Stephen Sekula steve@hub.polari.us

Sudbury, ON, Canada

Husband; Professor of Physics at Queen's University; Research Group Manager at SNOLAB; dark matter hunter; neutrino watcher; writer and blogger; drummer; programmer; teacher; scientist; traveler; runner; gardener; open-source aficionado.

  • Astronomy Picture of the Day for 2022-11-23 13:30:03.256233

    Astronomy Picture of the Day (Unofficial) at 2022-11-23T18:30:03Z

    Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

    2022 November 23
    See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download
the highest resolution version available.

    Earthset from Orion
    Image Credit: NASA, Artemis 1

    Explanation: Eight billion people are about to disappear in this snapshot from space. Taken on November 21, the sixth day of the Artemis 1 mission, their home world is setting behind the Moon's bright edge as viewed by an external camera on the outbound Orion spacecraft. The Orion was headed for a powered flyby that took it to within 130 kilometers of the lunar surface. Velocity gained in the flyby maneuver will be used to reach a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon. That orbit is considered distant because it's another 92,000 kilometers beyond the Moon, and retrograde because the spacecraft will orbit in the opposite direction of the Moon's orbit around planet Earth. Orion will enter its distant retrograde orbit on Friday, November 25. Swinging around the Moon, Orion will reach a maximum distance (just over 400,000 kilometers) from Earth on Monday November 28 exceeding a record set by Apollo 13 for most distant spacecraft designed for human space exploration.

    Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space


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  • First lead-ion collisions in the LHC at record energy

    ParticleNews at 2022-11-23T18:27:34Z

    "First lead-ion collisions in the LHC at record energy" First lead-ion collisions in the LHC at record energy Event displays of the first Pb-Pb collision of Run3 taken on 18 November 2022 (Image: CERN)After the successful start of Run 3 in July this year, which featured proton-proton collisions at the record energy of 13.6 TeV, it was the turn of lead nuclei to circulate in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) again last Friday after a gap of four years. Lead nuclei comprise 208 nucleons (protons and neutrons) and are used at the LHC to study quark-gluon plasma (QGP), a state of matter in which the elementary constituents, quarks and gluons, are not confined within nucleons but can move and interact over a much larger volume. Event display of a lead-argon collision in LHCb (Image: CERN) Event display of a heavy ion collision event recorded in ATLAS on 18 Nov 2022, when stable beams of lead ions colliding at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of 5.36 TeV were delivered to ATLAS by the LHC. (Image: CERN)In the test carried out last Friday, lead nuclei were accelerated and collided at a record energy of 5.36 TeV per nucleon-nucleon collision1. This is an important milestone in preparation for the physics runs with lead-lead collisions that are planned for 2023 and the following years of Run 3 and Run 4. The CERN ion injector complex has undergone a series of upgrades in preparation for a doubling of the total intensity of the lead-ion beams for the High-Luminosity LHC. Achieving this goal requires a technique called “momentum slip-stacking” to be used in the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS), where two batches of four lead-ion bunches separated by 100 nanoseconds “slip” to produce a single batch of 8 lead bunches separated by 50 nanoseconds. This will allow the total number of bunches injected into the LHC to increase from 648 in Run 2 to 1248 in Run 3 and onwards. After all the upgrades have been completed the LHC will provide a ten-fold higher number of heavy ion collisions with respect to the past Runs. The test was also a crucial milestone for ALICE, the LHC experiment that specialises in the study of lead-ion collisions. The ALICE apparatus was upgraded during the recent shutdown of the LHC and now features several completely new or greatly improved detectors, as well as new hardware and software for data processing. The new detectors provide a higher spatial resolution in the reconstruction of the trajectories and properties of the particles produced in the collisions. In addition, the upgraded apparatus and upgraded processing chain can record the full collision information at a rate two orders of magnitude higher. Events as seen in the CMS detector from Pb-Pb collisions (Image: CERN)Other experiments used the test run to commission their upgraded and newly installed subsystems in the new heavy-ion environment of higher energy and 50ns bunch spacing. ATLAS tested upgrades to its selection (trigger) software, which is designed to enhance heavy-ion-physics data taking in Run 3. In particular, physicists tested a new particle-track trigger designed to spot a wider range of “ultra-peripheral collisions”. CMS upgraded several components of its readout, data acquisition, trigger and reconstruction chains to be able to take full advantage of the high-energy lead-lead collisions. The lead-lead fills delivered by the LHC allowed CMS to commission the entire system with beam and spot the areas that could be further optimized for the 2023 heavy-ion runs. LHCb started commissioning its brand-new detector in the challenging conditions of lead-lead collisions characterised by a very large particle multiplicity. In addition to lead-lead collisions, LHCb collected lead-argon collisions in fixed-target mode using the new SMOG2 system, which is unique to the experiment and is designed to inject noble gases into the LHCb collision area. Even if very short, the 2022 lead-lead programme can be considered a success for the LHC accelerator, the experiments and CERN's heavy-ion injector complex. The four big LHC detectors saw and recorded lead-lead collisions at a new record energy for the first time. Researchers are now looking forward to the heavy-ion physics campaign in 2023 and the following years.   1 In lead-lead collisions, each of the 208 nucleons of one of the lead nuclei can interact with one or several nucleons of the other lead nucleus. ptraczyk Tue, 11/22/2022 - 11:29 Byline ALICE collaboration Publication Date Wed, 11/23/2022 - 11:22 https://home.web.cern.ch/news/news/experiments/first-lead-ion-collisions-lhc-record-energy ( Feed URL: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/feed )

