Starship Asterisk*

Maddeningly clickbaity title on this YouTube video https://youtu.be/Bj0PXPeKJRE?si=jODP4ockVTI_6n6v , but the host does a decent job interviewing Nikku Madhusudhan, the Cambridge scientist working on K2-18 (the exoplanet with atmospheric water and methane, covered a couple times by APOD). As a legit...

Whether shock waves or heat, the unanswered question is whether it’s tied to the rocket launch, or some broader condition.

Don’t miss the photographer’s two minute making -of video (linked in the APOD text) which gives great context plus a witty reference to the “Three Body Problem” sci-fi trilogy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pbr2wIgCHE

Thanks, Ann. Not that different from Anton Petrov‘s central point, but a lot more meaty. And I’m looking forward to that Bayesian analysis (though I don’t expect a gangbuster for MOND therein).

Friends all over the world shared my feeling that this one was a bust. I didn’t make it all the way till 4, but from 12-2, I spotted only a handful per hour, even from a very dark position.

When I was a kid, meteor showers were spectacular! These skies today……..

So what it's really about is a pretty high hurdle that MOND proponents are going to have to pass before many people take them seriously. OTOH, I don't see anyone impugning Kyu-Hyun Chae or his university. No one crying bullshit. So while I in no way would have imagined open-armed acceptance of this...

Ann wrote: ↑Sun Aug 20, 2023 5:19 am ParallaxNick claimed that another study of wide binaries had come to the conclusion that Newtonian gravity can explain the orbital motion of these stars extremely well.

Wasn’t that precisely the contrast Petrov offered in his video?

Yes, as I suggested above, it’s “just the slow wheels of science, everyone aware but awaiting replication, etc?”

I have a friend who is into all sorts of pseudo science stuff who keeps pushing me to watch Anton Petrov videos. Is he actually legit?

Even if it holds up, it probably doesn't mean that we don't still need dark matter to explain our observations. But let me interject some deep scientific knowledge I’ve acquired (by looking up MOND on Wikipedia ): The fact that some form of unseen mass must exist in these systems detracts from the ...

Ah, ok, gotcha.

Is it odd not to hear more chatter about this, or is it just the slow wheels of science, everyone aware but awaiting replication, etc?

I don’t see even a hint of any such claim.

Thanks, Ann.

I hope it’s not just hype!

Looks like I posted this in the wrong section. Maybe if it’d been posted in “news” it’d have drawn more comments..

New paper in Astrophysical Journal, via phys.org "Smoking-gun evidence for modified gravity at low acceleration from Gaia observations of wide binary stars". A new study reports conclusive evidence for the breakdown of standard gravity in the low acceleration limit from a verifiable analys...

Published by Scientific American on Friday Astronomers are now seeking to pinpoint the origins of an exciting new form of gravitational waves that was announced earlier this year In June, a new era in astronomy began with the apparent discovery of low-frequency gravitational waves, the ambient hum ...

Over my head. Is this interesting?

I'm not claiming to have extracted the most salient quote.

1st observational evidence linking black holes to dark energy University of Hawaii News February 15, 2023 With singularities absent, the paper then shows that the combined vacuum energy of black holes produced in the deaths of the universe’s first stars agrees with the measured quantity of dark ene...

Original report: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-022-01112-z.epdf Pop science boil-down: https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgyje7/earths-core-has-stopped-and-may-be-reversing-direction-study-says I always figured the core (or at least the molten metal surrounding it) spun faster than this. For ...

These images are, I suppose, false-colour representations of infrared data. Which, in turn, seems to contradict the rather fussy replies I got earlier this year when I asked ( http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?p=320630#p320630 ) whether Webb output could be usefully depicted in visible spectru...

These images are, I suppose, false-colour representations of infrared data. Which, in turn, seems to contradict the rather fussy replies I got earlier this year when I asked ( http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?p=320630#p320630 ) whether Webb output could be usefully depicted in visible spectru...

Doh! Of course! Thanks!

Why does the termimator on a quarter moon look straight? If the earth is round, shouldn't its shadow be round?

It is indeed possible to classify stars just based on their infrared properties. So I guess this means we'll at least know enough to add, for instance, a broadly red glow to red stars if we want to make some nodding effort to interpret Webb's infrared images for human-visual. It's not much (more ak...

Regardless of your intent, the imaging is in a different part of the spectrum. There simply isn't the data required to know what's going on in the shorter wavelengths for anything other, perhaps, than stars. Intent was something you brought up, not me. I simply asked whether it was possible. You ch...

“Useful” is an odd word choice. If I’m to take that literally, you’re brusquely dismissing something I and others might like to see, as if our interests are irrelevant while yours are paramount. If you mean scientifically useful, then you’re misunderstanding my inquiry despite multiple clarification...