When it comes to choosing a career path, students are often told to reach for the stars. Katie Harris is taking this advice literally.

Harris has her sights set on becoming a flight surgeon, a doctor who provides medical care for astronauts before, during and after their missions.

What led Harris to become interested in such a specialized field? Shes fascinated with how the human body performs in hostile conditions.

I just love human performance in space, says the University of Toronto alumna.

Were not really designed for space, Harris says. It flips medicine on its headbecause typical medicine is an unhealthy population in a normal environment. Space medicine is an extremely healthy population in an extremely abnormal environment. I think that's really interesting.

A member ofTrinity College, Harris graduated from the Faculty of Arts & Science in 2018 with an honours bachelor of science, majoring in astronomy and astrophysics, and physics, with a minor in anthropology. Immediately after graduating, she attended the International Space University in Strasbourg, France, where she completed a master of science in space studies. Her courses included space humanities, space management and business, space policy and law, and space engineering. Essentially, the school enables graduates to become well-rounded space professionals.

With the ever-evolving field of space travel, including commercial space flight programs on the horizon, theres a good chance Harris may one day administer health care in zero gravity.

We need people in space with diverse training in addition to advanced military training, says Harris, who has since returned to Canada to attend medical school at Memorial University in Newfoundland. Theres now a need for people with diverse, interdisciplinary backgrounds.

While enjoying her third university, she looks back at U of T fondly and says her time as an undergraduate set her up for success.

I had the perfect undergrad experience, she says. I had a community within my degree, a community where I lived and then all this opportunity because U of T was so big.

In her second year, she connected withProfessor Suresh Sivanandamat theDunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics another highlight.

Professor Sivanandam took a chance on me, says Harris, recalling when she approached him to become involved in his research projects despite having very little lab or research experience.

He helped me become a really good researcher, she says. He taught me a lot of research skills, how to work in a lab, how to give a strong presentation, how to write good abstracts. He gave me all these opportunities and taught me things that I still apply day-to-day.

[Harris] had a lot of great initiative and resourcefulness, says Sivanandam. If theres one phrase that I would use to describe her, its can-do. She also has this side to her where she really wants to give back to the community and make positive social change, so looking at her path to space medicinethis makes sense.

Another of Harrissmentors is no stranger to space travel. Harris says she has benefitted from advice given by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who has been both supportive and candid about the incredible demands of space travel and exploration.

One of the best pieces of advice he ever gave me was, Make sure you're doing something that you love, because space can be a bit of a long shot. You have to love every step.

Harriss next step will be finishing medical school in 2023 and serving the people in her home province of Newfoundland as a doctor allwhile keeping an eye on the cosmos.

When the day comes to care for astronauts, she hopes she can apply what she learns in orbit to benefit those back home.

You can gain a lot of insight through space medicine for medicine on the ground, she says, adding that space-medicine models can be applied to telemedicine to better serve Canadas rural populations.

While the future of space travel and space medicine is difficult to predict, Harris is confident shell get there. Recently connecting with Canadas lone flight surgeon, Raffi Kuyumjian, who works with the Canadian Space Agency has definitely helped.

But this is a pathway that Im still figuring out day-by-day, says Harris, predicting that she will likely have to put in a decade of being a doctor here on Earth before she can focus on keeping astronauts healthy in space.

That was something I also learned in undergrad: Dont plan for right now because right now is not going to stay this way for long. Use your broadest imagination and plan for that.

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As era of commercial spaceflight dawns, U of T alumna seeks to deliver health care among the stars - News@UofT

For astronomers, the next decade could reveal a wealth of scientific understanding about our nearest star, thanks to a trio of new instruments.

Launched on Sunday,Solar Orbiter spacecraft a collaboration between the European Space Agency and NASA aims to study the suns mysterious magnetic poles, which appear to flip every 11 years. NASAs Parker Solar Probe, which launched in 2018 and recently made its closest pass to the suns surface, seeks to explain the mysteries of the suns atmosphere. And theNational Solar ObservatorysDaniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii, which released dazzling test images last month, brings its keen eye to the suns fainter parts.