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  • Astronomy Picture of the Day for 2022-11-21 13:30:03.433272

    Astronomy Picture of the Day (Unofficial) at 2022-11-21T18:30:04Z

    Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

    2022 November 21
    The featured image shows the Butterfly Nebula as imaged
by Hubble. The nebula appears very colorful due to a expansive
color map used by the digitizing processor. 
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

    The Butterfly Nebula from Hubble
    Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble; Processing: William Ostling

    Explanation: Stars can make beautiful patterns as they age -- sometimes similar to flowers or insects. NGC 6302, the Butterfly Nebula, is a notable example. Though its gaseous wingspan covers over 3 light-years and its estimated surface temperature exceeds 200,000 degrees C, the aging central star of NGC 6302, the featured planetary nebula, has become exceptionally hot, shining brightly in visible and ultraviolet light but hidden from direct view by a dense torus of dust. This sharp close-up was recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope and is processed here to show off remarkable details of the complex planetary nebula, highlighting in particular light emitted by oxygen (shown as blue), hydrogen (green), and nitrogen (red). NGC 6302 lies about 3,500 light-years away in the arachnologically correct constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpius). Planetary nebulas evolve from outer atmospheres of stars like our Sun, but usually fade in about 20,000 years.

    Tomorrow's picture: double space


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  • Stephen Michael Kellat at 2022-11-21T04:41:20Z

    They made me adjunct faculty in Computer and Information Systems at a community college in Pennsylvania in August. It has been a wild ride teaching "Computer Applications and Concepts".

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  • ATLAS measures Higgs boson’s mass width

