@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

michael_w_busch

@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online

Planetary astronomer, studying piles of rock in space. Reader of books. Drinker of tea. He/him. This is a personal account. To bigotry no sanction.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

michael_w_busch, to random
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

f anyone was wondering how we can say that the 2014 January 8 bolide was almost certainly not interstellar; here is a short thread of Bayesian statistics.

Prior probability interstellar versus cometary: ~1:1000 (although we can argue about the denominator here a bit).

Probability(stated velocity | interstellar) ≈ Probability(stated velocity | cometary)
per Zuluaga 2019 - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2515-5172/ab1de3

Posterior probability interstellar versus cometary: Still ~1:1000.

JohnBarentine, to space
@JohnBarentine@astrodon.social avatar

Spot-on analysis as usual from Prof. Hugh Lewis (University of Southampton, U.K.): "It's like buying a ticket in a lottery. If you buy just one, you are unlikely to win, but if you buy a million tickets, you stand a pretty good chance."

https://www.space.com/starlink-satellite-conjunction-increase-threatens-space-sustainability

#Satellites #Space #SpaceSustainability #Starlink #SpaceDebris

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@JohnBarentine On here at @ProfHughLewis.

michael_w_busch, to Astro
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

via @planetarypan, I learn that the SETI Institute now has a Mastodon account: @setiinstitute

#Astrodon

sundogplanets, to random
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social avatar

I just got back from an off-grid cheese-making and goat herding workshop. It was AMAZING. It sounds ridiculous, but it was almost a religious experience. Everyone there was so passionate about nature and how to utilize naturally occurring healthy microbes to make incredibly delicious, healthy food.

It is really hard to not just look at my inbox today, take my goats, and walk back into the woods...

A view looking across a wide, calm, flat river toward distant mountains, with green grass and lots of cottonwood and pine trees on the banks. A few puffy white clouds are in the blue sky.
Looking at a slice of haloumi cheese that has been grilled so it's just a tiny bit melty on the inside, held in my hand, just about to be eaten
A view of a small tent in very green grass and trees, with a wide, flat river in the background. The sky is pinkish from sunset and the nearly-full moon is in the sky.

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@sundogplanets I make a large portion of my supply of gluten-free breads.

But I would not describe that as "breaking capitalism". It's just less buying the products and more buying the flours and kitchen equipment.

I can't exactly put a rice paddy in my back yard.

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@sundogplanets I have had good results with this one: https://artisanbreadinfive.com/2014/11/03/master-recipe-from-gluten-free-abin5/ , from "Gluten-Free Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day". The "in five minutes" part may be considered marketing hype.

michael_w_busch, to random
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

Twitter: In 30 days, users must pay us $8 to access TweetDeck.

Also Twitter: Has completely broken TweetDeck in the past 2 days.

Even if TweetDeck were working I would not pay a single cent to use it. I would simply use Twitter less.

I had the idea that one should not try to get paid for providing a service one cannot provide.

But I never went to business school.

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@astrokiwi At the moment, both versions of TweetDeck are entirely unusable for me because of the "rate limited" error messages.

I was briefly able to bypass that with lists, but then someone changed something inside Twitter's systems again.

michael_w_busch, to random
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

Do not accept this or anything like it either, USA.

Require that Congress and the Biden administration #CancelStudentDebt.

And, again, #UnpackTheCourts.

QT Seung Min Kim @seungminkim
2023 June 30
WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court strikes down Biden's plan to wipe away $400 billion in student loan debt.

markmccaughrean, (edited ) to Astro
@markmccaughrean@mastodon.social avatar

Just when are the media going to take the hint & stop giving the four-letter word astronomer endless column inches to parade their self-aggrandising & money-making “it’s always aliens” wibble?

I feel complicit even tooting about it, but seriously, this isn’t just “harmless entertainment” – it’s part & parcel of a continuing undermining of trust in science for personal gain & worse.

#Astrodon #AntiScience

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@markmccaughrean @elizabethtasker @Moutmout @hendric Well, that makes two separate groups of meteor and meteorite experts publicly debunking Avi Loeb's nonsense in the last week all the more timely...

(Specifically, how the meteorite was not interstellar and how anything Loeb finds cannot be said to be from it. Not mentioned: How Bob Pepin was pulling interstellar grains out of meteorites in 1969.)

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@simonbp @swope @nyrath @DmMacniel That shows up some in Neuromancer, doesn't it? To go back 40 years now.

sundogplanets, to random
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social avatar

From skimming titles, it looks like the session on TNOs/Centaur dynamics is mostly about measuring ices on these bodies (which is cool [haha literally] but not my thing). So, I'm going to try the software session and see what neat stuff is happening there!

#ACM2023

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@sundogplanets We really should not have to spend so much time debunking Avi Loeb.

And apparently Harvard does not care about everything he does.

mcnees, to random
@mcnees@mastodon.social avatar

One thing you can do with those Medicare benefits spam calls is get an actual person on the line and tell them they’ve called a Funeral Home, and why in the world would they call a Funeral Home offering Medicare benefits that are only available to the living. I mean Jfc, take this number off their list, what kind of organization would repeatedly call a Funeral Home like this.

