#I hope the pulsar map is a thing

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

AAS NOVA How Do You Weigh a Galaxy? By Astrobites We can’t put it on a digital scale, we can’t hang it on a balance and compare it against something else, so how does one measure the mass of our home galaxy? The authors of today’s paper use measurements of globular clusters in the halo of the galaxy taken from the Gaia satellite to estimate a mass for the Milky Way. What Is Our Galaxy Made of and Why Should We Weigh It? Our galaxy contains four major parts: the bulge, the disk (which contains the thin disk and the thick disk), the bar, and the halo (see the centre image). The first three components are made up of baryons, particles that make up protons and neutrons and therefore most of the things around us. The halo, however, is dominated by dark matter, and the percentage of baryonic mass in the halo depends on how much dark matter there is. Dark matter is a mysterious substance that pervades the galaxy, interacting strongly with gravity and weakly with light. We know dark matter is there because of the rotation curve of the galaxy; if the mass was concentrated at the center, the velocity of the outer regions would be slower than the inner regions. In the case of the Milky Way, we see that the rotational velocity stays fairly constant all the way out, which points to some unseen matter being present (matter that we identify as dark matter). Because of its weak interactions with light, it can be really tough to measure the amount of dark matter, and thus how much it weighs. Overcoming this challenge to calculate a mass for the dark matter in our galaxy’s halo would be a big step in obtaining the mass of the Milky Way. Measuring the mass of our galaxy is very useful for two reasons: first, because the mass of the galaxy and its distribution are linked to the formation and growth of our universe. Accurately determining the mass will help us understand where our galaxy sits on the scale of the cosmos. Second, it helps us learn about the dynamical history and future of the Local Group and the satellite population (specifically stellar streams). How to Weigh a Galaxy The estimate of the mass of a galaxy is dependent on many things, including which satellites are bound and how long they have been that way, the shape of the Milky Way, and the method used for analysis. Three techniques have been mainly used to measure the mass of the galaxy: the timing argument, abundance-matching studies, and dynamical methods. The timing argument measures the speed at which two galaxies are approaching each other and uses those dynamics to predict a mass. Abundance-matching studies uses the number of galaxies versus their circular velocity and the Tully-Fischer relation to obtain their luminosity, which can be used to estimate their mass. Finally, dynamical methods look at the velocity of tracer objects such as globular clusters; any mass distribution gives rise to a gravitational potential that causes objects to move, so by studying the motions of the objects, we can work backwards to recover the gravitational potential, and thus the mass. The authors of today’s paper use this dynamical method to measure the mass of the Milky Way. Using Gaia to Map Motions The team used data from the Gaia mission’s 2nd data release (DR2) to measure the proper motions of stars, or how they are moving across the sky. Gaia is a space-based instrument whose goal is to make a 3D map of the galaxy, and this data release contained measurements for billions of stars and 75 globular clusters. Gaia’s observations are so precise that it can measure a human hair’s width at 1,000 km, which is a resolution 1,000–2,000 times higher than that of the Hubble Space Telescope! The lower image shows just how many sources Gaia has measured. Out of the 75 globular cluster measurements released in DR2, the authors used 34 of them that spanned a range of distances from 2.0 to 21.1 kiloparsecs from the center of the galaxy — which allowed the authors to trace the Milky Way’s mass out to the outer halo. In order to map the mass of the galaxy correctly, they need parameters like velocity anisotropy (which measures how the motions of stars vary in different directions), the density of the galaxy, and the potential of the galaxy. The team uses an NFW model, which is a model for how the density is distributed within the galaxy, to describe the potential of the galaxy. The authors then run simulations to determine the radius inside which particles are gravitationally bound to each other (the virial radius) and the mass contained inside the virial radius (the virial mass). By varying the virial parameters and sampling different models of the halo, the team was able to figure out the most probable mass of the galaxy. In addition, they use the velocities of the stars to map the circular velocity of the galaxy out to the radius of the farthest globular cluster. THe bottom image shows the potential of the different components of the galaxy and the results of varying the virial parameters of the halo. Evidence for an Intermediate Mass Milky Way The authors find that the mass of the galaxy is 0.21 x 1012 solar masses, the circular velocity of the galaxy at the maximum radius they look at (21.1 kpc) is 206 km/s, and the virial radius is 1.28 x 1012 solar masses. This virial mass fits in most with intermediate values found by other studies. The circular velocity measurement the authors made indicates that the velocity is fairly constant in the outer regions, supporting the idea that dark matter is present in our galaxy. Some of the clusters the team used for measurements are on very radial or very tangential orbits, which could have been the result of galactic collisions. If they remove these clusters, the mass and velocity measurements are still within their error bars, showing that these estimates are robust even if there are substructures of globular clusters in the galaxy. The amazing wealth of data from the Gaia mission has allowed the team to make one of the most precise estimates of the mass of the galaxy that has ever been achieved. As Gaia continues its mission over the next few years, it will obtain positions and velocities of even more clusters, paving the way for more robust studies of the mass of our galaxy. TOP IMAGE....Artist's illustration of our galaxy, the Milky Way. [ESA] CENTRE IMAGE....Left: where the Sun sits in the Milky Way, from a face-on perspective. Right: The different parts of the galaxy, from an edge-on perspective. [ESA] LOWER IMAGE....A map of the number of sources Gaia measures on a projection of the plane of the galaxy (centered on the galactic center). The lighter the color, the more sources. The two circles in the bottom right are two very small dwarf galaxies that orbit the Milky Way. This figure shows the billions of stars contained in DR2. [Brown et al. 2018] BOTTOM IMAGE....The potential of the galaxy versus distance. Each component of the galaxy is labeled. The authors vary the virial radius and concentration (which represents the density) of the halo, and the different values they sample over are shown by the shaded region around the halo curve. The combination of the components (i.e., the total potential of the galaxy) is the gray line. The authors map the potential of the entire galaxy, but the vertical dotted lines show the area in which they’re interested, which is the distance of the nearest and farthest globular cluster in their sample. The solid lines show the extent of the best-fitting power law to that region, and the dashed lines show the power-law fit outside the region of interest. [Watkins et al. 2019] Title: Evidence for an Intermediate-Mass Milky Way from Gaia DR2 Halo Globular Cluster Motions Authors: Laura L. Watkins et al. First Author’s Institution: University of Chicago Status: Published in ApJ Editor’s note: Astrobites is a graduate-student-run organization that digests astrophysical literature for undergraduate students. As part of the partnership between the AAS and astrobites, we occasionally repost astrobites content here at AAS Nova. We hope you enjoy this post from astrobites; the original can be viewed at astrobites.org. About the author, Haley Wahl: I’m a third year grad student at West Virginia University and my main research area is pulsars. I’m currently working with the NANOGrav collaboration (a collaboration which is part of a worldwide effort to detect gravitational waves with pulsars) on polarization calibration. In my set of 45 millisecond pulsars, I’m looking at how the rotation measure (how much the light from the star is rotated by the interstellar medium on its way to us) changes over time, which can tell us about the variation of the galactic magnetic field. I’m mainly interested in pulsar emission and the weird things we see pulsars do! In addition to doing research, I’m also a huge fan of running, baking, reading, watching movies, and I LOVE dogs!

