catdynamics | May 28, 2007So the "possibly habitable planet" probably isn't, as a number of people pointed out,
but the outer planet in the system may be, given some optimistic albedo and greenhouse assumptions
There was an interesting discovery last month, of a "super-Earth" formally within the habitable zone of a nearby star.
As a number of people pointed out, the habitability assumption was not really consistent, it looked more likely to runaway to a Venus like state if it had water and atmosphere.
Now there is a short formal analysis, but they also point out that while GJ581c may not be habitable, the outer planet…
catdynamics | May 27, 2007It is good to observe
Shame NASA will be losing some of this capability over the next few years.
Maybe no one will notice next time.
Or you could go for the high-res version
More fun Earth Observing images
catdynamics | May 27, 2007PulsarAstronomy.net
wiki based pulsar resource.
Catalogs, preprints, links to the people and institutions.
Go wild.
catdynamics | May 27, 2007Y Ranter looks at current disposition and predicates
I think he is right, the US doesn't have the forces or the political positioning.
For the paranoid, there is clearly a ramp-up to prepare for some political forcing of the issue in September, predicated on whatever happens in August...
The US now has no naval or army reserves, near as I can tell, but they could make a mess of things in september if they forced carrier rotation again and overlapped army unit rotation in a double surge.
Then the US is done, it can only react.
Situation would be further complicated by 2008 DoD appropriations…
catdynamics | May 25, 2007Steve was right...
Unclassified memo to forces in Iraq on the News Blog.
Hubris Sonic is covering for Steve G. who is critically ill.
Logistic interruptions for US forces in Iraq? Theater wide? WTF?!
UPDATE: Pat Lang speculates on causes - is it ambushes of convoys or failure to surge enough support units with the added combat troops?
As tempting as the latter explanation is, it doesn't quite make sense - the total number of added combat troops was not that large compared to all units in theater, and this seems to be affecting the bases, not field units who are presumably eating a lot of…
catdynamics | May 25, 2007 Tenure doesn't help you if you are dead - not funny, actually.
Advice for junior faculty at a research university
Chad started it
catdynamics | May 25, 2007Hot Friday, and I just deleted this post by accident...
Oh, mighty iPod One, the committee has reached a conclusion and filed a report.
What is in store for Beyond Einstein?
The Covering: Twenty Four Hours - Joy Division
The Crossing: Búkalú - Stuðmenn
The Crown: Vorið Góða Græ:nt og Hlýtt
The Root: Late Night, Maudlin Street - Morrissey
The Past: A La Volette - Sien Diels
The Future: Get Your Hands off My Woman - Darkness
The Questioner: Fljúga Hvíu Fiðrildin
The House: It Says Here (Alternate Version) - Billy Bragg
The Inside: Mansion on the Hill - Crooked Fingers
The Outcome:…
catdynamics | May 25, 2007PSU and xPSU folks:
FYI - heard from Joe P. last night.
He is ok, his platoon took some casualties though.
catdynamics | May 22, 2007There is a most curious paper out on CU Virginis
CU Virginis is a magnetic chemically peculiar star about 250 light years away.
By peculiar, we mean it has significant overabundance of some elements (factors of ten or more), and the surface composition is visibly inhomogenous and variable.
It is rotating rapidly, period of just over half-a-day, and the rotation axis is approximately orthogonal to our line of sight, while the magnetic field is dipolar, off-center, and approximately orthogonal to the rotation axis.
There is strong radio emission from the stellar magnetosphere, and as it…
catdynamics | May 21, 2007Last year Sean wrote a marvelous short on Boltzmann's Brains
A Boltzmann Brain is a self-aware entity that spontaneously appears from a low probability statistical fluctuation to a low entropy state.
A very low probability fluctuation.
We're talking something like a potted plant appearing spontaneously high above a planet's surface, thinking "oh no, not again" and then plummeting to its more probable, energy conserving, high entropy disassembly.
No violation of physical law or cherished symmetries, just a low probability rapid assembly of ordered mass, followed by return to normalcy.
The…
catdynamics | May 20, 2007Do not invite me to observatories - I have the Pauli effect
The Green Bank Telescope is very pretty.
But I'm not going to get to see it move...
seems it just broke.
Just a little bit. I'm sure they can fix it soon...
Could be worse, at least the mountain is not on fire.
catdynamics | May 17, 2007Friday flies forth
And we ask the Mighty iPod One: oh, mighty iPod One, can we really achieve extremely high contrast optical astronomical imaging through negative refraction index superlenses?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Móðir - Ego
The Crossing: Lullaby
The Crown: The Prince - Madness
The Root: Baggy Trousers - Madness
The Past: Sleep Little One, Sleep
The Future: Like That - Undertones
The Questioner: Do Anything You Wanna Do - Eddy and the Hot Rods
The House: She Can Only Say No - Undertones
The Inside: The Right Profile - Clash
The Outcome: Let's Talk About…
catdynamics | May 17, 2007I was shown this today, and it totally rocks.
ADS archives have gone back, just a wee bit...
The Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System, ADS, is one of the most amazingly useful and comprehensive scientific data bases on the planet.
It covers all the major astronomical journals, including electronic or scanned images of essentially all the articles, as well as links to all the major online astronomical databases - including searchable and browsable images and links to published data by object.
Now, if you go to ADS and enter just a data in the "Publication Date between" field - in the…
catdynamics | May 16, 2007score
Criminal Minds on CBS had its season finale.
Overdramatic
But, in the penultimate scene the "Greg" lead character confronts his boss, a senior FBI officer and profiles her to make his case for keeping her job.
Top of the pile in the FBI boss's office is SEED Magazine.
The March '07 "TRUTH" issue.
Now if they could just get the magazine into airport newsagents...
catdynamics | May 16, 2007some principles must hold for persistence of civic society
and sometimes we link because it is important to do so
catdynamics | May 16, 2007The amazing Swiss team (Gillon et al A&A L in press) have another amazing planet pick for us...
...as pointed out to me by Dunkleosteus in the comments.
Greg at systemic has the full story
This is a good one, with all the ingredients - and the competition aspect also.
Teaches us to a) read astro-ph when it comes in at night, not the next morning and b) always follow up your hot RV detections with systematic transit surveys.
So, what have we got this time?
Gliese 436b - an 23 Earth mass planet around a nearby M star (0.44 times the mass of the Sun). It has a 2.6 day orbital period - it…
catdynamics | May 16, 2007Ringlike dark matter paper is out.
But Chad explains the essence of the issue much better
catdynamics | May 16, 2007The Texas HET group has discovered a couple of very interesting new planets which have not received the attention they deserve, yet.
HD155358 is a 0.9 solar mass G0 main sequence star, it is about 130 light years away, it is about 10 billion years old, and it is now known to have two planets.
It is also metal poor.
Two planets, 0.9 and 0.5 Jupiter masses (/sin(i)), orbital radii of 0.6 and 1.2 AU and near circular orbits.
Stellar metallicity is about 1/5th of solar
Paper is in press in ApJ, I'll pass the link (ApJ preprint - subscription) along when I have access.
We know of over 200…