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Dec 6, 2021

Read about the third BIG discovery made with our HIPPI/-2 polarimeters. We've now added polarimetric asteroseismology (below) to rotational distortion (nature.com/articles/s4155) and reflected star light (nature.com/articles/s4155).

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Dec 6, 2021

Very pleased to finally unveil this paper, thanks to my collaborators: @astro_derek, Conny Aerts, @JeremyBailey5, @siembb, May Pedersen, Dennis Stello, @quasibody, @ain_uws, Peter DeCat, Fiona Lewis, Sai Prathyusha Malla, @OZplanet_hunter & @HumanBott. nature.com/articles/s4155

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If anyone happens to be near Monterey this week, I would enjoy having a visitor or someone to meet up with. Let me know.

How is it going? So far I have watched (each for the first time): * Miracle on 34th Street * It's a Wonderful Life (in Colour) * American Psycho

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Nobody deserves abuse racial or otherwise. I condemn these types of comments. Stick to the facts people. I support keeping Webb's name because he was progressive (and an advocate for science). If you post this type of stuff you are not supporting his legacy.

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

@IBJIYONGI

Dec 23

Great argument for keeping the JWST name, truly

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Dec 22

If growing things can be so varied and strange on Earth imagine how they might be on another planet orbiting another star.

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Massimo

@Rainmaker1973

Dec 22

Apples are generally red, green, yellow, but if the right geographical conditions are met, they can apparently grow dark purple, almost black, as well. These rare apples are called Black Diamond and they are currently only grown in the mountains of Tibet ow.ly/790C30odBsT

Andrew McCarthy

@AJamesMcCarthy

Dec 22

If you ever see someone with a telescope on the sidewalk, please come bother them. Nothing pleases me more than watching the reaction of someone seeing a planet with their own eyes for the first time.

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Luis Batalha

@luismbat

Dec 21

Who would have thought that adding a Sierpinski Triangle Fractal as musical notes would actually sound good!😅

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Dillon Brout

@DillonBrout

Dec 21

Hosted a workshop on Dust & Cosmology last week. We had wonderful discussions with the undisputed champs of both Milky Way and Extragalactic dust. One thing that became clear was that the Hubble Tension is not caused by dust impacting the Cepheids. Some key takeaways:

This is a great movie. I recommend it.

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The Spaceshipper

@TheSpaceshipper

Dec 20

Wolfgang Petersen's Enemy Mine was released 37 years ago today. To celebrate the work of Petersen, who left us this summer, it's time to watch again this beautiful ode to empathy.

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Females in Motorsport

@FemalesinMSport

Dec 20

Seeing Kelly Piquet on the cover of Vogue representing women in motorsport is disappointing. There are so many women out there who actually compete in the sport and who have faced constant adversity. These racers should have had their stories heard instead. #WomenInMotorsport

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FWIW, here's the comment I added to the NYT article: nyti.ms/3G0XNj3#permid I wrote it because these circumstances are usually missed in this discussion.

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Massimo

@Rainmaker1973

Dec 19

The Andromeda galaxy is 6 times bigger in the sky than the full Moon: it's just too dim to see with the naked eye. This composite created by Tom Buckley-Houston shows what it would look like at night if it was just brighter [read more: ow.ly/EMek50A0CeU]

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Dec 19

I'm not a millenial, but I am guilty of this.

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Techpriest

@techpriest

Dec 18

Millenials don't keep an address book. They just search WhatsApp chats for "address" to find one of the 50 times you've asked each other "what's your address again?"

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How Naming the James Webb Telescope Turned Into a Fight Over Homophobia

Dec 19

This is also my sentiment. I almost signed the petition, my finger hovered over submit. But my father's voice in my head said 'never sign something until you've checked it.' When I did I was angry I'd been mislead, by scientists trained in evidence.

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Replying to @HakeemOluseyi

The last bit summed up Science quite eloquently

“Look, I didn’t care about James Webb — he’s not my uncle,” Dr. Oluseyi said. “I had no motivation to exonerate. Once I found the truth, what was I supposed to do?”

I've been saying for some time I do not support renaming the telescope because (a) the accusations made against Webb are incorrect, (b) the record shows him to be anti-bigotry and pro-diversity, and (c) he was a champion for science.

nytimes.com

Did the former head of NASA discriminate against gay people? One physicist tried to rebut the accusation, only to find himself the target of attacks.

I rather like this for reasons I can't explain.

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Ross Daws

@rosco_daws

Dec 18

My telescope. Sharing the wonders of the universe. Through the medium of interpretative dance.

The orion nebula, satellite streaks, and star squiggles as the telescope has started moving around half way through taking the 30 second photo.

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Prof. Brian Keating

@DrBrianKeating

Dec 18

Why study physics? Professor Francis Halzen ⁦

@uw_icecube

⁩ explains the only criterion.

Exactly this. How can we ask others to respect the work we do in finding the truth of our world, if we ignore truth elsewhere to prosecute our arguments?

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Thayne Currie

@AstroThayne

apropo of "nothing in particular" ... as scientists, our bottom line is to follow the evidence, no matter where it may lead. Not bend reality to dogma. It's a way of life. Scientists who don't do this on topics outside their field are really just into science cosplay.

