The newest version of WordPress was released today with loads of new features (including the long overdue wordcounter! I’m easy to please…). Most of the upgrades will make life a bit easier for me when posting new articles on Astroengine, so hopefully that will be reflected in the quality of my writing. If you want to learn more about WordPress and why this upgrade is pretty awesome, check out the online video from the developers of WordPress Version 2.6 (a.k.a. “Tyner,” after jazz pianist McCoy Tyner)…
Author: Ian O'Neill
Recoiling Supermassive Black Holes and Stellar Flares
Astrophysicists love to simulate huge collisions, and they don’t get much bigger than this. From the discoverers of the first ever observed black hole collision back in April, new observational characteristics have been researched and Max Planck astrophysicists believe that after two supermassive black holes (SMBHs) have collided, they recoil and drag flaring stars with them. By looking out for anomalous X-ray flares in intergalactic space, or off-galactic nuclei locations, repelled black holes may be spotted powering their way into deep space at velocities of up to 4000 kms-1…
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Observing Red Dwarf Stars May Reveal Habitable “Super-Earths” Sooner
OK, so if you’re an exoplanet hunter, which stars would you focus your attention on? Would you look at bright blue young stars? Or would you look at dim, long-lived red stars? If you think about it, trying to see a small exoplanet eclipse (or transit) a very bright star would be very hard, the luminosity would overwhelm any attempt at seeing a tiny planet pass in front of the star. On the other hand, observing a planet transiting a dimmer stellar object, like a red dwarf star, any transit of even the smallest planet will create a substantial decrease in luminosity. What’s more, ground-based observatories can do the work rather than depending on expensive space-based telescopes…
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Tonight’s Terra Chat Show Now Online
If you missed my discussion with Colin Knight on Terra Chat tonight, the show’s recording is now online. Either check out the Flash player to the left or download the archived mp3. For information on the show, check out “2012 – Cosmic Occurances, Planet X, Space Travel.”
We had a great time discussing everything from Planet X, UFOs, space travel, Mars colonization and space weather! Be sure to check out his show, it makes for entertaining and educational listening.
Thank you Colin for having me back on your show, I had a superb time! And keep hunting for those Planet X guys… 😉
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Listen to Terra Chat Live Tonight: Cosmic Occurances, Planet X and Space Travel
I have been invited back onto Colin Knight’s Terra Chat show over at Blog Talk Radio tonight to discuss some follow-up topics to the Planet X doomsday scenario plus some cool stuff about space travel and Mars settlement planning. I had a great time on last month’s show (which aired on June 8th and is available for playback), and I’m sure tonight will be just as compelling. So, from 7pm Pacific Time (10pm Eastern Time), you can catch the live broadcast over at Terra Chat.
For more information on the show, check out: 2012 – Cosmic Occurances, Planet X, Space Travel.
Carnival of Space Week 62 – Space Disco (Discovery)
This week, the Carnival is a little different. Our host Dave Mosher at the superb blog Space Disco has assembled all this weeks entries into a nifty slideshow which works really well. I don’t think it’s been done before (and I wish I thought of it when hosting CoS week 51), but it is really effective and most importantly, interactive. I loved all the entries this week, and I entered my ramblings about when soil is not regolith on Mars and how Phoenix is helping us out with all the confusion. I thought it was important anyway… 😉
Enjoy! Ian
Poll: In Your Opinion, What Will be the First LHC Landmark Discovery?
The first experiments to be carried out by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN are on the horizon. Some people are frightened by this historic particle accelerator, but the science community is abuzz with anticipation and excitement. Although some of the conditions of the Big Bang will be recreated, it is important to remember a second “Bigger Bang” will not be generated – although the LHC is powerful, it’s not that powerful!
There is a rich variety of experiments that will be carried out by a variety of LHC detectors in the 27 km circumference ringed accelerator. These experiments include ATLAS, CMS, ALICE, LHCb, TOTEM, and LHCf. All have their own specific goals, but a few possible discoveries stand out as being revolutionary for particle physics and cosmology alike. I’ve written a host of articles about the LHC and I have my own personal hopes for what could be discovered, but I’d be interested to get your views too…
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How Long Would it Take to Travel to Proxima Centauri?
This is one of those articles I’ve been meaning to write for a long time: How long would the interstellar transit be from Earth to the nearest star (and no, I don’t mean the Sun)? It turns out that there is no practical way, using today’s available technology that we can travel to Proxima Centauri (a red dwarf star, 4.33 light years from the Solar System). This is a shame as there are so many stars and so many exoplanets to explore, which space enthusiast wouldn’t want to envisage interstellar space travel? However, there may be help at hand, using modern technology and materials; we might be able to mount a manned expedition to Proxima lasting a little under a century…
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Wolf-Rayet Star: My Favourite Stellar Object
Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars are my favourite stellar objects bar none. Due to the excitement factor I find them even more interesting than black holes, pulsars and quasars. Why? Well, they are a significant period of a massive star’s lifetime making its violent, self-destructive death, possibly culminating in a supernova or gamma ray burst (GRB). WR stars blast out dense stellar winds creating a bubble of matter that completely obscures the star’s surface from any attempts at observation. They are also very noisy neighbours, disrupting binary partners and messing up huge volumes of space. If you thought a star might die quietly, the WR phase ensures this isn’t the case and astronomers are paying attention, making some of the most detailed observations of WR stars yet…
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Carnival of Space Week 61 at Mang’s Bat Page
For this week’s adventures into all things astro, check out David Gamey’s Mang’s Bat Page. There is a large number of blog posts about the recent Tunguska research plus loads of other space news you’ll enjoy. For my entry, I submitted Watch out Phoenix! Don’t Scratch the CD! – my concerns for the safety of the CD on board the Phoenix Mars Lander that appears to be dropping piles of abrasive Mars regolith over the most expensive data disk ever made, let alone sent to Mars… (I wouldn’t lose any sleep over this though!)
Enjoy! Ian
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