Thursday Throughput: Binary Planet Edition
Scientists have obtained the first image of a black hole, using Event Horizon Telescope observations of the center of the galaxy M87. The image shows a bright ring formed as light bends in the intense gravity around a black hole that is 6.5 billion times more massive than the Sun. This long-sought image provides the strongest evidence to date for the existence of supermassive black holes and opens a new window onto the study of black holes, their event horizons, and gravity. Credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration
A little busy this week …
[ThTh1] Probably the biggest change in astronomy in my lifetime has been in the field of exoplanets. When I started my career, we knew of zero planets outside of our solar system. And we somewhat naively assumed that if there were planets out there, they would somewhat resemble the planets of our own system — small rocky planets close to their stars, big gas giants further out. Now, of course, we know of thousands of planets outside of our Solar System. And they have a huge variety of properties.
Recently, two new discoveries were made of planets orbiting binary systems. A binary is two (or more) stars orbiting each other. At one time, we thought it was unlikely that planets would be found in binaries; the gravitational interaction of planet and stars would eventually kick them out. But we’ve now found many candidates — usually either far away or very close in. Two recent ones are TIC 172900988 and b Centauri. In the first case, we have a binary that’s been observed for so long that we can actually measure the mass of the planet by how it affects the precession of the binary orbit. In the second, they unexpectedly found a planet orbiting around two-massive sort-lived stars. We had thought that massive stars were too bright and lived too short a life for planets to form. This indicates that they may be true for plants close to their stars, but not those further out (H/T: Burt).
One of the points I made in my recent Dune video was that the fervid imaginations of sci-fi visionaries like Herbert seem to only scratch the surface of what’s out there. The more information we get, the wilder the planets get. With the likelihood that our Galaxy contains a few hundred billion planets .. if you can imagine it, it’s probably out there … somewhere.
[ThTh2] The headline is more suggestive than the reality. They aren’t actually making plastic from fish sperm. They’re using DNA from the cells, combined with vegetable oil, to make a hydrogel to make plastic. While the process uses less energy and creates a plastic that is easily recycled, it starts to degrade is exposed to water so … I’d hesitate before investing a wad of cash into this.
[ThTh3] An interesting dive into how archeology and biblical literalism interact. We don’t know that if the biblical kingdom of Solomon was actually a thing. But there are now reasons to believe that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
[ThTh4] Color me a bit skeptical that Viagra reduces the chance of Alzheimer’s 69%. While there is a plausible mechanism in term of changing bloodflow, there are a large number of potential confounding factors (e.g., those with dementia are less likely to engage in sex). Still, it would be very nice if we developed new therapies out of this.
[ThTh5] Transits are amazing:
139 years ago #Today, the transit of Venus across the Sun was photographed from several locations around the world https://t.co/uGf1Omvld5 pic.twitter.com/zs9XwYZkIp
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) December 6, 2021
[ThTh6] Today I learned:
Here's another video of bees falling out of the sky when the lights go out. I'm surprised it's an on/off choice for them – no graceful trying to glide to land or anything like that, they literally just stop flying and plummet. Surely that's more dangerous than keeping flying? pic.twitter.com/TotxihLywQ
— Hamish Symington (@HamishSymington) December 3, 2021
[ThTh7] More progress on the fusion front.
[ThTh8] The evidence continues to show that masks have an effect on limiting COVID transmission. So if you oppose mask mandates, I guess the answer is to bury the science.
[ThTh9] This is hypnotic:
The @SpaceX @Inspiration4x launch, endlessly flowing from the pad all the way to orbit.
Composite of multiple tracking telescopes using new techniques to bring out the faintest colors and finest details–in 10K resolution.#EndlessInspiration pic.twitter.com/osWtzV4nw0
— MARS Scientific (@MarsScientific) December 1, 2021
[ThTh10] GPS without satellites? Maybe.
[ThTh11] Wow.
The total lunar eclipse as it set behind Mt Whitney, the most technically complex shot I've ever attempted, that took nearly 6 months to process. This required using 3 telescopes and 3 cameras operating with different settings to capture. #astrophotography #space #opteam pic.twitter.com/TluLBjxSZU
— Andrew McCarthy (@AJamesMcCarthy) November 25, 2021
[ThTh12] Hope everyone used a coaster.
<[ThTh13] A great video about how the vaccines work. One thing to note is that immunity is layered, which leads me to …
I am blown away by this COVID vaccine video, one of the coolest things I have seen in a long time pic.twitter.com/yREIETqtWh
— Sam (@SamIAm2021MD) November 12, 2021
[ThTh14] The work on the new Omicron variant is going at the speed of light. So by the time you read these words, the information may be outdated. But right now, a picture is beginning to emerge: Omicron is much more infectious than Delta; it can evade prior immunity — whether from vaccines or infection; however, we don’t know if the deeper layers of immunity — our T-Cells and B-Cells — will prevent severe illness and death; it is way too early to tell if it is a milder version of COVID, but early hospitalization data are not promising; there are very good reasons to believe that boosters will counter Omicron’s immune evasion.
