Astro Chicks

Andrew Fraknoi over at the ASP has put together a nice collection about women in astronomy. He describes it as “…a resource for those educators and students who wish to explore the challenges and triumphs of women [in astronomy] of the past and present.”

There are tons of really smart, really cool women astronomers doing outstanding work in astronomy. Often when you read about women in astronomy it’s about women of the past. It’s nice to see focus on today’s women astronomers. There are people like Wendy Freedman, pictured above, out there kicking professional astronomy ass as we speak.

Speaking of which, here is a YouTube video I found of one of my favorite astronomers, irrespective of gender, Dr. Roberta Humphreys, talking about women in astronomy.

Podcast: Slacker Chat with Doug, Michael, Aaron and Travis

It’s been a while since we had a chit-chat show. Doug, Aaron, Travis and I had a chance to catch up recently and here it is, 49 minutes of fun. As usual, we did the show from 4 locations scattered over the US and Canada, so there are moments of sub-optimal audio. We’ve never let that stop us before!

We talk about Mars, Brian May, kinematic footprints, IYA, Travis on TV, Phil Plait and more. Check out the show notes for more. The show notes are in a wiki, so feel free to add things that we miss.

Slacker Chat with Doug, Michael, Aaron and Travis (MP3, 22.5MB, 48:52, Show Notes)

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What is a planet?

Emily sums it up perfectly:

The longer I listened to the “great planet debate” last week, the more strongly I felt that if it were up to me, I would define “planet” to mean “everything in the universe that’s smaller than a star.” The fact of the matter is, every time I speak about any object visited by a spacecraft, I make frequent slips of the tongue. I call Titan a planet. I call Enceladus a planet. I’ve even called Tempel 1 a planet. They’re all wanderers, all places to visit. Subdivide it however you like — it makes sense to speak of giant (or Jovian) planets, ice giant planets, major planets, terrestrial planets, minor planets, dwarf planets, binary planets, whatever. But just look around at the people who call themselves “planetary scientists” and see what they study. It’s all of the above.

Then she goes on to show the relative sizes of some interesting “planets” in the solar system, using her interesting definition. Definitely worth a read.

Eclipsing binary imaged

The ecplising binary system Beta Lyrae has been imaged with interferometry. From the abstract:

We present the first resolved images of the eclipsing binary Beta Lyrae, obtained with the CHARA Array interferometer and the MIRC combiner in the H band. The images clearly show the mass donor and the thick disk surrounding the mass gainer at all six epochs of observation. The donor is brighter and generally appears elongated in the images, the first direct detection of photospheric tidal distortion due to Roche-lobe filling.

This is the beginning of a new era of imaging systems that have hitherto been observed (somewhat) indirectly. We understand systems like Beta Lyrae very, very well. But resolving the components is something new and quite exciting. The image on the right is Figure 2 from the paper and shows the images from both instruments as well as a model of the system.

Interview: Doug Baum on the BIPH

Astronomers spend a lot of time and money getting telescopes with bigger apertures to try to collect more photons. The BIPH (Binocular Photon Machine) is a device which makes better use of the photons you do get, multiplying the signal 50,000 times, effectively tripling your aperture.

Doug Welch and I interview Doug Baum, who along with his partner Russ Lederman, has developed the BIPH. We talk about the device, how it works and the cool ways it can be used.

Interview: Doug Baum on the BIPH (MP3, 24.3MB, 35:21, Show Notes)

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