astro
catdynamics | August 25, 2011A new Pulsar Planet has been discovered, and it is a beaut.
In a paper published in Science, Matthew Bailes and collaborators announce the discovery of the third pulsar planet, and this one is a wonder.
Very nice video summary bu Matthew hisself
The first exoplanets discovered, were found around a pulsar: PSR B1257+12.
This is because planets are ubiquitous and pulsars allow precision measurements enabling planet detection.
That was almost 20 years ago, since then one other pulsar planet system has been discovered, PSR B1620-26, which was quite different from 1257+12.
Pulsar observations…
catdynamics | August 12, 2011Not infrequently, I get asked what it is I do, anyway, as a scientisty sort of person.
I blogged it, of course, but that was a "typical day" - during term time and filled with paperwork and class prep and general rushing about.
This morning I woke up and found the Sb Overlords had frontpaged this quote:
"I think I need to go back and think about adaptive load balancing block solving of sparse, nasty almost diagonal matrices; that and whether kinetic energy turbulence really affects sound wave propagation (duh, of course it does, but how much...)?"
Huh?
Ah, Particle Physics snark...
So, how…
catdynamics | August 11, 2011Last year, Brad deLong did a most excellent dissection of the lecture, how it came to be, and why universities need to rethink the whole approach to learning concept before they get eaten by technology development providing even cheaper content delivery.
I've been meaning to editorialize on this for a while, and then Chad planning for start of classes prodded me into action, doubly so when Chad posted a link to jolly nice resource for active learning in physics at Learnification
Now, others have provided expositions on how to teach wellgreat...
So I guess it is up to me to risk the wrath of…
catdynamics | August 11, 2011Summary of results on Higgs particle on LHC workshop at KITP
I wasn't here for it, but last week John Conway presented theLHC Higgs Searches (slides, audio, video)
summary talk at the LHC11 workshop.
I had, of course, kept half an eye on the flurry of conference announcement on the preliminary LHC constraints on various wished for particles and sparticles, but it is particularly satisfying to see a good summary presentation.
Low mass joint Higgs constraints - more data needed (from Conway's talk, link above)
So, there is space in the parameter space, there are a few little gaps in the 200-…
catdynamics | August 11, 2011hangin' out at KITP sneaking into the LHC workshop talks,
sort of liveblog of the constraints on supersymmetry from preliminary LHC results.
today's seminar is Reece: on Assessing SUSY After 1 fb-1 (blackboard talk, but audio/video will be up on the website soon) on constraints on supersymmetry from current LHC data, good turnout, serious punditry in the audience
basically: should LHC have seen superpartners by now, or ought it to see it real soon now?
I like this - he kicks off with quoting physics blogs on why lack of susy detection is heading physics into a crisis, then he reassures us…
catdynamics | August 5, 2011Last month Dimitri Veras and collaborators wrote a nice, and very thorough paper on what happens to planets when their parent stars die...
"The Great Escape: How Exoplanets and Smaller Bodies Desert Dying Stars",
Dimitri Veras, Mark C. Wyatt, Alexander J. Mustill, Amy Bonsor, John J. Eldridge
(MNRAS, arXiv:1107.1239)
National Geographic News Story: How Planets Can Survive a Supernova
The paper revisits an old topic I am particularly fond of: what happens to the planets orbiting a star as the star leaves the main sequence, become a giant, and sheds its mass enroute to becoming a white dwarf…
catdynamics | July 28, 2011Jinx: NASA x-mission posters at a federal research center near you...
click to embiggen
catdynamics | July 26, 2011Sometimes correlation is causation:
"Laurie Leshin, deputy associate administrator of exploration systems for NASA, will join Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as dean of the School of Science. " (RPI news)
Coincidentally:
"...Jon Morse, director of the Science Mission Directorate's Astrophysics Division and Laurie's husband, also will be leaving government to join RPI as the associate vice president for research." (spacref.com)
That leaves Astrophysics without a director, as the 2012 appropriations are coming up.
This would not be a fun time to step into the position, with the threat of…
catdynamics | July 22, 2011Associate Theorer?
Theorer-in-Chief?
Ok. I'm just jealous of the Astronomist!
catdynamics | July 14, 2011House appropriations committee reported out the Science etc bill.
JWST remains deleted; armchair quantum wires are in...
Here we go.
Next step.
House appropriations committee approved the report of the subcommittee on Science etc for 2012 appropriations.
Bill was essentially unchanged, with minor amendments.
0.1% was shaved off everyone and given to NOAA.
JWST remains CUT CUT CUT!
And McCollum (D) put in two amendments prohibiting funding for corps convicted of felonies or owing taxes - that could have interesting consequences, wonder who that is aimed at.