#space #science #Astronomy #physics

[wondertainmenttoys]

Prompt for ya: bubblegum zombies. Zombies made out of bubblegum.

Mr. Adventure exhaled, briefly fogging up the glass dome that covered his head. Above him an arrow slowly moved counterclockwise on an unlabeled floor ticker. Today was another day exploring universes for the company. A small bit of anxiety spiked at that idea.

Dr. Wondertainment’s Jolly Exploration Elevation Elevator Tunes™ softly played, intermixing with the hum of the Unbelievable Universe Hopper™.

When he started his job, the prospect of exploring entirely new universes excited him. He was, after all, an explorer at heart, and the sheer amount of adventure that could be had boggled the imagination. New stars to see! Entire galaxies to chart! A whole lot of space to be a Spaceman in!

Then he learned the real purpose of his job: find out what happened to the Wondertainments (without the TM at the end) that disappeared and see if their universes were good for expanding into.

“Hey Mr. Adventure! Want to see what happens if your Creator leaves? You’ll get to do it over and over again!”

He missed his spaceship. Maybe it was having fun right now.

The Unbelievable Universe Hopper™ revved down as he approached his destination. The arrow stopped, and the caption “Universe-725367″ manifested below the tick it was on.

The elevator doors opened. The soft tune continued. Mr. Adventure stepped out.

“One small step for toys, one giant leap for toykind.”

—

He found himself standing on an unmarked road. In the distance he saw the main Wondertainment factory, or at least some version of it. He pulled out a small notepad and reviewed the notes he received for this adventure.

-Universe-725367 had an active Wondertainment until a month ago!

-Dep. of InterUniverse Speculation Spectating doesn’t know why that happened!

-Universe-725367′s Wonder levels have dropped to dangerously low levels!

-Universe-725367′s status is unknown! Might only be their DW that’s in trouble!

-Universe-725367 may need help in regaining its sense of Wonder!

-Only you can help find out what happened, Mr. Adventure™!!!

He wondered if there were other Mr. Adventures out there doing the same job as him. According to management, that wasn’t the case By some impossible odds he was alone in the multiverse, a one-in-an-infinity toy.

With a click of his heels and a small jump his Anti-Grav Moonwalkers™ activated. As he hopped his way to the inert factory, Mr. Adventure imagined himself walking on the moon.

As the Wondertainment factory got closer, it became obvious that something was wrong. Well, obviously something was wrong since he was there in the first place, but even by those standards things felt… off.

Maybe it was that the sky looked slightly darker than it should be, or that the ground seemed a little less saturated.

Or maybe it was the fact that things started to look as if they had begun melting the closer he got to the building, like ice cream that had been out of the fridge a bit too long.

From the looks of it, reality here was slowly decaying away.

All the lights were off when he walked into the main reception hall. With a small click the Pulsar Night-Light™ on his helmet automatically switched on.

“Hello? Anyone home? I’m Mr. Adventure. I’m here to conduct a survey on behalf of… Wondertainment, if that makes sense.”

Nothing. No one had come to greet him when he approached, so it would be safe to assume that the place was empty.

Without another word he began to look for a map or some sort of directory that would lead him to Wondertainment’s office.

Just by the echoes of his footsteps Mr. Adventure could tell that the room he was in was massive, but the lack of light made everything feel constrained.

Eventually his light shined on a floor plan. While it too was in some state of decay, it was still legible enough for him to figure out where he needed to go. Everything, from the layout to what was left of the architecture, vaguely reminded him of how things were before corgis were added to the workforce.

His eyes slowly drifted to the corner of the floor plan. Covering part of it was a splotch of…

Gum?

A door on the other side of the reception hall slammed shut.

Mr. Adventure jumped, briefly forgetting that his Moonwalkers™ were still activated, and slowly drifted up. Midair he twisted around to flash his light in the direction of the noise. The door in question was definitely closed. Something pink was on its handle, but who knows how long that had been there.

He swore that the door next to it creaked open ever so slightly.

“Who’s there!?”

No answer. No further movement from the doors.

Was it his imagination? He was a Wondertainment toy after all, so maybe it was going crazy and…

Mr. Adventure pulled out his X-Ray Gun™. It didn’t do much, but it still brought him a small bit of comfort.

No more mulling about. His walk turned into a jog as he went deeper into the pitch black.

Decaying rooms and silent assembly lines greeted Mr. Adventure, lit only by his flashlight, and filled only with the vague shapes and shadows that his imagination cast. At least, he hoped that was the case. Every once in a while he’d catch a flash of gum sticking to a machine, or stuck to a wall, or…

It was a consistent theme that had him slightly worried. At one point he unconsciously began sprinting his way to Wondertainment’s room.

Out of breath, he stopped just in front of two ivory doors labelled “BIG BOSSMAN”. Looking up, it was almost a relief to see that they were nowhere near as decayed as the rest of the factory. Maybe there would be a bit of safety in there… and then he looked down.

Like snow in a blizzard, a thick layer of gum covered the handles and bottom of the doors.

“You.. gotta be… kidding me.”

He gasped between breaths. His gloved hand plunged itself into the mess, trying to grab a chunk of gum and peel it off of the doors. All it managed to do was almost get him stuck instead.

A disgusting ‘Schlorp!’ echoed in the room as he jerked his hand out. Gum encased his entire hand and lower arm. Great. That would take forever to get off.

Staring hopelessly at the obstacle before him, he wondered if he should just give up and say this universe wasn’t worth it. As his breathing began to stabilize, he immediately started to notice the soft ‘tap tap tap’ of something behind him.

Then a bubbly gurgle,

“it s n t  nice to sp- eye”

Whirling around, he came face to face with the empty eyes of an employee. Had he given it more thought, he might have recognized it as one of the assembly line workers, or at least, what remained of it.

Their skin was made of some sort of bubblegum, and it continued to drip and stick to the worn out clothes and faded plastic of its worker’s uniforms. Each breath it took made small bubbles expand and contract from its nostrils and mouth.

It swayed ever so slightly towards Mr. Adventure.

Mr. Adventure pointed the X-Ray Gun™ at the thing. Multiple lights started to flash. Sure, it couldn’t do anything, but maybe this thing didn’t know.

“S-stay back! With one click I can vaporize you and everything behind you!”

It stopped.

“M e et  b os “

“Uh, Your Wondertainment is still around?”

“Ne vr  lef t’

It took another step.

“Hey! I said stay back!”

Tap tap tap tap

Tap tap tap tap

Tap tap tap tap

Swiveling his flashlight back and forth revealed other employees, some like the assembly line worker in front of him, others mere human-shaped stumps, had snuck up on him in the darkness.

“Meet  th e bos s”

The one in front slapped its hand on his arm. He tried to pull away, but its arm simply stretched and morphed.

It laughed. They all did. And with every bit of laughter that came out of their gummy throats, a bubble grew wider and wider out of their mouths.

“I-I’d rather not right now! I think it’s time for me to say mission complete and - ah!”

Dozens of hands and arms stuck onto him, dragging him towards the doors. Astonishment mixed in with already-existing fear when he heard the doors creak open, despite the gum.

Then he felt himself being thrown into the room and crashing into the ground, causing his light to flicker until he was left in darkness.

