What did you see on the web today?

[BMAONE23]

Quarknado 1

Gas-nados are erupting on the sun. They may be showering its surface with cooked "squarks" that bite with scintillating symmetry and tantalizing tessellations.

Just having some phun with physics.

Sometimes you really Quark me up

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

Vitamin B3 from space.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niacin

It's interesting that a form of it is in need of investigation right here on Earth – to find out if it could be a key to better living.

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

The hype is starting to accelerate for "The Martian". I hope the movie can come close to the fun of the book.

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

How is Kepler like your old Timex?

It took a lickin' but keeps on tickin'

http://www.nasa.gov/ames/kepler/nasa-k2 ... ini-planet

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronom ... entry.html

Do the astronauts in the ISS temporarily feel the effects of gravity when it's thrusted to a higher orbit? I guess I never have seen images of that particular event.

[Nitpicker]

Do the astronauts in the ISS temporarily feel the effects of gravity when it's thrusted to a higher orbit? I guess I never have seen images of that particular event.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badas ... s-a-boost/

Yes, but only very slightly. Or rather, no ... it's not acceleration due to gravity, but acceleration due to engine thrust.

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

Do the astronauts in the ISS temporarily feel the effects of gravity when it's thrusted to a higher orbit? I guess I never have seen images of that particular event.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badas ... s-a-boost/

Yes, but only very slightly. Or rather, no ... it's not acceleration due to gravity, but acceleration due to engine thrust.

Thanks Nitpicker – I suspect those on the ISS really do have a better feeling for the differences between gravity and acceleration.

I have a better understanding of the new goals at CERN following last night's 60 Minutes but still hate commercials advertising medications though, in some ways, both are introducing information to a subset of a population ill-informed to grasp it thoroughly. I hope they find extra-dimensions before I leave for one. It might help if it's known they exist.

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

Interesting. http://epod.usra.edu/blog/2015/11/inver ... ealis.html

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

The more I read about the direction theory is heading toward describing extra dimensions - the more plausible it seems that we can't sense all that is. I am tempted to call that "nonsense" but that would be senseless.

Perhaps some sort of multisense will make it common sense though I suspect that may not be a direction congruent with Asterisk's. In the end it's just as hard to know the boundary between science and philosophy as it is to delve into the other dimensions - the more I read.

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

I do like new theories. Here's one from a very famous source. http://www.businessinsider.com/lisa-ran ... ry-2015-11 That would be Lisa Randall not Business Insider.

[geckzilla]

That dark matter theory has been widely poo-poo'ed by various scientists. Fun stuff, though.

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

That dark matter theory has been widely poo-poo'ed by various scientists. Fun stuff, though.

Thanks for the insight Geck.

I ran across this photo in this week's HEASARC Picture of the Week.

http://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/ssc/Fermi_5_year.jpg

Quite 3D! I don't think I've ever noticed it being shown so vividly.

[bystander]

I ran across this photo in this week's HEASARC Picture of the Week.

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=31967
http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=35370

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Apparently the world and astronomy with respect to telescopes can't seem to get along. The same goes for some astronomers and their next generation of telescopes.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... yesterday/

I suppose competition has always been present when it comes to humans so why wouldn't it affect astronomy as well. Hopefully as these rivalries are exposed to the public eye they will find a way to resolve themselves.

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

Guess this proves that the Earth isn't a black hole. Or my head is.

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

Will this go in the " Who ordered that file?" We could only be so lucky if it turns out to be something unexpectedly interesting. Ok I'm done for the day

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

Want to leave Earth soon for a journey to the stars?

Sounds like we are stuck with just eating one. That's a little hard to digest.

[Ann]

Want to leave Earth soon for a journey to the stars?

Sounds like we are stuck with just eating one. That's a little hard to digest.

That was a very good, levelheaded, clear-eyed article about the actual difficulties that would meet humans trying to travel to another solar system to establish a second Earth.

The very first thing that really, really impressed me about space was the sheer inconceivable size of it. It wasn't any of the objects inside it, although I've certainly grown interested in many of the objects in it since then. Mars! Jupiter! Saturn! Pluto! Sirius! The Pleiades! The Orion Nebula! Sagittarius A*! The Whirlpool Galaxy! And many, many others.

Still, I can't think of any single object in space without making some kind of mental calculation as to how far away it is. The idea that it could ever be relatively straightforward to send humans across light-years in space has always seemed absurd to me.

Ann

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

Speak of the devil... Now if I could find a Math to Ron translator that spoke in "Fiz"ese.

[Ann]

Speak of the devil... Now if I could find a Math to Ron translator that spoke in "Fiz"ese.

I read the abstract and decided that... No.

Ann

[Chris Peterson]

Speak of the devil... Now if I could find a Math to Ron translator that spoke in "Fiz"ese. :D

I read the abstract and decided that... No.

Well, you could skip over the formulation sections with their math, and just go to the conclusions, with easy to understand arguments like

We do not expect significant mutual information between the low-energy degrees of freedom in a Wilsonian effective action and those in the ultraviolet completion.

[geckzilla]

Does the use of infrared and ultraviolet in that paper even have anything to do with light or is it some kind of metaphor?

[Ann]

Does the use of infrared and ultraviolet in that paper even have anything to do with light or is it some kind of metaphor?

If they are used as metaphors, it would be the first time I have come across the terms infrared and ultraviolet being used that way.

Blue is quite often used as a metaphor for "shortwave" or "more shortwave than...". Red is sometimes used as a metaphor for "longwave" or "more longwave than..." Red is often used as a metaphor for "cool", as in red giant star or red dwarf star. Blue is less often used as a metaphor for "hot". Hot stars are typically called "hot stars" or O-type stars or B-type stars, or OB stars. They are less often called just "blue stars".

But to my knowledge, ultraviolet and infrared are not used as metaphors.

Ann

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

We will probably never know what a black hole looks like close up but you might be able to see one from your back yard.

[bystander]

Science on the campaign trail: Where the presidential candidates stand
Science Magazine | Science Insider | 2016 Feb 01