The three observatorieswere designed and planned separately, and it was a coincidence that theyre set to operate around the same time. Scientists say that learning about our sun can yield information about other stars and perhaps even life outside our solar system.

These three together, they basically will define the future of the field, says Nour Raouafi, project scientist of NASAs Parker Solar Probe mission. The next decade, I believe, will be the golden age of solar and heliophysics research.

Our sun is such an enduring presence in our sky that it can feel like an old friend. But, with a blinding light that confounds traditional telescopes and scorches most space probes, much about it remains a mystery.

That could soon change, with a trio of new solar observatories poised to revolutionize our view of our solar companion, its relationship to our world, and perhaps even other star systems.

On Sunday evening, the newest solar observer rocketed into space by the light of a nearly full moon. The Solar Orbiter spacecraft a collaboration between the European Space Agency and NASA is designed to examine the sun from new angles, including taking the first ever look at its poles.

It joins NASAs Parker Solar Probe, which launched in 2018 and has recently taken its deepest dive into the suns atmosphere to sample the solar wind directly. Also coming online later this year is a 4-meter ground-based observatory, the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) in Hawaii, which will be able to study the fainter parts of the sun. Late last month, DKIST released its first test images of the suns surface, depicting turbulent cell-like structures the size of Texas and dazzling the public.

These three together, they basically will define the future of the field, says Nour Raouafi, project scientist of NASAs Parker Solar Probe mission. The next decade, I believe, will be the golden age of solar and heliophysics research.

The sun is continually producing space weather coronal mass ejections, geomagnetic storms, and solar flares that can disrupt satellites and the power grid on Earth.

Researchers have long observed that these solar storms seem to wax and wane regularly, a phenomenon thought to be linked to the suns magnetic poles flipping every 11 years. But scientists havent been able to take a good look at the poles. All images of the sun have largely been from the same angle, roughly in line with the solar equator.

Its like trying to study a three-dimensional ball with only looking at part of it, says Holly Gilbert, NASA deputy project scientist for Solar Orbiter and director of the Heliophysics Science Division at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center. But Solar Orbiters path will take it over the suns top and bottom. This allows us to look at the entire sun itself.

We know from observing other stars that our sun is fairly tame at least at the moment. Astronomers have spotted stars exploding violently, likely dousing planets in their orbit with radiation. Could our star be capable of that, too?

Were so desperate to know if other stars are like our sun, if our sun is normal, or what our sun might have looked like in its past or in its future, says James Davenport, a stellar astronomer at the University of Washington.

If researchers can figure out what mechanisms drive the suns activity, it could help put it in a cosmological context among other stars. And that knowledge, in turn, could help scientists piece together a more precise picture of how solar systems form as well as what might make a planet habitable.

All of life on the Earth comes from the energy that the sun produces, says Jeff Kuhn, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii and a co-investigator on the DKIST Science Working Group. And without a complete understanding of how that energy fluctuates, we dont really understand our future.

Earths atmosphere allows just enough of the suns light through while keeping the most harmful rays out. But scientists say the solar wind, the stream of plasma rushing away from our star, can rip atmospheres from planets. Earths magnetic field deflects much of the solar wind, protecting our atmosphere, but the same might not be the case for similar planets orbiting other stars.

The new observatories are built to glean more information about the solar wind and the mechanisms that drive it. As such winds are difficult to study directly around other stars, scientists hope these missions will reveal indirect ways to infer the flow of stellar winds in other star systems. That knowledge, in turn, could help improve models to identify potentially habitable distant worlds.

The sun is basically the star in our backyard, says David Alexander, a solar physicist at Rice University. So it becomes a laboratory for astrophysics, he says. Were taking that knowledge of the sun and then applying it to other stars.

Parker, Orbiter, and DKIST werent planned to be a team. All three observatories were designed separately, and it was a coincidence that they will all begin to operate around the same time.

But thats a coincidence scientists are eager to harness. The three observatories will work together in many ways, using their unique sets of instruments and paths to study regions of the sun from different angles, both literally and figuratively.

