Some reading:

• dust from Type II supernovae takes years to form
• Atmospheres of the habitable-zone TRAPPIST-1 planets
• WFIRST on the chopping block?
• What if we don’t need to quantize gravity?
• the spectrum of the universe (figure 8)

Come join the rest of the WSU astro people.

Some interesting news to discuss:

• Probing g-modes in the sun’s interior (Suggests the sun’s core is spinning very fast.)
• Sounds crazy, but mind-blowing if true:  extragalactic planet detections
• SpaceX does cool stuff
• RIP Donald Lynden-Bell
• Speaking of great astrophysicists, Eugene Parker is giving a plenary talk at the April APS meeting.

Matt’s list of recommended reading:

• Earth may have been habitable much longer than we used to think.
• Looking for quantum gravity effects with the EHT
• An upper limit on the neutron star maximum mass from GW170817?

TALuS begins this Thursday!  Professors Bose and Worthey will be there.  Topics for discussion:

• Dr. Worthey brings to our attention a prediction of a stellar merger and red nova outburst

The astro lunch seminar will begin next week.  We’ll be meeting in the 12th floor lounge again.  A new feature this semester will be the use of this website to post reading material and topics for discussion ahead of time.  (Of course, we’re not limited to discussing those things.)  Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning will usually be a good time to check here to see what will be on the agenda.