—

“Ah.. is it someone new?”

That voice.

Immediately he went to work trying to wipe the gum off one of his hands so he can try to fix his flashlight.

“I don’t remember making you. What did I call you?”

His plastic heart dropped into his stomach. Yes, it was Wondertainment’s voice. Well, one a version of it. It sounded so… wrong? Artificial?

Clunk clunk clunk

With enough hits the light flickered back to life. The ceiling was dotted with bubblegum.

“Clunk Clunk? Clunkity Clunk? Clunky Crank?”

Mr. Adventure struggled to stand up, a combination of both the spacesuit and the bubblegum sticking to the floor hindering him.

“Crankity Crank? Cronky Cronk? Clonky Honk?”

Wondertainment laughed. Mr. Adventure picked up the same bubbly gurgles that came from the throats of the workers earlier. Oh no.

Mr. Adventure turned his light to the desk at the end of the office. A magnificent chair was turned away from him. He could only assume that this universe’s Wondertainment was on the other side.

“I-I-I’m Mr. Adventure, s-sir!”

He tried to do his patented Spaceman Salute™, only to find that his arm had gotten stuck to his side thanks to a dismembered bubblegum hand.

“Mr. Adventure? No, I don’t think I ever made that…  Hm. Maybe I just forgot. I could ask Mr. Forgetful next time I find him.”

The chair swiveled a little, but not enough that Mr. Adventure could see what this Wondertainment looked like.

Okay, so they weren’t dead yet. Good, good. Maybe he can finish this mission and convince this Wondertainment to leave unharmed.

“I was out on a mission sir. Like I was made to be!”

Not a total lie.

The Wondertainment in front of him said nothing, just swiveling the chair back and forth, but still not far enough to catch a good glimpse of him.

“I.. was gone for a long time — on the mission. What happened here?”

“Oh? A lot happened, Mr. Adventurer!”

“Erm, Mr. Adventure, sir-”

Wondertainment finally turned to face Mr. Adventure. Unlike the others, it seemed to be more intact, with normal skin and normal eyes and-

“I beat the Factory!”

The Wondertainment jolted one of its arms into the air in some celebratory motion. His grin twitched into an open, toothless smile.

“Uh, sir?”

“Oh, yes, yes! Let me tell you a little secret.”

Was… its head starting to get bigger? Mr. Adventure took a small step back.

“I had gotten a little rusty here and there, and because of that the Factory was winning! Can you believe it!?”

No, the casting of shadows from the flashlight was enough to tell Mr. Adventure that Wondertainment’s head was slowly extending towards him.

“I thought looong and hard over how to beat it! How to not let it win! At first I tried some silly things. Creating an heir was one, but that fell apart real quick. Using one of my Misters to take on the Rust failed. I even considered just leaving the toymaking business altogether and- NO! NO! NO!”

With every emphasized ‘No!’ the entire head shook.

“No! That’s what it wanted! I figured out what the Factory was trying to do! It HATES creativity and fun, and that’s all I am! You see, the problem was that I was still alive and it wanted me dead… so what if I tricked it into thinking I went to an early grave? That would require tricking the universe itself! Reality!”

As the Wondertainment got closer, Mr. Adventure realized that no, that was not skin on his face… it was intricately painted pieces of gum, all plastered together in the shape of Wondertainment’s face, dripping and oozing with every syllable spoken.

Mr. Adventure immediately wanted to turn and run.

“So I created something that made the universe think I died, and then, when everyone was fooled, I came back, better than ever! Back as something that can never get hit with the Rust! A real disappearing act!”

The Wondertainment gurgled something indistinct, his head stopping just short of touching Mr. Adventure’s helmet.

Its tone dropped it’s rather manic tone,

“Now that you’re all caught up, let me ask YOU something.”

Behind the head, Mr. Adventure could see that the Wondertainment’s body was twisting itself out of the chair and climbing over the table towards him.

“I know you’re not one of mine… otherwise you’d be following the latest trend I set. So, what are you, Mr. Spaceman?”

“I- uh - I’m Mr. Advent-”

“I KNOW! I KNOW! I mean WHERE did you come from? You have all the style of my old self, but none of the charm! None of it!”

The body reached where the head had stopped, and so bubblegum Wondertainment adjusted its posture and stood at full height, leering at Mr. Adventure with its painted eyes.

“Are you full of rust? Did the Factory send you to finish me off?

…Or are you from another me?”

Something underneath the Wondertainment’s worn suit began to roil, and soon the entire thing started to slowly morph and transform into odd shapes.

Mr. Adventure took this as his cue to start running. Just in time too, for as he turned he saw the other workers slowly lurching their way into the office.

“Well, Mr. Adventureman, it doesn’t matter! I can disassemble toys just as much as I can create them. Finding out who made you will be as easy as…”

He activated his Moonwalkers™ and managed to jump over the approaching crowd before they could touch him. Running turned to sprinting as he made his way through ruined room after ruined room.  The entire time massive footsteps were not far behind him.

Minutes felt like hours as he crashed through the front doors and back outside, onto the road and into the elevator.

thump thump THUMP

ding

The hum of the Unbelievable Universe Hopper™ revved back to life, mixing in with the soft melodies of Dr. Wondertainment’s Jolly Exploration Elevation Elevator Tunes™. Mr. Adventure was lying on his back, out of breath and exhausted.

In a few minutes he’d have to report back his findings and whether or not the company, his company, should replace the Wondertainment of that universe.

Mr. Adventure knew exactly what he’d say,

“Universe-725367: don’t bother.”

#body horror tw #Glimpse #from the Department of Writing #[[ I've run into a few SCP blogs where the DW in their universes was killed/vanished ]] #[[and it makes sense that this Wondertainment will eventually decide to form a Department/dedicate an employee to find out why this is happ #[[ after all if something bad happened to THEIR DW then it could happen to this DW ]] #[[ message me if you need me to tag it with anything else ]] #Anonymous

[abelinstudioiva]

Analysis of Messages for Down Here

This painting represents a multitude of idea’s from this semester so far. It is a projection of possible futures. While I was looking at the golden records I was hypothesizing ways in which they would be received. I’ve heard it referred to as a call for help; an SOS although I don’t think this was the case. If that does end up being the case, my guess is that it is unintentionally so. Secretary General of the UN Kurt Waldheim speaks on the record “I send greetings on behalf of the people of our planet. We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship, to teach if we are called upon, to be taught if we are fortunate. We know full well that our planet and all its inhabitants are but a small part of the immense universe that surrounds us and it is with humility and hope that we take this step.”. It seems like a request to join some galactic spacefaring commonwealth of advanced civilizations, though many elements of its design and content hint that it was limited by the priority of needing to please everybody on earth before its intended audience. You have instances such as a nude photo of an expecting couple that drew backlash and had to be removed in favor of a silhouette of said photo, or the pulsar map which essentially doxes our solar system for anything to find which was controversial at the time given potential hostility we could be inviting over. There was also the matter of representation, whether that be ethnic or artistic, some corners had to be cut and languages fell by the wayside so that a wider variety of information could be focused on. So there is this contention between scientific discovery and respecting the etiquette of those who were not meant to receive it. In saying that however, the voyager records represent humans, so everybody. Wherever they go, we go, and so I think those people definitely had the right to feel upset if they felt misrepresented or that they were being disrespected beyond reason. The records were a big ask for inclusivity but they were handled quite sensitively from what I can gather. 

