The Evil Eyebrow

Category: Science & Space

  • Bush Hates Reality

    I’m ever so shocked to see this report by Henry Waxman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. In brief:

    the Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming

    Yeah. No big surprise. Now if only somebody in the Congress would do something instead of hanging around like a bunch of neutered puppies. America goes through all the effort and trouble to give the Democrats the Congress and then they sit around with their thumbs up their butts.

  • Good Math, Bad Math does a Takedown

    I really like Mark Chu-Carrol’s blog, Good Math, Bad Math. In it, he dissects various mathematical concepts, most of which are tantalizingly past my ken, which makes me think. I like that. But he also does frequent mathematical smack-downs on the Intelligent Design boneheads out there who like to play fast and loose with statistics and information theory.

    My hat goes off to him.

  • Pluto, We Hardly Knew Thee

    A year ago, Pluto was declassified as Planet and shunted into the category of Dwarf Planet by the International Astronomical Union. This was accomplished through a series of three qualities that a ‘planet’ must possess, according to the IAU:

    1. A planet must orbit its star, not another body
    2. A planet must have achieved hydrostatic equilibrium, i.e. be a sphere
    3. A planet must have “cleared its neighborhood” of other bodies or debris

    In case you’ve forgotten the ruckus from last year, Pluto fails the third item. In addition to its moon, Charon, there are several other small bodies that are orbiting Charon, and in the same basic orbit as Pluto. Therefore, it hasn’t cleared its neighborhood.

    There are several discussions concerning this topic over at Bad Astronomy, but I’d like to reiterate my opinion that this whole thing was, and still is, very silly. Whether or not Pluto is considered a Planet, or a Dwarf Planet, or a Plutino, or a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO), is entirely immaterial to Pluto. It will continue to orbit the sun, most of the time at a distance greater than Neptune, and be the 9th Planet in the minds of a whole lot of people. The definitions of planet are arbitrary and difficult to quantify. For example, how spherical does a body really need to be to be in hydrostatic equilibrium? Saturn has a large ellipsoidal eccentricity caused by its fast rotation (although I’m not arguing that it’s not in hydrostatic equilbirum). If we find a star with one lone pile of rocks orbiting it, with a shape close to spherical, is that a planet?

    I continue to paraphrase the opinion that “I don’t know what a planet is, but I know one when I see one.” I think that Pluto should have been grand-planeted into the family of planets, and all other KBO’s arbitrarily excluded. It has come to light since last year that Eris, formerly known as 2003 UB313 and/or Xena, is actually larger than Pluto, which would have made it a better candidate for Planethood. Again, my feeling is, “too bad, Eris. You’re too late,” and allowed Pluto to maintain its title.

    So long, poor Pluto. It’s too bad you were demoted, but we won’t forget you.

  • "Why I Read Blogs" -or- "Wicked Stuff!"

    I have a feedreader, appropriately named Feedreader, which serves up to me on a daily basis a stew of random stuff. Some of this is fluff, some is interesting, some is funny, some is crap, and some is so freaking cool, that I have to pass it along to you.

    The reason why I get this deluge of random stuff every day is because, while interested in a lot of different things, I do not have the time to winnow the chaff and come out with the cool stuff on a daily basis. This is why I trust other blogs, such as the one about to be mentioned, to keep me informed.

    Thusly we come to today’s topic. I feel slightly silly blogging about it because I happen to know that at least 60% of my readers also read this other blog, but too bad. It’s wicked freaking cool.

    Bad Astronomy reports today on a program to engage the public in identifying galaxy types. But don’t take my word for how totally awesome this is, go read it for yourself.

  • Competing Crossword Puzzles

    This link, as provided by the grand offices of Pharyngula, takes you to a demonstration of the differences between science and creationism/”intelligent design”. A well put-together metaphor for a complex topic.

  • Firefly

    I have way too many friends who love Firefly. Therefore, I present, courtesy of Bad Astronomy, NASA is sending Firefly into space.

  • Awesome Astronomy, Terrible Reporting

    This morning, I was alerted by the Atlanta Journal Constitution (reg. req’d) that a Georgia State University astronomy program on Mt. Wilson, in California, had imaged the surface of Altair, a sun-sized star that is one of the brightest in the northern sky. This is cool because it’s the first time a star this size has been seen this way.

    image_5451429 However, accompanying this article was this image. It was very early when I read the news, so it didn’t ping my bullshit detectors, although the sheer amount of detail really should have been a tip-off. It wasn’t until I ended up at the National Science Foundation website that I noticed the caption that should have accompanied the image.

    An artist’s rendition of Altair

    What’s a little detail like that, between friends?

    Regardless, this is excellent astronomy and great science. I could not find the actual image that goes along with the press releases. Hopefully that will pop up into the public domain soon.

  • Big Kaboom! Massive Star Goes Nova

    The NY Times reports that the most massive supernova every observed occurred last September.

    Better information available at Space.com. The NY Times waters down the science, as usual.

    I haven’t been keeping up on my Blog Tracking or this wouldn’t be a surprise to me. This supernova is particularly cool because it does not fall into the current theories of stellar death. Someone, somehwere, just discovered their Ph.D. dissertation.

  • Homeschooling Creationists

    I was poked over to GregLaden.com to read his post about the Homeschooling Creationist Fair of 2007 [thanks to PZ] and discovered a firestorm in the comments. It is some very interesting reading. You’ve got to read to the bottom to get some of the more “interesting” comments.

  • Galactic Faerie Lights

    If you don’t like fantastic wondrous phenomenal things, do not click on this link.