Mountain View to pay $350K in settlement over forced sexual assault exam of 5-year-old – Mountain View Voice

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

A Mountain View couple that sued the city after their young daughter was forced to undergo an invasive sexual assault exam last year has agreed to a $600,000 settlement, according to recent court filings.

Under the agreement, filed with a federal court judge on Feb. 7, the city of Mountain View has agreed to pay the bulk of the costs -- $350,000 -- while Santa Clara County will pay $200,000. A third defendant, private ambulance company American Medical Response (AMR), has also agreed to pay $50,000 for its involvement in the incident.

The civil suit alleges that Mountain View Police Department officers had conducted an "unlawful and unfounded" sexual assault examination on a 5-year-old child in January last year. Three officers came to the family's house on Jan. 28, 2019, and demanded that the girl be examined by a paramedic to see if she had been the victim of sexual abuse.

The child had injured her pubic area three days prior when she fell at a trampoline park, but had since healed, according to the civil complaint. Earlier that day, a staff member at Landels Elementary overheard the girl saying that her vagina had bled or was bleeding, and reported the information to either Child Protective Services (CPS) or law enforcement.

The suit alleges that officers should have recognized the innocuous nature of the injury, but instead they presented the parents with an ultimatum: have a paramedic come to the house to inspect the girl's genitals or drive her to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center for a formal examination.

The suit states that the parents -- Danielle and Douglas Lother -- tried multiple times to offer alternatives, including a trip to a physician to verify the injury was not serious and was healing. Danielle Lother also offered to put officers in contact with witnesses who could corroborate the story that the girl injured herself at a trampoline park.

The parents were reportedly forced to hold down their daughter during the exam the girl was kicking and screaming while a female paramedic examined the child. After two minutes, the paramedic concluded there was nothing apparently wrong with the child's genitals.

A few weeks after the incident, the family filed a claim stating that Mountain View officers, the Santa Clara County social worker and the paramedic all acted improperly, turning an innocent injury into a traumatic event. The claim sought $1 million for severe emotional distress, past and future medical treatment and punitive damages.

The family's attorney, Robert Powell, later filed a federal lawsuit in September alleging that the city, the county and AMR had acted together to violate the family's privacy and due process rights as well as Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable seizure. It also alleges the defendant's actions amounted to negligence, battery and false imprisonment.

Since demanding the lump sum settlement of $1 million last year, Powell told the Voice that he left it up to the city, the county and AMR to fight among themselves over who had the most culpability. But he said it was pretty clear from the start that the police department was primarily responsible for the way the incident unfolded.

"No one thought for apparently a moment that, 'Hey, this is wrong. This is way overboard,'" he said.

When asked about the settlement amount, Powell said he believes the family could have been awarded more money if it went to a jury trial, but that his clients did not want to go through the stress of reliving the incident in a prolonged court battle.

"It was really, really causing a lot of emotional turmoil for the family and so we settled it, I think, considerably lower than what might have been awarded by a jury," he said. "There's a value to resolution."

Representatives from Santa Clara County did not immediately respond to requests for comment. City spokeswoman Shonda Ranson said the City Council is scheduled for a closed session discussion of the case on Feb. 25, and could not comment further.

After deductions and fees, roughly $438,000 of the settlement will be awarded to the parents, $80,000 will be given to the girl who underwent the exam and $40,000 will go to her sibling, who was interrogated during the incident. The money awarded to the children will be placed in separate secured accounts. Powell will receive $40,000 of the total settlement, plus $1,415 in counsel costs.

Powell, who has been handling CPS-related cases since the 1990s, said the incidents typically involve a child protective services agency and a law enforcement agency. This case was somewhat of an anomaly in that an ambulance company was involved and shared in the settlement agreement, he said. Despite the sizable cost of the incident, Powell said he isn't optimistic it will change the practices of anyone involved going forward.

"I have been handling these kinds of cases for around 23 years and I am back suing the same counties for the second, third and fourth time. In the case of Los Angeles County, I'm back suing them for the fifth, sixth or seventh time," Powell said. "Case after case after case of alarming stupidity, alarming abuse of power."

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Mountain View to pay $350K in settlement over forced sexual assault exam of 5-year-old - Mountain View Voice

Editorial: Surveillance by government must have oversight – Jacksonville Journal-Courier

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

Journal-Courier staff, dbauer@myjournalcourier.com

When the government tracks the location of a cellphone it achieves near perfect surveillance, as if it had attached an ankle monitor to the phones user, wrote John Roberts, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, in a 2018 ruling that prevented the government from obtaining location data from cellphone towers without a warrant.

We decline to grant the state unrestricted access to a wireless carriers database of physical location information, Roberts wrote in the decision, Carpenter v. United States.

With that judicial intent in mind, it is alarming to read a new report in The Wall Street Journal that found the Trump administration has bought access to a commercial database that maps the movements of millions of cellphones in America and is using it for immigration and border enforcement.

The data used by the government comes not from the phone companies but from a location data company, one of many that are quietly and relentlessly collecting the precise movements of all smartphone-owning Americans through their phone apps.

Many apps weather apps or coupon apps, for instance gather and record location data without users understanding what the code is up to. That data can then be sold to third-party buyers including, apparently, the government.

Since that data is available for sale, it seems the government believes that no court oversight is necessary.

Use of this type of location-tracking data by the government has not been tested in court. And in the private sector, location data and the multibillion-dollar advertising ecosystem that has eagerly embraced it are both opaque and largely unregulated.

The use of location data to aid in deportations also demonstrates how out of date the notion of informed consent has become. When users accept the terms and conditions for various digital products, not only are they uninformed about how their data is gathered, they are also consenting to future uses that they could never predict.

Without oversight, it is inconceivable that tactics turned against unauthorized immigrants wont eventually be turned to the enforcement of other laws. As the world has seen in the streets of Hong Kong, where protesters wear masks to avoid a network of government facial-recognition cameras, once a surveillance technology is widely deployed in a society it is almost impossible to uproot.

The courts are a ponderous and imperfect venue for protecting Fourth Amendment rights in an age of rapid technological advancement. Exhibit A is the notion that the Carpenter ruling applies only to location data captured by cellphone towers and not to location data streamed from smartphone apps, which can produce nearly identical troves of information.

For far, far too long, lawmakers have neglected their critical role in overseeing how these technologies are used. After all, concern about location tracking is bipartisan, as Republican and Democratic lawmakers told Times Opinion last year.

I am deeply concerned by reports that the Trump administration has been secretly collecting cellphone data without warrants to track the location of millions of people across the United States to target individuals for deportation, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who leads the Oversight and Reform Committee, told The Times. Such Orwellian government surveillance threatens the privacy of every American. The federal government should not have the unfettered ability to track us in our homes, at work, at the doctor or at church. The Oversight Committee plans to fully investigate this issue to ensure that Americans privacy is protected.

Surely, Congress has time to hold hearings about a matter of urgent concern to everyone who owns a smartphone or cares about the government using the most invasive corporate surveillance system ever devised against its own people.

New York Times

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Editorial: Surveillance by government must have oversight - Jacksonville Journal-Courier

6th Circuit: This Man Can Sue the Cop Who Arrested Him for Defending His Daughter Against a Feral Cat – Reason

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

After a neighbor called 911 and falsely reported that Dwain Barton had killed a cat, a local police officer charged through a screen door into Barton's house without a warrant and injuriously manhandled him while arresting him for animal cruelty, a charge that was eventually dismissed. When Barton sued the officer, Dean Vann, for violating his Fourth Amendment rights, a federal judge concluded that Vann was protected by "qualified immunity," which shields police from liability when their actions do not run afoul of "clearly established" law. Last Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit overturned that ruling, concluding that Barton should have an opportunity to prove his claims against Vann.

The 6th Circuit's decision shows there are limits to the doctrine of qualified immunity, which too often lets cops off the hook for outrageous conduct. But because the case did not involve a dispute about what counts as a "clearly established" right, the ruling does not go to the heart of the danger posed by that doctrine.

The circumstances that led to Vann's assault on Barton began on a Monday afternoon in November 2014, when his daughter was attacked by a stray cat as she was jumping on a trampoline in the backyard of the family's home in Lincoln Park, Michigan. Barton scared the cat away by firing a BB gun at one of the trampoline's legs. Then he noticed Jill Porter, a neighbor he blamed for attracting feral cats to the block by leaving out food scraps for them, standing in her own backyard three doors down. "Hey, Jill," Barton called out, "the next cat that I see in my yard will be a dead one."

Porter responded by calling police and claiming that Barton had told her, "Your gray cat just peed on my furniture, and he got shot in the head." That report led to a visit about 40 minutes later by Animal Control Officer Adam Manchester, who spoke to Barton through his screen door. While declining to come outside or provide identification, Barton denied shooting any cats and explained what had happened. In his written report, Manchester nevertheless asserted that Barton had "shot [a cat] in the head" with a BB gun, although he also said he had not seen any weapons or injured animals. Manchester radioed the Lincoln Park Police Department, claiming that Barton had "admitted to shooting animals."

Ten minutes later, eight police officers in four patrol cars arrived at Barton's home. According to Barton's complaint, they took "what looked like assault rifles" out of their trunks and "surrounded" the house. Manchester again asked for Barton's identification, which he handed through the door to his mother-in-law, who was on the front porch and passed it along to the cops. Moments later, Vann, who said he was afraid that Barton was "grabbing a gun," tore through the screen door and entered the house, where he saw Barton standing, unarmed, in the kitchen.

