Starship Asterisk*

harry wrote:Typing Supernova Remnants Using X-ray Line Emission Morphologies
http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.3208
Authors: Laura A. Lopez (UCSC), Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz (UCSC), Carles Badenes (Princeton), Daniela Huppenkothen (Amsterdam), Tesla E. Jeltema (UCO/Lick Observatories), David A. Pooley (Wisconsin)
(Submitted on 19 Oct 2009)

http://www.universetoday.com/105963/10-year-old-boy-discovers-a-600-million-year-old-supernova/#more-105963 wrote:
10-Year-Old Boy Discovers a 600 Million Year-Old Supernova
by Dan Majaess, Universe Today, November 1, 2013

[b][color=#0000FF]Canadian Nathan Gray (right) is the youngest person to discover a supernova. The supernova candidate (left) is likely located some 600 million light-years away (image from the ARO--Dave Lane). Follow-up observations should soon be acquired to confirm for certain that it is a supernova, and what type it is.[/color][/b]

---

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

<<Young Canadian Nathan Gray, age 10, has discovered a supernova candidate in the field of the galaxy designated PGC 61330, which lies in the constellation of Draco (the dragon). Nathan made the discovery while scanning astronomical images taken by Dave Lane, who runs the Abbey Ridge Observatory (ARO) which is stationed in Nova Scotia. Incidentally, Nathan may unseat his older sister, Kathryn Aurora Gray, as the youngest supernova discoverer by a mere 33 days. Kathryn Aurora Gray garnered worldwide fame when she discovered a supernova in the galaxy designated UGC 3378. The discovery eventually earned her an audience with astronauts such as Neil Armstrong.

Caroline Moore held the record prior to Kathryn as the youngest person to discover a supernova (Caroline was 14 at the time). Caroline subsequently had the honor of meeting President Obama at the White House.

Supernova are immense explosions linked to the evolutionary end-state of certain stars. The explosions are so energetic that they can be observed in distant galaxies. Indeed, Nathan’s supernova could be some 600 million light years distant. Gazing into space affords humanity the opportunity to peer back in time. Despite the (finite) speed of light being a remarkable 300000 km/s, the light-rays must travel over “astronomical” distances.

There are several different classes of supernovae. For example, Type II supernovae are associated with larger mass stars. The Sun will not terminate as a supernova, but may potentially evolve into a standard (or not) planetary nebula.

Nathan’s discovery has been posted on the International Astronomical Union’s site, and its presence confirmed by US and Italian-based observers. Its provisional name is: PSN J18032459+7013306, and to get an official supernova designation a large telescope needs to confirm the unique supernova light signature (via a spectrum). Is the target a bona fide supernova? “Given no motion, large distance from the galactic plane (ie. not likely a nova), and several optical confirmations, as well as its very close angular proximity to a faint galaxy, it is a supernova at any reasonable certainty,” said Lane, an astronomer in the Dept. of Astronomy & Physics at Saint Mary’s University, as well as the director of the Burke-Gaffney and Abbey Ridge astronomical observatories. “A significant fraction of the supernova discoveries these days are not observed spectrographically due to the sheer number of them vs. telescope time.”>>

THX1138 wrote:BTW, and not that its any of my business mind you. But what exactly does neufer mean and or what is a neufer

THX1138 wrote:
As in a ............ Dete - De - Dee ,,, Hmmm ok lol.
I wonder if we shall get a response from him to confirm

THX1138 wrote:
Thanks for the reply and the link also...... the guy who tries to paste a bowl of coleslaw back together as one whole cabbage. Among other things!
So pops is MIT class of 39, wow.

THX1138 wrote:
On another note along somewhat similar lines i can remember both calling people; and being called myself, a DORK years ago. Now I don't know if anyone on this site has has any experience with the word DORK but just the other day ( after all these years ) I've found that it's actually a word in the urban dictionary.

Urban Dictionary: Whale Cock (Dork)
1. The blue whale's penis, or dork, is the largest that ever existed. The average size for an adult male is 5m (15ft).

• Sitting with the dork on the bay
  Watching the waves roll our away
  I'm just sitting with the dork on the bay
  Passin the time...

THX1138 wrote:
I just noticed your link to the BAKER HOUSE so I had to come back here and edit this post.
Seriously Art, a piano off 6 stories.............LOL

geckzilla wrote:
Dork can mean penis but it's a myth that it applies only to whales. Nobody seems to know when or why someone decided to say it applied specifically to whales. Any marine biologist will agree that the word "dork" is never used in that manner.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dork_Sahagian wrote:
<<Dork Sahagian is an Armenian American climate scientist. He is the Director of the Environmental Initiative at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Sahagian contributed to three of four assessment reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which on October 12, 2007 was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with former vice president Al Gore.>>

geckzilla wrote:
That said, if you attended a public school and never got called any names, what kind of public school did you go to?