    ParticleNews at 2022-11-20T17:27:38Z

    "ATLAS measures Higgs boson’s mass width" ATLAS measures Higgs boson’s mass width Since discovering the Higgs boson 10 years ago, the ATLAS and CMS collaborations have been carrying out precision measurements of its properties and its interactions with other particles, which have been  consistent with predictions from the Standard Model. The Higgs boson’s mass, for instance, has been measured to be 125 billion electronvolts (GeV), with a precision of 0.1%. However, one property that remains inaccessible via direct measurements is the particle’s “width”, which determines its lifetime and, if found to deviate from its predicted value, would indicate the presence of new physics. At the recent Higgs 2022 conference and at a CERN seminar this week, the ATLAS  collaboration presented the results of its latest study of this property. Width is a fundamental parameter of any unstable particle with a finite lifetime – the shorter the lifetime, the broader the width. The Higgs boson's width, which represents the range of possible masses around the particle’s nominal mass of 125 GeV, is predicted to be 4.1 MeV – too small to be directly measured. However, its value can be determined by comparing the rate of Higgs boson production at the particle’s nominal mass (“on-shell” production) with that at much larger masses (“off-shell” production). This relies on the fact that the on-shell Higgs boson production rate depends not only on the Higgs boson’s interactions with other particles, but also on its width. By contrast, the off-shell rate is independent of the width. In its new study, the ATLAS collaboration looked for off-shell Higgs boson production using proton–proton collision data collected during Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) from 2015 to 2018. In particular, ATLAS physicists searched for collision events where the Higgs boson transforms, or “decays”, into two Z bosons, which in turn decay into four charged leptons or two charged leptons plus two neutrinos, as thesedecay channels provided the highest sensitivity to the off-shell signal. After isolating these events from those of background processes that resemble them but do not involve the Higgs boson, the researchers combined the results from both channels to measure the ratio of the off-shell Higgs boson production rate to its Standard-Model prediction. The data were found to be consistent with Standard Model predictions, rejecting the background-only hypothesis, which assumes no off-shell Higgs boson production, with an observed (expected) statistical significance of 3.2 (2.4) standard deviations. This result provides experimental evidence of off-shell Higgs boson production. By combining these results with their previous on-shell Higgs boson measurements, the ATLAS researchers obtained a Higgs boson width of 4.6 ± 2.6 MeV, which is in agreement with the Standard Model expectation and corresponds to a particle lifetime of 180 yoctoseconds (1 yoctosecond is 10-24 seconds). The results are compatible with those from a recent study by the CMS collaboration, which also found evidence of off-shell Higgs boson production and measured the particle’s width. With the increased collision energy and greater accumulated data expected from Run 3 of the LHC, more precise measurements of both the production process and the particle’s width are anticipated. Read more on the ATLAS website. abelchio Fri, 11/18/2022 - 11:18 Byline ATLAS collaboration Publication Date Fri, 11/18/2022 - 11:17 https://home.web.cern.ch/news/news/physics/atlas-measures-higgs-bosons-mass-width ( Feed URL: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/feed )

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  • Karl Fogel at 2022-07-13T04:00:07Z

    Gawking over the JWST @NASAWebb images like everyone else, and comparing to Hubble images (hat-tip to https://johnedchristensen.github.io/WebbCompare/). I was going to ask why point sources of light in Hubble have 4 "spikes" while JWST's have 6+, but I just now found the answer:


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  • Berkeley Lab Researchers Record Successful Startup of LUX-ZEPLIN Dark Matter Detector at Sanford Underground Research Facility