Barton's wife testified that Vann "threw [Barton] up against the counter like a linebacker." Barton said Vann "lifted [him] up with his elbows underneath [his] body and [his] arm and literally picked [him] up and slammed [him] up against [the] kitchen cupboards, at which point all of the other officers, like ants, followed in" and "surrounded" him. When Vann told Barton to put his hands behind his back so he could be handcuffed, Barton said he could not do that because of a shoulder injury. According to Barton, Vann then "grabbed both of [his] wrists and took them both behind [his] back," "shoved them both together," and "put the handcuffs on [him] as tight as he possibly could."

At that point, by Barton's account, Vann "shoved" him out the door, down the front steps, and into a patrol car, which took him to the police station, where he was strip-searched and detained for three hours before he was released on bail. Barton testified that Vann's rough handling aggravated his shoulder injury and left him with cuts on his wrists for several days.

Barton sued Vann under 42 USC 1983, which allows people to recover damages when a government official violates their constitutional rights under color of law. Barton argued that Vann illegally entered his home without a warrant, arrested him without probable cause, and used excessive force during the arrest. Vann claimed he was protected by qualified immunity, and U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh III granted his motion for summary judgment.

Steeh concluded that Vann was justified in entering the home based on "exigent circumstances," since "it was reasonable for Officer Vann to believe that Barton was armed, and that he was willing to use his weapon to harm the officers or others." Steeh also concluded that "Officer Vann had probable cause to believe that Barton had violated a local animal cruelty ordinance" and that "Barton fails to create a genuine issue of material fact on his excessive force claim" because he did not present sufficient evidence that Vann injured him during the arrest.

A unanimous 6th Circuit panel of three judges saw things differently. "Based on the facts alleged and the evidence produced, viewed in the light most favorable to Barton, a reasonable juror could find that Vann violated Barton's Fourth Amendment rights to freedom from warrantless entry into his home, use of excessive force, and arrest without probable cause," Judge Julia Smith Gibbons wrote. "These violations were of clearly established law." The court therefore rejected Vann's claim of qualified immunity.

"Without additional evidence of a threat against the police or bystanders, a report of an armed suspect inside his home does not justify warrantless entry," Gibbons observed. "Here, the only threat Barton made was that 'the next time [he saw] a cat in [his] yard attacking [his] children, it [would] be a dead one.' And when Manchester questioned Barton about the incident, prior to Vann's warantless entry, Barton told Manchester that he had shot at a trampoline pole with a BB gun, not the marauding cat. Vann never heard Barton threaten the officers or any neighbors. Vann never observed Barton with a weapon. Vann never suspected that someone inside the house was in peril. And Vann did not see any evidence of an injured animal."

Regarding the arrest, "a phone call reporting criminal activity, without any corroborating information, does not provide probable cause for an arrest," the 6th Circuit said. "Information from a caller [who] is not an eyewitness to the events lacks indicia of trustworthiness and reliability.Based on the information Vann had at the time, including the exculpatory statement offered by Barton, no reasonable officer would have concluded that there was probable cause for arrest."

As for the claim of excessive force, "Barton has presented sufficient evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Vann's use of force was reasonable," Gibbons wrote. "It would be clear to a reasonable officer that the amount of force used by Vann against Barton was unlawful. First, Barton was being arrested for animal cruelty, not a crime that would justify the amount of force used here. It was contested as to whether Barton shot the cat, and even if he did, whether he would have been justified in doing so given the attack on his daughter. There was no threat to human safety from Barton's actions. Second, Barton did not pose an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others.Third, the facts do not suggest that Barton was resisting arrest or attempting to flee."

After Barton was handcuffed, he claimed, Vann "tossed [him] down" the steps of his front porch toward Manchester. "Vann was on notice that his conduct was a violation of Barton's constitutional right to be free from excessive use of force," Gibbons wrote, "as it was obvious that Vann could not shove a handcuffed detainee off a front porch about three feet off the ground when there was no threat to the safety of the officers or others."

Many qualified immunity decisions involve disputes about whether a right was clearly established. As Fifth Circuit Judge Don Willett has observed, "qualified immunity smacks of unqualified impunity, letting public officials duck consequences for bad behaviorno matter how palpably unreasonableas long as they were thefirst to behave badly." Worse, courts often rule that a right allegedly violated by police was not clearly established without deciding whether their actions were unconstitutional. That approach creates a "Catch-22," Willett said, because "plaintiffs must produce precedent even as fewer courts are producing precedent" and "important constitutional questions go unanswered precisely because those questions are yet unanswered."

In this case, by contrast, the disagreement between Steeh and the 7th Circuit hinged on the proper application of well-established law to the facts of the incident. Even if Vann had not claimed qualified immunity, Steeh might still have held that he was entitled to summary judgment under Rule 56because Barton's allegations were insufficient as a matter of law.

If Barton ultimately persuades a jury that Vann violated his rights (or if the case is settled out of court), Vann almost certainly will not be personally on the hook for any payout. After investigating the practices of 81 law enforcement agencies, UCLA law professor Joanna Schwartz found that "police officers are virtually always indemnified" in civil rights cases. During the period she studied, "governments paid approximately 99.98% of the dollars that plaintiffs recovered in lawsuits alleging civil rights violations by law enforcement."

Originally posted here:

6th Circuit: This Man Can Sue the Cop Who Arrested Him for Defending His Daughter Against a Feral Cat - Reason

Shooting suspects lawyer demands tour of private house. Thats legal, but… – syracuse.com

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

Syracuse, NY -- Five years ago, a Syracuse man was nearly killed in a shooting over a dice game inside a Tallman Street residence.

Now, the accused shooters lawyer is seeking to tour the private residence as his client faces a retrial for the April 7, 2015 shooting.

Defense lawyer Stephen Lance Cimino made the argument under the states recent criminal justice law, which allows the defense -- the accused, too, if he or she is free -- an opportunity to tour the crime scene.

But prosecutor Shaun Chase made it clear that his office would challenge the law itself as unconstitutional.

Its a major local test for the states sweeping criminal justice reform, which went into effect Jan. 1, and also included bail reform, the political lightning rod.

Behind-the-scenes, though, rules surrounding the sharing of evidence and access to crime scenes has been perhaps a bigger point of contention.

Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick has noted a scenario in which a burglary suspect could be allowed back into the targeted residence in preparation for trial. That could include touring childrens bedrooms.

And Monday, Chase argued that the law violated the Fourth Amendment, subjecting the private citizens of the residence to an illegal search and seizure.

But Cimino fired back that forbidding access to the crime scene denied his clients right to due process, found in both the Fifth and 14th Amendments, as well as rights afforded criminal defendants under the Sixth Amendment.

Cimino said the point wasnt to collect evidence -- five years after the fact -- but to have a first-hand understanding of the layout of the house.

Edwards had already been tried and convicted of attempted murder in the shooting of an 83-year-old man. Hed been sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. But an appellate court overturned his conviction on procedural grounds.

Edwards has always maintained that he and the victim were struggling over the gun when it went off. An understanding of the crime scene and where everyone was located is crucial to that defense.

The prosecutor said hed file a protest with the Attorney Generals Office. Cimino vowed to file a response.

State Supreme Court Justice Gordon Cuffy delayed any decision over touring the crime scene until that fight played itself out.

Edwards remains jailed as he awaits his new trial. That means that he would not be touring the crime scene personally, even if his lawyer is granted access.

Thanks for visiting Syracuse.com. Quality local journalism has never been more important, and your subscription matters. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work.

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Shooting suspects lawyer demands tour of private house. Thats legal, but... - syracuse.com

Property, Privacy and New Technology – Roanoker

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

Join the Star City Thinkers discussions.

We the people have rights given by the Constitution and laws of the land. Owners of producing property, including the providers of high tech products, have rights given by the Constitution and laws of the land. BUT now as in the past laws need to be changed and interpretations of the Constitution may need to change OR the Constitution, itself, may need to be changed.

We will complete a short review of Net Neutrality whereas, there is a conflict between the property rights of original providers and those businesses who wish to hitch a ride on the train; as well as, issues of what is best for the consumers. See ProCon.org link below.

We will then look at 4th amendment issues where there is conflict with privacy issues. See Heritage Foundation link below.

KEY REVIEW MATERIAL:

Should Net Neutrality Be Restored? - Top 3 Pros and Cons

https://www.procon.org/headline.php?headlineID=005390

The Fourth Amendment and New Technologies

https://www.heritage.org/report/the-fourth-amendment-and-new-technologies

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Property, Privacy and New Technology - Roanoker

Snapchat is testing a big new redesign – The Verge

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

Snap is working on two significant tests that could reshape its flagship app in a critical year. Tipsters have provided me with screenshots of two ongoing tests that have rolled out to a small percentage of Snapchats user base. One is a redesign of the app for Android and iOS that provides a new home for the Snap Map and the companys original video programming. The other is a test of breaking news headlines inside the app that injects timely news briefs into Snapchat to complement the existing magazine-style stories on the Discover page.

Lets look at them in turn.

The redesign takes an app that has long been limited to three screens and splits them into five. Snapchat currently opens to the camera, with a space for chats to the left and the Discover page which features a collection of ephemeral stories from friends, creators, third-party publishers, and Snap itself to the right. In the new design, the Snap Map which displays your friends physical locations on an animated map, and was previously accessed by pulling down from the camera screen is now on the left of your chats. Discover has been renamed Community. And Snaps slate of original series, which includes serialized dramas and reality-style programs, can be found to the right of Community in a new tab that has inherited the Discover name.