Its a really good synergy with these different observatories, Dr. Gilbert says. Heliophysics is pretty difficult because its really a system science, and we have to understand how these different parts of the system are coupled, from the solar atmosphere to the magnetic field, and how that interacts with the Earths atmosphere and magnetic field.

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Together, astrophysicists expect this trio to revolutionize our view of the sun, resolving long-standing questions about stars and planets, and revealing surprises about our constant companion.

The sun is right there in front of us, Dr. Kuhn says. Its been there in front of us forever, since civilization started. And yet now, only now in our lifetime are we looking at it and seeing as much detail thats there.

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Why the suns mysteries could soon be revealed - Christian Science Monitor

Looking to the future. Polish women are strongly represented in the world of science. Kalbar/TFN

As the world marks International Day of Women and Girls in Science, Poland can boast one of the most balanced female-to-male ratios in science, with 49.5 percent being comprised of females. In real terms that means 611,700 of Polands 1,252,900 scientist and engineers are female.

To celebrate the day TFNs has come up with a selection of some the countrys brightest and best female scientists and engineers.

Malinkiewicz is carrying out pioneering work on solar energy.Marcin Obara/PAP

Olga Malinkiewicz founded Saule Technologies in 2014, and since then the company has gone from strength to strength developing perovskites based solar cells for commercial use. Solar energy has been around a long time but Malinkiewiczs innovation will allow it to be harnessed more efficiently and on more surfaces. Her work could help many nations hit clean energy goals without the culture shift required by most alternative energies.https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/here-comes-the-sun-the-future-looks-bright-for-solar-energy-in-poland-5069

Mocibrodzka helped capture the first image of a black hole.STEPHANIE LECOCQ/PAP/EPA

Doctor Monika Mocibrodzka was part of the international team who captured the first image of a black hole. The astrophysicist who works at the Department of Astrophysics at Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, was analysing polarimetry, the measurement and interpretation of the polarization of transverse waves, most notably electromagnetic waves, such as radio or light waves for the project.https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/first-ever-direct-image-of-a-black-hole-captured-by-global-virtual-telescope-revealed-by-scientists-5525

Adamkiewicz has risen to the top of one of the countrys leading pharmaceutical companies.ADAMED

Doctor Magorzata Adamkiewicz is vice-president of the board at Adamed, one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in Poland. She started her professional career at the Endocrinology Clinic at the Medical Centre of Post-graduate Education in Warsaw before joining Adamed. Since 2001 Adamed has allocated PLN1.2 billion to research and development activities and runs a SmartUp programme to develop Polands talented young scientists.https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/geniuses-of-the-future-get-helping-hand-from-pharm-companys-smartup-camps-6920

An expert in maths, Karczewicz has scores of patents to her name.EPO

Marta Karczewicz has been named as an inventor on about 130 European patents. She studied at Tampere University in Finland, worked for Nokia and now works for Qualcomm. The mathematical genius was nominated for the 2019 European Inventor Award for her work on video compression. I like problems which require analysing large amounts of data and looking for patterns, Karczewicz said.https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/maths-genius-gets-lifetime-achievement-nomination-for-her-work-on-video-compression-5832

Rutkowska has been praised for her work in developing biodegradable packaging.Kalbar/TFN

Roza Rutkowska has created an alternative packing from natural waste that is biodegradable. The natural solution in the form of a material known as SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast), is farmed vertically by feeding food waste to bacteria and this creates a usable membrane. The substance has won many admirers and prizes, and in April it will compete for $1 million in the international Chivas Venture prize.https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/not-a-bad-start-for-a-start-up-pulway-eco-firm-wins-chivas-venture-2020-9842

Przewocka: helping to take the pain out of the surgery.if-pan.krakow.pl

Barbara Przewocka, a professor of pharmacology, has co-authored 70 scientific papers and in 2019 was part of the team that created a chemical compound demonstrating painkilling properties 5,000 times more effective as the strongest analgesics currently available. She has received multiple honours for her contribution to science in Poland and continues her work at the Institute of Pharmacology - Polish Academy of Sciences.https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/scientists-create-power-drug-5000-times-stronger-than-standard-painkillers-6671