Up above, the sky, space, the aether, heavens. Long have we associated the skies with the great beyond. With space travel we have now glimpsed into heaven and found no pantheons or all knowing beings. There is a lot of emptiness in space, and we are very small within all of it. And so on that note I have placed this “pale blue dot” on a painted black board the greatly dwarfs it as a feature. It is placed in the middle of a simplified version of the voyagers pulsar map (Still accurately measured, just lacking some details such as quasar distances written out in binary) with which earth usually would not at all feature, but I wanted to make sure the earth was big enough to make the pulsar map unreadable, more like an accessory to earth that gives it a star-like presence going back to geocentricism. It’s relatively small but demands attention, being much larger than the golden dot below it on a long stem that within the pulsar map signifies the middle of the galaxy. I have chosen the orientation of the board and pulsar map to look almost as if it were to support a crucifix. A religious art cliché but that’s the point, drawing on similarities to the point of origin within the future projection.

The rings emitting from the sphere are purple, like the skeleton tucked away inside said sphere. I was actually prompted to look into this based on a discussion in class where we were talking about what purple suggested to us. The first thing that came to my mind was spirituality and we discussed it. I wanted to look into it further, which lead me to a couple of conclusions. Yes purple is associated with wealth and royalty but psychologically speaking it seems to be majorly associated with unseen forces like mysticism, magic and spirituality. Life and death and ghostly signals beamed into empty heavens with nobody listening that we know of, or not as we know it. I chose ultramarine specifically for its associations also. Ultramarine comes from the Latin wording for “beyond the sea” like the sky or how human life also evolved in the ocean before leaving it behind. Due to being historically sourced from lapis lazuli it has at times been valued more than gold, reserved for expensive commissions such as Christian iconography in Europe. My depiction of earth in this that is precious, it is home. 

To me this painting in general serves a few narratives. It could be some hypothetical future where the pulsar map is followed back to earth at a time where we are fossils. It could be analogous of the voyagers themselves that take the concept of human life outward as our furthest tangible thumbprint in the universe yet, that wherever they go we go. It could be about how we are stuck here alone for the foreseeable future with so much uncertainty. It could just be about wanting more from life on earth and being in denial of mortality. In general its ideas revolve around self preservation on a personal, spiritual, technological and cosmic sense. 

[theinvulnerabletide]

Space Things: moon, Betelgeuse, Centaurus, sombrero galaxy, wormhole for Whisper; Neptune, aldebaran, delphinus, bode’s galaxy, comet for Oriana; Jupiter, deneb, Phoenix, andromeda, black hole for Maggie; mercury, Canopus, Orion, cigar galaxy, nebula for Lyra; earth, Sirius, Libra, cartwheel galaxy, supernova for Thirteen; mercury, alphard, Cygnus, Milky Way, meteor for Celandine; Uranus, Vega, hydra, sunflower galaxy, pulsar for Az’ar; Pluto, Rigel, Cassiopeia, black eye galaxy, comet for Kori

H’okay this is going under the cut because it is almost 2000 words and got very, very long. I apologize if you are on mobile. 

For Whisper: my terrible disaster tiefling sea sorceress:

Moon: What are you currently studying/hope to study?

Whisper is currently studying like…one and a half things in her free time. Which is taking forever because she’snot exactly a bookish person. She is currently learning Primordial (and is onlyabout 130 days from fluency!) and is muddling her way through spellcomposition.

Betelgeuse: What’s something you can never forget about?

Oh man. There’s a lot of things thatweigh on Whisper’s mind, but her obligations might be the heaviest, especiallywhen her loyalties start to conflict.

Centaurus: Favorite holiday?

Fisher’s Respite. Back home it was likea full-on Irish wake (after a very long church ceremony, which Whisper foundfascinating) and Whisper was even allowed to party with the adults for a littlewhile after she was old enough. Some of her favorite memories are from herfamily’s celebrations.

Her second favorite is probably TheGreat Hunt because of all the food. Though meeting a certain Wizard might havesoured that some.

Sombrero Galaxy: Do you have a crush right now?

Define “crush.” Because Whisper wouldcrush you for insinuating anything. In her own words, she likes most of theparty well enough, finds them all pretty attractive and would probably sleepwith them if she knew they weren’t going to be weird about it.

That’s what she tells herself, and Ithink she’s probably even convinced herself of it. But there’s definitely areason she’s only slept with an old friend and a professional since the partyjoined up. *waggles eyebrows*

Wormhole: What’s something you wish would happen, but knowwon’t?

Whisper has been waiting for a veryspecific thing to happen almost her entire life, and she’s half given up hopeof it ever occurring, so… being told she can come back home.

For Oriana, my aasimar paladin of Wahreight, and the Lady of Ambrose Grove;

Neptune: When’s your birthday?

Oriana doesn’t know her actualbirthday, but she chose day 197 (16 Alma'artius) as the day to celebrate on.

Aldebaran: What’s something you care desperately about?

Doing her job the best of herability. The weird thing about Oriana is that she definitely believes in hercalling, in protecting and serving and making the world a better place. Shedesperately wants to protect the people she cares about and those who can’thelp themselves.

Delphinus: Favorite study?

I won’t say that Oriana hatesstudying, because she was methodical about it growing up and placed pretty highin all of her classes because of it, but she’s not a cleric, so she’s not inthe whole research division. More retrieval and dissemination.

That said, she really is enjoying theent philosophy books that Shade gifted her with, and I’m sure she’ll pick up afew more in the same vein once she’s finished with them.

Bode’s Galaxy: Have you ever had a secret admirer?

Not that she knows of. Though theremight have been someone who came up with her through paladin training and justnever came forward?

Comet: What’s your big dream?

Her dream used to be to make headlibrarian and perhaps get a small temple of her own to administer, but now it’sjust making the town of Ambrose Grove flourish again. She just wants to bringpeace and prosperity to the people she’s been made the guardian of.

For Maggie, my brand-newhuman warlock~

Jupiter: Do you have any siblings?

Yep! Maggie has a younger brother namedJack, who is training to be a wizard.

Deneb: Have you ever been out of your home country?

I don’t think Maggie has even been outof her province. She’s been out of Estwald a few times, to go into the forestto meet her patron, or out to smaller villages to help out with supernaturalthreats, but that’s probably as far from home as she has ever been.

Phoenix: Favorite thing to wear?

Maggie has a thick dark woolen long coatthat she wears in leiu of armor, a blue scarf she usually pairs with it. Theclothes underneath change, but her boots probably never do.

Andromeda: Do you consider yourself social?

Maggie’s entire world basically comesdown to work and her family, out of necessity. Letting people get too closecould expose her and give the Church exactly what they need to see her hung.She’d rather not have that happen.

Black Hole: What’s the last thing you want to see?

The last thing she would ever want tosee is her faerie godmother again. But the last thing she wants to see, like before she dies? Hm. I don’t know. Maybe a sunsetover the ocean; she’s never been to the ocean, but she hears its beautiful.

For Lyra, myhalf-elven rogue/pirate captain of the Star Song.

