Shape matters in black hole growth January 31, 2010
Posted by sarah in: astronomy, new astronomy . 2comments
Fig. 1 (from Schawinski et al., 2010)
Active galaxies have gone by many names: active galactic nuclei, quasars, QSOs, Seyfert galaxies, radio galaxies. Astronomers used to think these were all distinct types of objects, unified by the observation of large amounts of energy emerging from a compact region at the centre of the galaxy. These days, despite a great variety in observational characteristics, active galaxies’ engines are generally thought to be driven by a single mechanism, the accretion of material onto a supermassive central black hole.
In a paper published to the Arxiv last week, Kevin Schawinski and collaborators have used Galaxy Zoo classifications of local Universe galaxies to show that active elliptical galaxies are markedly different from those with a more disk-like or spiral shapes, adding morphology as an additional factor to consider in our model of active galaxies.
The Astronomer’s Mating Call January 28, 2010
Posted by sarah in: astronomy, politics . 1 comment so far
Every winter is the time for an age-old mating ritual that takes place in the astronomy community: a special courtship dance where graduate students and postdocs parade round, flashing their colourful feathers, trying to appear smarter and savvier than their peers in the desperate quest for a new mecenas who will support their addiction to MacBooks and airmiles. It’s jobs season, when the friendships we’ve cherished for the past year become meaningless and it’s each astronomer to their own.
Astrobetter Guest Post: Evernote January 25, 2010
Posted by sarah in: astro 2.0, reviews . Add a comment
Some time ago Kelle Cruz, one of the writers of the Astrobetter blog, invited me to write a guest post on how I use Evernote for work. It’s just appeared on the blog today, so go check it out.
I created a public notebook in Evernote with some screenshots to illustrate some of the ways I use the programme I’ve described in the post. At the same time this can give Evernote newbies a flavour of the application’s look and feel.
Laura Veirs January 24, 2010
Posted by sarah in: science . Add a commentI just bought tickets to go see Laura Veirs, an American singer-songwriter whose music I really love. She is one cool lady: she has a background in geology, speaks Chinese and was into feminist punck rock in her college days. Her music contains a lot of nature imagery with lots of references to astronomy as well. Apparently I’m not the only one who noticed that, as I found this video on YouTube produced by Roger Griffith at NASA/JPL set to her lovely song Galaxies. Apparently Veirs is also having a baby in April, so I look forward to seeing her with bump.
Explaining light, without words January 24, 2010
Posted by sarah in: astronomy, me, science . 1 comment so far
In my time in the UK I did quite a bit of astronomy outreach work – like public observatory tours, helping out with masterclasses for teenagers and a stint at the BBC – and found it a really enjoyable way of talking about my subject to lots of different people. As any astronomer with experience in these kinds of activities can tell you, the variety of people with an interest in astronomy is really amazing. Some are incredibly knowledgeable and spend hours at their own telescopes, some think it’s all a load of shit, others suspect “astronomy” is a government conspiracy, others yet are simply a bit curious about the odd-shaped building or dish thing they drive past every day. But it’s the kids who surprised me the most: they might just stand there looking bored, and then suddenly ask a question so insightful that you wish you’d thought to ask last week’s colloquium speaker.