The latter point may turn out to be the most critical. The initial results show that Omicron reduces the effectiveness of vaccines by something like 10-40 times, at least in the lab. However, the booster dramatically increases the number of antibodies, countering Omicron’s move like a bishop protecting your king from check. In this sense, it may work like so-called “hybrid immunity”, the combination of a prior COVID infection and vaccination, which also seems to show elevated resistance.
The advice remains the same: get vaccinated, get boosted, be prepared for masks to return. I doubt we will go back to shutdowns — they are unfeasible politically if nothing else. But we are edging closer to the point where we’re going to have to figure out what to do if COVID-19 becomes endemic — what is sustainable over the long haul.
That’s not as intimidating as it sounds. There are many things we do for hygiene without even thinking about it — indoor plumbing or regularly bathing for example — that our ancestors would think were crazy. A perpetual on-off state of emergency is not going to work. But vaccinations, massive improvements in ventilation and masking when viruses get bad (as Asian countries have been doing for years)? I don’t want that to be the new normal. But something like that might end up being the case.
Binary systems – We can’t possibly know if the observed planet formed around the binaries, or was captured and just hasn’t been ejected yet, can we?
Vaccine video is awesome!Report
ThTh12: A decade, maybe a decade and a half, I wandered through one of those antique stores that had Rare Artifacts in addition to stuff that was made in the 1800’s. Like, if you wanted a bracelet that had a single stone that came from an asteroid? You could get your asteroid bracelet there. A Russian icon of the Archangel Michael from the 1700s? Yep.
In the little special case, for a mere $200, they had a blue vase about the size of your finger. The base of the vase was bubbled out, like an upside down capital-T. It would hold a shortish dandelion, maybe. It dated back to the 1st century, the little card said.
I stared at it. Only $200. For a vase that held a flower picked by a hand of someone who said “Caligula” contemporarily. I didn’t get it. Where would I put it?
Anyway, that’s insane. I can’t help but think that it’s an affront of some kind.Report
What else are you going to do with them? There are too many Roman artifacts for museums to put them all on display. Better they be in the hands of people who appreciate them than in some crate in a warehouse.Report
Asimov once described, from the POV of someone born in a different start system parsecs away, the Earth-Moon system as a “double planet”, and something he had never witnessed before.
Asimov apparently subscribed to the theory that the rare circumstances of the Earth-Moon system was a likely explanation of the rareness and richness of Earth’s biomaReport
As a factor of relative sizing, he has a point (IIRC). Sure, Jupiter & Saturn have a cubic sh*t-ton of moons, as do Neptune and Uranus (although not as many as the big boys), but all their moons are tiny compared to the planets they orbit, and, of course, all four planets are gas or ice giants. So if you run the gravity equation for those systems, the planets dominate so utterly that no one would imagine it as anything but a single gravity well.
Of the rocky inner planets, only Earth has a moon that is not effectively a captured asteroid. Luna has enough mass to significantly pull on the Earth, the gravity equation is a different beast locally. I wonder if we’ll someday find that complex life likes stuff like tidal forces.Report
The moon used to be a lot closer to the Earth and the tidal impact was a lot greater. Like 10x larger waves greater.
If complex life needs a constant stirring stick at one point in it’s development than that would make it a lot rarer.Report
Might not “need” a tidal stirring stick, but we stir chemical reactants* for a reason.
*Obviously, not all chemical reactants, given that there are some that react violently to being stirred.Report
ThTh7: News about the other sort of nuclear power…
The Georgia Public Service Commission heard testimony last week about the Vogtle 3 and 4 nukes: another billion dollars in cost overruns and a several month slip for starting fueling. That brings the cost for the pair to just over $29B. The owners may be headed to court because the smaller ones assert trigger conditions have been met that require Georgia Power to pay the entirety of this latest overrun. As I understand previous PSC decisions, GP will not be allowed to ever include any of this latest overrun in their rate base.
The UAMPS small modular reactor project slated for the Idaho National Laboratory increased the guaranteed maximum power price for its owners to compensate for decreased thermal efficiency. The design was changed to use air cooling of the power-generating steam loop because the “obtain cooling water by the federal government confiscating Snake River water rights” aspect of the design was making them a lot of enemies. Enough UAMPS members have bailed that the project has been reduced from 12 planned modules to six.
Bill Gates and Warren Buffett say they will build a liquid sodium fast neutron reactor in western Wyoming. $4B price tag for 365 MWe is somewhat higher than the typical $8B per GW prices being quoted globally for pressurized water reactors (France, Finland). The announcement made a point of mentioning that the steam loop would be air cooled. This is not a good time to look for thousands (or tens of thousands) of acre-feet of water for evaporative cooling in the American West.
The Department of Energy has restarted its search for consent-based interim storage sites for spent nuclear fuel. Responses to the RFI are due by early March, 2022.Report