    ParticleNews at 2022-07-07T18:28:43Z

    "Berkeley Lab Researchers Record Successful Startup of LUX-ZEPLIN Dark Matter Detector at Sanford Underground Research Facility" Berkeley Lab Researchers Record Successful Startup of LUX-ZEPLIN Dark Matter Detector at Sanford Underground Research FacilityPress ReleaseLauren Wed, 07/06/2022 - 10:222422Members of the LZ team in the LZ water tank after the outer detector installation. (Credit: Matthew Kapust/Sanford Underground Research Facility)Deep below the Black Hills of South Dakota in the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF), an innovative and uniquely sensitive dark matter detector—the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment, led by Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab)— has passed a check-out phase of startup operations and delivered first results.The take home message from this successful startup: “We’re ready and everything’s looking good,” said Berkeley Lab Senior Physicist and past LZ Spokesperson Kevin Lesko. “It’s a complex detector with many parts to it and they are all functioning well within expectations,” he said.In a paper posted online today on the experiment’s website, LZ researchers report that with the initial run, LZ is already the world’s most sensitive dark matter detector. The paper will appear on the online preprint archive arXiv.org later today. LZ spokesperson Hugh Lippincott of the University of California Santa Barbara said, “We plan to collect about 20 times more data in the coming years, so we’re only getting started. There’s a lot of science to do and it’s very exciting!”Dark Matter particles have never actually been detected—but perhaps not for much longer. The countdown may have started with results from LZ’s first 60 “live days” of testing. These data were collected over a three-and-a-half-month span of initial operations beginning at the end of December. This was a period long enough to confirm that all aspects of the detector were functioning well.Unseen, because it does not emit, absorb, or scatter light, dark matter’s presence and gravitational pull are nonetheless fundamental to our understanding of the universe. For example, the presence of dark matter, estimated to be about 85 percent of the total mass of the universe, shapes the form and movement of galaxies, and it is invoked by researchers to explain what is known about the large-scale structure and expansion of the universe.The heart of the LZ dark matter detector is comprised of two nested titanium tanks filled with ten tonnes of very pure liquid xenon and viewed by two arrays of photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) able to detect faint sources of light. The titanium tanks reside in a larger detector system to catch particles that might mimic a dark matter signal.“I’m thrilled to see this complex detector ready to address the long-standing issue of what dark matter is made of,” said Berkeley Lab Physics Division Director Nathalie Palanque-Delabrouille. “The LZ team now has in hand the most ambitious instrument to do so!”The design, manufacturing, and installation phases of the LZ detector were led by Berkeley Lab project director Gil Gilchriese in conjunction with an international team of 250 scientists and engineers from 35 institutions from the US, UK, Portugal, and South Korea. The LZ Operations Manager is Berkeley Lab’s Simon Fiorucci. Together, the collaboration is hoping to use the instrument to record the first direct evidence of dark matter, the so-called missing mass of the cosmos.Henrique Araújo, from Imperial College London, leads the UK groups and previously the last phase of the UK-based ZEPLIN-III program. He worked very closely with the Berkeley team and other colleagues to integrate the international contributions. “We started out with two groups with different outlooks and ended up with a highly tuned orchestra working seamlessly together to deliver a great experiment,” Araújo said.An underground detectorTucked away about a mile underground at SURF in Lead, S.D., LZ is designed to capture dark matter in the form of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). The experiment is underground to protect it from cosmic radiation at the surface that could drown out dark matter signals.Particle collisions in the xenon produce visible scintillation or flashes of light, which are recorded by the PMTs, explained Aaron Manalaysay from Berkeley Lab who, as Physics Coordinator, led the collaboration’s efforts to produce these first physics results. “The collaboration worked well together to calibrate and to understand the detector response,” Manalaysay said. “Considering we just turned it on a few months ago and during COVID restrictions, it is impressive we have such significant results already.”The collisions will also knock electrons off xenon atoms, sending them to drift to the top of the chamber under an applied electric field where they produce another flash permitting spatial event reconstruction. The characteristics of the scintillation help determine the types of particles interacting in the xenon.The South Dakota Science and Technology Authority, which manages SURF through a cooperative agreement with the US Department of Energy, secured 80 percent of the xenon in LZ. Funding came from the South Dakota Governor’s office, the South Dakota Community Foundation, the South Dakota State University Foundation, and the University of South Dakota Foundation.Mike Headley, executive director of SURF Lab, said, “The entire SURF team congratulates the LZ Collaboration in reaching this major milestone. The LZ team has been a wonderful partner and we’re proud to host them at SURF.”Fiorucci said the onsite team deserves special praise at this startup milestone, given that the detector was transported underground late in 2019, just before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. He said with travel severely restricted, only a few LZ scientists could make the trip to help on site. The team in South Dakota took excellent care of LZ."I'd like to second the praise for the team at SURF and would also like to express gratitude to the large number of people who provided remote support throughout the construction, commissioning and operations of LZ, many of whom worked full time from their home institutions making sure the experiment would be a success and continue to do so now,” said Tomasz Biesiadzinski of SLAC, the LZ Detector Operations Manager.“Lots of subsystems started to come together as we started taking data for detector commissioning, calibrations and science running. Turning on a new experiment is challenging, but we have a great LZ team that worked closely together to get us through the early stages of understanding our detector,” said David Woodward from Pennsylvania State University who coordinates the detector run planning.Maria Elena Monzani of SLAC, the Deputy Operations Manager for Computing and Software, said “We had amazing scientists and software developers throughout the collaboration, who tirelessly supported data movement, data processing, and simulations, allowing for a flawless commissioning of the detector. The support of NERSC [National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center] was invaluable.”With confirmation that LZ and its systems are operating successfully, Lesko said, it is time for full-scale observations to begin in hopes that a dark matter particle will collide with a xenon atom in the LZ detector very soon.LZ is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science user facility. LZ is also supported by the Science & Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom; the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology; and the Institute for Basic Science, Korea. Over 40 institutions of higher education and advanced research provided support to LZ. The LZ collaboration acknowledges the assistance of the Sanford Underground Research Facility.Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest scientific challenges are best addressed by teams, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and its scientists have been recognized with 14 Nobel Prizes. Today, Berkeley Lab researchers develop sustainable energy and environmental solutions, create useful new materials, advance the frontiers of computing, and probe the mysteries of life, matter, and the universe. Scientists from around the world rely on the Lab’s facilities for their own discovery science. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory, managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Shielding blocks removed exposing the Bevatron. (Courtesy: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab)In the world of science, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is synonymous with “excellence.” Thirteen Nobel prizes are associated with Berkeley Lab. Seventy Lab scientists are members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), one of the highest honors for a scientist in the United States. Thirteen of our scientists have won the National Medal of Science, our nation’s highest award for lifetime achievement in fields of scientific research. Eighteen of our engineers have been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, and three of our scientists have been elected into the Institute of Medicine. In addition, Berkeley Lab has trained thousands of university science and engineering students who are advancing technological innovations across the nation and around the world.Berkeley Lab is a multidisciplinary national laboratory located in Berkeley, California on a hillside directly above the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. The site consists of 76 buildings located on 183 acres, which overlook both the campus and the San Francisco Bay.Address1 Cyclotron RoadBerkeley, CA94720United States 510-486-4000 http://www.lbl.gov/Contact InfoMedia Relations, (510) 486-5183http://newscenter.lbl.gov/Linkshttp://twitter.com/BerkeleyLabhttp://instagram.com/berkeleylabhttp://www.facebook.com/BerkeleyLabhttp://www.youtube.com/user/BerkeleyLab https://www.interactions.org/press-release/berkeley-lab-researchers-record-successful-startup-lux ( Feed URL: http://www.interactions.org/index.rss )

