special full moon on christmas day

today's full moon is the first on christmas day in 38 years.  the year was 1977 - when Star Wars Episode IV was released!

via NASA

without any spoilers - i really enjoyed the new star wars, the force awakens, released this holiday season.  i enjoyed most of the new characters they introduced, including Rey, who is a major character.  but how pathetic that she's not included by several retailers?   DO BETTER HUMANS!

From Jamie Ford on twitter

anyway, happy holidays, everyone!

a starbug sings starwars

one of the major technologies we develop at the AAO is various ways to position hundreds of optical fibres before astronomical observations.

my current favourites are the mini-robot starbugs.   they are stuck to a glass plate by vaccuum and then "crawl" across the glass, which is located inside a telescope's light path.  each starbug moves independently, programmed to stop where the light from a particular galaxy will be aligned.

when a voltage is applied to the inside cylinder shown below, it bends slightly, and lifts the outer cylinder, allowing the whole thing to shuffle along the surface.

Credit: Australian Astronomical Observatory

here is a quick demonstration of many starbugs moving (this is from an older model of the little bugs).



what happened when AAO engineer jamie gilbert decided to get creative with the frequency, and therefore pitch, of the bugs' feet shuffling across the glass?   a geek's delight: star wars!!

have a great day being a scientist!

i have visited a few classrooms of 7-10 year old students this holiday season to talk about the solar system and what it's like being a scientist.  so many fantastic things happened during and since those visits that i think i will post several stories about them.

a little of the crazy eye, but look at all the enthusiastically raised hands! (Photo Credit: Jeff Shaefer)

i'm constantly impressed by the eagerness of the kids to answer questions, ask questions, and share stories.  they want to tell me how something in their life relates to something i've said about the universe.   and they're so sharp!

the 8 year olds are still sympathetic towards pluto not being a planet any more, despite the fact that it was reclassified to "dwarf planet" status before they were born!   it shows how strongly families and society influence what these kids know and how they behave.

Talking with my hands again.  (Photo Credit: Jeff Shaefer)

the 10 year old classes listened to the solar system news with interest, felt satisfied learning why pluto isnt a planet anymore, and then got really excited about the existence of planets around stars other than our sun!  then they asked questions about dark matter and black holes and the expanding universe!?!  certainly keeping me on my toes!  :)

some of my favourite questions are about planetary moons.  one that i do not have a good answer for is "why is ours just called "the moon" when all the other moons in the solar system have interesting names like mimas or titan?"  i mentioned that ours has a name in different languages, Luna, for example but in english it just received the definite article distinction (no, i didnt actually say the "definite article" bit).

the students also loved the idea that one of saturn's moons, mimas, looks like the death star from star wars!

Death star moon! (Photo Credit: Jeff Shaefer)

i felt a bit like a rock star after the talk as kids swarmed me with more questions and stories.   the girl in this photo is looking a bit skeptical, which means i've either done my job right or she's just annoyed that it's not her turn to ask a question yet!

Endless questions and stories :)  (Photo Credit: Jeff Shaefer)

the wonderful teachers from each class i talked to had students write thank you letters and draw pictures for me.  i have read over these adorable stacks of letters so many times since receiving them.  absolutely the best present i received this year!    here are a few favorites :)

spaced

"everything that is not made by nature is designed by someone."  - chip kidd

design by chip kidd

i found this image from an interesting article on graphic design chipp kidd on brain pickings.

one droid, two droids...

when dr seuss and star wars meet: 

artwork from peltz productions.

the sith that stole christmas

what happens when you combine star wars with one of my holiday favorites, dr seuss' how the grinch stole christmas? a well done little spoof called the sith who stole christmas ;)

two astronomers walk into a bar...

i went to a favorite pub in sydney a few weeks ago with some non-astronomer friends, who started making fun of me immediately when i arrived, because i was wearing my star wars t-shirt. i defended myself, in vain.

when it was my round for drinks, i went up to the bar with one of these friends so we could decide what kind of beer we wanted. while in the queue, i thought maybe i recognized the silhouette of someone there. sure enough, despite the hundreds of bars in sydney, there were a few astronomers at the pub who happened to be attending a conference in sydney that week.

i walked up, tapped an astronomer friend on the shoulder, and when he turned around i happily pointed out that he was also wearing a star wars t-shirt :)

i'm not sure if that actually helped my case, but i felt somehow vindicated!

tatooine-like planet found

NASA's Kepler space telescope has found a distant planet orbiting around TWO stars! remember the binary sunset seen from the planet tatooine?

