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#Astrodon

70 posts53 participants2 posts today

Hi folks! What happened? A lot of people are reading/boosting my #astrodon introduction and even following me now. That’s nice and I am looking forward for good discussions. But I’m curious: Why this surge of new followers last night? Please tell me 😀

1/ Using our Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have discovered extremely powerful winds pummelling the equator of the giant gas exoplanet WASP-127b, 500 light-years away.

➡️ eso.org/public/news/eso2502/

Reaching speeds up to 33 000 km/h, the winds make up the fastest jetstream of its kind ever measured on a planet.

In comparison, the fastest wind ever measured in the Solar System was found on Neptune, moving at 1800 km/h.

How did they do it? Keep reading...

Artist's impression by ESO/L. Calçada

Typical internal evaluation process of productivity in my #academic
0. research, write, have hopefully good peer-review publications
End? hell no!
1. input all metadata in some uni-repository. struggle to make PDF under 2Mb and upload
2. repeat for all publications
3. rank your "best 5 products" based on obscure statistics suggested by THE COMMITTEE
5. you fill in again missing data, codes and links
6. submit

...[continued]

Wrinkles in spacetime could remember the secrets of exploding stars
physicsworld.com/a/wrinkles-in

"Permanent distortions in spacetime caused by the passage of gravitational waves could be detectable from Earth. Known as “gravitational memory”, such distortions are predicted to occur most prominently when the core of a supernova collapses. Observing them could therefore provide a window into the death of massive stars and the creation of black holes, but there’s a catch: the supernova might have to happen in our own galaxy.
[...]
In a paper under revision at Astrophysical Journal Letters, and currently available as a preprint, she cites two proposals for detectors on the Moon that could transform gravitational-wave physics and extend the range at which gravitational memory signals can be detected."

Physics World · Wrinkles in spacetime could remember the secrets of exploding stars – Physics WorldDistortions known as gravitational memory are permanent and potentially detectable from Earth

South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope has uncovered an extraordinary new giant radio galaxy nicknamed Inkathazo, meaning ‘trouble’ in the African Xhosa and Zulu languages. This discovery sheds light on the evolution of the largest structures in the Universe and offers new, yet confusing, insights into their mysterious origins. 

sarao.ac.za/news/the-age-of-gi

This isn't the most interesting astro photo by a long shot. What's impressive (to me) is the fact that I took this photo of the #OrionNebula with my phone from the window sill.
I'm usually not the biggest fan of Google's overprocessed Pixel photos, but I have to admit that I'm really impressed by what modern phones can achieve with their tiny lenses and sensors.
(This was taken with a Pixel 8a, which doesn't even have a tele lens.)

And here is the proper camera result of C/2024 G3 (Atlas). Not stunning, given it's from the center of a city of 1.2 million people, but also not terrible. It was not too hard to spot the #comet by eye to aim the camera.

Single 10 second shot at 200mm f/8 ISO 100.

New laser-sharp vision for Paranal’s facilities! 😎

In this image, you see the first of nine new lasers that are being built for our Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), currently under construction, and Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), both located at Paranal in #Chile

The laser projection systems are being built in the Netherlands, and the first one has now successfully passed a review by our engineers ✅ 🎉

🤔 But why do telescopes need lasers? They excite sodium atoms high up in the atmosphere, creating artificial "stars". By monitoring these "stars" we can measure and correct atmospheric turbulence in real time with a fast deformable mirror, obtaining very sharp images!

Read more: eso.org/public/images/potw2503

📷 ESO/TNO/Demcon/Fred Kamphues