New Orleans - for #AAS243 - was scientifically a blast. But the city remains amazing. So much good music (wjblues.com yoshitakaz2tsuji.bandcamp.com amongst many others) & so much good food. Stand out: the blackened redfish at Coop's Place (www.coopsplace.net) which I had a decade ago, and have been craving ever since.
Discovery of the Big Ring, an ultra-large cosmological structure, by Alexia Lopez @morninglopez and her co-authors, further challenges what we understand about the universe.
This finding was announced yesterday at the Winter Meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
Last talk of #AAS243 — Wen-fai Fong discussed things that go flash in the night — gamma-ray bursts and fast radio bursts.
Gamma-ray bursts live colorful lives — the afterglow is seen across the EM spectrum. Fong and her collaborators follow up short-gamma ray bursts to learn about the host galaxies of these flashes of gamma-ray light caused by merging neutron stars.
She is also diving into studying the hosts of fast radio bursts, feeling like she is on a rollercoaster with all of the new data
At a #AAS243 press conference to hear UCLan's Alexia Lopez present on her discovery of a giant ring of galaxies 1.3 billion light-years across, to add to her prior discovery of a 'giant arc'. Nice article here: https://t.co/65CQcDRDLE
That said: I'm pretty skeptical of the claim. The fact that the two structures are at about the same distance suggests that there might be some systematic effect - I don't see any reason the Universe would have a particular epoch of massive structures. #astrodon
Today is the LAST DAY of #AAS243 in New Orleans. Have you stopped by the STScI booth to talk about Hubble, Webb, Roman, MAST and employment opportunities?
If you did stop by the booth this week, what did you learn from our experts that you want others to know?
Tonight's "JWST Town Hall" at #AAS243 gave updates about the performance of the observatory, reviewed the status of science operations, and provided a summary description of Cycle 2 approved proposals, as well as the submitted Cycle 3 proposals.
This animation portrays the creation of the cat’s tail in the southwest portion of Beta Pic’s secondary debris disk, estimated to span 10 billion miles.
#AAS243: A team of astronomers used #NASAWebb to image planetary system Beta Pictoris and found a previously unseen structure: a branch of dust extending from a disk and shaped like a cat’s tail. Surprisingly, it’s a “tail” not so old as time: https://webbtelescope.pub/3RXt9Nx
Jamie Bock on Investigating the Early Universe at #AAS243
You can model the early universe with noise on a resister amplified through a speaker into Jello. By studying the wiggles, you can learn properties of the Jello (universe), but also amplifier (cosmic inflation).
Measurements with the planned CMB stage 4 telescope will allow us to study how sound and gravitational waves travel through the "cosmic jello" — giving us clues to how the amplifier of inflation worked.
Renee Ludlam at #AAS243 asks: What are the interiors of neutron stars like? To find out we need to measure the equation of state, how the radius of the stellar remnant changes with mass.
She uses the NuSTAR and NICER X-ray observatories to constrain their radii by measuring the spectra of the disks surrounding the neutron stars. X-rays shine on the disks, and they re-radiate the light at specific emission lines, broadened by Doppler, general, and special relativistic effects.
#AAS243: if you're keen to hear about our current state of prediction for interstellar objects, @Chrislintott is bringing the Gaia game at 2.30 pm tomorrow in the Solar System session! (@astrohopkins.bsky.social & I are here in NZ)
Dr. Ori Fox, deputy project scientist for STScI's Roman Space Telescope Mission Office, explains his work on studying supernova explosions at #AAS243 in New Orleans. https://www.instagram.com/p/C151erzoLiP/
Today's Annie Jump Cannon Prize Lecture at #AAS243 was given by my former officemate Eve Lee, on theories of planet formation.
The physics of how dust and gas interact helps explain the types and locations of planets we observe in exoplanet systems.
For example, giant planets are hard to form outside of 10 AU because it’s harder for rocky cores to pull in enough gas. Inside of 1 AU, they tend to migrate outward. We may need different physics to explain hot Jupiters.