Mercury: What’s your full name?

Lyra Cooper is her whole name. Her mother never gave her a middle one. 

Canopus: Have you ever broken a bone?

Lyra has broken more than a few bones.Some of them from jumping off of buildings and not being able to stop herselffrom hitting the ground, some of them deliberately done by the head of the thieves’guilds she’s been in to teach her a lesson. She had an arm and her nose brokenby Blackthorne himself.

Once she jumped off the bird’s nestand tried to swing down via a rope, but she missed the rope and hit the deckwrong and broke her ankle.

Orion: Favorite month?

Hm. It would probably be Mirius. Lyraalways did love the spring.

Cigar Galaxy: How’s your flirting skills?

Pretty good, all told, when she turnson the charm. She has been taught how to engage and flirt and be all kinds ofcharming. But she never flirts if it’s not for a specific purpose.

Nebula: If you could undo one thing in your life, what wouldit be?

Her mother’s death. If only hermother had survived, well. Who knows where she’d be now? Definitely not thecaptain of a skyship, but all those intervening years of pain and near-starvationand killing and hurting people for a living would also not have happened, andshe wants that almost as much as she wants to see her mother one last time.

For Thirteen, myfish-out-of-water Tabaxi rogue/monk.

Earth: Where’s your home?

Thirteen hails from a jungle islandoff the main continent of the world we were on. Faraway or something like that?Idk I can’t remember what it’s called and I am Too Lazy to get up and find thecampaign map.

But she grew up in a hidden Tabaxisociety and has since been exiled.

Sirius: Have you ever failed a class?

Hell no she hasn’t. She was in thetop percentile of all her classes because she is that damn good.

Libra: Favorite color?

Gold.

Cartwheel Galaxy: When was your first kiss?

Tabaxi don’t kiss like humans orother humanoids do. I don’t think their mouths are made for it. They do touchnoses though, and I think that would have been at about 16, with some male inher class who she just managed to beat.

Supernova: What’s one thing you want to do before you die?

Find the asshole who killed hermentor and rip his guts open.

Celandine, my preciousgnome wizard prodigy

Mercury: What’s your full name?

Celandine Salvia Darkhollow.

Alphard: Have you ever lost a friend?

Yes, I think she has. Aside from hersister, Greldamine, she had one good friend until she was about 6 years old,Emelina, who lived next door. Celandine doesn’t quite remember if she died orjust moved away, only that when they started 2nd grade, Emelina wasn’tthere.

Cygnus: Favourite weather?

Thunderstorms, definitely. Rain helpsher focus and the lightning provides power for all sorts of experiments.

Milky Way: Who’s your oldest friend?  

I think she would count Greldaminehas her oldest friend, since Greldamine has been there since before she wasborn.  

Meteor: What’s something you wish you could tell, but can’t?

The thing is, Celandine doesn’t havemuch of a filter on her, and she doesn’t know when shutting up is the bestoption, so most of the things she wants to say get said.

Maybe she wishes she could talk toher parents more frankly about what being a teenager is like, but she knows shewould get grounded and her tools taken away if they learned 1/8th ofthe shenanigans her and her friends have gotten up to this first year of highschool.

For Az’ar: the Shadar’kaiLore Wizard

Uranus: What’s your hobby?

Az’ar doesn’t really have anyhobbies. She has one goal and basically everything she does furthers it in someway or another.

Vega: What’s something you’ve done that you wish you hadn’t?

I think the only thing she regrets atall is having to kill so many Shadar’kai on the way out of the Shadowfell. But theywere in her way, and since they were offering her violence, she had to returnit. I bet she regrets not stealing away while most of the tribe were asleep,though, or hiding her attempt to leave better.

Hydra: Favorite sound?

The not-quite silence of an emptylibrary.

Sunflower Galaxy: Would you date/make friends with someoneout of pity?

Oh, hell no she would not. I thinkthe furthest she’d go out of pity is to kill them.

Pulsar: What do you hope to do in the next 10 years?

1.) Determine a non-lich,non-necromatic way to remain alive forever.2.) Become the most powerful mage in all the realms.3.) Find the gods wherever they hide and kill them for good.

Kori: Oh heythat’s me!

Pluto: What time is it right now where you are?

5:56pm, CDT

Rigel: Have you ever gone on a rollercoaster?

I have. And I do enjoy them a lot,though it’s been a while for me. I think the last time was when my family wentup to the Wisconsin Dells and we spent the day at Mount Olympus? Good day.

Cassiopeia: Favorite book?

Oh, gosh. This is such a hardquestion because not only does it change all the time, but I have like 60 ofthem at once.

I’m going to go with the His DarkMaterials series for my favorite books of all time (followed very closely bythe Abhorsen Series by Garth Nix), and my current favorite book is Space Operaby Cathrynne M. Valente, and my favorite short story collection is theConservation of Shadows by Yoon Ha Lee.

Black Eye Galaxy: Do you believe in love at first sight?

Love? No. Weird visceral attraction?Yes. I have had some very intense first eye contact before. And even that muchsounds super weird so I’m going to stop there.

Comet: What’s your big dream?

Oh, man. A partner or two, a house orapartment that’s big enough for everyone, maybe with a yard with just enoughroom for a garden in the back, and a room I can use for a library/office. Abook series that’s actually making money that is still in print, even if I haveto work a job or two on the side of writing. We’re living comfortably andpaying our bills on time and I get to see my friends pretty often, and there’sd&d on the weekends and maybe I get invited to stream stuff occasionally.

That’s really it. Quiet mornings, a cat or two, lotsof reading.

#long post for ts #ask me anything! #space asks #whisper the tiefling sorceress #oriana the aasimar paladin #maggie the human warlock #lyra the half-elven rogue #thirteen the tabaxi monk #celandine the gnomish wizard! #az'ar the shadar kai wizard #and ME your friendly neighborhood blogger #kori screams into the indifferent void #islanderscaper

[mechagalaxy]

Sten Hugo Hiller - 627184: My Clan war `46

(By Sten Hugo Hiller - 627184)

My Clan war `46

First opponents: Black Star Lycan Rangers

We of the Star League are not the most flashy of clans, and while we have gotten some prizes over the years the only time we rose to the top was back in the war of `10.

As most Commanders naturally seek those clans who can give them top prizes, we are in something of a bind when it comes to personell.

Back when Paulzilla ran the show, we managed pretty decently due to his knack of doing the right things. But when he left us for the Spirit of Bunny back in `33 he made the probably worst command decision in his career.

He made me his heir.

The rest of the clan assumed he knew what he was doing, and let me fumble on for to many years. This led to disasterous results, and drove away several of our members in disgust, most missed among them our 20 ton specialist Caitlyn Mainer who returned back to the Bunnies.

In the following years it went from bad to worse to horrible.

My lack of leadership skills made recruiting close to impossible, and several of our Commanders were lost in actions against the would be galactic overlords.

Not being capable of recruiting fresh Commanders, we fought on with leaderless formations, hoping that some of those MIAs would find their way back to us.

Finally Tony Hoogheem surfaced.

I immediately called for a vote of no confidence against me as leader, and suggested Tony to pick up the shattered remains and try to build us back to what we once were.