Perhaps most dramatically for Snap, which once seemed to pride itself in its obscure design choices, Snapchat is getting a navigation bar. Youll be able to see where you are within the app at a glance, and move directly from screen to screen with a single tap instead of swiping. Its both a totally obvious thing to do and, for Snap, a radical departure.

Were exploring ways to streamline navigation across Snapchat, soliciting feedback from our community to inform future versions of our app, a Snap spokeswoman told me. This tests UI offers more space to innovate and increases the opportunity to engage with and discover even more of what Snapchat has to offer.

The test of this new look comes three years after Snaps last redesign, which was widely panned and spurred 2 percent of active users to stop using Snapchat entirely. Snap gradually walked back some of the most hated changes, and that combined with new attention to its long-neglected Android app and marketing itself internationally led the company to have something of a comeback last year. Snapchat has added uses for the past four straight quarters, and is now used by 218 million people a day.

Still, the company is not profitable. And while it remains a hit with high school and college-age users, adults who try the app still complain loudly that they find Snapchat difficult to use. I find these complaints somewhat overstated I think most people avoid learning how to use any technology they dont have to, and that if boomers friends were all using Snapchat they would manage to figure it out within a couple of days. But still, theres no denying that Snapchat has a learning curve higher than, say, Facebook Messenger.

And for everything that did to give Snapchat a sense of cool in its early days, theres a good argument to be made that its more arcane user decisions are holding it back. Id put the location of the Snap Map high on that list its a clever feature that Facebook has found itself totally unable to copy due to privacy concerns, and today its basically invisible inside Snapchat. Giving the map an easy-to-find screen within the app feels like a no-brainer.

Similarly, Snap has invested heavily in premium programming for its Snap Originals. (Although not quite as heavily as, say, Quibi.) Currently, what Snap calls Shows are displayed in a row next to other publisher content on the Discover page, where they are easily ignored. Giving them a place of prominence within the app feels like a similarly obvious step.

Still, Snap learned its lesson from the great redesign debacle of 2017, which it rolled out globally with very little testing. Today Snap, like every other social company, is taking a deliberate approach to major changes. I suspect this one will be popular and ultimately implemented, though. Where the bad redesign scrambled a bunch of popular elements and moved them into unfamiliar places, the five-screen design feels additive to the experience. You navigate the app less, and use it more. Thats a win for the company.

The second test, while less dramatic, is more relevant to our everyday interests here at The Interface. There are two basic ways to put news on your social platform. The first is to let everyone fight it out in a feed, and do some light curating around the big moments. Think the Twitter timeline plus Moments, or Facebooks News Feed plus a news tab. The upside to this approach is that you make room for lots of voices, including some who have been historically marginalized. The downside is that lots of voices have historically been marginalized for a reason theyre overtly racist, for example, or they tell you that drinking bleach will cure your cancer.

The second approach, and the one favored by Snap, has been to allow only whitelisted publishers onto the platform. In theory, this should elevate high-quality and mainstream news publishers while limiting the amount of misinformation on the platform. It hasnt always been perfect Snapchats Discover page has long been criticized for clickbait and sexually provocative stories but the company has seen far fewer scandals around hosting dangerous and extremist content than its peers.

The news briefs I saw featured timely headlines from publishers include NowThis, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. Called Happening Now, the section curates top headlines about developments in the United States and the world. Each one-sentence headline can be tapped to bring up a full screen news brief containing a photo and a short article. (The one I saw, about the New Hampshire primary, was about 75 words.)

Snap confirmed the test.

We are in the very early stages of exploring how to evolve news offerings on Snapchat, the company said. We are working with a handful of partners and testing with a small percentage of Snapchatters in the U.S. We dont have additional details to share at this time.

A collection of news briefs may look like a small thing, and perhaps it is. But surfacing high-quality mainstream news outlets like the Post and the Journal to a young audience strikes me as a good thing, particularly in an election year.

Snap emphasized to me that both of these tests are in their early stages and might change substantially before they are released to a global audience, if they are released globally at all. But it seems clear to me that at least in the case of the redesign, larger forces will continue pulling them toward the more accessible version of the app I saw in screenshots.

Having a reputation for being inaccessible benefited Snapchat until it didnt. As the app grows up, its working to become a more welcoming place. Which means being a little bit more like everyone else.

Correction, 10:11 p.m.: This article originally said Snapchat is used by 218 million people a month. It is actually used by 218 million people a day.

In Tuesdays edition we referred to Maui in Moana as a god. A sharp-eyed reader pointed out that Maui is, in fact, a demi-god. The Interface regrets the error.

Today in news that could affect public perception of the big tech platforms.

Trending up: Twitter partnered with the US Census Bureau to launch a new tool aimed at combating misinformation about the Census. When someone searches for certain keywords associated with the Census, a prompt will direct them to an official government website.

Trending up: Instagram rolled out an update to combat misinformation about the coronavirus. Now, when users click on the #coronavirus hashtag, theyll see a notice encouraging them to visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website for credible information.

Trending down: Coronavirus rumors are still going viral on YouTube despite the companys efforts to stop them from spreading. The video platform is doing better than many other social networking sites, but misinformation abounds.

Mike Bloomberg has outspent Trump on Facebook ads since joining the presidential race. Over the past two weeks, the former mayor of New York has spent an average of $1 million a day on Facebook ads. Heres David Ingram at NBC:

On a single day, Jan. 30, Bloomberg bought $1.7 million worth of Facebook ads, signaling just how much hes willing to put his personal wealth behind his long shot bid.

His campaign budget is virtually limitless, so he has the luxury of being able to engage on all of the campaign battlefronts, said Fernand Amandi, a Democratic political consultant in Miami who is not working for a presidential candidate this year.

Bloomberg, with an estimated net worth of around $61 billion, said after the muddled results from the Iowa caucuses that he would ramp up his budget for ads and staff. Hes focused on the dozen-plus states that will cast votes on Super Tuesday, March 3, which is reflected in his Facebook spending.

The UK government is planning to give platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook a mandate to protect their UK users from illegal content related to child exploitation and terrorism, as well as harmful content more generally. The regulations will apply to any websites that allow user-generated content. What will this mean in practice? Seems like it could be big. (Jon Porter / The Verge)

Facebook suspended a network of accounts used by Russian military intelligence to plant misinformation online. The network targeted Ukraine and other countries in Eastern Europe. (Jack Stubbs / Reuters)

Facebook also suspended two more networks of accounts that were each engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior on behalf of a government. The first operation originated in Iran and focused mainly on a US audience. The second originated in Myanmar and Vietnam and targeted audiences in Myanmar. (Facebook)

Facebook has been trying to ban gun sales on the platform for four years. But gun sellers are finding workarounds, gaming the Marketplace by using coded language. (Matt Drange / Protocol)

Facebook delayed the rollout of its dating feature in Europe after the Irish Data Protection Commission raised issues with the features compliance with European Union data protection rules. The feature was supposed to debut before Valentines Day. (Sad trombone.) (Parmy Olson / The Wall Street Journal)

A man experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles is suing the city over a Facebook page used by police. The lawsuit asserts that Facebook groups where residents were complaining about homeless encampments led to the man being harassed by police. (Emily Alpert Reyes / Los Angeles Times)

The Department of Homeland Security is buying up cell phone location data for immigration and border enforcement purposes. While this seems like it could infringe on peoples Fourth Amendment rights, its unclear whether using location data to target people constitutes an unreasonable search and seizure. (Gilad Edelman / Wired)

WeChat users in the US and Canada are having their messages about the coronavirus blocked to prevent contacts in China from seeing them. Its yet another example of China trying to censor unflattering information, even on international soil. (David Gilbert / Vice)

Essential Products, a consumer electronics start-up founded by the former Google executive Andy Rubin, is shutting down. The company was dogged by news about Rubins departure from Google, which involved a $90 million exit package and credible sexual misconduct allegations from an employee. (Rubin denied the allegations.) Daisuke Wakabayashi and Erin Griffith at The New York Times have the story:

In 2018, Essential received buyout interest from larger companies like Amazon, Walmart and several telecom carriers, according to a person familiar with the situation who was not authorized to speak on behalf of the company. Walmart and Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Any potential buyout would have valued the company below its $1 billion valuation, the person said.

But interest evaporated, in part because of the risk associated with Mr. Rubins workplace scandals. In 2017, The Information, a technology news site, reported that he had departed Google after an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate, prompting him to take a leave of absence from Essential to deal with personal matters.

Tim Sweeney, co-founder of Epic Games, criticized Facebook and Google onstage at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas. They provide free services then make you pay for their service in loss of privacy and loss of freedom, he said.