• . http://www.folger.edu/template.cfm?cid=868
  . http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/shake_rule.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_school_%28United_Kingdom%29 wrote:
<<The term public school refers to a group of older, more expensive and exclusive fee-paying private independent schools in the United Kingdom, particularly in England, which cater primarily for children aged between 13 and 18. Traditionally, these were boys' boarding schools, although most now allow day pupils and have turned either partially or fully co-educational.

They emerged from ancient charity schools established to educate poor scholars. The term "public" meant that access was not restricted on the basis of religion, occupation or home location. Public schools have had a strong association with the ruling classes. Historically they educated the sons of the English upper and upper-middle classes. In particular, the sons of officers and senior administrators of the British Empire were educated in England while their parents were on overseas postings. In 2010, over half of Cabinet Ministers had been educated at public schools; by contrast, however, most prime ministers since 1964 were educated at state schools. In 2009, annual fees were up to £30,000 for boarders.>>

Beyond wrote:
I especially like this combination from the Insult List.

--> Thou beslubbering beef-witted barnacle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Haddock wrote:

<<Captain Archibald Haddock is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. He is Tintin's best friend, a seafaring Merchant Marine Captain.

Haddock is initially depicted as a weak and alcoholic character under the control of his treacherous first mate Allan, who keeps him drunk and runs his freighter. He regains his command and his dignity, even rising to president of the Society of Sober Sailors, but never gives up his love for rum and whisky, especially Loch Lomond. In the adventure Secret of the Unicorn he and Tintin travel to find a pirate's treasure captured by his ancestor, Sir Francis Haddock. With newfound wealth and regaining his ancestral home Marlinspike Hall, Captain Haddock becomes a socialite; riding a horse, wearing a monocle, and sitting in a theatre box seat. In addition to his many insults, the most famous of Haddock's expressions relate to any of a number of permutations of two phrases: "Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles!" and "Ten thousand thundering typhoons!" Haddock uses these two expressions to such an extent that Abdullah actually addresses him as "Blistering Barnacles".

At the time of Captain Haddock's introduction to the series in 1940, the character's manners presented a problem to Hergé. As a sailor, Haddock would need to have a very colourful vocabulary, but Hergé could not use any swear words as he knew his audience included children. The solution reportedly came when Hergé recalled how around 1933, shortly after the Four-Power Pact had come into being, he had overheard a market trader use the word "four-power pact" as an insult. Struck by this use of an "irrelevant insult", Hergé hit upon the solution of the Captain using strange or esoteric words that were not actually offensive, but which he would project with great anger, as if they were very strong curse words. These words ranged across a variety of subject areas, often relating to specific terms within scientific fields of study.

The idea took form quickly; the first appearance of the Haddockian argot occurred in The Crab with the Golden Claws when the Captain storms towards a party of Berber raiders yelling expressions like "jellyfish", "troglodyte" and "ectoplasm". This use of colourful insults proved successful and was a mainstay in future books. Consequently, Hergé actively started collecting these types of words for use in Haddock's outbursts, and on occasion even searched dictionaries to come up with inspiration.

As a result, Captain Haddock's colourful insults began to include "bashi-bazouk", "visigoths", "kleptomaniac", "sea gherkin", "anacoluthon", "pockmark", "nincompoop", "abominable snowman", "nitwits", "scoundrels", "steam rollers", "parasites", "vegetarians", "floundering oath", "carpet seller", "blundering Bazookas", "Popinjay", "bragger", "pinheads", "miserable slugs", "ectomorph", "maniacs", "pickled herring"; "freshwater swabs", "miserable molecule of mildew", and "Fuzzy Wuzzy", but again, nothing actually considered a swear word.

On one occasion, this scheme appeared to backfire. In one particularly angry state, Hergé had the captain yell the word "pneumothorax" (a medical emergency caused by the collapse of the lung within the chest). One week after the scene appeared in Tintin Magazine, Hergé received a letter allegedly from a father whose boy was a great fan of Tintin and also a heavy tuberculosis sufferer who had experienced a collapsed lung. According to the letter, the boy was devastated that his favourite comic made fun of his own condition. Hergé wrote an apology and removed the word from the comic. Afterwards, the letter was discovered to be fake, written and planted by Hergé's friend and collaborator Jacques Van Melkebeke.>>

Judith wrote:
Stop, thou! Or I shall cut thee.