COSMOS Reveals the Cosmos (from Cosmic Variance by Sean)

The internet works so that we don’t have to! This week is the big annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, so expect to see a series of astro-news stories pop up all through the week. The first one concerns a new result from the Cosmological Evolution Survey (COSMOS) — they’ve used weak lensing to reconstruct a three-dimensional image of where the dark matter is.


AAS Report #3: Things that go boom! (From Bad Astronomy Blog)

It’s a fact of life that some stars explode. Actually, it’s a good thing: when stars explode they create and scatter the heavy elements that create us. The iron in your blood and the calcium in your bones were created in a supernova! So it’s important to study these objects, so we can better understand our origins.

But it’s also fun! Stars explode! Bang! Cool!

Today there were three press releases about supernovae. All three were surprising to me, and pretty interesting.

1) Kepler’s Supernova was a Type Ia

OK, so that title doesn’t thrill you. But that simple statement is actually the answer to a long-standing mystery. Ready for this? OK, sit back…

The AAS : a Nerd’s Eye View (from Galactic Interactions)

I’m in Seattle at the moment. I flew in yesterday; it’s cold, windy, and rainy. In fact, the rain was looking kinda slushy last night. While my wife from Minnesota might scoff at my calling this cold (it was just below freezing), in Nashville it’s been March-like temperatures.

I’m here for the 209th meeting of the American Astronomical Society. I’m going to try an experiment. I’ve never done the “live blogging” thing before, and indeed it’s entirely possible that I’m not using the term properly. It is my intention to post several posts this week inspired by things I see at the AAS. I can’t tell you what they will be yet, because they haven’t happened…. I’m hoping mostly to focus on interesting science and such, but anything that inspires me to blather is fair game as far as I’m concerned….

(Other posts in this series.)

Come On In, the Methane’s Fine (from Uncertain Principles by Chad Orzel)

The Times has an article announcing the discovery of methane lakes on Titan:

CDF’s New Results : W Boson Mass and Top quark Mass (From Quantum Diaries)

1)And the W mass is …
2) A summary Mw-Mt plot for Christmas 2006
3) More thoughts on the W mass
4) A new precise top mass measurement with jets
5) The new number