@thomasconnor@mstdn.social
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thomasconnor

@thomasconnor@mstdn.social

Astrophysicist at Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics --- Runner --- Failed hipster --- Bad at Jokes

Personal Account. Alts:
ThomasConnor@astrodon.social -- astronomy

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thomasconnor, to random
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I don't always get to work at 7 AM, but, when I do, I'm always amazed at how many people are already out and about by then.

thomasconnor, to random
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I just telephoned a person I have never met, so, if you'll excuse me, I'll be in a dark room for an hour recovering my mental energies.

thomasconnor,
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@etam No lies detected

thomasconnor, to space
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My favorite fact: on STS-31 (the launch mission for Hubble) and two other DOD-related missions, the Space Shuttle carried Detailed Secondary Objective 469.

What was that cryptic carry-on? A Human Skull.

More elegantly known as the In-flight Radiation Dose Distribution, the skull was wrapped in plastic, cut into ten slices, and covered in dosimeters to measure how much astronauts get on their noggins.

is .

thomasconnor, to random
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Is reacting to an a thing now? Can it not be a thing? I'm a huge fan of unnecessary reactions on Slack, and I've accepted that text messages will get hearts on them now, but can we not have mail clients send emails saying that a heart emoji has been added to my email? Is this a Zoomer thing? I'm getting old and youth and technology frighten me.

thomasconnor,
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@wonkothesane Seriously. There's too many notifications already, world -- ease up!

thomasconnor,
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@MagicLike @calculsoberic Set up a filter to like every email you get saying your email was liked.

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thomasconnor,
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@bugbear shakes fist menacingly at no one in particular MI-LLEN-NI-ALS!!!!

thomasconnor, to space
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I haven't said anything about this because I wasn't sure how public the information was, but this article is on @arstechnica, so ...

This is, in my opinion, one of the MOST EXCITING MISSIONS currently under consideration!

The folks working on this want to resurrect a Great Observatory! With a ride-along! And it's so audacious it just MIGHT WORK!

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/05/a-private-company-has-an-audacious-plan-to-rescue-nasas-last-great-observatory/

thomasconnor,
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Spitzer is one of NASA's four Great Observatories -- @ChandraScience, Hubble, the deceased Compton, and Spitzer. The first two are still alive and kicking, while Compton is at the bottom of the ocean. Spitzer, however, just got too far from Earth to be effective.

Unlike the first three, which are on Earth-centric orbits, Spitzer was a drifter. It slowly moved away from Earth, but on roughly the same orbit. We retired it because it was too far ... but it should still be functioning!

thomasconnor,
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It's a great orbit, as it opened most of the sky to Spitzer observations (no Earth or moon eclipses). But every year it got farther away, so every year the radio signals it sent got weaker. When the mission ended in 2020, it wasn't because we were done with its science, or because it had failed. Spitzer transmitted with an antenna on its butt, but it couldn't keep that pointed at Earth and the sun shield at the Sun.

thomasconnor,
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So here's where the wild part comes in. They're proposing to send a new antenna.

thomasconnor,
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Sending a new observatory would be expensive -- lots of mass, plus lots of development time. And Spitzer is, sad to say, not as good as JWST, so why even bother? But sending a transmitter, some control electronics, a GoPro to take some diagnostic images (just because we can)? That's easy. And since we're planning on shooting a lot of things to the Moon in the next decade, that little contraption could just ride along, jump off, then coast to Spitzer a few years later.

thomasconnor,
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Space Force has already given some money, as the ride to Spitzer will be informative about how the Sun will affect spacecraft. And who knows if they'll get the rest of the mission. Who knows if Spitzer will be able to turn back on in 7 years. Who knows if Spitzer will still operate. Who knows about a lot of things. It's a wild, audacious plan, and I love it.

thomasconnor, (edited )
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@c_dan4th @arstechnica Simon's point about asteroids is the big one, but three other points:

  1. Space Force is interested in the ride there, for whatever reason, so there's funding that we wouldn't have for HST.

  2. a ride-along launch, 1 cubic meter in size, so I'm not sure it isn't cheaper or easier than HST boosting.

  3. Much like having 2m ground telescopes with Keck around, sometimes you don't need much to do great IR science (and couldn't get JW time to do it).

