Starship Asterisk*

Thanks for the kind words, folks! Fortunately the variables affecting the fires are improving - increased humidity, winds are light and from the west (bringing moist air from the Pacific and moving away from populated areas), and every day more firefighters and equipment arrive. Here's a composite ...

I'm sorry to hear about your terrible situation, Orca, and I can only hope that things get better in Oregon soon. It is all too obvious that climate change is happening everywhere. We see it very clearly here in Sweden, too, and we have also had unusual fires, but not this year, nowhere near as big...

I'm sorry to hear about your terrible situation, Orca, and I can only hope that things get better in Oregon soon. It is all too obvious that climate change is happening everywhere. We see it very clearly here in Sweden, too, and we have also had unusual fires, but not this year, nowhere near as big...

Hi Orca. I was appalled to read earlier this morning that 10% of Oregon's population is under evacuation orders, and that towns have been lost. Hope you and yours stay safe.

The carbon footprint of large astronomy meetings ~ Leonard Burtscher et al Nature Astronomy 4(9):823 (2020 Sep 10) DOI: 10.1038/s41550-020-1207-z Everyone else is meeting remotely these days. Switch to zoom meetings. The annual meeting of the European Astronomical Society took place in Lyon, France...

The carbon footprint of large astronomy meetings ~ Leonard Burtscher et al
Nature Astronomy 4(9):823 (2020 Sep 10) DOI: 10.1038/s41550-020-1207-z

Everyone else is meeting remotely these days. Switch to zoom meetings.

These observations led to their conclusion—the supernova was exploding inside what had been an Asymptotic Giant Branch or AGB star, an aging stellar type that late in its life is surrounded by a dusty shell of hot gas.

A White Dwarf orbiting inside an AGB! Awesome explanation.

Let's hope that the growing swarms of low orbit communication satellite constellations won't hamper this Observatory from achieving it's ambitious objectives.

orin stepanek wrote: ↑Thu Sep 10, 2020 11:14 pm

Chris Peterson wrote: ↑Thu Sep 10, 2020 3:36 pm

orin stepanek wrote: ↑Thu Sep 10, 2020 2:52 pm Crazy! All 4 seasons in one week! 🌦 🌬

The new norm, I think.

I think you're right! MAY EVEN GET WORSE; IF THAT IS POSSIBLE!

Not just possible, PROBABLE.

We got a glancing blow from that storm the night before it hit y'all Chris. No snow here at our 5,000 ft elevation but high winds and hard rain. Pocatello about 120 miles south of us had many large 100+ year old cottonwood trees blown over. But it is nice to see the surrounding mountains coated in f...

GW190521_Virgo_1080.jpg Oh My!!! Kaboom! 🌪 If 2 black holes collide; would not that be like 2 strong magnets coming together???? Either banging together or sling themselves fast apart? ⁉️ 🤯 It seems to me that the comparison is not the same. The two magnets are directly approaching each other and a...

Please, bystander, let me keep this animation in my post, even though its larger (but not that much larger ) than 400 KB! Ann Thanks Ann, and bystander too, for sharing, and allowing that time lapse of the Pleiades in motion! It well shows how clusters will always be passing in front of background ...

I got another dum dum for ya all! every planet seems to have 2 polls; doesn't a black hole? That's why I asked the first dum dum in the first place! I think art tried to answer that; but I'm not as smart as I used to be! You start getting brain farts when you get my age! :mrgreen: Since BHs conserv...

Hmm, I hadn't realized that a black hole could have a charge. And doesn't it also follow that any such charge must be small, because if it was large, the black hole would be blown apart by electrostatic repulsion, since that force is 10 40 times greater than gravity? How do you blow a singularity a...

Just wonder how strong the repelling force would have to be between the two black holes in order to repel a black hole? Black holes, being the chunkiest bodies in the universe, would never be repellent. There is one caveat to that though: One of the few properties a BH can have is charge. So if two...

GW190521_Virgo_1080.jpg Oh My!!! Kaboom! If 2 black holes collide; would not that be like 2 strong magnets coming together???? Either banging together or sling themselves fast apart? Humm interesting. I am no physicist, and maybe a physicist can chime in, but that might have a connection to the Gra...

I'm outside of Alice...I'm not loving it but it's ok for now. My mother is from Wyoming so she misses the mountains. At least we have a lot of room and privacy on this property (160 acres). Although...we had a rattlesnake by the backdoor a few weeks ago. 😳😆 Then y'all should be able to at least see...

Wow, really? We're originally from the Austin area but moved to the family ranch to help out in 2012. We're about 40 miles west of Corpus Christi. Moving to Idaho must have been a HUGE change for all of you! It is just my wife and I. The change was huge, but hugely desired too. We love the cooler a...

Hello! I'm Sheri and I live in south Texas. I've always loved the night sky and I'm currently trying to pass on my appreciation and awe to my young son. I remember visiting my grandparents in the 1970s on their ranch. The night sky was so crowded with stars. Unfortunately, the nearby towns have gro...

Loved SciFi space movies and novels from early beginnings. Original trekkie. Then when I couldn't find work for my zoology bachelor's at the beginning of the Nixon depression, my math bachelor's and undergraduate UNIVAC computer experience was very exciting to Goddard Space Flight Center contractor...

This discussion took an interesting historical side trip, but I remain intrigued by the unanswered questions re the SN itself. Specifically, how can the blast wave from this or any SN keep accelerating outwards for hundreds of years Is there a known or suspected cause?

This lack of reports of SN 1054 from the Western Old World made me wonder what else was happening back then. Could any of these notable events have contributed somehow? By place Byzantine Empire Sultan Tughril leads a large Seljuk army out of Azerbaijan into Armenia, possibly to consolidate his fron...

My thinking was that astronomers in the western and mid parts of the old world must have noted (written down) accounts of the new star, but with all the numerous wars, Crusades, Jihads etc. the records have been lost over time. This fits with your points about all the other writings that have been ...

The explanation's link to 1054 AD's first paragraph says this: On July 4, 1054 A.D., Chinese astronomers noted a "guest star" in the constellation Taurus; Simon Mitton lists 5 independent preserved Far-East records of this event (one of 75 authentic guest stars - novae and supernovae, exc...

The filaments are not only tremendously complex, but appear to have less mass than expelled in the original supernova and a higher speed than expected from a free explosion. That sentence prompted drilling down, leading to this puzzling set of facts: The "less mass than expected" link goe...