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  • Astronomy Picture of the Day for 2022-07-06 12:30:03.006352

    Astronomy Picture of the Day (Unofficial) at 2022-07-06T17:30:03Z

    Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

    2022 July 6
    The featured image shows a map of star motions in the 
Milky Way galaxy with red, mostly on the left, meaning stars
are moving away us. Blue, on the right, shows stars there
are mostly toward us. 
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

    Milky Way Motion in 3D from Gaia
    Credit & License: ESA, Gaia, DPAC; Text: Ata Sarajedini (Florida Atlantic U., Astronomy Minute podcast)

    Explanation: Our sky is alive with the streams of stars. The motions of 26 million Milky Way stars are evident in the featured map constructed from recent data taken by ESA's Gaia satellite. Stars colored blue are moving toward us, while red indicates away. Lines depict the motion of the stars across the sky. The large blue on the left and red areas on the map's right give the overall impression that stars in the Milky Way are rotating around the center. However, there is a region near the middle -- caused by our own Sun's motion relative to a rigidly-rotating central Galactic bar -- that seems to reverse it. Understanding details about the motion of stars is helping humanity to better understand the complex history of our Milky Way galaxy and the origin of our Sun.

    Tomorrow's picture: open space


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  • Astronomy Picture of the Day for 2022-05-01 12:30:03.197047

    Astronomy Picture of the Day (Unofficial) at 2022-05-01T17:30:03Z

    Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

    2022 May 1
    The featured image shows a black hole in 
unprecedented detail as first seen by the Event Horizon
in 2019. The featured black hole resides at the 
center of nearby galaxy M87.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

    First Horizon-Scale Image of a Black Hole
    Image Credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

    Explanation: What does a black hole look like? To find out, radio telescopes from around the Earth coordinated observations of black holes with the largest known event horizons on the sky. Alone, black holes are just black, but these monster attractors are known to be surrounded by glowing gas. This first image resolves the area around the black hole at the center of galaxy M87 on a scale below that expected for its event horizon. Pictured, the dark central region is not the event horizon, but rather the black hole's shadow -- the central region of emitting gas darkened by the central black hole's gravity. The size and shape of the shadow is determined by bright gas near the event horizon, by strong gravitational lensing deflections, and by the black hole's spin. In resolving this black hole's shadow, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) bolstered evidence that Einstein's gravity works even in extreme regions, and gave clear evidence that M87 has a central spinning black hole of about 6 billion solar masses. Since releasing this featured image in 2019, the EHT has expanded to include more telescopes, observe more black holes, track polarized light,and is working to observe the immediately vicinity of the black hole in the center of our Milky Way Galaxy.

