tingilinde

brewster rules - nasa images

The Internet Archive (Brewster Kahle) has a new section that has a very nice searchable NASA image archive.

crossing streams

The LHC had its first collisions since the repair yesterday!

buying a "clean" car

The California Air Resources Board has a site that compares cars by smog and global warming scores.

DriveClean has potential, but the scoring system is not very good ...  any vehicle under 200 grams of CO₂/mile scores a perfect 10.  I would argue perfection should be represented by a much lower number - perhaps 20 g CO₂/mile as that is possible using currently available electrics in regions of the state with very high wind and solar penetration - I know someone who charges his Tesla with his own solar panels (perhaps the only person to do so, but it is possible) and wind turbines are used to recharge electrics in parts of Jutland.

deniers and the newton mail scandal

A really nice pice of commentary on the CRU email scandal.  It is impressive how news sources completely missed how science works in their reporting.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

snip

If you own any shares in companies that produce reflecting telescopes, use differential and integral calculus, or rely on the laws of motion, I should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy behind the calculus myth has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after volumes of Newton’s private correspondence were compiled and published.

When you read some of these letters, you realise just why Newton and his collaborators might have preferred to keep them confidential. This scandal could well be the biggest in Renaissance science. These alleged letters – supposedly exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists behind really hard math lessons – suggest:
...

learning the sky

I've spent a lot of time doing this sort of thing, but a new youtube channel will have techniques and suggestions for looking up. Here is a sample on the Pleiades - you might want to subscribe!

gravity is neat stuff

A press release from the ESO

ESO 44/09 - Photo Release

20 November 2009
For immediate release

Watching a Cannibal Galaxy Dine

A new technique using near-infrared images, obtained with ESO’s 3.58-metre New Technology Telescope (NTT), allows astronomers to see through the opaque dust lanes of the giant cannibal galaxy Centaurus A, unveiling its “last meal” in unprecedented detail — a smaller spiral galaxy, currently twisted and warped. This amazing image also shows thousands of star clusters, strewn like glittering gems, churning inside Centaurus A.

Centaurus A (NGC 5128) is the nearest giant, elliptical galaxy, at a distance of about 11 million light-years. One of the most studied objects in the southern sky, by 1847 the unique appearance of this galaxy had already caught the attention of the famous British astronomer John Herschel, who catalogued the southern skies and made a comprehensive list of nebulae.

Herschel could not know, however, that this beautiful and spectacular appearance is due to an opaque dust lane that covers the central part of the galaxy. This dust is thought to be the remains of a cosmic merger between a giant elliptical galaxy and a smaller spiral galaxy full of dust.

Between 200 and 700 million years ago, this galaxy is indeed believed to have consumed a smaller spiral, gas-rich galaxy — the contents of which appear to be churning inside Centaurus A's core, likely triggering new generations of stars.

First glimpses of the “leftovers” of this meal were obtained thanks to observations with the ESA Infrared Space Observatory , which revealed a 16 500 light-year-wide structure, very similar to that of a small barred galaxy. More recently, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope resolved this structure into a parallelogram, which can be explained as the remnant of a gas-rich spiral galaxy falling into an elliptical galaxy and becoming twisted and warped in the process. Galaxy merging is the most common mechanism to explain the formation of such giant elliptical galaxies.

The new SOFI images, obtained with the 3.58-metre New Technology Telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory, allow astronomers to get an even sharper view of the structure of this galaxy, completely free of obscuring dust. The original images, obtained by observing in the near-infrared through three different filters (J, H, K) were combined using a new technique that removes the dark, screening effect of the dust, providing a clear view of the centre of this galaxy.

What the astronomers found was surprising: “There is a clear ring of stars and clusters hidden behind the dust lanes, and our images provide an unprecedentedly detailed view toward it,” says Jouni Kainulainen, lead author of the paper reporting these results. “Further analysis of this structure will provide important clues on how the merging process occurred and what has been the role of star formation during it.”

The research team is excited about the possibilities this new technique opens: “These are the first steps in the development of a new technique that has the potential to trace giant clouds of gas in other galaxies at high resolution and in a cost-effective way,” explains co-author João Alves. “Knowing how these giant clouds form and evolve is to understand how stars form in galaxies.”