So far he have done an excellent job, but we are still looking for a couple additional Commanders. If any of you feel like struggling against close adversaries, give him a call and try us out for a time. --- As the war aproached, Tony lost some of his cool when he still was unable to find our last MIA, Eric Loar. He was not happy about my lackluster performance in the last 30 ton event either, but as Rob had taken Gold in the same event, he had some of proven ability to run that tonnage.

As for me.. My heavyest Mechs were still jigsaw puzzles, so he decided to let me try out in the mandatory 70 ton formation. I was not confident in that role, but someone had to do it, and the others had after all working BFMs Jorge had done well in the tonnage limited 1200 total in the previos wars, and were chosen as our last specialist

Then Tony went around doing what a good leader does. Encouraging, helping and advicing. This took quite a few hours off his sleep cycles so he started getting a bit frayed around the edges. And when the listing of the divisions and first round opponents was anounced he went a bit animated.

"Rangers round one, we are doomed" Turning to me he added "They will probably blow up everything and everyone in sight, I wish there was some way to assure us having parts and ammo for the two other battledays" Then he went on his way to make us as prepared as possible.

Well, in fact there was a way to assure the Rangers never touched our supplies or ammo. All I had to do was send it away to someplace other, and have it returned in time for the two other battles. It would leave us having only the onboard ammo, and a very limited amount of spares, but if we kept it around the Rangers would probably destroy it anyway….

The battleplan Tony presented to us was so well formulated that even I was supposed to understand it. On the southern flank Jorge`s 1200 would hold the 1200 pass, and in the marshy southeast corner Rob`s 30s would lurk, ready to pounce on any opponents that managed to mire themselves down. I was to hold the broken terrain of the northern flank using my 70`s

My problem was that I did not really have a formation worthy of the name of 70 tonners.

But if you cant win by straight up fighting, use guile.

Some might consider what I did to be cheating, but as someone once said: "If you aint cheating, you aint trying hard enough"

To get to our rear area, the Rangers would have to travel through a valley that wound up into some fairly impressive peaks. Said peaks was the result of some, geologically speaking, fairly recent volcanic activity.

Getting hold of some worn signs warning of volcanic activity, and some weathered maps showing alternative routes, I placed them on the aproaches to the valley. In addition, quite a lot of brimstone was buried to give off the distinctive reek, and then came the crowning achievement.

Hollowing out one of the peaks and placing my Mechs in position to fire unobserved into it, we started heating the area. A liberal sprinkling of charcoal (constantly renewed) sent dark ashy clouds into the air, and just as the war officially started the stone started melting and slowly flowed toward the valley as a trickle of lava. I dont know if this fooled the Rangers, but at least none of them appeared inmy area of operations.

As for how the Battle went for the rest of the clan...

The Rangers struck first.

A taskforce consisting of Leeboy Wegenast, Don and Luana Alligood with Mark Shc Wiseman descended upon us. Totally unneccesary from my point of view, they got reinforced by Karl Kash, Richard Kangas and Russ Painter. They came in fast and hard and blew up every Star Leaguer they could find. Our top pilot, Able Hunter, managed to get out of the trap and ambushed Craig Vannes for our first win. 19-1 to them.

Probably infuriated by this meddling in what their plans had supposed to be a one-sided slaughter, Kangas continued his sweep. Rob Treepe tried unsuccsessfully to intercept Wegenast as he went back for more ammo, so Wiseman, Donald Anthony Alligood and Vannes decided to blow us up some more. 32-1.

Mark Cassese made a couple valiant, but doomed attacks to give our medics some moments to evacuate critically wounded personell. In response Sheila Retherford was called in to blow us up some more. Mark put himself in harms way once more, and Russ Painter responded by blowing up a couple more of us. 44-1

Jorge Roman and Tony Hoogheem had managed to get into what seemd like an advantageous position, but their attacks was crushed. Luana, Wiseman and Painter went around looking for ammodumps and blew up a couple more of our formations. 53-1.

While Painter still was active, Able tried yet again to stem the tide. roward was dispatched to keep pummeling us, and Mark failed another attack 58-4.

At this point Tony was caught in the open by Wiseman. He waved off his clanmates, so they took a break from the general mayhem they had been dishing out to watch how he crushed our leader. His Frontine consisteng of a Pike, a Warden, an Apototron, a Notos and a Reaper squared off against Tony`s 3 Aspisès,supported by an Ignis and a Torrent.

The first major hit was when wisemans Apto managed a superhit on Tony`s Torrent. In addition to the regular hit there was Splash, Fork and Wide Fork involved and Tony`s line took a severe pounding. But the Torrent fired back and one of the missiles found an vulnerable spot, goodbye Apto. Wiesmans Notos stepped up and sent a blast that all but melted the Torrent, the residential fires forced into shutdown a few moments later. One of Tony`s Aspises landed a multiple driven blow on the Pike, the heavy damage was not quite enough to fell it, but the Fork that acompanied the hit sent the Warden into an immediate shutdown. Another couple of hits later the Pike was history as well, and the shutdown Warden got blown up by a grazing hit as well. The Exchange continued, and hit after hit was landed, but not until Tony`s Ignis managed to get a flametoungue into the vitals of the Reaper was another Mech downed. The Ignis then got in another Critical hit and the Notos was history as well.

Wisemans second line, pure Boreas, advanced. Landing telling blows they blew Tony`s remaining shot up Mechs apart before they managed to get off a single shot in return.

Tony`s second line, consisting of two Anubisès flanking the main comabatants, an Apatatron, a Fext and a Notos stepped forth. The top Anubis launched a Jurrasic Thunder that spread mayhem over the whole line of Boreases by Wide Forking them. More shots were exchanged without doing more than reducing armor, and then Tony`s Notos melted one of the Boreasès. The bottom Anubis hit with another Jurressic Thunder, and in addition to blowing up one Boreas, the Wide fork shut down the others. Polishing the shutdown Mechs off was the work of moments. . Wisemans third line entered the fray. A Fext and a Humbaba supprted by a trio of 90 tonners, Antithesis, Regis and Ignis. After a furious exhange of heavy, but not telling blows, Wisemans Humbaba launched an overpowered Omen Barrell. In addition to blowing up the Apto, the Fork sent the Notos into an emegency shutdown as well. Said Humbaba launched another couple telling blows as well, by critting first the Fext and then the Notos. The last Anubis fought grimly on, but the weight of fire was against it. It landed a couple more blows, then the Ignis gave it a Coup de Grace.

Tonys third line, an Apatotron flanked by two Boreas and two Regises stepped up. Wisemans Mechs got the drop on them and scored several hits, none of them telling. Then the bottom Boreas finally got its Amarok ready. The forking shot blew the Antithesis apart and shut down the Regis. The other Boreas, not to be outdone, sent a Winters Grasp downrange, blowing up the Humbaba and shutting down the Ignis. After Tony`s top Regis had finished off Wisemans Regis by means of an Rage Pulsar it was just some mopping up to do before they was challenged by a new line.

Wisemans 4th Line consisted of a Notos and a Humbaba backed by another trio of 90 tonners, Ignis, Antithesis and Regis again. Wisemans Mechs landed a few blows, but Tony responded by critting the Regis With an Amarok. To add insult to injury he managed to turn it into a Wide Fork as well, shutting down two more Mechs. The Anti was blown up by a Regis and the Notos was felled by an Amarok from a Boreas that also sent another Mech into shutdown. Wisemans Notos, now without active linemates, managed to get off a solid blow before it disappered as part of the general cleanup.

