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mithrene

24 karma · joined February 26, 2025

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mithrene··on Astronomers have discovered a mysterious object flashing signals from deep space
The name isn't random! It's common in astronomy to encode the targets position in the name in sexagesimal units. It's useful because you can read the name and immediately know where it is on the sky.

In this case, J1832-0911 means a right ascension of 18h(hours) 32m(minutes) and a declination of -9°(degrees)11'(arcminutes). Using this, you could quickly work out whether it's visible from your location.

mithrene··on Part two of Grant Sanderson's video with Terry Tao on the cosmic distance ladder
I’m an asteroseismologist and really pleased to see a link to the Kappa mechanism. I usually teach it as a heat engine concept, and it’s applicable to most stars in the classical instability strip.

Another class of variables that aren’t mentioned are the solar like oscillators, driven by convection on the surface of the star.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-like_oscillations

Our sun is one such example and has a period of 5 minutes!