Anyway, Sen. Mikulski put out…
catdynamics | July 12, 2011back to the science subcommittee appropriations
In case I haven't gone on about it enough, I think the James Webb Space Telescope has been tossed under the bus.
It is deleted, after being isolated and hung out to dry.
It is possible that funding will be restored in the Senate or in conference, but I think the deal has been made, implicitly, that Goddard gets to keep the (equally or worse mismanaged) big weather and environmental science programs, and JWST is sacrificed as a token high profile budget cut.
The money does not go back to astrophysics, which then has a permanent large cut in…
catdynamics | July 12, 2011House subcommittee on Science etc has reported out and full committee is scheduled to vote on the 13th.
JWST cut is formally in as are various other interesting snippets.
The subcommittee report (pdf large) - ie the appropriations by agency recommended to the full committee
Summary Table (pdf) - handy dandy difference between 2012 actual appropriations vs 2011 actual and 2012 requested, respectively.
Remember: this is the subcommittee recommendation to the committee, that gets voted on, then sent to House, then Senate does its thing, then it goes to conference to reconcile.
Change can…
catdynamics | July 7, 2011Name a concrete, new international facility class science project that the US is going to be leading in near future.
Seriously: and you can either keep it to Astronomy, or any natural science.
Used to be that you could rattle off several upcoming major science projects which were US initiatives, international in scope and clearly great things to do.
Heck, you could do that just in astronomy.
There are still some US projects, mostly though put in place a long time ago and just now peaking.
There are still major international scientific projects, but mostly without US leadership. Either…
catdynamics | July 6, 2011As everybody knows, there is one thing you must never do before launch, and that is name it.
Total jinx.
Not of course that we are superstitious, that'd be silly.
Some of us just cringed when the Next Generation Space Telescope was given a proper name by an over keen administrator while still in pre-pre phase A.
Still, we muddle along, and so it goes.
Then came the delays, and cost overruns, and reviews and reports.
Not all of it was NASA's fault - I have clear memories of Congress vacillating for a year or two on authorizing use of a foreign heavy launcher, even though it was clear the…
catdynamics | July 6, 2011Well, it was a good four centuries or so, but after a good run, one of the older watches on the Rhine is coming to an end.
Word came in mid-June that the Dutch government cuts were going to lead to some "consolidation" in astronomy, and that Utrecht would be cut.
We were asked not to kick up a fuzz about it, for local political reasons, but soon enough the story spread:
One Small Step broke the story,
with the e-Astronomer also chiming in.Official response of the Astronomical Institute is here.
So, Dutch academia is facing "austerity" - 20% cuts in particular for Utrecht University, and,…
catdynamics | June 19, 2011So, since I have been, like, actually organizeering black hole stuff over the last couple of weeks, one might wonder what is up with black holes?
Well, I can't really talk about the really cool stuff, yet, but there were some interesting news:
NGC 3758 has two black holes about 10,000 light years apart.
So, recent merger, has some ways to go, seen others like it before, but nice clean convincing result.
With pretty pictures and bonus animation (see link above)
click to embiggen
Koss et al 2011
Swift also saw an interesting series of x-ray flares almost certainly from a tidal disruption of…
catdynamics | May 19, 2011Official word on Arecibo:
So, NSF met with Arecibo people today, I am told, and the new management consortium will be putting out an official press release real soon, was waiting for the internal communication to be done.
I was asked to put up the following (lightly edited):
"Please allow me to clear up a potential point of confusion. There
should be no doubt in anyone's mind that Arecibo will continue to
be a premier facility for astronomy.
NSF will formally announce the result of the Arecibo management
recompetition on Monday. The proposal led by SRI was formulated
by a team that included…
catdynamics | May 16, 2011yo peeps
I hear buzz about fateful decisions on NAIC/Arecibo from NSF.
But... can't confirm anything.
Who knows, and who will tell?
PS: thanks to our intrepid commenter and other confirming sources...
Cornell did lose their bid.
Arecibo is being taken over by
"SRI" which is a in consortium of USRA - Universities Space Research Association a venerable and DC institutional consortium, and the University of Puerto Rico.
What I hear so far sounds good, I think they will run Arecibo and do it well.SRI appears not to have a web site yet,
but they the consortium have started to staff up. (see…
catdynamics | May 12, 2011Kepler team has another excellent visualization of their discoveries.
An orrery of the currently known multi-planet systems, as a youtube animation.
Dan Fabrycky put this up
h/t Marketing for Scientists
catdynamics | May 3, 2011The Space Telescope Science Institute is hosting the annual Spring Symposium May 2-5, and this year the topic is Dark Matter
Good lineup of speakers.
The whole week is webcast at https://webcast.stsci.edu/webcast/ including live talks and archives of previous talks.
For those who enjoy that sort of thing and didn't get the e-mail...