Wisemans 5th line consisted of a trio of Dreadnoughts backed up by a Torrent and a Frigis. One of the Dreadnoughts was quickliy felled by a Rage Pulsar from a Regis, then Wisemans Torrent landed a solid blow on one of the Boreasès. It was not enough to put it out of action, but the cloud of shrapnell tok out the last armor of Tony`s Apto so it was now reduced to a non-firing target. A Boreas blew the offending Torrent to pieces, and then it was a flurry of hard but nontelling blows. But the pounding was to much for Wisemans Mechs, and they slowly disintegrated as their armor disappeared.

The 6th line of Wiseman entered the fray. Two Anubis`es backed up by an Ignis, a Rudy and an Onyx. After some introductionary exchange of fire, the Onyx finished off Tony`s Apto, then Tony`s Regisès put paid to first one Anubis and then the Ignis. A Boreas polished off the Rudy, and both the Onyx and the Last Anubis was blown up before they managed to inflict any serious damage

The last line of Wiseman consisted of two Typhoons and a Fext, screened by an Archlight and a Frigis. They managed to get off a total of one shot before Tony`s veterans blew them apart.

After Wiseman loss to Tony, something that brought Weganast and both the Retherfords into the fray to keep us busy while he was extracted, we were once more reduced to the role of targets in the Rangers game of "Whack-a-Star Leaguer". As a last reminder for us to stay down, Kash and Vannes blew us up some more.

In the end we were crushed 74-5.

The sad part? They could probably gotten twice as many wins without working up a serious sweat

[ntrending]

Astronomers just made one giant leap in solving a bizarre cosmic mystery

New Post has been published on https://nexcraft.co/astronomers-just-made-one-giant-leap-in-solving-a-bizarre-cosmic-mystery/

Astronomers just made one giant leap in solving a bizarre cosmic mystery

A view from CSIRO’s Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope antenna 29, with the phased array feed receiver in the center, Southern Cross on the left and the Moon on the right. (CSIRO/Alex Cherney/)

What comes to mind when you try to picture the most powerful object in the universe? Maybe an atomic bomb, or an ultra-powerful sun, right? Well, let me introduce you to the Fast Radio Burst: a strange phenomenon that stretches for just a few thousandths of a second, but can emit more energy than the sun does in 80 years. Thousands of FRBs flash throughout space at any given moment, yet for something so ubiquitous and so powerful, we know almost bupkis about how and why they’re formed. Much of that has to do with the fact that, since first discovering them in 2007, scientists have never been completely sure where they’re coming from. Are they expelled by black holes? Are they extensions of erratic stars running amok? Are they signs of intelligent extraterrestrials trying to communicate with us?

We’ve just taken a massive step forward in resolving that question. In a study published Thursday in Science, an international team reports the first-ever localization the origin point of a non-repeating FRB. “This was the first [FRB] where we both found it and had the right type of data to localize it,” says Keith Bannister, an astronomer with Australia’s Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) and the lead author of the new paper. “We had to build what we called the ‘live action replay’ mode in the telescope to localize this FRB.”

That ‘live action replay’ system could be the groundbreaking innovation we need to finally uncover which bizarre cosmic phenomena are producing and firing off FRBs into the rest of the universe.

“It’s a really great discovery,” says Brian Metzger, an astrophysicist at Columbia University in New York City, who was not involved with the study. “I don’t want to compare them directly, but in some ways, a localization is worth 100 events where we don’t know from where they’re coming from. There’s so much context you can get.”

The focus is on FRB 180924, now the 86th FRB detected by astronomers. Such signals are notoriously transient, and this one was just 1.3 milliseconds long—barely a blip to the human mind.

Theories on what’s producing these signals include conventional explanations like black holes or neutron stars or highly energetic supernovae, along with more offbeat options like blitzars (a hypothetical version of a pulsar) or dark matter collapses. And yes, sometimes people suggest they might come from aliens. One of the most lauded theories in recent years was pitched by Metzger and a couple of his colleagues, who suggested that the FRBs were effects of hyperactive flares from young magnetars (neutron stars accompanied by extra-powerful magnetic fields).

To be fair, this is actually not the first FRB ever. In 2017, scientists managed to pinpoint the home galaxy for a repeating FRB, FRB 121102 (one of only two observed on record). While still a difficult task, the repeated detections gave astronomers clues for where to look, and they ended up tracking it down to a weak dwarf galaxy 3 billion light-years away with a high rate of star formation.

As you can imagine, a one-off FRB is even more difficult to source. “The key is to have a telescope that can both find FRBs and is big enough, in terms of distance between antennas, to localize them,” says Bannister. “Previous telescopes have had one or the other, but not both.”

CSIRO has a trick up its sleeve that makes this task possible: the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), a 36-dish radio telescope array located in Western Australia. In the past, all of ASKAP’s dishes were typically pointing in different directions, throwing a wrench into efforts to more accurately characterize the signal, including its point of origin.

Obviously, the simple remedy to this problem was to rearrange ASKAP’s dishes so they all pointed toward the same part of the sky. But Bannister and his team also took extra steps into improving the systems that make FRB data collection possible, customizing the hardware so it could make a billion different measurements per second, and creating novel software that could crunch those numbers in real-time.

The Milky Way galaxy stretches above the core group of CSIRO’s ASKAP. (CSIRO/Alex Cherney/)

So here’s how the “live action replay” system works: once ASKAP detects an FRB, data collection halts and the software proceeds to download all the raw data collected by each dish in the last three seconds. The original signal will actually arrive at each radio dish at different times, and astronomers can use these fraction-of-a-nanosecond lags to assess the position of the FRB with a precision of about 0.1 arcseconds—“equivalent to a human hair at a distance of 200 meters,” says Bannister.

The team then imaged the origin point and measured out the distance using three of Earth’s most powerful ground-based telescopes (The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, the Keck telescope in Hawaii, and the Gemini South telescope in Chile).

As a result, we now know FRB 180924 sits on the outer rim of a galaxy 3.6 billion light years away in the constellation Grus, comparable to the size, shape, and luminosity of the Milky Way. As with other FRBs, interstellar gas caused FRB 180924 to slow down occasionally, through an effect called “dispersion.” Astronomers can actually use dispersion as a way to gauge what sort of gas and how much of it an FRB has zipped through on its way to Earth, giving us some sense as to what kind of matter lies between point A and point B and what kind of journey the signal took.

“For a non-repeating FRB, we get one shot to find it and measure its position, and the ASKAP team has done it beautifully,” says Shriharsh Tendulkar, an astronomer at McGill University in Montreal who was not involved in the study.

There is some confusion arising in trying to reconcile this new origin point with the dwarf galaxy that’s home to FRB 121102. it’s hard to fathom both galaxies producing the same type of inexplicably high-energy phenomena when the difference in size and luminosity between them is 1,000-fold.