Carlos Maza, a journalist who calls YouTube deeply unethical and reckless, left Vox to work full-time as a YouTube creator. The move shocked fans whod come to know Maza as a critic of the video-sharing platform, after it failed to stop a right-wing pile-on against him last year. Fun little profile. (Kevin Roose / The New York Times)

YouTube is testing out a new clap feature to let fans donate to creators. The emphasis on donations suggests YouTube is closely watching whats working for creators on Twitch. Look what happens when platforms have something meaningful to compete against! (Julia Alexander / The Verge)

WhatsApp hit two billion users, up from 1.5 billion two years ago. The Facebook-owned messaging app is now the most popular chat platform. Seems like it will be a strong and growing business when the FTC forces Facebook to spin it into a separate company! (Manish Singh / TechCrunch)

In the early days of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg kept his plans for world domination in handwritten journals. He destroyed them. But a few revealing pages survived in this excerpt from a new book that I just got my hands on yesterday. (Steven Levy / Wired)

Reuters launched a new business unit to fact check misinformation on Facebook. The team will review videos and photos as well as news headlines and other content in English and Spanish submitted by Facebook or flagged by the wider Reuters editorial team. (Josh Constine / TechCrunch)

Digital blackface the appropriation of words, dances, GIFs, and memes originating within communities of color has found its way to TikTok. Questionable hashtags like #Ghetto, #InTheGhetto, and#NWordPass have taken off, as have challenges like #CripWalk. We should be talking a lot more about digital blackface, which you see everywhere once you start looking for it. (Tatiana Walk-Morris / OneZero)

Gossip influencers are creating an entire economy around chronicling the lives and romantic adventures of social media stars. In the process, theyre blurring the line between reporting and influencing. Were here for it! (Rebecca Jennings / Vox)

Tech billionaires give away billions but its just a small fraction of their staggering wealth. When you look at how much theyre giving away verses how much is in their bank accounts, the situation appears less admirable. (Theodore Schleifer / Recode)

This is what happens when you finally talk to the person youve been swiping left on, on Tinder (and why they keep showing up). Kaitlyn Tiffany has an absolutely perfect piece in The Atlantic on a phenomenon familiar to any longtime Tinder user (ahem): the person who keeps swiping right on you and showing up in your feed no matter how many times you say no to them:

I had heard from women on Twitter, and from one of my offline friends, that Alex was rude in their DMs after they matched on Tinder. When I asked him about this, he said, Im very narcissistic. I own that.

Hammerli works in digital marketing, though he would not say with what company. He uses Tinder exclusively for casual sex, a fact that he volunteered, along with an explanation of his views on long-term relationships: Idiotic in a culture where we move on from shit so easily and upgrade iPhones every year. When I asked whether hes ever been in love, he responded: lmao no. Monogamy, he said, is a fly-over state thing.

Happy Valentines Day.

Send us tips, comments, questions, and additional Snapchat tests: casey@theverge.com and zoe@theverge.com.

Originally posted here:

Snapchat is testing a big new redesign - The Verge

Solar Orbiter is on its way to study the Sun – Astronomy Magazine

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

Last night at 11:03 p.m. EST, the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA successfully launched their joint Solar Orbiter mission from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, with the spacecraft catching a ride aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

During its mission, the Solar Orbiter will get up close and personal with the Sun in order to investigate our host star and its magnetic field, as well as how the Sun influences our solar system as a whole. Though the spacecraft will spend a few years easing into its unique elliptical orbit around the Sun, once there, it will be well positioned to also study the Suns poles up close for the first time.

Equipped with a camera, the orbiter's special orbit which occasionally takes it closer to the Sun than Mercury ever gets will enable the spacecraft to snap the first ever photos of the Sun's poles. Over the course of its mission, researchers plan to have the Solar Orbiter make 22 close approaches to the Sun.

There are 10 different instruments onboard the orbiter that will collaboratively study the Sun, including a visible light telescope and tools to capture solar wind particles, dust, and cosmic rays.

As humans, we have always been familiar with the importance of the Sun to life on Earth, observing it and investigating how it works in detail, but we have also long known it has the potential to disrupt everyday life should we be in the firing line of a powerful solar storm, Gnther Hasinger, ESA director of Science, said in a NASA press release. By the end of our Solar Orbiter mission, we will know more about the hidden force responsible for the Suns changing behavior and its influence on our home planet than ever before."

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Solar Orbiter is on its way to study the Sun - Astronomy Magazine

The Sky This Week from February 7 to 16 – Astronomy Magazine

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

Monday, February 10Mercury climbs to its maximum altitude in the evening sky tonight, when it lies some 11 high in the west-southwest 30 minutes after sunset. This peak coincides with the planet reaching its greatest elongation from the Sun. Mercury shines at magnitude 0.6, so it should be easy to spot in the deepening twilight. If you cant see it with your naked eye, binoculars will show it easily. Target the planet through a telescope and you will see a 7"-diameter disk that appears half-lit.

Tonight may be your last best chance to track down Neptune during its current apparition. The outermost major planet glows at magnitude 8.0, so youll need to wait until darkness falls and then use binoculars or a telescope to find it. Neptunes low altitude it lies barely 8 above the western horizon as twilight ends only adds to the challenge. What makes tonight so appealing for a planet quest is that the ice giant world skims just 2' north of the 4th-magnitude star Phi () Aquarii. Thats about the separation between Io and Jupiter when the innermost jovian moon reaches greatest elongation. To confirm a Neptune sighting, aim a telescope at your suspected target. Only the planet shows a 2.2"-diameter disk and subtle blue-gray color.

The Moon reaches perigee, the closest point in its orbit around Earth, at 3:28 p.m. EST. It then lies 223,980 miles (360,461 kilometers) away from us.

Tuesday, February 11Tonight should provide your first good opportunity of 2020 to view the zodiacal light. From the Northern Hemisphere, late winter and early spring are the best times of year to observe this elusive glow after sunset. It appears slightly fainter than the Milky Way, so youll need a clear moonless sky and an observing site located far from the city. With the waning gibbous Moon now exiting the early evening sky, the next two weeks will be prime viewing times. Look for the cone-shaped glow, which has a broad base and points nearly straight up from the western horizon, after the last vestiges of twilight have faded away.

Wednesday, February 12Ruddy Mars continues to grace the predawn sky this week. The Red Planet now rises before 4 a.m. local time and climbs 20 above the southeastern horizon an hour before sunrise. Mars glows at magnitude 1.3 against the backdrop of Sagittarius the Archer, having crossed the border from Ophiuchus the Serpent-bearer just yesterday. Although the passage from Ophiuchus into Sagittarius is little more than a technical milestone, it does set up a series of pretty conjunctions with some of the Archers deep-sky gems next week. Unfortunately, a telescope doesnt add much to our current view of the planet, revealing a bland disk that measures just 5" across.

Thursday, February 13Although Saturn passed on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth only a month ago, it already appears low in the southeast before dawn. Look for the magnitude 0.6 ringed planet some 10 to the lower left of brilliant Jupiter. Saturns low altitude means it wont look like much through a telescope, though that will change in the coming months.

Friday, February 14In what seems a fitting tribute, the planet named after the Roman goddess of love shines brilliantly in the evening sky on Valentines Day. Venus gleams at magnitude 4.2 and shows up easily in the west-southwest within a half-hour after sunset. It grows even more prominent as darkness settles over the landscape. The planet doesnt set until a bit after 8:30 p.m. local time. If you turn a telescope on Venus, youll see a disk that spans 17" and appears about two-thirds lit.

Saturday, February 15Last Quarter Moon occurs at 5:17 p.m. EST. Look for it either before dawn this morning (when it lies among the background stars of Libra and looks slightly more than half-lit) or after it rises around 1:30 a.m. local time tomorrow (when it stands against the backdrop of northern Scorpius and appears as a fat crescent).

Continued here:

The Sky This Week from February 7 to 16 - Astronomy Magazine

Benefits Of Astronomy As A Subject In Primary And Secondary Schools Curricula – Space in Africa

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

Nigerias educational curricula entail a 9-year Basic Education Curriculum (six years in primary school and three years in junior secondary school) and three years in senior secondary school. According to the Nigerian Education Research and Development Council (NERDC), the Basic Education Curriculum was formulated towards the attainment of mathematical abilities and literacy competencies, and will also lay the foundation towards entrepreneurial and vocational skills acquisition as well as prepare the students for senior secondary education.

The goal of the curriculum structure for senior secondary schools is to allow the students to acquire technical skills, have an understanding of the increasing complexity of Technology as well as prepare them for higher education. However, these curricula do not in entirety explore certain areas of study which knowledge becoming more needed in the world. One of such areas is the study of Astronomy, but then theres also the question of why Astronomy as a subject should be introduced into the Nigerian education curricula for basic and secondary schools; the answer is not far-fetched.

Astronomy is the scientific study of the universe, celestial bodies, gas and dust within it. It is one of the oldest science fields that is deeply rooted in several cultures, African culture inclusive. It creates environmental awareness and enlightens humans about the universe.

An average human has a curious mind and always seeks to find an answer to every question. This trait is even more active in children and young adults. They always want to know more about the world around them. Common astronomy-related questions they ask are; why the stars twinkle, why some stars are so bright, where we came from, why is there so much we dont know about the universe, etc. Unfortunately, as they grow up and go through the school processes, the frame of school works and educational system begin to limit their curiosity as there is hardly any subject which embraces and provides the much-needed answers to these questions. Introduction of astronomy to children and young adults is one of the best ways of harnessing their curiosity.

Astronomy as an interesting subject can be taught in a series of indoor and outdoor sessions, and visitations to interesting places. Through movies, slides, moon observations, watching sunspots, visiting planetarium and observatories, children are exposed to opportunities to explore, thereby nurturing their curiosity and propensity for invention.

Also, incorporating astronomy into the secondary school curriculum will give a more interesting approach to some science subjects. Astronomers use mathematics and physics theories all the time, and this has influenced the development of some branches of Physics and Mathematics such as Trigonometry, Calculus, Logarithm, Gravity, etc.

According to Edutopia, relating things that are usually boring and difficult to that which arouses their curiosity, will make students more capable of learning. For example, explaining to a science student how Pythagoras Theorem, Trigonometry and Parallax method is used to calculate the distance of a particular star or star cluster to the earth helps the student better remember how to solve the problem in the future.