An expert in diet health Tkaczewska has developed an energy bar made from carp.Press materials

Doctor Joanna Tkaczewska is a dietician by trade but also the creator of an energy bar made from parts of carp. The energy-boosting snack, which she created with the Agricultural University in Krakw, includes carp as well as other more typical energy bars ingredients such as dates, nuts and seeds. Initial testing has shown that the energy bar has positive effects on the oxidative status of athletes blood.https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/smells-fishy-scientist-invents-energy-bar-made-from-carp-9100

Marta Klak: working on a 3D-printed pancreas.Foundation of Research and Science

Doctor Marta Klak is a specialist in medical biology and biotechnology. Currently she is the laboratory manager for the Research and Development Foundation based in Warsaw. The project she is currently working on is creating the worlds first 3D printed bionic pancreas. Klak is the co-creator of the protocol for the isolation of porcine pancreas islands for the needs of the 3D bio-printing project for bionic pancreas.https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/researchers-create-worlds-first-3d-bionic-pancreas-5156

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Breaking the glass ceiling: When it comes to science, Polish women are on the up - The First News

ELON A pair of new engineering buildings, a new nursing program, more than 1,000 new dorm beds and much more could come to Elon University over the next decade.

Elon on Tuesday rolled out an ambitious 10-year plan that will take the private university to 2030. Also included in the "Boldly Elon" plan: a lot more money for financial aid, renovations to several major campus buildings and a higher graduation rate.

"We have set a bold course for the next decade," Elon President Connie Ledoux Book told an audience of Elon students and employees inside the Alumni Gym. "It will be an exciting 10 years and a busy 10 years."

Among the highlights of Elon's new plan:

The Innovation Quad: Elon will create what it's calling an Innovation Quad, a new STEM-focused part of campus that will include as many as 10 academic and residential buildings. Elon expects to start construction on two adjoining buildings 60,000 square feet of space estimated to cost $50 million in the fall. The larger of the two buildings will have classrooms, labs and faculty offices for Elon's engineering and physics departments. The smaller building will have a virtual reality classroom, an astrophysics lab and labs that will let students design, make and test their creations.

These two connected buildings will go up north of the McMichael Science Center, which opened in 1998 and is Elon's newest science facility. The rest of the Innovation Quad will be built to the east on the former site of Elon Elementary. The university didn't disclose timelines or costs for these future buildings.

Engineering: Elon for years offered engineering classes, then established a four-year engineering-degree program in 2018. In addition to providing itsengineering program a new home, Elon will seek accreditation for engineering in 2021 and then create a standalone School of Engineering. (Engineering is currently part of the university's arts and sciences college.) The university said it's promoting engineering and other STEM disciplines because K-12 schools are emphasizing math and science and STEM college graduates are in high demand in the workforce.

Nursing:Nursing is another high-growth career field, and Book said nursing is among the majors requested most often by prospective Elon students. Elon is planning four tracks that will lead to work as a registered nurse: a traditional four-year undergraduate program; a pair of two-year programs for current registered nurses and associate's degree holders who want a bachelor's degree in nursing; and an accelerated 16-month program for people with a bachelor's degree in another field. Elon expects to enroll its first nursing students in 2021.

Bricks and mortar: Elon's 10-year plan calls for adding 1,200 more residence hall beds, which will let the university house 80% of its undergraduates on campus. Book said new dorms likely will be built as part of the Innovation Quad and on the south side of campus. Elon's plan includes new spaces for theater, music and other performing arts programs and new practice, competition and academic spaces for Elon's athletic teams. Several key campus buildings could be renovated. That number includes Elon's student center, the student recreation center, the McMichael Science Center and older residence halls. The strategic plan didn't list cost or timetables for these projects.

Scholarships: Over the next decade Elon wants to double its financial aid budget to be able to recruit students from a wider range of racial, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds from across the United States and around the world. To do that, Elon aims to more than double its endowment to $625 million and commit 80% of that fund to scholarships. First, though, Elon must complete its current fundraising campaign. The university so far has raised $181 million toward its $250 million goal.

