The Lay Scientist: A dark winter for UK physics December 27, 2009
Posted by sarah in: politics . 1 comment so farDespite widespread financial gloom, 2009 has been an excellent vintage for physics and astronomy. The Hubble Space Telescope’s final servicing mission was declared a resounding success, LHC finally powered up after last year’s false start, several new astronomy satellites were launched and astronomers have tantalisingly reported a possible first-ever detection of dark matter particles. But in the UK, the year was closed on a blue note following an ominous pre-budget report in early December and the subsequent announcement of drastic cuts to the particle physics and astronomy programmes by the country’s Science and Technology Facilities Council, STFC.
For the sake of spreading the word to a wider community, I wrote a general overview blog post on the Lay Scientist blog about the funding cuts to British physics and astronomy research. Go read it here.
Bloggers and publishers team up December 25, 2009
Posted by sarah in: astro 2.0, dotastronomy, science . 1 comment so farThe post I just wrote on laser guide stars and magnetometers reminded me that I meant to write something about the recently announced collaboration between ResearchBlogging and Public Library of Science (PLoS). PLoS publishes several peer-reviewed journals in the biomedical science and provides open access to all the articles published. In an attempt to move away from journal impact factors in assessing the importance of a paper, PLoS make available a number of article-level metrics, such as ratings, citations, downloads. The most recent addition to these metrics is the integration of the ResearchBlogging portal, to provide links to blog posts that scientists have written about the article, as an added way of measuring an article’s impact. To see how it works, watch the video below.
Laser guide stars as magnetometers December 25, 2009
Posted by sarah in: astronomy, geology, science . 1 comment so far
In a nice piece of cross-pollination between disciplines, scientists have proposed a new method for measuring the Earth’s magnetic field strength using technology developed for ground-based observational astronomy. As it turns out, the laser guide stars astronomers use to sense the turbulence high up in the atmosphere can be used as cheap and efficient magnetometers.
Oh My Herschel December 17, 2009
Posted by sarah in: new astronomy, pics . 1 comment so far
Herschel stares into Aquila
Scientists have gathered in Madrid this week to discuss for the first time the data they have received from the new infrared telescope Herschel that was launched in May of this year. Some fantastic images have been produced as part of the first observing programmes, like the one above of an active star forming region in the constellation Aquila. The region was known as a ‘dark cloud’ – meaning that dust was blocking any visible or near-infrared radiation coming from its interior. Until Herschel came along, and switched on the lights. Observing at longer infrared wavelengths, the telescope is sensitive to radiation from cooler and dusty material, allowing it to peer into the cloud’s interior. The image, created from data from two of Herschel’s images, PACS and SPIRE, shows up to 700 dense pockets of cold and dusty material that may eventually condense into stars; around 100 of them have progressed to the protostellar stage where they begin to resemble a young forming star.
ESA has launched a new site to showcase the Herschel images. A little sparsely populated so far, but the first postings are very promising indeed.
Image credit: ESA and the SPIRE & PACS consortia, Ph. André (CEA Saclay) for the Gould’s Belt Key Programme Consortia
STFC: The morning after December 17, 2009
Posted by sarah in: astronomy, politics, science . 4comments
JIVE Director looking for an STFC representative (Image: M. Garrett)
Yesterday’s announcement from the Science and Technology Facilities Council was everything scientists had feared it to be, Britain has announced its withdrawal from over 20 large projects and is slashing 25% of studentships and fellowships. For astronomy some notable names are Gemini, the facilities on La Palma (including the robotic Liverpool Telescope) and UKIRT. In addition, the Dutch community will not be pleased with the news of Britain’s withdrawal from two of its flagship radio astronomy projects, LOFAR and JIVE. I haven’t seen any official responses from the Netherlands but will keep an eye out for those – although Astron Director Mike Garrett’s reaction on twitter was telling:
