超新星コンデンセート
Supernova Condensate is a blog about our place in the Universe. Of astronomy, chemistry and life in the big bad bubble of academia.-
Invader Xan is a molecular astrophysicist and part-time alien invader, who spends life looking at very small things on very large scales, and trying to better understand the chemistry of interstellar space.
DFTBA ♥
すべての我々は星で作られています。
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Monthly Archives: October 2008
~cite{Meh!}
There’s one thing I’ve come to learn over the past couple of weeks. Whether you’re speaking to a professor, a post doc or a postgrad student — they all give you the same sympathetic look when you mention you’re trying … Continue reading
Good Vibrations
Ever wonder what a star sounds like? Stars certainly aren’t silent. Actually, they constantly ‘sing’ by oscillating at certain frequencies. Using ESA’s Corot satellite, astronomers have recorded these frequencies and made them into actual sounds. Click that link above to … Continue reading
Posted in Imported from Livejournal
Tagged alpha centauri, astroseismology, stars, the sun
4 Comments
Pineapple Salsa King Prawns
This is one of the most delicious things I’ve made in months! The fruity pineapple (substituting the tomato in regular salsa) gives a sharper flavour, and the acidic pineapple juice means you don’t need to add any vinegar. Pineapple also … Continue reading
Habanero Peppers
My habaneros are just about ready for harvesting! I’ve grown these little beauties from seed and, despite a couple of outbreaks of spider mites, I’ve finally got a few plants with ripe fruit. This makes me very happy. Seriously, for … Continue reading
The Chemistry of Flavour
Flavour is all about chemistry, as any good molecular chef will be able to tell you! All of those flavours in food that you enjoy so much are due to volatile chemicals in the food itself. Those volatiles interact with … Continue reading
IBEX is now in orbit.
So it turns out, 1:48 EDT is 18:48 over here. Meh. Time zones… But what the hell. IBEX successfully launched, and it’ll hopefully give us a few interesting insights on the outer limits of the Solar system fairly soon!
Posted in Imported from Livejournal
2 Comments
IBEX Launch Day!
I just realised — IBEX launches today! At about 7:48pm BST (1:48pm EDT). And it has a launch blog which is live 2 hours beforehand. And I have mead. Mead is good. Though it means I probably won’t be sat … Continue reading
Space Coffee
Leave it to those wonderful costa ricans with their fine coffee blends to invent the best way to drink coffee in space! Picture the scene. It’s 7am (Greenwich Mean Time) and you drift into consciousness. You unclip yourself from your … Continue reading
Planets of Eternal Midnight
So planets are those lumpy things that orbit stars, right? Well, if all of the recent nonsense about definitions is to be taken seriously. That’s why there are ridiculous terms like “planetar” and “planemo” being thrown about. As far as … Continue reading
Kessler Syndrome
I read somewhere a while ago (most likely Universe Today) about a plug in for Google Earth that shows around 13,000 of the satellites in orbit around the Earth, dead and alive. It’s really quite amazing exactly how many satellites … Continue reading
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