TALuS 2/7/2018
m.duezCome 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.
Neutron capture elements
Guy WortheyPerhaps peruse this astrobite for TALuS on 1/25.
TALuS 1/25/2018
m.duezTALuS 1/18
Guy WortheyTopic: the 2022 red nova and other news. Free lunch for grad students in astro/cosmo/grav/etc. Review contact binary evolution if you get a chance.
January 18 TALuS
m.duezTALuS 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
Spring 2018 TALuS to begin January 18
m.duezThe 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.
December 5 TALuS meeting
m.duezWe will meet again on Thursday to discuss astronomy and astrophysics news.
Some fairly new topics:
- the interstellar asteroid
- the latest binary black hole detection
We’ll also continue our discussion of how to improve these meetings next semester.
LIGO and Virgo announce the detection of a black hole binary merger from June 8, 2017
m.forbesFrom https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20171115:
Scientists searching for gravitational waves have confirmed yet another detection from their fruitful observing run earlier this year. Dubbed GW170608, the latest discovery was produced by the merger of two relatively light black holes, 7 and 12 times the mass of the sun, at a distance of about a billion light-years from Earth. The merger left behind a final black hole 18 times the mass of the sun, meaning that energy equivalent to about 1 solar mass was emitted as gravitational waves during the collision.
The preprint is available here: