mattkenworthy

mattkenworthy, 4 months ago to Astro

Collaborator Ernst de Mooij brought a 3D printout of the data we are analyzing in our latest research paper, a fantastic and very tactile gift! Any guesses as to what the data represents, and which star we're looking at? 🔭🪐Hint: it's not pulsar data! #astrodon #3dprinting

3d printout of astronomical data - a long ridge with small mountains mostly on the right hand side, and a few appearing on the left at the back.

mattkenworthy, 1 month ago to Astronomy

Allow me to introduce Alex Mustill’s latest paper, where he focuses on “The formation of transiting circumplanetary 🔭🪐 debris discs from the disruption of satellite systems during planet-planet scattering” which features one of the coolest diagrams I’ve seen. /1 https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.12239 #astronomy #astrodon

mattkenworthy, 11 months ago to random

This actually happened outside our observatory at lunchtime (the pistachio ice cream was delicious) Credit: The Far Side / Gary Larson

mattkenworthy, 7 months ago to Astro

A boggling exoplanet result by Pearson and @markmccaughrean with JWST data on Orion - 540 planetary mass objects detected down to 0.6 Jupiter masses, of which there are 42 Jupiter Mass Binary Objects (JuMBOs)! Utterly amazing to see the binary fraction pivot like this... cue #arXiv posts from your favorite planet formation theorists in 3,2,1... https://esait-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/mjm_esa_int/EfOqOGdZHQ1IlHVH2dNFG4sBcyIBPjePlDE2Ry7H9A3-BA?e=pBa1IO #astrodon #astronomy #exoplanets

Pairs of white dots on a blue background, representing binary planet mass objects in the Trapezium cluster.

mattkenworthy, 5 months ago to Astro

The population of free-floating binary #exoplanets 🔭🪐 in the Trapezium is explained by Portegies-Zwart and Hochart in: https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.04645 by showing that capture or exchange is unlikely; it's in-situ formation of a high binary fraction and subsequent evaporation! So, older star forming regions should have fewer exoplanet binaries, which seems to be the case with discoveries of free floating planets in other surveys. Expect people to be looking with #JWST in the near future... #astrodon

mattkenworthy, 1 year ago to random

Can we image tidally heated exomoons using JWST? Probably! This is a new paper by graduate student Elina Kleisioti who is working with me and Dominic Dirkx from TU Delft - she simulated internal models for exomoons around Eps Eri b, a gas giant exoplanet around a very nearby star. https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.03410 "Tidally Heated Exomoons around ε Eridani b: Observability and prospects for characterization" /1 🧵

mattkenworthy, 10 months ago to Skeptic

The neutrino map is an amazing result, but from a #scicomm point of view, there's virtually no reason to show it in equatorial projection where the Galaxy is the U-shaped white line - very unintuitive for non-astronomers!

Since there are many sources along the Galactic plane, why not show it in galactic coordinates instead?

#astrodon

mattkenworthy, 24 days ago to random

In my astronomy career I have had my foot run over by Stephen Hawking, had Neil deGrasse Tyson come to my seminar and promptly fall asleep, and stood in an elevator with Roger Penrose where he was wearing exactly the same clothing as the publicity poster on the elevator wall behind his shoulder.

mattkenworthy, 8 months ago to Astro

Currently at the "What horrible typo is there in the proposal I am leading that I will see about 10 seconds after hitting the submit button" part of the day.

#astrodon

mattkenworthy, 1 month ago to random

Leiden PhD student Dirk van Dam and I have a paper on "BeyonCE -- Light Curve Modelling Beyond Circular Eclipsers I. Shallot Explorer" out now on arxiv: /1

https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.07378

mattkenworthy, 1 year ago to random

I'll be honest... using https://fsymbols.com/generators/carty/ to generate huge ascii text to delineate my paper sections in @overleaf is making me unreasonably happy. #astrodon #AcademicChatter

mattkenworthy, 8 months ago to random

My guilty pleasure is rewatching "Life Story", a 1980's BBC drama about the discovery of DNA, with Juliet Stevenson starring as Dr. Rosalind Franklin. She brilliantly portrayed her frustration and anger at the scientists around her who effectively stole her work.

This morning, I started to watch "Secret Invasion" and did a double take seeing her as a grieving mother. An absolutely amazing actor.

Juliet Stevenson as Elizabeth Hill in "Secret Invasion"

mattkenworthy, 1 month ago to random

Today is #koningsdag here in the Netherlands, and #Leiden is as busy as all the other cities today, despite the cold weather. The #HooglandseKerk had an amazing paper craft exhibition, providing a small respite from the celebrations that are ramping up for tonight.

Black and grey paper sculpture with tesselated diamonds and stars, in bas relief illuminated from above.

mattkenworthy, 1 month ago to random

A new paper by Leiden PhD student Sam de Regt showcases a completely new pipeline written for Polarimetric Differential Imaging for VLT/NACO. He took all archival polarimetric observations of circumstellar material with NACO and ran them through his PIPPIN pipeline to produce a consistent set of newly reduced images of circumstellar disks and dust. His work includes many famous disks which can be compared to more recent SPHERE images to look for any changes in the morphology. /1

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

When one of my PhD students graduates, I present them with a pocket sized computer.... a slide rule! They are truly amazing pieces of 20th century tech. Two significant figures should be good enough for astronomy :)

mattkenworthy, 4 months ago to random

"I am so smart! S-M-R-T! I mean S-M-A-R-R-T!" I did a science today. Now I look like a real astrophysicist!

mattkenworthy, 13 days ago to Astro

One of this morning’s posts on #arxiv had quite a sobering lede: ☀️☠️ #astrodon

mattkenworthy, 2 days ago to Astro

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. 🔭🪐 #astrodon https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.15555

mattkenworthy, 3 months ago to random

Today in "Microsoft is not intuitive at all" I logged into a new email account, clicked and dragged a Word document onto my desktop.... and it saved the icon image instead of copying the document. #UIfail #microsoftevent

mattkenworthy, 5 months ago to ai

Possibly a foolish question for the Mastodon mind, but with #Dropbox now willing to trawl my data for #AI purposes, is the concept of an invasive-free cloud drive impossible? Or should I stop worrying and learn to love #rsync over #ssh again?

mattkenworthy, 3 months ago to Astro

A warning to all astronomy ECR instrument builders everywhere - I downloaded IRAF for Mac, installed it and found that an IRAF package for displaying hexagonal IFUs I had written 25 YEARS AGO FOR MY PHD THESIS was still there! Good grief... #astrodon #software #iraf

mattkenworthy, 2 months ago to random

I may be exaggerating somewhat, but the New Zealand steak and cheese pie could end wars…. I’m addicted to them. Why was I not told about this earlier?

mattkenworthy, 8 months ago to random

Reading the proposal ten seconds after submitting it to the funding agency: "We will study exoplants around nearby stars in our Galaxy." #astrondon

Joaquin Phoenix screaming out loud after finding a typo in his proposal.

mattkenworthy, 9 months ago to random

as seen on the leapsecs list reported by John Sauter:

According to the IERS, today, for the first time since the
establishment of the modern definition of UTC in 1973, the quantity UT1-UTC crosses zero while increasing. If this continues we will have a negative leap second, probably some time in the 2030s.

...I wonder how many computer codes have room for a negative leap second?

mattkenworthy, 16 days ago to random

There’s an old castle in a suburb of #Leiden that I take a walk through, and sometimes the water is calm enough to get the reflection.