Astrophysics and Cosmology - Discuss the Universe here

[GravitySucks]

Yep due to how far they're sending it out ...  on this one, no quick trips up to earth orbit to whack the thing with a hammer.   

Ever since we stopped flying the shuttle; we don't have the capability to service anything in LEO anyway. Putting it at L2 has several advantages. This program was been wrought with problems though. I started working on this in 2003 with a planned launch date of 2011/12. I stopped working on it in 2007.

It won't have optics like HST. I hope it works after all the money that has been dumped into it.

[Agent : Orange]

Posted yesterday. I have not yet had the chance to read it but I include it here because it's directly applicable to a claim made earlier in the thread.
Hawking radiation from black holes as a possible probe for black hole interior structure:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1602.06035
To summarize:
"Hawking radiation is one of the rare methods we can apply to infer some but usually little information from the black hole. Hawking radiation is not yet successful in unfolding the interior structure for traditional black holes. But we conjecture that in the case of regular black holes, the Hawking radiation might be a powerful probe into the black hole interior structure."

So some types of black hole models do seem to leave a fingerprint of their interior on the properties of their Hawking radiation.

[GravitySucks]

No beginning to the Universe?

Discuss

http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html

[Agent : Orange]

No beginning to the Universe?

Discuss

http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html

I met Das once and attended a talk that he gave, and had a bit of time to chat afterward too. His work is very interesting. I'm curious to learn more about his approach. At first glance it seemed to me that the Raychaudhuri equation he makes use of as well as the Bohmian path business is interesting and seems like a rich direction to explore. Whether any observational tests can be found for these ideas would be very exciting.

[GravitySucks]

I met Das once and attended a talk that he gave, and had a bit of time to chat afterward too. His work is very interesting. I'm curious to learn more about his approach. At first glance it seemed to me that the Raychaudhuri equation he makes use of as well as the Bohmian path business is interesting and seems like a rich direction to explore. Whether any observational tests can be found for these ideas would be very exciting.

Then I can expect your full analysis in the morning?

[Agent : Orange]

Then I can expect your full analysis in the morning?

I think you just got it!

[GravitySucks]

http://www.nature.com/news/mysterious-radio-burst-pinpointed-in-distant-galaxy-1.19441

[trostol]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip3YHk0gu0I

[zeebo]

Know your known exoplanet types:

[Agent : Orange]

http://www.nature.com/news/mysterious-radio-burst-pinpointed-in-distant-galaxy-1.19441

This is really groundbreaking and advances the study of the FRBs. For a long time the astronomical community has been debating if these things are local or cosmological, so having a confirmed host is an exciting development. Now will be the time when we begin to really learn a lot about them. Not surprising it was at Parkes either, many of the FRBs have been discovered there and a few at Arecibo as well. Anyway now we know that they have an origin at cosmological distances the real detective work can begin. Current thinking points toward a relationship to magnetar flares or other outburst, whether or not this holds up will be interesting to see.

[Agent : Orange]

Some more fast radio burst business.

A new study calls into question whether or not the previous distance estimate is correct at all, as it now appears that the post-burst radio transient behavior may have been due to a nearby AGN acting up in a variable way, and not an associated transient event. So the case is far from closed on the distance to the source of the FRBs and the question of whether they are galactic or extra-galactic seems to remain open for now.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1602.08434

More surprisingly, an FRB has now been seen to repeat, which is unexpected and a real game-changer. It means the source of the burst is not destroyed in the process and can repeat this activity over short timescales. Over 10 aperiodic repeats of the bursting behavior was observed from May to June 2015. Posted today on arxiv and published in Nature.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1603.00581

[GravitySucks]

Thanks AO

[Agent : Orange]

Thanks AO

A repeating FRB is a real surprise!

[zeebo]

A repeating FRB is a real surprise!

I hope you guys call them FuRBies.

[Ciardelo]

Happy Birthday AO 

[Agent : Orange]

Arg.

http://global.jaxa.jp/press/2016/03/20160327_hitomi.html
http://spaceflight101.com/h-iia-astro-h/fate-of-japanese-space-observatory-unclear-after-serious-on-board-anomaly/

I know people who have put a lot of work into this project. I hope the situation is not as serious as it appears to be.

[GravitySucks]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-01/holes-in-the-sun-are-threatening-to-throw-birds-gps-off-course

[zeebo]

Breakthrough Starshot
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2016-04/13/breakthrough-starshot-alpha-centauri

Alpha Centauri, our nearest star system, is 4.37 light years away. Getting there with current technology would take 78,000 years. Breakthrough Starshot wants to get there in a lifetime.  A team of scientists and entrepreneurs, led by Russian philanthropist Yuri Milner, have announced an audacious plan to send thousands of smartphone-sized craft into orbit around the Earth and onto the stars. ... Once in orbit around Earth, the swarm of craft would unfurl lightweight, thin sails which would then be hit by high-powered lasers based on Earth, propelling them at one-fifth the speed of light.  At such speeds, the craft would reach Pluto in three days, a feat which took Nasa's New Horizons more than nine years. After 20 years Breakthrough Starshot would reach Alpha Centauri.