At the senior secondary level, Geography was added to the curriculum so the students can learn about the human environment. But, Geography is limited to the study of the physical properties of the earth, places on earth and human interactions with it while Astronomy encompasses the study of the whole universe. Geography is therefore not a substitute for Astronomy as some may perceive.

Astronomy is sometimes too abstract and complicated, as some people may say. Yes! It is, but there is nothing too complex to be broken into bits. Introduction to spatial thinking at this early stage will certainly capacitate students with the ability to think outside the box.

Furthermore, space technology is a branch of astronomy that deals with the exploration of outer space, and includes spaceflight, and development of satellites. Satellite technology has helped to improve the quality of life on Earth. There are different types of satellites, and each is launched for a specific purpose. In Africa, satellites launched so far have been useful for earth observation, communication and other developmental purposes. Satellite coverages have offered fact-based viewpoints that have helped overcome our eminent challenges and will continue to do so much more in the future. Earth-imaging satellites have been improving our agricultural yields, food security, disaster monitoring, wildlife protection, and can reduce or eliminate terrorism. Ultimately, satellite technology contributes immensely to the economic development of a nation.

According to Space in Africa, Space science and technology in Africa set lots of new records in 2019. In 2019 alone, eight satellites were launched by five different countries in Africa. These are signs of economic growth.Now, how many of the younger generations are aware of these developments, and are looking forward to having a career in this field? How will these happen if they are not allowed to know about Astronomy before they reach the stage where their interests get narrowed down? Most Nigerian Astronomy students encountered this field when they were enrolling to study in higher institutions. Adaptation to the course was, therefore, not smooth because of the lack of prior knowledge.

Interestingly, students can still go on to study other courses in higher institutions like mechanical engineering, biology, chemistry, history, language arts, law, etc., and still participate in the advancement of space science and technology in Africa. How? Because astronomy is one of the most interdisciplinary course there is.

With the international effort to build the worlds largest radio telescope SKA (Square Kilometre Array) across select countries in Africa, expertise in several fields like data analysis, development of supercomputers, etc. will be needed. For indigenous youths to be competent enough to fit into these positions and participate in this field, exposure to at an early stage is vital.

Benefits Of Astronomy As A Subject In Primary And Secondary Schools Curricula - Space in Africa

Astronomers Find Three Massive Exoplanets Orbiting Evolved Star | Astronomy – Sci-News.com

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

Using data from NASAs Kepler/K2 mission and several ground-based instruments, astronomers have discovered a planetary system with three transiting planets around the 9-billion-year-old star EPIC 249893012.

An artists impression of the EPIC 249893012 planetary system. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

EPIC 249893012 is a G8-type evolved star located approximately 1,057 light-years away from Earth.

Also known as 2MASS J15125956-1643282 or TYC 6170-95-1, the star is 71% larger than the Sun, but has a mass of just 1.05 times solar.

EPIC 249893012, which is approximately 9 billion years old, hosts at least three massive planets.

The inner planet is a hot super-Earth with an orbital period of 3.6 days.

Named EPIC 249893012b, the alien world is 1.95 times bigger than Earth and 8.75 times more massive.

EPIC 249893012b is a super-Earth with a density compatible with a pure silicate composition. However, a more realistic configuration would be a nickel-iron core and a silicate mantle, said Diego Hidalgo from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias and the Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, and his colleagues.

The planet has some residual hydrogen-helium atmosphere, which enlarges its radius but does not significantly contribute to the total planet mass.

Planets EPIC 249893012c and d are warm sub-Neptunes with orbital periods of 15.6 and 35.7 days, respectively.

They have masses and radii of 14.67 Earth masses and 3.67 Earth radii and 10.2 Earth masses and 3.94 Earth radii.

The three new planets were first discovered in data from the Kepler/K2 mission.

Hidalgo and co-authors then confirmed the discovery using the InfraRed Camera and Spectrograph (IRCS) on the 8.2-m Subaru Telescope, the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) spectrograph at the 3.6-m telescope of ESOs La Silla Observatory, and the HARPS-N spectrograph at the 3.58-m Telescopio Nazionale Galileo at Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory.

Combining K2 photometry with high-resolution imaging and high-precision Doppler spectroscopy, we confirmed the three planets and determined their masses, radii, and mean densities, the astronomers explained.

Because the EPIC 249893012 system is at an early stage of its evolution after leaving the main sequence, it is a good candidate for a detailed study of its dynamical evolution to (i) shed light on the formation of close-in giant planets, and (ii) test a hypothesis that giant planets form a dynamical barrier that confines super-Earths to an inward-migrating evolution, they said.

The teams paper was published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics (arXiv.org preprint).

_____

D. Hidalgo et al. 2020. Three planets transiting the evolved star EPIC 249893012: a hot 8.8-MEarth super-Earth and two warm 14.7 and 10.2-MEarth sub-Neptunes. A&A, in press; doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/201937080

Astronomers Find Three Massive Exoplanets Orbiting Evolved Star | Astronomy - Sci-News.com

Astronomers Find Ultramassive Galaxy From The Early Universe That Suddenly Died – ScienceAlert

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

Astronomers have found a monster galaxy causing trouble in the early Universe.

When the Universe was just 1.8 billion years old, galaxy XMM-2599 was already a colossal chonker. It was also already dead as a doornail.

Sometime between the Big Bang (13.8 billion years ago) and 12 billion years ago, it had ballooned out in a burst of star formation - and then completely stopped.

"Even before the Universe was 2 billion years old, XMM-2599 had already formed a mass of more than 300 billion suns, making it an ultramassive galaxy," said physicist and astronomer Benjamin Forrest of the University of California, Riverside.

"More remarkably, we show that XMM-2599 formed most of its stars in a huge frenzy when the Universe was less than 1 billion years old, and then became inactive by the time the Universe was only 1.8 billion years old."

For a long time, astronomers thought giant galaxies couldn't form in the early Universe. As our technology advanced, and we grew better at peering into those far reaches of space-time, those assumptions have been challenged.

It turns out the early Universe was swimming withmassive things that, according to our cosmological models, shouldn't have had time to grow. Numerical models can now account for massive galaxies like XMM-2599.

But something that got so large so quickly and then just stopped growing all of a sudden? That's a whole 'nother kettle of weird.

XMM-2599 is not the first. A few years ago, astronomers found a massive galaxy called ZF-COSMOS-20115 that had burst into life, then stopped suddenly by the time the Universe was 1.7 billion years old. ZF-COSMOS-20115, however, was 'only' 170 billion solar masses - just over half the mass of XMM-2599.

"In this epoch, very few galaxies have stopped forming stars, and none are as massive as XMM-2599," said physicist and astronomer Gillian Wilson of UC Riverside.

"The mere existence of ultramassive galaxies like XMM-2599 proves quite a challenge to numerical models. Even though such massive galaxies are incredibly rare at this epoch, the models do predict them. The predicted galaxies, however, are expected to be actively forming stars.

"What makes XMM-2599 so interesting, unusual, and surprising is that it is no longer forming stars, perhaps because it stopped getting fuel or its black hole began to turn on. Our results call for changes in how models turn off star formation in early galaxies."

Based on spectroscopic observations taken of the galaxy, the research team were able to piece together XMM-2599's star formation history. In order to get so huge, it would've had to have been forming stars at a rate of 1,000 solar masses every year for around 500 million years, at the peak of its starburst activity.

The Milky Way's star formation rate, for context, is currently around three or four solar masses per year.

Although high, XMM-2599's peak star formation rate is not unique for its time period. In 2008, a galaxy called EQ J100054+023435 was caught churning out stars at a rate of over 1,000 solar masses per year, 12.2 billion years ago. It, however, like ZF-COSMOS-20115, was much less massive than XMM-2599, at just 10 billion solar masses. And it wasn't dead.

In the past few years, simulation software has improved a great deal, and can account for extreme star formation in the early Universe. But it can't yet produce conditions that result in dead massive galaxies - what we see in ZF-COSMOS-20115 and XMM-2599.

So, there's plenty of question marks over XMM-2599. Did it form from a bunch of other galaxies? What turned it off?

And what did it evolve into in the 12 billion years since its light started its long journey across the Universe? Did it stay dead? Did it flare back to life, like the Milky Way? Or did something else happen?

"We have caught XMM-2599 in its inactive phase," Wilson said.

"We do not know what it will turn into by the present day. We know it cannot lose mass. An interesting question is what happens around it. As time goes by, could it gravitationally attract nearby star-forming galaxies and become a bright city of galaxies?"

Space, man. It's freaking nuts.

The research has been published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

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Astronomers Find Ultramassive Galaxy From The Early Universe That Suddenly Died - ScienceAlert

The Night Sky Will Never Be the Same – The Atlantic

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

Before Starlink launched, SpaceX coordinated with the National Science Foundation and its radio-astronomy observatories to make sure there wouldnt be any overlap. Unfortunately for optical astronomers, there is no such framework when it comes to the brightness of satellitesno international body in Geneva, let alone a dedicated agency in the United States. The Federal Communications Commissions regulatory realm spans communication networks across multiple industries, which means its oversight includes, oddly enough, both satellites and offensive Super Bowl commercials. But while American satellites need the agencys permission to launch, the FCC does not regulate the appearance of those satellites once theyre in orbit.

Read: The dark side of light

From the ground, Starlink satellites appear as points of light moving from west to east, like a string of tiny pearls across the dark sky. (Some people have even mistaken them for UFOs.) The satellites are at their brightest after launch, before they spread out and rise in altitude, and are visible even in the middle of cities. They appear dimmer after a few months, when they reach their final orbit, about 342 miles (550 kilometers) up, but even then they can still be seen in darker areas, away from the glare of light pollution.