Sunset on Tatooine from Star Wars.  link

that might be what the sunset would look like if you lived on "Kepler-16b" (astronomers still arent very good at naming things...)

there are currently 680 known exo-planets, which is a dramatic increase to the last time i remember checking, which was just a few months ago, and there were about 560 or so! exciting astronomical times to be living in for sure!

i knew this announcement was coming today because all day yesterday, i could hear my office-neighbour, simon o'toole, talking on the phone to several newspaper reporters, radio people, and various other media outlets about it. simon searches for planets too and is the AAOs resident expert on all things exo-planetary. as he described to the sydney morning herald:

"When you have two stars forming close together you have a big cloud of gas and dust and gravity pulls this into a disc of material which orbits both stars. If there is enough gas and dust left over you can get a planet."

since i knew this announcement was coming today, i wore my star wars t-shirt to work in honor of the new system :)

note the great view from my new office (i can hear very odd and interesting bird sounds all day), and my new hair cut!

(i'll update this post with a fun photo later today.....)

star wars is for *everyone*

i was completely disheartened the other day when i read an account of a 7 year old girl who was bullied because she liked star wars so much that she carried a star wars backpack and matching water bottle to school!

apparently some kids at her school think star wars is only for boys and made her feel so bad that she made up excuses for her mother in order to take a *pink* water bottle and blend in with the other girls at school. she didnt want to be different anymore. seven years old and these kids in groups are already absorbing nonsensical gender identifications and bullying other kids to conform.

the mother of the little girl solicited her female readers to share stories of their enjoyment of star wars, which she then shared with her daughter. the article is definitely worth a read.

so, here i am saying not only do i like (the original) star wars series, but i have an entire tag on this blog dedicated to the science fantasy space opera!

to show my enjoyment of how the series continues to inspire, i was going to choose just one of these great posters by olly moss to share. but i couldnt decide on only one and i really like the whole set. (just when i start to think there was no original star wars stuff out there...)

star wars christmas special

the folks of gamervision bring us this highly entertaining star wars christmas special. enjoy!

its never too early to introduce your child to star wars.

this video is just great!  

i agree wholeheartedly when they say:  i don't want my children growing up in a world where we believe Greedo shot first!

silent star wars

i'm almost more impressed by the piano composition than the silent movie bit, but its still worth a quick watch...

star wars tuxedo shirt

smooth.


get your very own here!

spotted at dark roasted blend.

a pet AT-AT

too cute! my favorite part is around 00:40 after he has to go outside!

AT-AT day afternoon from Patrick Boivin on Vimeo.

a june (photo) journey

the royal observatory greenwich has posted the new "astronomer's gallery" for the month of june. this month's astronomer is emma rigby who blogs about astronomy at we are all in the gutter and is a fellow post-doc here at the university of nottingham!

of the images in her gallery, i really like this photo of the aurora borealis by dave brosha:



and i'm partial to this photo of the space geodesy facility because it kinda looks like a giant lightsaber!

enjoy the rest of emma's june journey gallery!

new favorite band

may the fourth be with you

after having a pleasantly productive week last week, i'm heading out of town this week for a couple different adventures.

i'm going to london tomorrow to support a colleague who made the final cut for the Institute of Physics Award for the Very Early Career Woman Physicist of the Year. i wrote her a letter of recommendation and i'm so proud of her achievements, that i'm going to the ceremony they're holding tomorrow to honor the nominees. each "very early career" physicist finalist will give a short talk summarizing their research and there are a few other invited speakers as well.

while in london, i'm hoping to see the Hubble 3D IMAX movie which is only playing in the UK at the science museum. also, happy 20th anniversary to the hubble space telescope! the hubblesite released this image of the carina nebula in honor of the occasion:


the hubble has taken some amazing images for us - after receiving an eye treatment soon after its launch. i wonder how many of you remember when it was discovered that hubble had a flawed mirror and needed fixing? what was your reaction when you heard the news?

i was twelve or so at the time and remember thinking: oops, that was a big mistake, wasnt it?! i also remember seeing before and after images from the hubble in the newspaper after they fixed it. i was amazed at what a difference there was between the blurry before shot and the crisp, detailed after shot. while i remember feeling slightly embarrassed for the scientists because they had made such a huge mistake when making the original mirror, i was really impressed that they could fix the problem, considering the telescope was already floating in space.

anyway, after the quick 2-day trip to london, i'll leave the next day for a 4-day musical escapade at the ATP festival, curated by matt groening. i think i'm most excited to see daniel johnston live, but there are several great bands playing!

oh yeah, and happy star wars day.

star wars cakes

why didnt i think to get a star wars theme cake for my 30th birthday? there's always the 31st to plan for...




see the whole set at funcrawler.com

luke skywalker can't spell

from college humor

R2D2 knitted hat!

this is purely awesome knit wear from babbidge patch!!