sundogplanets

sundogplanets, 30 days ago to random

I am talking o a reporter about this in a couple hours: https://regina.ctvnews.ca/from-outer-space-sask-farmers-baffled-after-discovering-strange-wreckage-in-field-1.6880353

This is about an hour away from my farm, so this'll be a fun conversation, and yet another great opportunity to tell a lot of people about what a huge problem we have with unregulated commercialization of orbit. (Also I just redid my slides for my public talk next week, this is going in!)

sundogplanets, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago) to random

I just had to update my numbers for a lecture, so here's your periodic reminder: Starlink is now 55% of ALL active satellites in orbit.

And given the recent news about that awful billionaire unilaterally deciding to cut of Starlink internet access to parts of the world whenever he wants to, this is extra important to share. Why did our governments effectively gift Low Earth Orbit to one awful dude? This is so bad.

sundogplanets, 10 months ago to random

Meet our new farm guardian animal, who came pre-named, with probably the best name ever for a llama.

Introducing...

Barack O-llama.

(I have an amazing story about him arriving here, I will share later when I have more time)

sundogplanets, 4 months ago to random

My old mercury thermometer says -36C and the official weather report said it was "only" -42C with windchill this morning, so the busses are still running (they never cancel school ever, no matter how cold it gets. This place is wild.)

sundogplanets, 7 months ago to random

Time to update my satellite pollution talk.

There are ~500 more Starlink satellites today than when I gave this talk in July.

4,924 Starlinks in orbit now (56% of the total 8,728 active satellites in orbit).

Just your periodic reminder that one private company owned by one pretty awful dude effectively controls outer space now.

sundogplanets, 8 months ago to random

It just amazes me that people keep expecting me to fly all over the place for conferences and seminar lectures. I've gotten uninvited to 2 conferences in the last couple weeks by politely asking if I could give the invited talk remotely instead. This is dumb, we need to change.

sundogplanets, 11 months ago to random

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!

sundogplanets, 7 months ago to random

Not worried enough about corporate over-development of orbit yet? New article: companies have now filed asking for a total of ONE MILLION satellites: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi4639

Non-paywalled version here: https://www.outerspaceinstitute.ca/docs/One%20million%20(paper)%20satellites%20-%20Accepted%20Version%20.pdf

There is no way we can have anywhere near one million satellites in orbit without going into full Kessler Syndrome and destroying everything in orbit - making satellite science, communication, and interplanetary exploration impossible for decades.

sundogplanets, 4 months ago to random

In addition to the bazillionty things I said I would do this week, I need to get my astrobiology students to pick their final project topics: they have to evaluate a work of scifi on the plausibility of its aliens using what they learned from my astrobiology course.

I've asked here before, but I'll ask again: what are some scifi works that have really great aliens and/or alien worlds?

My list so far:

sundogplanets, 6 months ago to random

COOL! The spicy article I wrote about satellite pollution is FINALLY published! "Bright satellites are disrupting astronomy research worldwide" in Nature News & Views.

This article required weeks of back-and-forth with the editor, the editor-in-chief, and Nature's lawyers, so I hope that means it's a good one.

During this process, I learned that satellite companies are so powerful and litigious that even giant publishers like Nature are terrified of getting sued. Which is...rather worrying.

sundogplanets, 11 months ago to random

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

sundogplanets, 1 month ago to random

Still no baby goats - really hoping today is the day (because tomorrow is all day Zoom meetings)

The plus side of having to go out to the barn at 2am to check on pregnant goats is that there were faint auroras (which actually must have been pretty bright just to compete with the nearly-fully moon), and I heard 2 great horned owls calling back and forth to each other.

sundogplanets, 3 months ago to random

Watch this satellite obliterate the Kuiper Belt object moving through this set of images.

The dumb satellite is so bright that our auto-detect software threw out the whole stack, because it destroyed the average brightness.

It pisses me off to no end that my taxpayer-funded telescope time is now less and less effective because of one for-profit private company.

