
catdynamics | April 2, 2012Every other year NASA conducts a Senior Review of its astrophysics missions that have completed their nominal mission and are requesting an extension of their mission.
The 2012 review panel just reported.
The panel had an interesting task - to rank in priority the operating missions:
Chandra
Fermi
Hubble
Kepler
Planck
Suzaku
Swift
Warm Spitzer
XMM-Newton
Kepler and Fermi are being reviewed for the first time, as is Hubble , as effectively it goes into a "new mission ops" mode after refurbishments.
Hubble and Chandra are large missions with large operations costs; Kepler, Fermi and Spitzer…
catdynamics | April 2, 2012snippets to ponder:
"Gods as Topological Invariants" - D. Schoch
"We show that the number of gods in a universe must equal the Euler characteristics of its underlying manifold. By incorporating the classical cosmological argument for creation, this result builds a bridge between theology and physics and makes theism a testable hypothesis. Theological implications are profound since the theorem gives us new insights in the topological structure of heavens and hells. Recent astronomical observations can not reject theism, but data are slightly in favor of atheism."
Close a hole. Kill a god!
"…
catdynamics | March 27, 2012Many of the Hubble Space Telescope images have never been looked at.
You can now browse the archives and win valuable prizes for finding cool new pics.
This is a cool, fun thing, and it is easy enough for a theorist to do.
Hubble Hidden Treasures - How To
With an iThing and the Dynamic Kids, we had pulled up several dozen sets of images of selected patches of the sky and browsed them, and found seriously cool pics within about 20 minutes.
Cut out of Pal 1 - unprocessed 2 colour - found from random browse and made in about 20 mins
So here is the deal: the Hubble Space Telescope has taken a…
catdynamics | March 12, 2012Seems like all the action is in Norway these last few years...
Meteorite crashes through roof in Oslo
from Verdens Gang
Fist size meteorite smashes through roof in Oslo suburb
Nice looking chunk - be worth a pretty penny, as one of the few meteorites with confirmed provenance of hitting a structure.
see also Fireball over Norway - at VG
catdynamics | March 2, 2012stuff I need to contemplate and therefore you probably should do:
"So Forget Jesus, Stars Died So You Could Live" - Miley Cyrus, aka Hannah Montana gets death threats for quoting Lawrence Krauss on twitter...
Philocosmology - Our Blog - Templeton foundation sponsors a Cosmology/Philosophy blog at Rutgers.
Looks like a good crew - now put up some content folks!
Walker reviews the origins of radial velocity searches for exoplanets
Xcode and fortran fix for OSX 10.7 Lion - yup, they broke it, again.
Iceland Goes Loonie - eh?
It is, actually, an interesting idea, thinking about it.
NASA Senior…
catdynamics | February 28, 2012Hey peeps
Anyone care to comment on what is going on with their prospies?
Either outoging μgrads or incoming?
I'm worried the statistics on prospies are wonky this year.
Are people holding back on apps?
Using waiting lists more?
Students continuing to apply to more schools than before?
I'm also not seeing the sort of chatter in the forums and cafes that I've seen in previous years.
Information wants to be fre...
catdynamics | February 24, 2012Is approaching 1 per minute and accelerating.
Proposals of course!
Yes, it is Happy, Happy Hubble Proposal Deadline Day!
You've downloaded yer new and improved APT20 (Astronomers Proposal Tool); installed the updated Java; bookmarked the subtly changed Proposal Guidelines, and even written some Science Justification - now it is the deathmarch to the deadline o'doom - can you write your Descriptions of the Observations or Analysis and Management section before dinner (tea on the west coast)?!
Will you get your lucky 4 digit submission number at 7:59:53?
Or are you one of these very organized…
catdynamics | February 15, 2012The standard solar model predicts a young Sun which was too faint to sustain liquid water on the Earth, unless there was an extreme greenhouse effect at the time, which seems to contradict the geochemical record. It seems to be almost impossible to get liquid water on Mars under the standard solar model with any plausible early Mars atmosphere.
Here is an interesting article on an old problem...
Astrobiology Magazine picked this up through the actual reporter finding it out by reading proposal abstracts. Which is impressive but scare:
Baby Fat on the Young Sun
The basic idea is to look at…
catdynamics | February 14, 2012for astronomers:
Discovery and Depth
"...the current situation calls for bold leadership and tough decisions and not merely the proverbial rearrangement of the chairs in the dining hall of the Costa Concordia as it approached the Isola del Giglio."14 Kulkarni (2011)
catdynamics | February 9, 2012There are several signs o'doom for NASA bubbling up out there
GALEX is going into standby mode in preparation for shut down.
It is working fine, but past its design lifetime, as so many NASA satellites do nowadays, and there is no more money for mission operation and data analysis.
There is a rumour that Caltech hustled for some private money to extend MODA, but they may not be able to do it anyway, because of liability and ownership issues.
So it goes.
At the same time there is SenseOfImpendingDoom at NASA - lot of 2011-12 programs appear effectively suspended pending the 2012-13 budget, to…
catdynamics | February 1, 2012The University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo has a very interesting facility that has put out some fun stuff
The Planetary Habitability Laboratory led by Prof Abel Mendez, who gave a most excellent presentation on their tools and resources at the "Planet around Stellar Remnants" workshop last week.
The Habitable Exoplanets Catalog tabulates potentially habitable exoplanets and exomoons from the known and candidate exoplanets in the literature.
They have a press release on some related new result thursday 2nd Feb.
Their Visible Paleo Earth project also looks very interesting, and I suspect I'll…
catdynamics | January 25, 2012So you want to be an astrophysicist?
You've suffered through 3-4 years of undergrad, and you're ready for more.
You picked the places to apply to (or have you...?), and you're ready for the paperwork.
Another lightly retouched blast from the past...
So what do you do?
First you apply to the departments.
There are 35 astronomy departments in the US with a PhD program, and some sub-departments within physics departments.
As a rule, go directly to the department web site you are applying to and read carefully (ie do not go to the Graduate School at the University, until/if the department…
catdynamics | January 25, 2012interesting pair of stories on black hole discoveries
ok, so they're like so totally last year...
I'm trying to catch up
RXTE finds low mass black hole - claim it is just under 3 solar masses
intereting to contemplate how it came to be
well, either that or the object is further away or more luminous than previously thought
the other story is the Two ten-billion-solar-mass black holes at the centres of giant elliptical galaxies. claim
Most excellent.
Many years ago I was a co-author on a fun little paper where we postulated some interesting little effects IF ultramassive black holes (order…
catdynamics | January 20, 2012Exoclimes 2012 is over.
But, I belatedly found out that there conference was tweeted and liveblogged by a group at Exoclimes.com
Really, .com?
Not .org?!
Anyway, it is a good summary of the sessions.
Go wild.
catdynamics | January 19, 2012Exoclimes 2012 is wrapping up
I have been hanging out at Exoclimes 2012 this week, taking in the latest results on exoplanetary atmospheres, both observations and theory, as well as future prospects.
It is clearly a very active and rapidly expanding field with prospects for huge amounts of near/medium term data, and a qualitative improvement in our understanding of the atmospheric processes on extrasolar planets.
The meeting is at the Aspen Center for Physics, one of a series of seven workshops held this year in different physics subfields.
Exoclime 17th Jan 2012
In addition to hanging out…