Looking forward to the new, planned telescopes, both on the ground and in space, “this technique is very complementary to the radio data ALMA will collect on nearby galaxies, and at the same time it poses interesting avenues of research for extragalactic stellar populations with the future European Extremely Large Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope, as dust is omnipresent in galaxies,” says co-author Yuri Beletsky.

Previous observations done with ISAAC on the VLT (ESO 04/01) have revealed that a supermassive black hole lurks inside Centaurus A. Its mass is about 200 million times the mass of our Sun, or 50 times more massive than the one that lies at the centre of our Milky Way. In contrast to our own galaxy, the supermassive black hole in Centaurus A is continuously fed by material falling onto into it, making the giant galaxy a very active one. Centaurus A is in fact one of the brightest radio sources in the sky (hence the “A” in its name). Jets of high energy particles from the centre are also observed in radio and X-ray images.

The new image of Centaurus A is a wonderful example of how frontier science can be combined with aesthetic aspects. Fine images of Centaurus A have been obtained in the past with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (ESO PR Photo 05b/00) and with the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope atLa Silla.

More Information

This research was presented in a paper in Astronomy and Astrophysics (vol. 502): “Uncovering the kiloparsec-scale stellar ring of NGC5128”, by J.T. Kainulainen et al.

The team is composed of J. T. Kainulainen (University of Helsinki, Finland, and MPIA, Germany), J. F. Alves (Calar Alto Observatory, Spain and University of Vienna, Austria), Y. Beletsky (ESO), J. Ascenso (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, USA), J. M. Kainulainen (TKK/Department of Radio Science and Engineering, Finland), A. Amorim, J. Lima, F. D. Santos, and A. Moitinho (SIM-IDL, University of Lisbon, Portugal), R. Marques and J. Pinhão (University of Coimbra, Portugal), and J. Rebordão (INETI, Amadora, Portugal).

SOFI (Son of ISAAC) is an infrared spectro-imager attached to ESO's 3.58-metre New Technology Telescope (NTT) and a simplified version of the Short Wavelength arm of ISAAC on the Very Large Telescope.

ESO, the European Southern Observatory, is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive astronomical observatory. It is supported by 14 countries: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world’s most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory. ESO is the European partner of a revolutionary astronomical telescope ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. ESO is currently planning a 42-metre European Extremely Large optical/near-infrared Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.

_____

and the paper (pdf) in Astronomy and Astrophysics:

Uncovering the kiloparsec-scale stellar ring of NGC 5128,
J. T. Kainulainen1,2, J. F.Alves3, Y. Beletsky4, J. Ascenso5, J. M. Kainulainen6, A. Amorim7, J. Lima7, R. Marques8,
A. Moitinho7, J. Pinhão8, J. Rebordão9, and F. D. Santos7
1 Observatory, PO Box 14, 00014 Univ. of Helsinki, Finland
e-mail: jtkainul@mpia-hd.mpg.de
2 TKK/Metsähovi Radio Observatory, Metsähovintie 114, 02540 Kylmälä, Finland
3 Calar Alto Observatory, Centro Astronómico Hispano, Alemán, C/q Jesús Durbán Remón 2-2, 04004 Almeria, Spain
4 European Southern Observatory (ESO), Alonso de Cordova 3107, Santiago, Chile
5 Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
6 TKK/Department of Radio Science and Engineering, PO Box 3000, 02015 TKK, Finland
7 SIM-IDL, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Ed. C8. Campo Grande 1749-016 Lisbon, Portugal
8 LIP-Coimbra, Department of Physics, University of Coimbra, 3004-516 Coimbra, Portugal
9 INETI, Estrada da Portela, Zambujal-Alfragide, Apartado 7586, 2720-866 Amadora, Portugal
Received 3 June 2009 / Accepted 13 June 2009