Graduation rates: Most universities would be thrilled with Elon's graduation rates: 80% of Elon students get their degrees in four years, and roughly 85% graduate in six years. But Elon thinks it can do better and will push for a four-year rate of 85% and a six-year rate of 90% by decade's end.

The law school: The university wants to "achieve national recognition" for Elon University School of Law in downtown Greensboro but wasn't specific on how it plans to gain that acclaim.

A greener campus:Elon pledged to be carbon-neutral by 2037, meaning that it wants its campus to have net carbon emissions of zero. The university plans to reduce energy usage, erect environmentally friendly buildings and invest in renewable energy.

Enrollment: Book said Elon will continue its slow-growth approach and increase overall enrollment by about 100 students per year. At that rate, Elon's enrollment will reach about 8,000 students by 2030.

Elon announced its new path forward after it wrapped up its last 10-year planthat, according to a final report on the plan, ushered in "the most transformative decade in the universitys history."

The short list of Elon's milestones over the past decade includes the opening of a health sciences school, construction of a 5,100-seat basketball arena, creation of 20 new undergraduate majors, growth in campus square footage of 60% and enrollment of 25% and addition of financial aid and study abroad opportunities for its students.

The overarching goal of Elon's last strategic plan was to be recognized among the nation's top universities. Elon started the 2000s in the annual U.S. News & World Report college rankings as the second-ranked university in the South, then claimed the magazine's top spot among Southern regional universities for six straight years.

In September, Elon was ranked for the first time among the magazine's national universities, a list that includes all eight Ivy League institutions and well-known North Carolina schools such as Duke, Wake Forest, UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State University. Elon made its debut in the national university rankings at No. 84.

Contact John Newsom at (336) 373-7312 and follow @JohnNewsomNR on Twitter.

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Elon University's new 10-year plan includes an innovation quad, new nursing programs and lots more dorm rooms - Greensboro News & Record

The majority of stars in the universe will become luminous enough to blast surrounding asteroids into successively smaller fragments using their light alone, according to a University of Warwick astronomer.

The majority of stars in the universe will become luminous enough to blast surrounding asteroids into successively smaller fragments using their light alone, according to a University of Warwick astronomer.

Electromagnetic radiation from stars at the end of their giant branch phase lasting just a few million years before they collapse into white dwarfs would be strong enough to spin even distant asteroids at high speed until they tear themselves apart again and again. As a result, even our own asteroid belt will be easily pulverized by our Sun billions of years from now.

The new study from the University of Warwicks Department of Physics, published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, analyses the number of successive break-up events and how quickly this cascade occurs.

The authors have concluded that all but the most distant or smallest asteroids in a system would be disintegrated in a relatively short one million years, leaving behind debris that scientists can find and analyze around dead white dwarf stars. Some of this debris may be in the form of double asteroids which revolve around each other while they orbit the Sun.

After main sequence stars like our Sun have burnt all their hydrogen fuel, they then become hundreds of times larger during a giant branch phase and increase their luminosity ten-thousand-fold, giving out intense electromagnetic radiation. When that expansion stops, a star sheds its outer layers, leaving behind a dense core known as a white dwarf.

The radiation from the star will be absorbed by orbiting asteroids, redistributed internally and then emitted from a different location, creating an imbalance. This imbalance creates a torque effect that very gradually spins up the asteroid, eventually to break-up speed at one full rotation every 2 hours (the Earth takes almost 24 hours to complete a full rotation). This effect is known as the YORP effect, named after four scientists (Yarkovsky, OKeefe, Radzievskii, Paddack) who contributed ideas to the concept.

Eventually, this torque will pull the asteroid apart into smaller pieces. The process will then repeat itself in several stages, much like how in the classic arcade game Asteroids they break down into smaller and smaller asteroids after each destruction event. The scientists have calculated that in most cases there will be more than ten fission events or break-ups before the pieces become too small to be affected.

Lead author Dr. Dimitri Veras, from the University of Warwicks Astronomy and Astrophysics Group, said: When a typical star reaches the giant branch stage, its luminosity reaches a maximum of between 1,000 and 10,000 times the luminosity of our Sun. Then the star contracts down into an Earth-sized white dwarf very quickly, where its luminosity drops to levels below our Suns. Hence, the YORP effect is very important during the giant branch phase, but almost non-existent after the star has become a white dwarf.

