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.
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Monthly Archives: October 2009
More Physics Funding Shenanigans
Those who hold the purse strings for science funding in the UK aren’t doing any favours to anyone recently. Not to themselves and certainly not to researchers early in their careers like me. The minutes from a recent meeting of … Continue reading
“A Glorious Dawn”
This has been stuck in my head all day long. How strange! It’s on my current ipod playlist. I even feel compelled to pick up my ukulele and learn how to play a cover of it — which is rare … Continue reading
Travelling Without Moving
IBEX’s image yesterday reminded me a bit of the now famous WMAP image of the cosmic microwave background, which in turn reminded me of a conversation I was having the other day. That conversation may or may not have been … Continue reading
Stellar Communications
Now this looks exciting! An IAU conference all about public outreach. I’m really liking the sound of this! “The ‘Communicating Astronomy with the Public 2010’ (CAP2010) conference will take place in Cape Town, South Africa, from 15 to 19 March, … Continue reading
Posted in academia, Imported from Livejournal
Tagged outreach
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Ribbon in the Sky
Remember IBEX? NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer has been mapping the outer limits of the solar system from a highly eccentric Earth orbit for almost a year now. It was designed to observe the Sun’s heliosphere — the bubble blown in … Continue reading
Moon Watch
So I’ve been officially berated for not blogging enough (if you can call a conversation over beer the other night “official” in any capacity). I should make more of an effort though, it’s true. I haven’t been writing much lately … Continue reading
A pinch of SALT?
So I’m looking forward to going observing at some point in the near future. There was a trip to La Palma in the pipeline, but unfortunately that fell through. The upside to that is that I’ll likely be going to … Continue reading
Posted in academia, Imported from Livejournal
Tagged outreach, student life, telescopes
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A Wolf at the Door
My post on multiple star systems a while back somehow managed to miss one of the most interesting in the sky. Gamma Velorum (γ Vel), at a magnitude of +1.7, is amongst the brightest visible stars — it’s actually a … Continue reading
Lab Demographics
Well this is atypical. Me being in for 9am? Most people don’t seem to even be here yet. Another reminder that no matter how much we all grumbled about early morning starts as undergrads, the lecturers were doubtless equally disenamoured … Continue reading
Busy busy busy…
So it’s back to work for me after a blissful three weeks off, with someone wonderful. Amusingly, back to work involved going to the cinema (and it’s not often you can say that), for a brief introductory talk to the … Continue reading