    This week is: Black Hole Week
    New EHT Results to be Announced: Next Thursday
    Tomorrow's picture: martian sun


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  • Astronomy Picture of the Day for 2022-04-06 12:30:03.709033

    Astronomy Picture of the Day (Unofficial) at 2022-04-06T17:30:04Z

    Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

    2022 April 6
    The featured image depicts a star in the distant universe
that has been magnified by a foreground cluster of galaxies
to appear over one thousand times brighter here on Earth.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

    Earendel: A Star in the Early Universe
    Image Credit: NASA, ESA, B. Welch (JHU), D. Coe (STScI); Processing: A. Pagan (STScI)

    Explanation: Is Earendel the farthest star yet discovered? This scientific possibility started when the Hubble Space Telescope observed a huge cluster of galaxies. The gravitational lens effect of this cluster was seen to magnify and distort a galaxy far in the background. This distorted background galaxy -- so far away it has a redshift of 6.2 -- appears in the featured image as a long red string, while beads on that string are likely to be star clusters.   The galaxy cluster lens creates a line of maximum magnification line where superposed background objects may appear magnified many thousands of times. On the intersection between the galaxy line and the maximum magnification line is one "bead" which shows evidence of originating from a single bright star in the early universe -- now named Earendel. Future investigations may include more imaging by Hubble to see how Earendel's brightness varies, and, quite possibly, by the new James Webb Space Telescope when it becomes operational later this year.  Earendel's great distance exceeds that of any known stable star -- although the star that exploded creating GRB 090423 had a redshift of 8.2.

    Tomorrow's picture: open space


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  • at 2022-03-31T12:02:17Z

    From NASA on Twitter: Twinkle, twinkle farthest star ⭐ @NASAHubble just smashed records by observing the farthest individual star ever seen. Its light took 12.9 billion years to reach us—so we're seeing how it looked when the universe was less than a billion years old! More: https://t.co/vVRHSAOf1r https://twitter.com/NASA/status/1509225209282416652/photo/1

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  • Astronomy Picture of the Day for 2022-03-09 12:30:03.865941

    Astronomy Picture of the Day (Unofficial) at 2022-03-09T18:30:04Z

    Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

    2022 March 9
    The featured image shows a penny-sized rock on Mars
discovered by the Curiosity Rover in late February 2022.
The rock is unusual because it has several appendages that
make it appear a bit like a flower. 
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

    A Flower-Shaped Rock on Mars
    Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, MSSS

    Explanation: It is one of the more unusual rocks yet found on Mars. Smaller than a penny, the rock has several appendages that make it look, to some, like a flower. Although it would be a major discovery if the rock was truly a fossilized ancient Martian flower, there are less spectacular -- and currently preferred -- explanations for its unusual structure. One theory that has emerged is that the rock is a type of concretion created by minerals deposited by water in cracks or divisions in existing rock. These concretions can be compacted together, can be harder and denser than surrounding rock, and can remain even after the surrounding rock erodes away. The flower structure may also be caused by crystal clusters. The small rock, named Blackthorn Salt, has similarities to previously imaged Martian pebbles. The featured image was taken by the Curiosity rover on Mars in late February. Scientists will continue to study data and images taken of this -- and similar -- surprising Martian rocks.

    Review: Last Year in Space Pictures
    Tomorrow's picture: the toucan's star cluster


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  • Astronomy Picture of the Day for 2022-03-06 12:30:02.773176

    Astronomy Picture of the Day (Unofficial) at 2022-03-06T18:30:03Z

    Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

    2022 March 6
    An image of the Sun in three bands of ultraviolet light
showing the transit circle of Venus, a deep coronal hole, and
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

    Venus and the Triply Ultraviolet Sun
    Image Credit: NASA/SDO & the AIA, EVE, and HMI teams; Digital Composition: Peter L. Dove

    Explanation: This was a very unusual type of solar eclipse. Typically, it is the Earth's Moon that eclipses the Sun. In 2012, though, the planet Venus took a turn. Like a solar eclipse by the Moon, the phase of Venus became a continually thinner crescent as Venus became increasingly better aligned with the Sun. Eventually the alignment became perfect and the phase of Venus dropped to zero. The dark spot of Venus crossed our parent star. The situation could technically be labeled a Venusian annular eclipse with an extraordinarily large ring of fire. Pictured here during the occultation, the Sun was imaged in three colors of ultraviolet light by the Earth-orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory, with the dark region toward the right corresponding to a coronal hole. Hours later, as Venus continued in its orbit, a slight crescent phase appeared again. The next Venusian transit across the Sun will occur in 2117.