“If anything, this discovery has thrown open more questions,” says Bannister. “We now know that FRBs can happen in quite passive parts of the universe. We previously thought you needed a lot of vigorous star formation to make FRBs.” He thinks the new findings disfavor a few models: the fact that FRB 180924 is coming from the outskirts of its galaxy raises doubts about the theory that supermassive black holes lodged at the center of galaxies are the usual source. Very young stars, like young magnetars formed after supernovae, are probably counted out as well, as are any explanations that don’t require any sort of galactic body. “We have to go back to the drawing board to understand how FRBs can happen in such a wide range of environments.”

Not everyone is convinced the new findings necessitate a radical shift in our current FRB theories. James Cordes, an astronomer at Cornell University who did not participate in the study, thinks it’s still a safe bet that neutron stars, particularly magnetars, are the most likely source for FRB production. The most major implication, he says, has to do with the theory that FRBs are formed in super luminous supernovae that are preferentially formed in dwarf galaxies with low concentrations of metals. “That may still be true to some extent, but the new FRB and its galaxy present a possible counter example,” he says.

There’s also the possibility that repeating and non-repeating FRBs are simply governed by different models. “Finding a young magnetar in the outskirts of a massive galaxy with old stars is like finding a whale in the Sahara,” says Tendulkar. “It is very early in the field of course, but this might suggest that repeating and non-repeating FRBs come from completely different origins,” and that the magnetar model only holds true for the latter.

Metzger himself doesn’t think the findings exclude magnetars outright. It may just be that magnetars are more diverse and form in more cosmic scenarios than previously presumed. “There may be more possible ways to produce these FRB-producing magnetars,” he says. “And nature might have more than one way to produce a fast radio burst.”

We’ll only answer those questions once we collect more FRB data, and it’s quite clear Bannister and his team have paved a new path for probing these phenomena in great depth. Localizing the origin point provides a much narrower window for identifying what objects at the scene of the crime could fire things off. More immediately, scientists can use FRB dispersion as a more robust way to map out the distribution of matter throughout the universe—which ought to be a boon for answering some cosmological questions. “This type of approach is the wave of the future,” says Cordes.

(Just don’t hold your hopes out for anyone to come out and say it’s aliens. It’s never aliens.)

Written By Neel V. Patel

#Technology

[inhandnetworks-blog]

Amazing Chandra X-Ray Observatory I medium voltage smart grid sensor  mages From 2018

www.inhandnetworks.com

Perseus Cluster A gigantic and resilient “cold front” is hurtling through the Perseus galaxy cluster according to data from Chandra & other X-ray observatories. This cosmic weather system spans about two million light years and has been traveling for over 5 billion years, longer than the existence of our Solar System. The image on the left shows the cold front in the Perseus cluster where X-ray data from Chandra – for regions close to the center of the cluster – have been combined with data from the XMM-Newton and ROSAT satellites for regions farther out. The Chandra data have been specially processed to brighten the contrast of edges to make subtle details more obvious. On the right, the image shows a close-up view of the cold front from Chandra. This image is a temperature map, where blue represents relatively cooler regions (30 million degrees) while the red is where th industrial IoT gateway e hotter regions (80 million degrees) are. More info (Credit: NASA/CXC/GSFC/S.Walker, ESA/XMM, ESA/ROSAT)

NGC 6231 By studying young clusters, astronomers hope to learn more about how stars – including our Sun – are born. NGC 6231 is an ideal testbed for studying a stellar cluster not long after star foverhead line sensorormation has stopped. The Chandra X-ray image shows the inner region of NGC 6231 where red, green, and blue represents the lower, medium, and high-energy X-rays. The brightest X-ray emission is white. More info (Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Valparaiso/M. Kuhn et al; IR: NASA/JPL/WISE)

Crab Nebula A composite image of the Crab Nebula features X-rays from Chandra, optical data from Hubble, and infrared data from Spitzer. Chandra has repeatedly observed the Crab since the telescope was launched into space in 1999. The Crab Nebula is powered by a quickly spinning, highly magnetized neutron star called a pulsar, which was formed when a massive star ran out of its nuclear fuel and collapsed. The combination of rapid rotation and a strong magnetic field in the Crab generates an intense electromagnetic field that creates jets of matter and anti-matter moving away from both the north and south poles of the pulsar, and an intense wind flowing out in the equatorial direction. (Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/STScI; Infrared: NASA-JPL-Caltech)

ULX in M51 Researchers using Chandra data have identified a fourth ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX), dubbed ULX8, as being a neutron star. These results provide clues about how these objects can shine so brightly in X-rays. The newly characterized ULX is located in the Whirlpool galaxy, also known as M51. This image of the Whirlpool shows X-rays from Chandra and optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope. The ULX is marked with a circle. (Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Caltech/M. Brightman et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI )

Chandra Deep Field South The growth of the biggest black holes in the Universe is outrunning the rate of formation of stars in the galaxies they inhabit, according to two studies using data from Chandra and other telescopes. This image shows data from the Chandra Deep Field-South in optical and infrared light from the Hubble, and X-ray light from Chandra. Credit: NASA/CXC/Penn. State/G. Yang et al & NASA/CXC/ICE/M. Mezcua et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI

GW170817 The afterglow from the distant neutron-star merger detected last August has continued to brighten – much to the surprise of astrophysicists studying the aftermath of the massive collision that took place about 138 million light years away and sent gravitational waves rippling through the universe. Credit: NASA/CXC/McGill University/J. Ruan et al.

SDSS J1354+1327 Using data from several telescopes including Chandra, astronomers have caught a supermassive black hole snacking on gas and “burping” twice. This image shows the galaxy, called SDSS J1354+1327 (J1354 for short), in a wide-field image from Hubble. An additional image from the Chandra data is of the central region around the galaxy’s supermassive black hole. The combined X-ray and optical data (shown with labels) reveal that the supermassive black hole in J1354 consumed two clumps of stars and gas about 100,000 years apart. (Credit: X-ray NASA/CXC/University of Colorado/J. Comerford et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI)

Galactic Center The region of the Milky Way’s center about 26,000 light years from Earth. This still image is from a 360-degree movie that immerses view rugged  ers into a simulation of the center of our Galaxy. The visualization was enabled by data from Chandra and other telescopes and allows viewers to control their own exploration of this region. From the vantage point of the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, Sgr A*, the viewer can see about 25 Wolf-Rayet stars (white objects) as they continuously eject stellar winds (black to red to yellow color scale). These winds collide with each other, and then some of this material (yellow blobs) spirals towards Sgr A*. Watch the movie. (Credit: NASA/CXC/Pontifical Catholic Univ. of Chile /C.Russell et al.)

A 360-degree movie immerses viewers into a simulation of the center of our Galaxy. This visualization was enabled by data from Chandra and other telescopes and allows viewers to control their own exploration of this region. From the vantage point of the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, Sgr A*, the viewer can see about 25 Wolf-Rayet stars (white, twinkling objects) as they continuously eject stellar winds (black to red to yellow color scale). These winds collide with each other, and then some of this material (yellow blobs) spirals towards Sgr A*. The movie shows two simulations, each of which start around 350 years in the past and span 500 years. The first simulation shows Sgr A* in a calm state, while the second contains a more violent Sgr A* that is expelling its own material, thereby turning off the accretion of clumped material (yellow blobs) that is so prominent in the first portion.

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