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@mcnees I have taken to querying them about what information they are trying to social engineer; then detailing what that is worth on the dark net data markets and how much they are losing by calling me over and over.

At that point, they usually hang up.

michael_w_busch, to random
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

"US commercial airliners should sustain a meteoroid impact once every 2,170 to 13,800 years for energies capable of penetrating 1 mm airplane skin"

"The analysis implies a modicum of reassurance"

  • Arazi Pinhas, NASA Marshall

https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/acm2023/pdf/2014.pdf

#ACM2023

sundogplanets, to random
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social avatar

Apparently they just announced my asteroid (yes I really do have an asteroid named after me and it's one of the coolest things that's ever happened to me!!) at the conference dinner, and I'm feeling even more sad that I couldn't go in person. SIGH.

But I have an asteroid named after me :) And I can watch all the talks online, which is pretty nice. And I didn't have to fly or figure out childcare or farm-sitting (or dump it all on my partner), so I guess this is fine.

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@sundogplanets Congratulations!

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@sundogplanets The nomenclature committee has generally refused to name near-Earth asteroids after real people (Itokawa is the exception).

That may be for the best.

sundogplanets, to random
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social avatar

S. Eggl: starting off with a depressing talk that I've thought way too much about - the impact of satellite constellations on LSST solar system science 😭

Most LEO sats currently are 4-6mag, so bright that they will obliterate not just a streak through image, but multiple chips (so large fraction of each image)

Expect 1 streak per image in near-earth asteroid survey images. Have to ask the question: is it even worth trying to do astronomy at twilight? Eeek.

#ACM2023

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@sundogplanets Per previous presentations by Marco Micheli, the Flyeye test unit is at La Silla. Additional locations for additional telescopes are being evaluated.

michael_w_busch, to random
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

Automated plagiarism continues to still be plagiarism.

RT @timnitGebru
This is how the anthropomorphization of machine learning models and the corporations that profit off of stolen data and labor causes harm.

They are not "borrowing" ideas. They are stealing data.

michael_w_busch, to random
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

Peter Brown et al. at #ACM2023 suggest that the 2014 January 8 bolide's real velocity may have been far lower than reported.

So instead of being comet debris; it may have been a typical stony meteoroid: https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/acm2023/pdf/2226.pdf

But the actual uncertainties continue to be classified.

QT Michael Busch @michael_w_busch
2022 Apr 11
Since I continue to see news stories about it:

It is not possible to classify the 2014 January 8 bolide as interstellar or not from the currently-public data.

sundogplanets, to random
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social avatar

Fair warning to people who follow me: I'm remotely attending a really niche conference called Asteroids, Comets and Meteors this week, so I'll probably have lots of #ACM2023 posts on talks about small bodies in the Solar System that I get excited about. Mute this hashtag if the details get to be too much for you!

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@sundogplanets Moshup is fun. It would be a shame if it hit the ground.

(It's the canonical binary asteroid, if you do not have that number memorized)

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@sundogplanets Previously known as 1999 KW4: https://echo.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroids/1999KW4/1999kw4.html

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@sundogplanets I am following the meteor talks; so thank you in advance for posts about the Kuiper Belt ones!

michael_w_busch, to random
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

The Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors conference is happening this week: https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/acm2023/technical_program/

Thanks go to the organizers for ensuring easy remote attendance.

#ACM2023

sundogplanets, to random
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social avatar

Today I found out that there is ONE doctor working from 5-7pm today in a walk-in clinic in Regina (which serves the entire city as well as surrounding rural area).

Apparently all parents need to go to med school. There are no doctors.

With the lack of medical help, it would be really cool if there was some kind of classes I could take that would get me medical knowledge beyond first-aid, but not nursing/med school. Does that exist? (Maybe volunteer firefighter/ambulance?)

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@sundogplanets I understood that Canada has Medical First Responder training standards; analogous to Emergency Medical Response over here?

But that is advanced first aid and similar (e.g. when I went through the first responder program Caltech sponsored for people doing field work or observing runs a long way from anywhere; there were exactly five medications I was allowed to use in specific situations).

mcnees, to random
@mcnees@mastodon.social avatar

The folks complaining about the suppression of heterodox ideas in physics are, frequently, also complaining that epidemiologists can’t tell you the truth “because of Fauci.” I mean, come on.

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@johncarlosbaez @wrog @internic @mcnees One of these things is not like the others.

i.e. the iridium layer does trace the K-Pg impact.

sundogplanets, to random
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social avatar

My friend's campaign for MLA officially starts this weekend (probably - I'm still not totally sure I understand how this works here...) so tonight is my first night of helping get him elected by making his family dinner.

Tonight will be mac n cheese, made with loads of my goats' milk and cheese. I'm completely obsessed with the baked mac n cheese recipe here, so that's what they'll get: https://basicswithbabish.co/basicsepisodes/macandcheese

Plus goat-cheesecake brownies for dessert. Sure hope they like goat cheese!

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@sundogplanets How do the goat-cheesecake brownies work? Brownie crust, filled with cheesecake and baked again?

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