From the project's site
http://breakthroughinitiatives.org/News/4

More info w/ a video depiction
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/science/alpha-centauri-breakthrough-starshot-yuri-milner-stephen-hawking.html

Interesting blog post about the mission
http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=35402

What do we know about Alpha Centauri?
http://www.space.com/32560-alpha-centauri-what-we-know.html

[ItsOver]

Breakthrough Starshot
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2016-04/13/breakthrough-starshot-alpha-centauri

Alpha Centauri, our nearest star system, is 4.37 light years away. Getting there with current technology would take 78,000 years. Breakthrough Starshot wants to get there in a lifetime.  A team of scientists and entrepreneurs, led by Russian philanthropist Yuri Milner, have announced an audacious plan to send thousands of smartphone-sized craft into orbit around the Earth and onto the stars. ... Once in orbit around Earth, the swarm of craft would unfurl lightweight, thin sails which would then be hit by high-powered lasers based on Earth, propelling them at one-fifth the speed of light.  At such speeds, the craft would reach Pluto in three days, a feat which took Nasa's New Horizons more than nine years. After 20 years Breakthrough Starshot would reach Alpha Centauri.

From the project's site
http://breakthroughinitiatives.org/News/4

More info w/ a video depiction
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/science/alpha-centauri-breakthrough-starshot-yuri-milner-stephen-hawking.html

Interesting blog post about the mission
http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=35402

What do we know about Alpha Centauri?
http://www.space.com/32560-alpha-centauri-what-we-know.html

Interesting.  I sure like what Bezos and Musk have been doing, too.   

[Agent : Orange]

A short blurb about this view of a gravitational lens system from ALMA can be found here:
http://phys.org/news/2016-04-dwarf-dark-galaxy-hidden-alma.html
The fuzzy white patch is found by modelling. It is a mass of dark stuff that is needed to match the model to data.
Pretty amazing!

[Agent : Orange]

Alpha Centauri, our nearest star system, is 4.37 light years away. Getting there with current technology would take 78,000 years. Breakthrough Starshot wants to get there in a lifetime.  A team of scientists and entrepreneurs, led by Russian philanthropist Yuri Milner, have announced an audacious plan to send thousands of smartphone-sized craft into orbit around the Earth and onto the stars. ... Once in orbit around Earth, the swarm of craft would unfurl lightweight, thin sails which would then be hit by high-powered lasers based on Earth, propelling them at one-fifth the speed of light.  At such speeds, the craft would reach Pluto in three days, a feat which took Nasa's New Horizons more than nine years. After 20 years Breakthrough Starshot would reach Alpha Centauri.

I love it that I live in a time when this is being discussed seriously.

[zeebo]

What Cities Would Look Like Without Any Lights
http://imgur.com/gallery/HN3Hs

[GravitySucks]

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/04/29/pop-goes-the-weasel-and-down-goes-the-large-hadron-collider/

[Agent : Orange]

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/04/29/pop-goes-the-weasel-and-down-goes-the-large-hadron-collider/

First the baguette, now a weasel. omg nature is attacking the LHC!

There's a lot of buzz since December about the potential signs of a new particle at 750 GeV that is outside the standard model. If true it changes a lot of our understanding and will open new doors forward. However it could also be part of the background, so more statistics are needed to find out. It's expected that a report will be coming in August. Amazing if true.
Some recent buzz: 
http://phys.org/news/2016-05-physicists-abuzz-particle-cern-revs.html

[MV/Liberace!]

First the baguette, now a weasel. omg nature is attacking the LHC!

There's a lot of buzz since December about the potential signs of a new particle at 750 GeV that is outside the standard model. If true it changes a lot of our understanding and will open new doors forward. However it could also be part of the background, so more statistics are needed to find out. It's expected that a report will be coming in August. Amazing if true.
Some recent buzz: 
http://phys.org/news/2016-05-physicists-abuzz-particle-cern-revs.html

hey, buddy.  glad to see you still around.

[effluenza]

What Cities Would Look Like Without Any Lights
http://imgur.com/gallery/HN3Hs

That is so awesome.

[twiki]

What Cities Would Look Like Without Any Lights
http://imgur.com/gallery/HN3Hs

If all the lights went out at once would this be instantaneous?

[zeebo]

Astronomers have discovered three Earth-sized planets orbiting a small red sun, just 40 light-years away.  Researchers say all three worlds are potentially habitable and could represent the best targets yet in the search for life beyond the solar system.

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-three-earth-sized-planets-20160502-story.html

[trostol]

If all the lights went out at once would this be instantaneous?

do not think it would be instant..but it wouldnt take too long

its also kind of eerie in a way

go back to gas lamps lol

[GravitySucks]

An article about Tabby's Star. Doesn't discount the Kepler findings, but raises questions about a subsequent LSU study. Inside this article is another link to the actual analysis.

http://gizmodo.com/flawed-data-just-made-that-alien-megastructure-even-mor-1775609592