In the months since they first launched, the Starlink satellites have been essentially photobombing ground-based telescopes. Their reflectiveness can saturate detectors, overwhelming them, which can ruin frames and leave ghost imprints on others. Vivienne Baldassares work depends on comparing images taken night after night and looking for nearly imperceptible variations in light; the slightest shifts could reveal the existence of a black hole at the center of a glittering, distant galaxy. Baldassare, an astronomer at Yale, cant see behind the streak of a satellite. You cant just subtract that off, she says. Some objects, such as comets, are better viewed during dawn and dusk, when theres just enough sunlight to illuminate them. But because they orbit close to Earth, the Starlink satellites can be seen during these hours, too; imagine missing a comet as it passes uncomfortably close to Earth because of too many satellites.

SpaceX is actively working with leading astronomy groups from around the world to make sure their work isnt affected, says the companys spokesperson, James Gleeson. To that end, one satellite in a batch of 60 launched in early January with experimental coating that might make it less reflective. Engineers wont know how well it worked until the satellite reaches its final orbit.

As it waits for those data, SpaceX has continued to launch dozens of the original satellites. The company wants to deploy more than 1,500 satellites in 2020 alone, which means launches could come every few weeks. On top of those, the company OneWeb is scheduled to launch a batch of its own internet satellites this week; the proposed constellation of about 650 will fly at higher altitudes, which might have the paradoxical effect of being too dim to see from the ground but bright enough for telescopes to spot well into the night. And Jeff Bezoss Amazon has asked the FCC for permission to someday launch a network of 3,200 internet satellites. In a few years time, three companies alone might transform the space around Earth, with SpaceX leading the pack.

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The Night Sky Will Never Be the Same - The Atlantic

Astronomers have found a deep space radio burst that pulses every 16 days – MIT Technology Review

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

A recently discovered fast radio burst turns out to be pulsing on a steady 16-day cycle, marking the first time scientists have been able to see a specific tempo from one of these mysterious signals.

Whats an FRB? They are extremely powerful radio emissions lasting only a few milliseconds. The sources of these bursts are absolute mysteries to astronomers, and of the hundreds that have been detected so far, weve only localized where five actually come from. Whatever event produces these emissions generates over tens of thousands of times more energy than the sun. While most FRBs are one-off signals, a few have been detected multiple times overagain, without explanation. Scientists have batted around hypotheses ranging from cosmic collisions to stellar flares to highly magnetized neutron stars to intelligent extraterrestrials (well come to that).

What do we know about this FRB? Its a repeating burst calledFRB 180916.J0158+65, first detected on September 16, 2018. It comes from a massive star-forming spiral galaxy 500 million light-years away, rich in heavy metals and low in magnetism.

Whats new here: After initially discovering FRB 180916.J0I158+65, the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) in British Columbia began follow-up observations for 13 months, detecting 28 more bursts. The bursts arrived in four-day phases (sometimes with multiple bursts, sometimes without bursts) followed by 12 days of silence, indicating that the source producing the FRB operated on a regular 16-day cycle. The findings were reported in a new paper recently uploaded to arXiv.

The plot thickens: The fact that the FRB has an overall 16-day cycle but the four-day window varies between zero signals and multiple signals suggests the source might be orbiting a massive object of some kind (such as low-mass black hole) that perhaps stimulates or eclipses emission of the signal based on the orbital period. A separate study posits that the FRB is produced by a neutron star in a binary system with a much more massive star.

Wait, is it aliens? Almost certainly not. The signals are a sign of energetic events that are on the extreme scale of the cosmos. Even a highly intelligent species would be very unlikely to produce energies like this. And there is no detectable pattern so far that would suggest theres a sentient hand at play.

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Astronomers have found a deep space radio burst that pulses every 16 days - MIT Technology Review

Scientists detect an unexplainable radio signal from outer space that repeats every 16 days – USA TODAY

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

Fast radio bursts can emit as much power as hundreds of millions of suns but only last a few milliseconds, making them difficult to study, until now. Buzz60

For the first time, scientists have detected a radio signal from outer space that repeatsat regular intervals.

The series of "fast radio bursts" short-lived pulses of radio waves that come from across the universe were detected about once an hour for four days and then stopped,only to start up again 12 days later.

This cycle repeated every 16.35 days for more than a year, according to a new paper about the research.

The bursts originated from a galaxy about500 million light-years away.

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"The discovery of a 16.35-day periodicity in a repeating FRB source is an important clue to the nature of this object," the scientists said in the paper.

An artist's conception of how ground-based telescopes detected a "fast radio burst" from a distant galaxy.(Photo: CSIRO/Andrew Howells)

The repeating pattern, reports Science X Network, "suggests the source could be a celestial body of some kind orbiting around a star or another body. In such a scenario, the signals would cease when they are obstructed by the other body."

"But that still does not explain how a celestial body could be sending out such signals on a regular basis," Science X said. "Another possibility is that stellar winds might be alternately boosting or blocking signals from a body behind them. Or it could be that the source is a celestial body that is rotating."

Alien signals?More bizarre 'fast radio bursts' detected from outer space

It's not likely to be aliens, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said in a statement, because the signals are a sign of energetic events that are on the extreme scale of the cosmos. "Even a highly intelligent species would be very unlikely to produce energies like this. And there is no detectable pattern so far that would suggest theres a sentient hand at play," MIT said.

Fast radio bursts last only a few milliseconds, which makes it difficult to accurately determine where they have come from.

"One of the greatest mysteries in astronomy right now is the origin of short, dramatic bursts of radio light seen across the universe," the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomysaid in a statement.

"Although they last for only a thousandthof a second, there are now hundreds of records of these enigmatic sources," the institute said.

Since 2007, according to MIT, most of the radio bursts are one-offs, but a small number are repeaters which recur in the same place.

Thefast radio burst that repeats every 16 days was detected by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment, a radio telescope designed and built by several groups of Canadian scientists to study space phenomena.

#BroomChallenge: You can actually stand a broom up anytime during the year

You may like: NASA astronaut Christina Koch returns to Earth after recording-setting 328 days in space

The CHIME telescope in British Columbia will help detect future fast radio bursts.(Photo: Andre Recnik)

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Scientists detect an unexplainable radio signal from outer space that repeats every 16 days - USA TODAY

Here are some astronomical LEGO facts in honor of LEGO Masters upcoming space-themed episode – FOX 10 News Phoenix

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

Actress, neuroscientist, and overall genius Mayim Bialik will use her science know-how LEGO Masters

This weeks highly-anticipated Space Smash event aims to be an astronomical, televised brick build-off.

LOS ANGELES - Following last weeks amusement park-themed episode of LEGO Masters, this weeks highly-anticipated Space Smash event aims to be an astronomical, televised brick build-off.

If that werent exciting enough, actress, neuroscientist, and overall genius Mayim Bialik will use her science know-how as a guest judge, critiquing the LEGO-ized aliens, rocket ships and more.

To get you stoked for Wednesday nights episode, here are some LEGO facts that are simply out of this world:

Each year, over 20 billion LEGO pieces are made

There are approximately 35,000 LEGO pieces made every single minute. That might explain why its so easy to step on them.

Since LEGO began production of its iconic colorful pieces in 1932, there have been 400 billion created. If you stacked together every brick ever produced, the resulting toy tower would be 2,386,065 miles tall.

LEGO = Play Well

The name LEGO originates from the Danish term Leg Godt, meaning Play Well. Its actually the companys motto.

Every second, seven LEGO sets are sold in retail

The toy has never slowed in demand since the Danish company began making sets in 1955.

As if these brick production efforts werent impressive enough, LEGO also makes 400 million tiny toy tires annually, technically making the company the largest tire manufacturer in the world.

There are 86 LEGO bricks for every person on Earth

And for some, they have their own LEGO-ized versions of themselves. The manufacturer started basing its figurines off of notable people when it began producing NBAMinifigures in 2003.

The plural of LEGO is LEGO

The companys famous bricks come in over 60 different colors. This explains why it is so easy to get creative with them.

Each piece even has its own story. On the interior of a LEGO brick is stamped a three-digit number that indicates the origin of the molds production line. This means that any brick could be traced back to where it was produced in the event of errors.

Watch LEGO Masters at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT on FOX.

This story was reported from Los Angeles. This station is owned by the FOX Corporation.

The economic cost of destroying nature is astronomical – Fast Company

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

The world economy depends on nature, from coral reefs that protect coastal cities from flooding to insects that pollinate crops. But by the middle of the century, the loss of key ecosystem services could cost the world $479 billion each year. The U.S. will lose more than any other country, with an $83 billion loss to the GDP per year by 2050.

Thats a conservative estimate. The projection comes from a report, called Global Futures, from World Wildlife Fund, which looked at only six of the services that nature provides and how those might change because of the impacts of climate breakdown, lost wildlife habitat, and other human-caused destruction of nature. (Many other services will also be impacted but cant currently be accurately modeled; the study also doesnt take into account the possibility of tipping points that lead to sudden, catastrophic losses of natural services.) By 2050, if the world continues on its current path, the global economy could lose $327 billion a year as we lose natural coastal protection from coral reefs, mangrove forests, and other natural systems. Another $128 billion could be lost annually from forests and peatlands that store carbon. Agriculture could lose $15 billion from lost pollinators and $19 billion from reduced water availability. Food costs are likely to go up, threatening food security in some regions.

