Zieba, Zwintz, Kenworthy++ use the internal Delta Scuti-like pulsation modes (which are very stable) in Beta Pictoris to search for the presence of the exoplanets Beta Pic b and c but additional modes appear and disappear, unfortunately hiding the signal - a very impressive effort! #astrodon 🔭🪐 https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.04870
Even though night mode on the iPhone is capable of seeing pretty faint stars, some times it’s nice to have a bit of cloud to block them out & make the constellations more visible 🤷♂️
Here’s the Ursa Major (the plough or big dipper) over the Peterstal, with its famous “arc to Arcturus” along the handle to the left 🧸
I have a Love/Hate (mostly Hate) relationship with the Ars Technica comments section, particularly where space is concerned, but it's heartening to see this pro-#ChandraXRay comment sitting on 94 updoots to 0 downdoots on the Hubble Gyro article.
It has been a bit disheartening the past three months to worry about our healthy, productive, and unique mission being terminated abruptly, and so it's good to see the public is getting that message.
@skrishna I've seen you post about that, and it's greatly appreciated! As someone with minimal reach and who needs to be mindful of not appearing to be lobbying on company time, I (and the rest of the CXO folks) really appreciate those of you with audiences speaking up for us!
Bonse+ present a new high contrast imaging algorithm “4S - Signal-Safe Speckle Subtraction” demonstrated with the pre-recovery of the exoplanet AF Lep b from 2011 NaCo data. The software webpage has an interactive figure where you can play with and see the improvement over PCA. Nice! #astrodon 🔭🪐 https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.01809
#JWST is often cited for its amazing work with galaxies, BUT LOOK AT IT DISSECTING UP THE CRAB NEBULA AND SHOWING US STAR GUTS FROM A 1000-YEAR OLD STELLAR DETONATION.
Wow! Look at the pulsar!
So epic that we can see this detail, the different structures, elements, velocities, energies, etc. from an event that Chinese and Japanese astronomers witnessed and documented 1000 years back.
We're connected through time with this event to them!
#SimulatedUniverses :
cosmic rays injected by different processes in my simulation - zoom into a void surrounded by filaments.
ENZO simulations on LEONARDO cluster at CINECA. #astrodon#astronomy
I finally got a chance to interview fellow PhD'er Sarah Caddy from our faculty about this excellent new research and looking at stars and satellites (like the ISS) DURING DAYLIGHT HOURS!
THey're using a telescope called 'The Huntsman' and look how many eyes it has 🕷️🔭
@mattkenworthy omg, this! Finding someone with SPIE access is always such a pain! (And also there is a high chance I'll never find out about your paper if it's not on arxiv...)
Did you know that it's actually NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope? Even though it is often referred to as "NASA" only.
European Space Agency #ESA has contributed the NIRSpec instrument, half of the MIRI instrument, and the launch (including the payload adapter & launch site services) and has 15 scientists working at the science and operations center. #CSA, the Canadian Space Agency, has contributed the NIRISS instrument.
@vicgrinberg the big eclipse in the US lately, there have been reports about NASA teams visiting schools about a year prior to the event, educating and preparing people and did a great job at the actual event...
if ESA does something similar,... its something I never really heard of
Fun things that can happen at a conference: tomorrow there will be a heated discussion about the correct way to remove a foreground from an extragalactic observation - the sort of life and death fights you have in astronomy 😅
But guess how many experts in the actual observation and foreground modelling are present at this conference:
ZERO.
So chairs are likely going to be thrown for nothing...
Cool to have the same colleagues arguing about a question they already debated a year ago (conference I organised back then) , getting to the same standstill, as if they had no chance of exchanging mails in a year 🙄 #astrodon#astronomy
@Pepijn no no, I think they really thing it's the most important issue in the world then they ask, but somehow then the talk time is over, they forget about it until next year 😅
If you haven't noticed, radio astronomers worldwide are getting very shouty at radio frequency interference (RFI - akin to light pollution) increasing.
We create these multi-billion, grand-scale projects in specifically legislated radio quiet zones away from human populations to ensure we have the best capabilities to detect the faintest signals from the furthers reaches of the cosmos.
Then along comes the RFI from satellite constellations.
#WhatAboutMagneticFields ?
some people gathered this week (actually, also in the past few weeks, but that's the only one I am attending) at the Bernoulli Centre in Lausanne to know more... #astrodon#astronomy
Oh now THIS is very intriguing! Bernhard and Lloyd with ZTF J185259.31+124955.2: A new evolved disc-eclipsing binary system where the shape of the transit is evolving significantly on every eclipse - look at how much it changes… just wow. 🔭🪐 #astrodonhttps://arxiv.org/abs/2405.15555
@otte_homan A good thought, but moons would be too small to block this light, even if they were orbiting a large planet. This is almost likely a big dusty disk around an unseen companion, and the disk itself is precessing or the orbit of the disk is precessing... or something else again!
Are there major initiatives for which the capabilities of @ChandraScience are absolutely required to address fundamental questions about our current understanding of the Universe that would represent a crucial missed opportunity if they are not completed during Chandra's lifetime?
The community responded, and we are pleased to announce two Chandra Legacy Programs https://cxc.harvard.edu/CLP/
The first is "A Treasury Survey Probing the Baryon & Energy Cycle and X-ray Binary Evolution in Galaxies at High Angular Resolution", led by #OhioStateUniversity's Smita Mathur.
This survey will leverage our high-angular resolution capabilities in synergy with JWST, ALMA, VLT/MUSE, and others to observe the PHANGS galaxy sample, linking X-ray sources to their host stellar and nebular environments. M74, shown here, is a PHANGS galaxy already observed in this manner.
The second is "The Sounds of Feedback: Deep and Wide Imaging of the Cool Core of the Perseus Cluster" led by Andrew Fabian at the #UniversityOfCambridge
The Perseus cluster has a supermassive black hole in its center blowing giant bubbles. The image below, which is over 1 million light years across, shows these bubbles rising through the cluster's gas. Deeper Chandra observations will reveal how this energy propagates at the most massive of scales.