On the Possibility of Tracing Polarization Effects in the Rotational Profiles of Early-Type Stars.

So far we've used polarimetry to determine the rotation of a handful of stars. But a mission like Polstar could increase that number many times over. That would help us unravel the Be phenomenon, which in turn tells us about the future evolution of galaxies. [Image:

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Because the Polstar concept uses *spectro* polarimetry, there's another trick we can play to increase our sensitivity further. We can exploit the Ohman Effect (proposed in 1946: ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1946ApJ...) which predicts an inclination dependence. Our paper shows this helps.

ui.adsabs.harvard.edu

But in the ultraviolet (UV) polarisation from electron scattering in these stars is much stronger. So, we don't need as precise an instrument. This would make something like Polstar very powerful. In the lower figure panel downwards is more polarisation, on a log scale!

I've done a lot of work recently (with colleagues) using high precision optical polarimetry to answer this question for individual stars: Regulus: arxiv.org/pdf/1804.06576 Rasalhague: arxiv.org/pdf/2003.07983 Sargas: arxiv.org/pdf/2204.02719 Plus another just submitted...

A key question is: how fast is any given star actually rotating? B-type stars are fairly featureless so in most cases all we know is velocity multiplied by the sine of the inclination – v.sin(i) – but polarimetry can help us determine inclination. [Image: PaulAnthonyWilson.com]

But not all rapid rotators are Be stars. Stars with earlier spectral types and faster rotation are more likely to be, but there's a lot of overlap between Be and non-Be in that space. [Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)]

My contribution was focussed on what we can learn about rapidly rotating stars. There is a connexion between the Be phenomenon, where gas is ejected from the stellar equator, and rotation, because rotation near critical (i.e. escape velocity) makes it easier for gas to escape.

You can follow this link to see all eleven papers that came from the Polstar mission: twitter.com/springerastro/ Everything from the interstellar medium, to binary stars, to magnetic fields, to massive stars.

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Springer Astronomy

@springerastro

Ultraviolet Spectropolarimetry: on the origin of rapidly rotating B stars

Astrophysics and Space Science is thrilled to present the Polstar collection! link.springer.com/collections/ii All papers are freely accessible for 2 months. Big thanks to the editors Paul Scowen, Carol Jones and René Oudmaijer @NASAGoddard @WesternU @physicsleedsuni

Paper day: The Polstar mission might not have been selected, but we put our proposal to good use by turn it into several papers. Here's the one I contributed to: link.springer.com/article/10.100 There is a lot we could learn about Be stars with a UV spectropolarimetry capability.

link.springer.com

Astrophysics and Space Science - UV spectroscopy and spectropolarimetry hold the key to understanding certain aspects of massive stars that are largely inaccessible (or exceptionally difficult)...

I thought there must have been a meteor shower on when I saw 5 all in the NW on my half hour walk home from work at 1 am.

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Mary McIntyre FRAS (she/her)

@Spicey_Spiney

When I shared this last night the photo didn't attach. Here is the track stack from overnight 14th/15th December from our NW facing #MeteorCamera which detected 527 #meteors! Most of them are #Geminds but not all. Crazy! #GeminidMeteorShower #Geminids2022

Help please. I'm trying to find machine readable tables for (at least) two ApJ papers. The text of each says the tables are available in full in the online version, but I'm on ApJ's page and all the internal links just lead me back to the truncated tables. Any ideas?

Papers: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.108 iopscience.iop.org/article/10.108

NASA Solar System

@NASASolarSystem

Juno's Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) imager obtained this infrared view of Io in July. Brighter spots indicate higher temperatures in this image of the moon's highly volcanic surface.

A close, full-disc view of Io, with one side illuminated by sunlight. On both the day and night sides, bright red spots are glowing.

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NASA Solar System

@NASASolarSystem

Juno captured this view of Jupiter's moon Europa in September. During the flyby, Juno’s Microwave Radiometer (MWR) provided a look beneath Europa's icy crust to obtain data on its structure and temperature down to as deep as about 15 miles (24 kilometers) below the surface.

Europa seen against the blackness of space. The moons relatively smooth surface is criss-crossed with cracks and grooves. Image processed from raw JunoCam data by Kevin M. Gill

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Dr Jess Wade is on Mastodon

@jesswade

Dr Jess Wade is on Mastodon

Our Rising Stars workshop for early career researchers from historically excluded groups has been super popular 😎! If you want to attend and need funding (for travel, accom or caring costs), apply by December 19: mainstraem.github.io/mainstraem.git. Please share. #WomenInSTEM #PhDChat

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@jesswade

Nov 29

If you’re a UK-based ECR from a group that has been historically excluded from materials science, we want to help you navigate the complex world of academia. Join us on 13/01 for a day of career development + scientific discussion:mainstraem.github.io/mainstraem.git #WomenInSTEM #BlackInSTEM

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a graphic of the rising stars event in january 2023, ft a star and text saying rising stars royce hub building manchester

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What is observing like at this time of year? you ask.

Dec 11

In sitcoms the main characters always have friends who just drop around their house on weekends or afternoons all the time for no particular reason. I wish I had friends like that. Science is cool, but it literally takes me years every time I move to make those types of friends.