In the U.S., the biggest losses will come from lost coastal protection and losses in marine fisheries. Because of the size of the U.S. economy, it will lose most in absolute terms. But developing countries will be hit hardest in terms of the percentage of GDP lost; Madagascar tops that list, followed by Togo, Vietnam, and Mozambique.

If the world radically changes course to more sustainable development, protecting areas that are most critical for biodiversity and ecosystem services, the global annual GDP could, instead, grow $11 billion by 2050. Businesses can help this happen by taking steps to make sure their supply chains arent damaging tropical forests and other key ecosystems, the report says. The nonprofit is also advocating for a New Deal for Nature and People that would help stop and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. The current situation is bleak: Around half of the worlds corals have been lost in the last three decades. An average of around 12 million hectares of tropical forest has been lost each year in the last decade. More than 40% of insect species are at risk of extinction in the next few decadesand overall, a U.N. report last year estimated that humans have managed to put more than 1 million species at risk of extinction.

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The economic cost of destroying nature is astronomical - Fast Company

Ask An Astronomer: Here’s All You Need to Know About Decade’s First Supermoon on February 9 – The Weather Channel

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

A "supermoon" is seen over Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Nov. 14, 2016.

Come Sunday night, and a larger-than-usual full moon is likely to greet you with the decade's first supermoon-like experience. While most of the astronomers believe that the full snow moon on February 9 is a supermoon, there are a few who say it is not. Remember, there is no single foolproof definition for the supermoon, and hence the confusion.

Amid all the ambiguity, we asked Mr Pradeep Nayak, a senior astronomer at Khagol Mandal and the author of 'Tarangan: Guide to night sky', to answer to tell us more about this recurring phenomenon. Khagol Mandal is a non-profit collective of astronomy enthusiasts who organise various sky observation programmes, lectures and study tours. Here is what Mr Nayak had to say:

First, can you tell us what a supermoon is?

A 'supermoon' rises at CST in Mumbai on Monday, November 14, 2016,

Supermoon simply means the full moon which appears larger to us than usual when its position in its orbit is nearest to the Earth. According to another definition, it is also the new moon at its closest approach to Earth, but since the new moon is 'Amavasya', we cannot observe the moon that day. There is no official definition of supermoon given by the International Astronomical Union. So, one may find different full moons or new moons as supermoons.

On February 9, there is a full moon day, and it's also a 'supermoon' according to famous Solar and Lunar eclipse scientist, Fred Espenak.

What is the best time and place to witness the supermoon on February 9?

As the sun will set in the west, this supermoon will rise over the eastern horizon. Choose a place from where the eastern horizon is clearly visible. Moon will rise at around 7:10 from Mumbai region. Since our celestial neighbour will be visible throughout the night, you can get a glimpse of brighter and larger than usual supermoon any time during the night. As the moon rises high on the sky, one can witness moon from any suitable place. It might be cold out there. So if you are planning to stay outdoor for a longer time, it is better to protect yourself with warm clothing.

Will the supermoon be visible around the world?

A "super moon" rises near the Lincoln Memorial on March 19, 2011, in Washington, D.C.

As Earth rotates around its axis in 24 hours, entire Earth will be able to observe the full moon on this day. As the day starts from the east, from the International Date Line, the night also starts from there.

Supermoon will be visible to half of the globe at a time. During the nighttime, all seven billion-plus people will be able to watch brightly lit supermoon, provided the sky clear. As the moon approached its 'perigee' with respect to Earth, the apparent size would be larger than usual.

Wait a minute, what do you mean by the 'perigee', and how much do supermoon events vary in size and brightness?

Moon is the most prominent object in the sky. Moon is the closest celestial object to us. Lying at the average distance of 3,84,000 km from Earth, it revolves the Earth about every 27 days.

To understand what is apogee and perigee, we have to remember what we studied during high school. Every planet revolves around the sun in an elliptical orbit, and every ellipse has two foci, i.e., two centres. Sun is on one of the foci. So, when the planet revolves around the sun, planet-sun distances are not constant, but always change. Hence, during the revolution, at one point in its orbit, the planet comes closest to the sun and at another point planet moves farthest from the sun.

Mumbaikars were treated with a bigger and brighter super full moon on Tuesday, Feb 19, 2019.

Same is true for our earth-moon system. When the moon is farthest to Earth in its orbit, at the distance of 4,05,700 km, i.e. 21,700 km further than average, it appears slightly smaller in apparent size. This point on moon's orbit is called as 'apogee'.

When the moon is closest to the Earth in its orbit, it is at the distance of 3,63,100 km from Earth, which is almost 21,000 km closer than the average. At this point, called 'perigee', the moon appears much larger.

Whenever the full moon occurs at or near perigee, it is called 'supermoon'. A supermoon appears around 14 per cent larger and 30 per cent brighter than usual. Of course, the change in size and brightness is not distinctly perceivable to a casual observer. With sophisticated instruments and accurate measurements, one can measure the difference in size as well as brightness.

Is there any impact of this particular phase of the moon on the Earth?

The term supermoon is relatively new. A US astronomer by the name Richard Nolle coined this term about 40 years ago. There are a few predictions of disasters during supermoon day. But, these claims are entirely untrue and have been refuted by scientists all over the world. It is the day as usual for Earth. Apart from a visual treat, the only effect we may observe is slightly higher spring tide. Astronomy enthusiasts now use this event to popularise astronomy.

How many supermoons can we look forward to in 2020?

"Supermoon" appears in the sky over Cairo, Egypt, on Jan. 31, 2018.

In the recent past, there were three consecutive supermoons in October, November and December 2016, which arouse the interest of people all over the world. November 2016 was the largest supermoon in the last 70 years.

The year 2020 is unique in terms of lunar events as we are going to witness four consecutive supermoons: February 9, March 9, April 8 and May 7.

Why the apparent size of the moon visible from the Earth change with time?

As the moon revolves around the Earth in an elliptical orbit, the distance between the Earth and the moon keeps changing. Therefore, the size of the moon also varies according to distance.

There is another factor which changes the size of the moon with timealbeit extremely slowly. The gravitational interaction between the sun, the Earth and the moon, is slowly pulling the moon away from the Earth, at the rate of about 4 cm per year.

This article was produced in collaboration with Khagol Mandal.

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Ask An Astronomer: Here's All You Need to Know About Decade's First Supermoon on February 9 - The Weather Channel

Darkest county in Georgia has its own astronomy village – 13WMAZ.com

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

From the Atlantic Coast to the mountains, there's a lot to do and see in Georgia. On Fridays, Anchor and Reporter Suzanne Lawler is taking you into wild places around the state you've probably never been to in her four-part series "Georgia Adventures."

If you're into stargazing, the darkest city in the state and even the southeast has you covered.

Sharon, Georgia in Taliaferro County is what you would call a one-horse town, with a population just over a hundred folks.

"Sharon, at one time, had over 40 stores here, and with the end of cotton and people moving away to find jobs in the city and so on, it died," said Renee Brown.

She's the mayor.

"We have no business, and there are no commercial lights," Brown said.

The skeletons of the past still stand, but there is a silver lining.

"I grew up in Atlanta, and I never really thought about astronomy and the stars and so on, and you come out here, and look at the sky at night, and it's another world, and it's fascinating, and it's beautiful," she said.

RELATED: Off the Beaten Path: Lake Tchukolako in Wilkinson Co.

In 2006, a group of folks from Atlanta bought a large tract of land and named it the Deerlick Astronomy Village.

"I always tell people that it's astronomy, not astrology. We are not the people that dance naked in front of the moon; we just are semi-scientists," said Jane Kuehn, who lives at the village.

Folks that live out there take star gazing seriously. There are 26 plots of land that cost homeowners at least $35,000 a piece.

"This is the darkest city in Georgia, and it's probably the darkest city in the southeast," Kuehn said.

Many homes have retractable roofs.

"This one you're pointing at here is a Richie Crichton telescope, I do mainly imaging, so you see the main telescope here here, it's a 10-inch, which basically means you have a 10-inch diameter mirror in the back," Daniel Ford said.

Ford took up astronomy as a kid, and as an imager, he's able to capture the moon in all its glory.

"So you see quite a number of the craters as well as the seas," Ford said.

RELATED: Off the Beaten Path: Jay Bird Springs in Dodge Co.

Dan Llewellny is a deep space imager too, and his photographs are stunning.

"This is where a lot of the new stars are born, there's all sorts of stellar nurseries all throughout the galaxy," Llewellny said.

Llewellny sends his stellar images to NASA.

"This is Messier 31, which is our neighboring galaxy," he said.

Where there's galaxies, there's planets.

"This is the Great Red Spot. The Great Red Spot is a giant storm on Jupiter. The diameter of the great red spot will fit two earths in here," Llewellny said.

These guys use really expensive equipment, but you can achieve this image with a DSLR camera or a high-end still photography camera.

The village does have two open houses a year for you to check them out. No matter what kind of gear you bring, there is a magic to seeing the night sky like few have ever seen it.

"You feel sort of really connected to the universe," he said.

You can learn more about the Deerlick Astronomy Village on their website.

Check out the last Georgia Adventures story, where Suzanne headed out to rural Georgia for a guided, high-tech hog hunt.

RELATED: How you can go on a guided, high-tech hog hunt

Join us next Friday, Feb. 14 on 13WMAZ Morning at 6 a.m., where Suzanne checks out one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Georgia.

