...now titled for Jason's sake...

I recently signed up for the Scientific American Daily Digest, and contrary to my fears of it being pseudo-spam it is instead turning out to be actually quite interesting.

Today edition includes news on the discovery of what is possibly the record holder as youngest supernova remnant in our own galaxy: G1.9+0.3. Its more interesting as given the estimated supernova rate in the Milky Way there should be of order ten young remnants (young being younger than Cas A, which is about 300 years old).

A Chandra X-ray Observatory press release on G1.9+0.3 can be found here, which is also the source of the images shown to the top left of this post. There is also a nice map showing the location of famous SNRs with respect to our location in the Milky Way.

Note that "age" is measured as time since we would have seen the SN explosion (if dust and gas wasn't in the way) and not true "absolute" age. In terms of true age Cas A happened over 11000 years ago and this new object, being more distant, happened even before that, about 25000 years ago.

Think that is confusing? How about people with different languages perceiving colors differently? It happens, even though the colors are truly the same. Now the argument is about how babies perceive color before the learn language.

[update: Whoops, no title! Thanks to Jason Harris for pointing that out.]

Harsh but true? UK parliamentary report on STFC woes

A UK parliamentary report on science funding has a substantial section investigating the STFC funding debacle (previously discussed here, here and here). See Section 3 in particular. The report is refreshingly clearly written. It concludes regarding the STFC:

STFC's problems have their roots in the size of the CSR07 settlement and the legacy of bringing CCLRC and PPARC together, but they have been exacerbated by a poorly conceived delivery plan, lamentable communication and poor leadership, as well as major senior management misjudgements. Substantial and urgent changes are now needed in the way in which the Council is run in order to restore confidence and to give it the leadership it desperately needs and has so far failed properly to receive. This raises serious questions about the role and performance of the Chief Executive, especially his ability to retain the confidence of the scientific community as well as to carry through the necessary changes outlined here.

M82, Google Sky and the WorldWide Telescope.

I use google maps all the time, but google also has google sky, a web-based AJAX application that shows the night sky. Guess what the default view you see when you log into google sky? My favorite galaxy group: M81, M82 and NGC 3077 (here is the explicit link in case they change it or start randomizing it). Well chosen google! They even prompt you to look at another starburst galaxy with a superwind: NGC 3628 [in google sky].

Its worth zooming in a bit to see M82 in all its glory though [google sky version]. Now if google could just add a X-ray option...

Somewhat confusingly there is also both a Google Sky part of the downloadable Google Earth application (which runs on Linux, Macs and Windows).

Both the NYT and the BBC have articles on Microsoft's newly released WorldWide Telescope application [link warning: it has a horrendous and noisy Flash front page]. Sadly its a large windows-only application, so I doubt I'll get around to downloading and installing it when Google Sky runs through any brower on any OS.

[Update: 16.05.08 - you can see the X-ray emission. Click the "Chandra X-ray Showcase" in the bottom pane of the google sky window and pan your mouse over the images until you see the pop-up say M82 (its the fifth image along from the left), then click that image and voila! Awesome... NGC 3079 (8th image along) is another galaxy with a superwind, most probably starburst-driven even though the galaxy also hosts a weak-but-peculiar AGN.]

Superquango blues

From this side of the Atlantic the funding problems of British Astronomy seem curiously and safely abstract, rather than being the brutal train wreck they actually are. Two recent BBC articles are worth reading: "'Black hole' in UK science funding" by Susan Watts (09 April 2008) and "Astronomers 'must make own case'" by Paul Rincon (04 April 2008). The take home message from the leaders of the STFC? "Don't point out that we've messed things up or the Government will take even more money away." What was that Bill Clinton said about the politics of fear?

Trivia: The first article mentions that STFC is a superquango - does this word, or its parent word quango, even exist in the US? Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisation.