Monthly Archives: April 2008

Working from Home

Posted on April 17, 2008 by Invader Xan

I has data! So I’ve been working from home, seeing as I have a few papers to read through and a whole bunch of spectral absorption and emission lines to assign (and conveniently, the database for that is online). “Vermillion” … Continue reading →

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The Dark Universe

Posted on April 11, 2008 by Invader Xan

So apparently, everything we can see in the whole universe is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Like the back jelly beans in this picture (which I’ve stolen from the Chandra Blog), most of the universe is completely invisible … Continue reading →

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Vermillion

Posted on April 10, 2008 by Invader Xan

The thing about stars is that there are lots of them. So many that, for fairly obvious reasons, they don’t all have names. Mostly, stars just have catalog numbers (Sirius, for example, is also known as HD 48915, IRAS 06429-1639 … Continue reading →

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Exploding Space Peanuts!

Posted on April 2, 2008 by Invader Xan

How bizarre. In a small galaxy called Holmberg IX (about 12 million light years away), some Astronomers in Ohio have discovered a close binary pair of yellow supergiant stars. Yellow supergiants are rare enough (supergiant stars are unstable when they’re … Continue reading →

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