    Tomorrow's picture: a truth about orion


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  • Astronomy Picture of the Day for 2022-03-07 12:30:03.105685

    Astronomy Picture of the Day (Unofficial) at 2022-03-07T18:30:04Z

    Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

    2022 March 7
    The featured image shows the the part of the 
constellation of Orion where the Horsehead and Flame
Nebulas reside. The gaseous wisps above the Horsehead
can appear, in this deep exposure, to be a lion's head.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

    A Lion in Orion
    Image Credit & Copyright: Maroun Mahfoud

    Explanation: Yes, but can you see the lion? A deep exposure shows the famous dark indentation that looks like a horse's head, visible just left and below center, and known unsurprisingly as the Horsehead Nebula. The Horsehead Nebula (Barnard 33) is part of a vast complex of dark absorbing dust and bright glowing gas. To bring out details of the Horsehead's pasture, an astrophotographer artistically combined light accumulated for over 20 hours in hydrogen (orange), oxygen (blue), and sulfur (green). The resulting spectacular picture captured from Raachine, Lebanon, details an intricate tapestry of gaseous wisps and dust-laden filaments that were created and sculpted over eons by stellar winds and ancient supernovas. The featured composition brings up another pareidolic animal icon -- that of a lion's head -- in the expansive orange colored gas above the horse's head. The Flame Nebula is visible just to the left of the Horsehead. The Horsehead Nebula lies 1,500 light years distant towards the constellation of Orion.

    Tomorrow's picture: oddly inverted moon


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    Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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  • Astronomy Picture of the Day for 2022-03-02 12:30:03.249805

    Astronomy Picture of the Day (Unofficial) at 2022-03-02T18:30:03Z

    Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

    2022 March 2
    The featured image shows the Sun undergoing a large 
eruption in mid-Feburary where a large prominence is
visible.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

    Record Prominence Imaged by Solar Orbiter
    Image Credit: Solar Orbiter, EUI Team, ESA & NASA; h/t: Bum-Suk Yeom

    Explanation: What's happened to our Sun? Last month, it produced the largest prominence ever imaged together with a complete solar disk. The record image, featured, was captured in ultraviolet light by the Sun-orbiting Solar Orbiter spacecraft. A quiescent solar prominence is a cloud of hot gas held above the Sun's surface by the Sun's magnetic field. This solar prominence was huge -- spanning a length rivaling the diameter of the Sun itself. Solar prominences may erupt unpredictably and expel hot gas into the Solar System via a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). When a CME strikes the Earth and its magnetosphere, bright auroras may occur. This prominence did produce a CME, but it was directed well away from the Earth. Although surely related to the Sun's changing magnetic field, the energy mechanism that creates and sustains a solar prominence remains a topic of research.

    Tomorrow's picture: spiral galaxy NGC 2841


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  • The roots of Long Covid

    PumpCast at 2022-01-30T16:13:52Z

    "The roots of Long Covid" There are now a number of biological indicators for the potential development of long covid. Immunologist Onur Boyman of Zurich University Hospital and Claire Steves, Clinical Senior Lecturer at King’s College London strives to tell us how pinpointing these factors is now helping in the development of strategies to predict the syndrome and prepare treatment. The James Webb telescope has reached its final orbit. The years of planning, preparation and rehearsal seem to have paid off. The telescope is now ready to begin its mission of looking back into the early universe. BBC Science correspondent Jonathan Amos has followed the mission. The widely held view that human development was propelled by our ancestors developing a taste for meat is being questioned by a new analysis of the fossil record. Paleoanthropologist Andrew Barr of George Washington University suggests part of the reason for this assumption is the sampling method, actively looking for evidence to support the hypothesis. And Michael Boudoin of Lille University has led a team of physicists who have produced the longest-lasting soap bubble ever – they managed to prevent the bubble from popping for well over a year. Also, How is a small budget pocket radio able to recreate all the atmosphere and sounds of a football match? CrowdScience listener Andy wants to know about the science enabling his radio listening, so presenter CrowdScience Geoff Marsh sets off - microphone in hand - to follow the journey of sound on the radio. Starting with the microphone, Geoff learns how acoustic energy is converted into electrical signals. Then BBC World Service presenter Gareth takes Geoff to a little-known room in the BBC called the Radio Shack. Gareth demonstrates how these electrical signals are attached to radio waves before being sent over the airwaves and they take a radio kit apart to understand how these waves are received and converted back into sound waves. Geoff talks to a speech and hearing specialist who, through the use of auditory illusions, shows Geoff that our brains are often filling in the gaps of lower quality audio. Finally, Geoff visits an acoustic lab at Salford University where he hears a demonstration of ‘object based audio’. This technology could enable us to create our own bespoke mix of dramas and sports, such as heightening the commentary sound or choosing to hear just the crowd, just by using the everyday speakers many have lying around them, such as mobile phones. (Image credit: Horacio Villalobos/Getty Images) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct1ywg ( Feed URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p016tmt2/episodes/downloads.rss )

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  • Astronomy Picture of the Day for 2022-01-30 12:30:02.552881

    Astronomy Picture of the Day (Unofficial) at 2022-01-30T18:30:08Z

    Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

    2022 January 30
    The featured image shows the Sun with a large eruptive
prominence on the upper left. The image was taken with NASA's
SOHO satellite in 1999. 
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

    A Solar Prominence from SOHO
    Image Credit: NASA, ESA, SOHO-EIT Consortium

    Explanation: How can gas float above the Sun? Twisted magnetic fields arching from the solar surface can trap ionized gas, suspending it in huge looping structures. These majestic plasma arches are seen as prominences above the solar limb. In 1999, this dramatic and detailed image was recorded by the Extreme ultraviolet Image Telescope (EIT) on board the space-based SOHO observatory in the light emitted by ionized Helium. It shows hot plasma escaping into space as a fiery prominence breaks free from magnetic confinement a hundred thousand kilometers above the Sun. These awesome events bear watching as they can affect communications and power systems over 100 million kilometers away on planet Earth. In late 2020 our Sun passed the solar minimum of its 11-year cycle and is now showing increased surface activity.

    Tomorrow's picture: stellar icons


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    Wooo! Burn baby, BURN!! 🔥🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥

    JanKusanagi @identi.ca at 2022-02-01T02:35:13Z

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  • 639: Colliding Particles to Comprehend the Components of Matter - Dr. Jon Butterworth

    PumpCast at 2022-01-17T08:14:15Z

    "639: Colliding Particles to Comprehend the Components of Matter - Dr. Jon Butterworth" Dr. Jon Butterworth is a Professor of Physics at University College London. He works on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva. They are smashing particles together at extremely high energies and measuring what happens. Collecting data on these particle collisions provides information about the smallest and most basic components of our universe. Outside of science, Jon has two kids, and he spends most of his leisure time hanging out with them. He is also an avid writer and finds that writing is a good way to relax. At the same time, Jon enjoys activities like skiing and giving guitar performances. He received his B.A. in Physics and his Ph.D. in Particle Physics from the University of Oxford. Afterwards, Jon was hired by Pennsylvania State University to conduct postdoctoral research at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg, Germany before joining the faculty at UCL where he is today. John is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and recipient of their Chadwick Prize. He has also been awarded a Wolfson Research Merit Award from the Royal Society, an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship, and a Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council Senior Research Fellowship. In addition, Jon is the author of the book Most Wanted Particle and author of a blog for The Guardian called Life and Physics. In this interview, Jon shares more about his journey through life and science. https://peoplebehindthescience.libsyn.com/639-colliding-particles-to-comprehend-the-components-of-matter-dr-jon-butterworth ( Feed URL: http://peoplebehindthescience.libsyn.com/rss )

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  • Astronomy Picture of the Day for 2022-01-15 12:30:03.008450

    Astronomy Picture of the Day (Unofficial) at 2022-01-15T18:30:03Z

    Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

    2022 January 15
    See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download
the highest resolution version available.

    Galileo's Europa
    Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SETI Institute, Cynthia Phillips, Marty Valenti

    Explanation: Looping through the Jovian system in the late 1990s, the Galileo spacecraft recorded stunning views of Europa and uncovered evidence that the moon's icy surface likely hides a deep, global ocean. Galileo's Europa image data has been remastered here, with improved calibrations to produce a color image approximating what the human eye might see. Europa's long curving fractures hint at the subsurface liquid water. The tidal flexing the large moon experiences in its elliptical orbit around Jupiter supplies the energy to keep the ocean liquid. But more tantalizing is the possibility that even in the absence of sunlight that process could also supply the energy to support life, making Europa one of the best places to look for life beyond Earth. What kind of life could thrive in a deep, dark, subsurface ocean? Consider planet Earth's own extreme shrimp.

    Tomorrow's picture: a very cloudy day


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