(P.S. software dudes: please don't try to mansplain workarounds, believe me, a LOT of astronomers are working hard on this)

A gif of a Kuiper Belt object slowly moving across a set of images. It just looks like a fuzzy dot. Toward the end of the sequence, there's a super bright diagonal line that covers up the moving dot - that was a satellite.

sundogplanets, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago) to random

Quick poll: off the top of your head, without searching online, do you know what "Kessler Syndrome" is?

sundogplanets, 9 months ago to random

#ALAN2023 talks are about to start! I'm sitting next to a biologist who studies the effects of light pollution on sea turtles in Australia, and another who studies the effects on mammals in the western US. This is so cool!

sundogplanets, 5 months ago to random

WE HAVE PUPPIES

THIS IS NOT A DRILL

7 tiny black puppies all snuggled together tightly in a cardboard box with shaving at the bottom
A close-up of the face of one of the puppies: it's got a white stripe running from its nose to forehead and brownish eyebrows, and the rest of it is black. It's in straw with a metal food bowl its sniffing carefully

sundogplanets, 9 months ago to random

First #ALAN2023 talk today: M. Ditmer (US Forest Service) starting with lots of nighttime photos of big mammals!

Story 1: Lots of deer in well-lit areas, is it a shield against predators or a buffet? In very bright areas, cougars move to darker spots within, deer seek out brightest areas: "Limited predator buffet"

Story 2: Bears moving outside main forested area in Minnesota, citizen science project: where do people see bears? Very biased, people see bears where there is light

sundogplanets, 11 months ago to random

Apparently even though the online poster session for the ALAN light pollution conference isn't for 2 weeks, I have to get my poster uploaded by tomorrow.

Which means I get to spend ALL DAY frantically putting together a poster on satellite pollution and stewing about how much I HATE Starlink. I am going to need to smash something very badly when I'm done with this poster...

sundogplanets, 11 months ago to random

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 #ACM2023 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.

sundogplanets, 4 months ago to random

It is too cold for anything to function. Can we just stop trying?

This morning, while frantically trying to make it to a vet appointment with a borrowed horse trailer, I learned that zip ties do not function below -30C. I also learned that air compressor hoses become very brittle and actually snap in half below -30C.

And when I got back home, I (re-)learned that slowly dripping water faucets lead to frozen drainpipes.

I am ready to haul water+wood, go nowhere, and live in a yurt again.

sundogplanets, 4 months ago to random

Today I've got a Skype a Scientist with a class in Illinois, the weekly international research group meeting that I lead, a podcast interview, a meeting to organize the workshop I'm leading next week on inviting Indigenous knowledge-keepers to your astronomy class, and a meeting to organize a workshop I'm leading on teaching climate change. And somewhere in there I need to do all my normal teaching stuff and telescope planning.

I have definitely volunteered for too many things... help...

sundogplanets, 1 year ago to random

I usually only read one book at a time, but I had a whackload of holds come in at once so I'm now jumping between a rather bizarre combination of 4 books right now:
-This is How you Lose the Time War (El-Motar/Gladstone)
-Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
-The Ministry for the Future (Kim Stanley Robinson)
-Hope Matters (Elin Kelsey)

I had the first 2 "Murderbot Diaries" books (Martha Wells) also cycled in there but I devoured each of those (next ones are now in my library queue, really good!)

sundogplanets, 1 year ago to random

I was reminded of this in a discussion just now with students talking about Rosetta Mission results: ESA commissioned this very impressive short scifi film for publicizing the Rosetta Mission, and it's definitely the most awesome/confusing way I've ever seen to advertise a real space mission!

https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Videos/2014/10/Ambition_the_film

sundogplanets, 23 days ago to random

Here comes a thread on light pollution from satellites, with a concrete action that you all can take to help push for regulation of satellites in orbit!

Astronomers have been worried about light pollution from satellites (if you've been following me for more than 24 hours, you've perhaps heard a bit about this). Astronomers spent SO much time and effort begging and pleading with Starlink to make their satellites fainter, with mixed results.

sundogplanets, 1 month ago to random

No new baby goats this morning (just the 4 from the last few days). The mama who's been gigantic for the last month is due today, so hopefully she'll have lots of healthy babies! I predict 4 (and I predict she'll have them at the most obnoxious time...I have lots of meetings today, but I have even more meetings tomorrow that are way less flexible, so today would be great!)