ABSTRACT
We reveal the stellar light emerging from the kiloparsec-scale, ring-like structure of the NGC 5128 (Centaurus A) galaxy in unprecedented
detail. We use arcsecond-scale resolution near infrared images to create a “dust-free” view of the central region of the
galaxy, which we then use to quantify the shape of the revealed structure. At the resolution of the data, the structure contains several
hundreds of discreet, point-like or slightly elongated sources. The typical extinction-corrected surface brightness of the structure is
KS ≈ 16.5 mag/arcsec2, and we estimate the total near infrared luminosity of the structure to be M ≈ −21 mag.We use diffraction limited
(FWHM resolution of ≈0.1, or 1.6 pc) near infrared data taken with the NACO instrument on the VLT to show that the structure
decomposes into thousands of separate, mostly point-like sources. According to the tentative photometry, the most luminous sources
have MK ≈ −12 mag, making them red supergiants or relatively low-mass star clusters. We also discuss the large-scale geometry
implied by the reddening signatures of dust in our near infrared images.

nice lhc photos

A tip of the hat to Nancy - really nice LHC photos in boston.com!

more on this week's fireball over utah...

Some amazing video at Universe Today of how bright the event was -- night into day 

my holiday card is 15 this year

Welcome to the 15^th presentation of my heavily recycled homemade Winter holiday card

Here is my ancient holiday webcard --  since 1994 (the drawing took a few minutes)

happy holidays!

or as a Danish friend notes:  Glaedelig Jul! 

serving a sizeable extreme - and nothing more

but an extreme that may well rule the Republican Party

Jim points to a Sid Blumenthal essay that notes how Sarah  Palin may well destroy the Republican Party..  Of course there are always surprises, but an interesting piece.

snip

If Palin is indeed a cancer on the GOP, why can't the Republican establishment retire her to a quiet life of moose hunting in the political wilderness? Why has her appeal only increased in the wake of her catastrophic political expeditions? Why won't she listen to, or abide by, conventional political wisdom?

The answer lies beyond the realm of polls and punditry in the political psychology of the movement that animates and, to a great degree, controls, the Republican grassroots -- a uniquely evangelical subculture defined by the personal crises of its believers and their perceived persecution at the hands of cosmopolitan elites.

By emphasizing her own crises and her victimization by the "liberal media," Palin has established an invisible, indissoluble bond with adherents of that subculture -- so visceral it transcends any rational political analysis. As a result, her career has become a vehicle through which the right-wing evangelical movement feels it can express its deepest identity in opposition both to secular society and to its representatives in the Obama White House. Palin is perceived by its leaders -- and followers -- not as another cynical politician or even as a self-promoting celebrity, but as a kind of magical helper, the God-fearing glamour girl who parachuted into their backwater towns to lift them from the drudgery of everyday life, assuring them that they represented the "Real America."

...

a twist on fall colors

I wish I had thought of this (via the NY Times)

bamboo bikes

Bamboo has some nice mechanical properties and happens to grow in many parts of the world.  People have been making bike frames out of it for some time, but recently this is being taken more seriously

The Sustainable Cyclist has a piece on the subject

is the internet going to melt down soon?

In the past few years I've seen a few articles by doomsayers who believe the Internet will meltdown in the next few years.  Their analyses appear weak, but they have been persistent.  This is not something I have studied directly, but people I trust - like David Isenberg - have made pointed comments.  A bizarre feature of the current line of Internet meltdown thinking is its label - exaflood - originated at the Discovery Institute - the same place that produced "intelligent design."  They seem to love biblical stuff.

The best analyst I know in this area is Andrew Odlzyko, a math professor at the University of Minnesota, has weighed in (again).  Andrew is exceptionally careful and manages to see see through the data to find the clear signals.  Brilliant and lucid.   

A press release from the university - complete with an interview posted to youtube.

U. MINNESOTA—Even as Internet traffic grows by as much as 50 percent a year, concerns that usage will eventually overwhelm the system are unfounded, according to work by mathematics professor Andrew Odlyzko.

“The Internet is growing rapidly, but at rates that can be accommodated by the current rate of improvement in technology,” says Odlyzko, a professor at the University of Minnesota and principal investigator for the Minnesota Internet Traffic Studies project.

In particular, fears of “exafloods” of traffic, brought on largely by video streaming, are unlikely, he says. Such worries have caused some Internet-related businesses to consider, or advocate, a new pricing system based on use. If that happened, instead of paying a flat monthly fee, users would pay “by the byte.”