But mostly asteroids.

c_dan4th, to random
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Along with Large Cloud Season in Colorado comes extreme weather warnings. While it's mostly pretty dire and not a laughing matter, I can't help but be amused at the descriptions used for hail stones. Instead of something simple like "half inch" or "one inch" descriptions, they insist on using "golf ball" (okay), "lemon" (which kind?), and "half-dollar sized". Who the hell thinks in terms of half dollars anymore? Are those even legal tender?
.

thomasconnor,
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@c_dan4th Aren't you folks the ones who had the small boulder the size of a large boulder?

jeffluszcz, to random
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The sunlight in #cambridgema today seems like its going through high level smoke (feeling like I'm back in California right now) the smoke map shows something high up coming from western Canada but not sure if that's the cause of this yellow hazy light. Smoke map at https://fire.airnow.gov #mawx #haze

thomasconnor,
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@jeffluszcz Huh. I noticed the sunlight looked a little weird, but I hadn't thought any more about it. But, looking now ... yeah, that's pretty yellow.

thomasconnor, to random
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Well this is a fun mashup of my interests: characterizing noise in observations from freight on the CN Hammond line (old East of Baton Rouge, LA). LIGO's station is in Livingston, which older fans may recall was the site of a toxic derailment in 1982.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.07477

thomasconnor, to random
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Ooof. Rough day on the buses. 30 minute wait during morning rush hour, and then a class of middle schoolers got on; not only did they take five minutes to board, they used up every available inch of the bus, and we had to leave people waiting for the next bus (after a long wait already).

It's expensive as hell to live in ; we need to pay these drivers enough to live off of so we can get enough drivers to make the city run!

FediFollows, (edited ) to random

picks of the day:

➡️ @EUSPA (main) & @euspa (videos) - Agency co-ordinating EU's satellites & space services

➡️ @AkaSci - Researcher covering satellite communications etc

➡️ @jebba - Enthusiast cataloguing satellites in orbit

➡️ @thomasconnor - Astrophysicist at Harvard & Smithsonian, working on @ChandraScience

➡️ @sundogplanets - Astronomy professor & campaigner for regulation of reflective satellites

➡️ @JohnBarentine - Astronomer & historian, consultant on dark skies

thomasconnor,
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@FediFollows Slight update -- I'm now at Harvard & the Smithsonian, working on @ChandraScience

vicgrinberg, to books
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    thomasconnor,
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    @vicgrinberg I just finished "The Dark Forest" (the second in the trilogy started with "The Three-Body Problem") and so am now going to move on to "Death's End" with the aim of having the books finished before the Netflix adaption comes out.

    thomasconnor,
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    @vicgrinberg There's no finer motivation than being worried that you'll have a book spoiled by someone who doesn't even read!

    thomasconnor, to books
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    Is Sea of Tranquility good? I very much enjoyed Station Eleven, but I found Glass Hotel to be a bit too cute. I will abide by the results of this poll.

    thomasconnor, to Astronomy
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    My post was so long ago that I've changed jobs and Tootsville has blown up, so

    Professionally, I'm an astronomer at Harvard & Smithsonian studying black holes at the dawn of time and working on the X-Ray observatory.

    Personally, I like , , , , etc.

    Lately, I've been on a real big kick on here -- and both go Toot Toot!

    A dazzlingly attractive man with long brown hair, standing in the desert next to steep sandstone cliffs. Behind him and to the right, the view opens up showing scrub and a cloudy sky. The man is wearing a khaki wide brimmed hat, a long sleeve green sun shirt, a white gaiter around his neck, and a backpack.
    A man, almost too beautiful to comprehend, smiling and seen at quarter profile. He has on a red bike helmet and mirrored sunglasses, a black shirt, and a backpack. His long brown hair is pulled back in a pony tail. He is seen on a road crossing over the Charles River; behind him are blue skies and the Citgo sign that is a Boston landmark associated with Fenway Park.
    A man staring at the camera, smiling with his eyes. His face is otherwise masked by an KN95 mask. He wears a green shirt reading "Carnegie Science" and a baseball hat, seen only from below. He is sitting in a train car, and next the view is angled to capture the scene out the window. It's an urban view, with some middle-height buildings and an array of wires running over neighboring tracks.

    thomasconnor, to Trains
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    Alright, Tooters, new and old -- Mastodon is fun, but it's more fun for new people when there's stuff happening. So: what was your favorite journey? Was it on , or a slower experience.

    thomasconnor,
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    @gudenau Between the complexity of their operations / maintenance and that Simpsons episode, I think you're right that they'll stay fairly niche.

    Sadly, there's talk of making a major transit project in LA a monorail. It would drastically reduce the efficiency of the line supposed to reduce one of the city's main commuting backups.

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