Black holes echoing through spacetime could be telling us they arent what we think they are – SYFY WIRE

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

Nothing not even light can escape a black hole, right?Black holes might not be the fathomless cosmic graves we think they are. Most scientists believe that once matter falls past the event horizon (basically the point of no return), intense gravity means that matter is a goner. Emphasis on most. Now physicist Niayesh Ashfordi of the University of Waterloo is challenging that belief based on the theory of gravitational wave echoes in spacetime that could mean not everything that dares to pass the event horizon will vanish forever.

Enter quantum black holes.

If matter echoing from an interaction with a black hole can be proven, it will shake physics like nothing else. Such echoes disrupt the curvature of spacetime that has been created over innumerable years by everything from astral explosions to planets smashing into each other. Ashfordi recently published a study in The Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics that suggests these gravitational wave echoes might have already been detected in a particular black hole, caused by an epic neutron star crash spinning at breakneck speed.

If confirmed, this finding will have significant consequences for both physics of quantum black holes and astrophysics of binary neutron star mergers, he and co-author Jahed Abadi said of the merger, GW170817, adding that it is the first tentative detection of post-merger gravitational wave "echoes" from a highly spinning "black hole" remnant.

But first, understanding gravitational wave echoes means you have to understand Hawking radiation.

Stephen Hawkings black hole information paradox makes a shocking suggestion. Quantum black holes, or black holes that account for the extreme weirdness of quantum mechanics, might actually vomit matter it swallowed back out into the cosmos. The thing is, whatever escapes would have no information left about anything that happened before it fell victim to the gaping maw of that black hole. No matter. Quantum particles sneaking out of black holes still defy what we think we know about these star corpses. This theoretical phenomenon, in which particles radiate from a black hole until nothing remains, is Hawking radiation.

It sounds like it makes total sense until you realize it breaks the laws of the universe. Nothing, not even a black hole, is supposed to permanently delete information. So how could gravitational wave echoes even get out? Back to that neutron star merger. Gravitational waves are already known to come out of collisions that violent, and not only do they ripple out into space, but also bounce back. Never mind that physics would normally say this bouncing back of something that already overstepped the event horizon is impossible.

Ashfordi and Abedi saidtentative evidence for [gravitational wave echoes] has been found in binary black hole merger events and that they discovered a tentative detection of echoes.

The scientists believe that a gravitational wave can get head-butted by quantum particles flying out of there, which makes that wave bounce back as an echo of the ripple that started all this chaos. Bouncing outward, this wave bumps into that luminous halo you probably saw in the first black hole image ever, alsoknown as the photon ring. Echoes end up trapped between the quantum black hole and the photon ring. Some of them are believed to eventually break free, which is why traces of them may have already been observed. Upcoming telescopes like the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) may be able to pick up these runaway echoes in the future.

While much still needs to be demystified, one thing that can be said for sure is that its definitely not aliens.

(via Motherboard/Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics)

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Black holes echoing through spacetime could be telling us they arent what we think they are - SYFY WIRE

Big telescopes join hunt for things that go flash in the night – Science Magazine

Posted on February 12, 2020 by Danzig

The Gemini North telescope in Hawaii is one of the worlds largest. Now, it is also very fast.

By Daniel CleryFeb. 12, 2020 , 2:15 PM

Last month, gravitational wave detectors picked up ripples in spacetime from a cosmic cataclysm: the possible merger of a black hole with a neutron star, an event never seen before. Responding to an alert, telescopes around the world swiveled toward the apparent source to watch for the collisions afterglow and confirm that it was a first. The array of telescopes joining the hunt was unprecedented, too: It included the 8.1-meter Gemini North telescope on Hawaiis Mauna Kea, one of the biggest in the world.

On this occasion, Gemini and the other telescopes saw nothing unexpected. Yet it was an important test of a new telescope network and software developed to automate observations of fast-moving events. Rejigging Geminis nightly schedule normally takes hours, but this time it was accomplished in minutes with a few clicks of a mouse. Were on the verge of a new era, says Andy Howell of Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO), an existing rapid response network, who helped develop the software. Its a whole new way to observe the universe.

Telescopes and other detectors that scan the sky for events that change daily, hourly, or even by the minute are creating a need for fast follow-up observations. Setting the pace now is the Zwicky Transient Facility, a 1.2-meter survey telescope in California that produces up to 1 million transient alerts per night, flagging objects that include supernovae, flaring galactic nuclei, and passing asteroids. The telescope has even alerted astronomers to black holes in the act of swallowing stars. But in 3 years time, its output will be dwarfed by that of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory (VRO, formerly the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope) in Chile. With an 8.4-meter mirror, the VRO will look much deeper into the universe and generate roughly 10 million transient alerts per night.

Chasing those alerts will be a daunting task. LCO, a privately funded network of 23 small telescopes, has set an example for how to do it. The heart of the network is a dynamic scheduler that juggles urgent follow-up requests and the more routine observations planned for the telescopes, which can offer almost 24/7 access to the entire sky because they are scattered around the globe. LCO is unique at the moment, changing schedule every 5 to 10 minutes, says Director Lisa Storrie-Lombardi. Such is its success that European astronomers are adapting LCOs scheduler for an expansion of their OPTICON network of about 60 telescopes. Their software was so much better than ours for the control system, says principal investigator Gerry Gilmore of the University of Cambridge.

The National Science Foundation (NSF), which owns a handful of large telescopes, also wants in on the action. About 18 months ago, it teamed up with LCO to create what it calls the Astronomical Event Observatory Network (AEON). Because many of the objects that trigger VRO alerts will be faint, NSF will add some of its large telescopes to the network. The difficulty is that LCOs telescopes are entirely robotic and NSFs arent, so the AEON team is designing software interfaces to bridge these two systems. The testbed has been the 4.1-meter Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope (SOAR) in Chile. For 20 nights last year, SOAR ran in AEON mode, with an operator responding to a quickly changing list of targets provided by the LCO scheduler. Another 20 AEON nights on SOAR begins this month, and Gemini North is now accessible on a limited basis. NSF also hopes to include the 4-meter Victor M. Blanco Telescope in Chile in AEON.

Automating follow-up observations is just one part of coping with the coming deluge from the VRO. Astronomers also need software to sift through transient alerts and take a first stab at deciding what an event is. Such programs, called event brokers, will divide alerts into categories: supernovae, flaring stars, or comets, for example. Researchers can pluck interesting events from these bins, or they can automate the task with a target and observation manager (TOM), which can automatically request follow-up observations and set up a web page for each event so astronomers can see and discuss data. Its like Facebook for transients, says Eric Bellm, who leads the development of the VRO alert pipeline at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Sherry Suyu of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics is leading the development of a TOM for gravitational lensing events. Sometimes, the light of distant supernovae is bent, or lensed, by an intervening galaxy, creating multiple images of the same supernova. Because the light for the images follows different paths to Earth, they may flare up days or weeks apart. Its like a time machine, Suyu says. We see the first one and wait for the second to appear, which makes it possible to study a supernova from its very first moments.

Only two such lensed supernovae have been discovered. But Suyu expects the VRO will find hundreds, enabling astronomers to study supernovae in detail and use them to calculate the Hubble constant, the expansion rate of the universe. Suyus TOM would take events categorized as supernovae by event brokers, automatically trigger observations to assess whether a new supernova is lensed, and, if so, schedule daily observations.

Some astronomers are concerned that enlisting more telescopes to respond to transient alerts could disrupt everyday research. Gemini, for example, is partly funded by international partners, and not all partners are turned on by time-domain, says Geminis Andy Adamson. In this fast-moving new world, time-domain astronomers may end up alienating others who have long-planned observations. Were working out the politics, Howell says.

And despite all these efforts, theres still widespread concern among astronomers that the sheer volume of VRO alerts will swamp them. LCOs Rachel Street led the development of a toolkit for designing TOMs, but she says, Were already saturated with more targets than we can possibly observe and its going to get worse.

Big telescopes join hunt for things that go flash in the night - Science Magazine

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Monthly Archives: February 2020

Mountain View to pay $350K in settlement over forced sexual assault exam of 5-year-old – Mountain View Voice

Editorial: Surveillance by government must have oversight – Jacksonville Journal-Courier

6th Circuit: This Man Can Sue the Cop Who Arrested Him for Defending His Daughter Against a Feral Cat – Reason

Shooting suspects lawyer demands tour of private house. Thats legal, but… – syracuse.com

Property, Privacy and New Technology – Roanoker

Snapchat is testing a big new redesign – The Verge

Solar Orbiter is on its way to study the Sun – Astronomy Magazine

The Sky This Week from February 7 to 16 – Astronomy Magazine

Benefits Of Astronomy As A Subject In Primary And Secondary Schools Curricula – Space in Africa

Astronomers Find Three Massive Exoplanets Orbiting Evolved Star | Astronomy – Sci-News.com

Astronomers Find Ultramassive Galaxy From The Early Universe That Suddenly Died – ScienceAlert

The Night Sky Will Never Be the Same – The Atlantic

Astronomers have found a deep space radio burst that pulses every 16 days – MIT Technology Review

Scientists detect an unexplainable radio signal from outer space that repeats every 16 days – USA TODAY

Here are some astronomical LEGO facts in honor of LEGO Masters upcoming space-themed episode – FOX 10 News Phoenix

The economic cost of destroying nature is astronomical – Fast Company

Ask An Astronomer: Here’s All You Need to Know About Decade’s First Supermoon on February 9 – The Weather Channel

Darkest county in Georgia has its own astronomy village – 13WMAZ.com

Black holes echoing through spacetime could be telling us they arent what we think they are – SYFY WIRE

Big telescopes join hunt for things that go flash in the night – Science Magazine