The average consumer uses between 10 and 15 gigabytes per month; high-end users can go up to 250 gigabytes per month, Odlyzko says.

A constant conflict exists between efficiency and fairness in markets, he says, and the Internet is no exception. The fairness issue is embodied in the “net neutrality” concept, which means no one owns the Internet and carriers can’t force users to, say, switch from their favorite search engine to another one.

But, says Odlyzko, net neutrality doesn’t preclude charging according to use, and that’s where the potential for conflict comes in.

“If you charge by the byte, usage drops. Metered pricing is a way for industry to shoot themselves in the foot,” Odlyzko argues. He says there are numerous historical instances where the public protested loudly against what it perceived as unfair pricing schemes.

The unlikelihood of exafloods due to video streaming and similar practices is based on data showing that they are not straining the system.

“It’s true that if public decided to abandon TV, or satellite TV, and get all their movies and news stories through the Internet, it would crash,” Odlyzko says. “However, we observe that people are not all that fast to change their habits. For example, about a third of the population has digital video recording, but even these people mostly watch traditional TV or cable.”

From the industry standpoint, the real concern is people who upload material, especially pirated material, which then gets copied and spread around, he says. Those practices can cause traffic to mount quickly.

Wireless networks, however, are under pressure. “The explosion in data usage on wireless networks, such as from smart phones and BlackBerries, is putting a strain on the networks,” he says, and it could lead to more constraints on the plans offered to consumers.

What’s needed is to collect information that reveals the balance between supply and demand so decision-makers can do the right thing. E-mail and texting are examples where the popularity of both was predictable, but took the industry by surprise.

“You need to collect data because people sometimes do unexpected things,” he observes.

University of Minnesota news: www1.umn.edu/news/

___

natural kilowatt scale nuclear reactors

The natural formation of small nuclear reactors caused by early life on Earth.  You may not need to have a brain to be a mad scientist.  

From this week's Quirks and Quarks (mp3)

and the paper (pdf)

abstract

Did natural reactors form as a consequence of the emergence of oxygenic photosynthesis during the Archean?

Laurence A. Coogan and Jay T. Cullen, School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, P.O. Box 3055 STN CSC, Victoria BC Canada, V8W 3P6; lacoogan@uvic.ca; jcullen@uvic.ca

ABSTRACT
The advent of oxygenic photosynthesis changed Earth’s surface environment in numerous ways, perhaps most notably by making possible the evolution of large and complex life-forms. Current models suggest that organisms that can perform oxygenic photosynthesis first took hold in isolated marine and fresh- water basins, producing local oxygen oa- ses. Here we present calculations that suggest that uranium deposits could have formed at the margins of these ba- sins due to the strong local reduction- oxidation gradients. Because of the high abundance of 235U at this time, these ura- nium deposits could have formed wide- spread, near-surface, critical natural fission reactors. These natural reactors would have represented point sources of heat, ionizing radiation, and free radicals. Additionally, they would have far-field effects through the production of mobile short- and long-lived radioactive daugh- ter isotopes and toxic byproducts. It is possible that these fission products pro- vided a negative feedback, helping to limit the proliferation of the cyanobacte- ria in the Archean environment. Secular decreases in the abundance of 235U in turn decreased the probability of such deposits forming critical fission reactors during the early Proterozoic.

fitting in

Our friend Colleen is approximately tall.  She also has an extremely positive and enthusiastic outlook even though much of what most of us take for granted just doesn't fit.

She recently posted a piece on her blog illustrating a few common activities that are challenges.

This raises some interesting design issues.  In the US many products are designed to fit "most" of the population where "most" usually means anyone from the 5th to the 95th percentile - sometimes the range is from minus two sigma to plus two sigma.  Towards the limits the concept of fit goes out the window and, of course, airliners are not close friends of hers.

For someone seriously outside normal size ranges, custom design is possible as are simple hacks.  I'm curious about this sort of thing and any suggestions of hacks for someone of Colleen's stature are always welcome.  Colleen-i-fying a bit of the world for her.