The stuff that comes out of Harvard these days and gets published in Scientific American used to be tabloid news. What has changed?
Astronomy
Will the universe stop making stars any time soon?
We live in a universe that, like it or not, has a beginning and an end. That is better suited to some philosophies than others.
Harvard astronomer still thinks space cigarillo Oumuamua might be “alien tech”
Skepticism makes no headway here so it must in fact be a sort of naturalist religious cult.
Claim: Solar system might once have had two companion stars
But wait! Who’s claiming this? The second author of this paper is Abraham (Avi) Loeb. That rings a bell. Wasn’t he the one who suggested that the obvious space junk Oumuamua was an extraterrestrial light sail? Look, why does the name “Harvard” put all doubts about credibility to rest? Especially in these times?
A massive star has suddenly gone missing?
Gizmodo: An object inside the Kinman dwarf galaxy has disappeared from view, according to new research published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Dragon Docks with the International Space Station
Vid: Ponder the exacting systems engineering, reliability testing, required qualifications and multiple i/o instrumentation and control involved. Observe the precise, corrective jets to keep the process under control. This, is how a good future is going to be built: near earth colonisation and Lunar colonisation are the first stages to Solar system colonisation. (Note, they Read More…
Dragon launches
vid: A new beginning. END
The Solar System, to scale, on a dry lakebed
Typical images of the solar system are NOT to scale, showing the planets at grossly exaggerated sizes. Here is a typical case, HT Wikimedia, WP and Planet User: So, some video makers did a little project to show it to scale, out to Neptune . . . beyond, lies vastly more of course, but Pluto Read More…
Smithsonian Magazine: Nearest black hole’s position can be seen without a telescope
If you are in the southern hemisphere, as were the ESO (European Southern Observatory) astronomers: The pair of stars in a system called HR 6819 is so close to us that on a clear night in the Southern Hemisphere, a person might be able to spot them without a telescope. What that stargazer wouldn’t see, Read More…
Isaac Newton and Richard Feynman on ancient sources who thought Earth is a sphere, orbiting the sun
So, unlike modern pundits, Newton and Feynman knew a lot about the actual carefully thought-out views of ancient astronomers. But what, after all, did they really know? None of those people had smartphones.
Pondering the universe’s geometry
Why would a spherical Earth be “unfathomable”? Once the Sun and the Moon were seen as spheres, whatever the universe as a whole might be like, it seems logical that Earth would be a sphere too.
Galileo’s contemporary science opponents made a lot of sense
Christopher Graney: “… seen from Earth, stars appear as dots of certain sizes or magnitudes. The only way stars could be so incredibly distant and have such sizes was if they were all incredibly huge, every last one dwarfing the Sun. Tycho Brahe, the most prominent astronomer of the era and a favourite of the Establishment, thought this was absurd, … ” The true history is a warning to thoughtful people to avoid popular science written by the village atheist; he knows just enough to get it all wrong.
Betelgeuse begins to re-brighten
. . . and that, at about the suggested time for an up-turn. Astronomy telegram clip: >>The Fall and Rise in Brightness of Betelgeuse ATel #13512; Edward Guinan, Richard Wasatonic (Villanova University),Thomas Calderwood (AAVSO) and Donald Carona (Texas A& M University) on 22 Feb 2020; 12:59 UTCredential Certification: Edward Guinan (edward.guinan@villanova.edu) As previously reported (see Read More…
Betelgeuse watch, 2: Has it finally stopped dimming?
Mebbe, for now. According to Forbes: >>The red supergiant star Betelgeuse appears to have finally stopped its unprecedented dimming, Villanova University astronomer Edward Guinan told me [ Bruce Dorminey] this afternoon. He says that although he’s unsure what has caused its strange brightness fluctuations, Betelgeuse is not likely to undergo a supernova explosion anytime soon. “The Read More…
Betelgeuse dims, astrophysicists speculate
Since about October 2019, Betelgeuse (the bright reddish star at Orion’s shoulder in the brightest constellation in the sky that is about 600 – 700 ly distant from us) has begun a sharp dimming that has now gone beyond what has been seen in modern observations. As of the end of January, it was down Read More…