For one solar-mass giant branch stars like what our Sun will become even exo-asteroid belt analogs will be effectively destroyed. The YORP effect in these systems is very violent and acts quickly, on the order of a million years. Not only will our own asteroid belt be destroyed, but it will be done quickly and violently. And due solely to the light from our Sun.

The remains of these asteroids will eventually form a debris disc around the white dwarf, and the disc will be drawn into the star, polluting it. This pollution can be detected from Earth by astronomers and analyzed to determine its composition.

Dr. Veras adds: These results help locate debris fields in giant branch and white dwarf planetary systems, which is crucial to determining how white dwarfs are polluted. We need to know where the debris is by the time the star becomes a white dwarf to understand how discs are formed. So the YORP effect provides important context for determining where that debris would originate.

When our Sun dies and runs out of fuel in about 6 billion years it too will shed its outer layers and collapse into a white dwarf. As its luminosity grows it will bombard our asteroid belt with increasingly intense radiation, subjecting the asteroids to the YORP effect and breaking them into smaller and smaller pieces, just like in a game of Asteroids.

Most asteroids are what are known as rubble piles a collection of rocks loosely held together which means they have little internal strength. However, smaller asteroids have greater internal strength, and while this effect will break down larger objects quite quickly, the debris will plateau at objects around 1-100 meters in diameter. Once the giant branch phase starts the process will continue unabated until reaching this plateau.

The effect lessens with increasing distance from the star and with increasing internal strength of the asteroid. The YORP effect can break up asteroids at hundreds of AU (Astronomical Units), much further away than where Neptune or Pluto resides.

However, the YORP effect will only influence asteroids. Objects larger than Pluto will likely escape this fate due to their size and internal strength unless they are broken up by another process, such as a collision with another planet.

Reference: Post-main-sequence debris from rotation-induced YORP break-up of small bodies II. Multiple fissions, internal strengths, and binary production by Dimitri Veras and Daniel J Scheeres, 20 December 2019, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stz3565

The research received support from the UKs Science and Technology Facilities Council.

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Supercharged Light Pulverizes Asteroids Cascade of Destruction - SciTechDaily

Ben Chasny has been picking up where he left off

My interest in stargazing started pretty early, back when I was a kid. I lived in a very rural area where there was no light pollution at all. There was only a couple of channels on the TV and there wasnt a whole lot to do except look at the stars. I had a backyard telescope, it was really cheap and I couldnt see a lot of stuff, but I could spot the moons of Jupiter, or at least I thought they were the moons of Jupiter... I could always find Orions nebula too, it looked like a kind of smudgy star. I also had a subscription to an astronomy magazine that would let you know whats going on in the night sky, I wish I could remember the name of it. Every month it would say heres whats going on with the stars, and heres what to do. Its an interesting thing, stargazing, because any time they talk about something thats going on in the sky theres always a relational aspect, something thats moving with something else thats moving, or not moving. We imagine these celestial bodies meeting in the sky

I hadn't really been into stargazing for the last 20 years or so because I kept living in various cities where I couldn't really see the stars, but recently I moved back to my old home of Humboldt County, North California, where I grew up. I never thought Id go back, but families get older, so I thought Id come back and hang out a bit. I have a deeper appreciation for my home now, especially as I can just walk out of my door and see the stars again. Its one of my favourite things about moving here. I certainly dont think of stargazing as some sort of pastoral rejection of the modern or something though. That can get into some pretty shady areas.

If an article comes my way about astrophysics, Ill definitely read it, and theres a couple of people on YouTube I watch to see whats going on. Recently one of the Voyager satellites discovered that theres an awesome ring of plasma surrounding the solar system, a ring of fire where the temperature jumps up really high. Thats really cool!

One of the rarest and most spectacular celestial events might happen in our lifetimes, but that doesnt mean he wants to see it

Apparently, Betelgeuse could explode into a supernova at any moment, which would be a fantastic show in the night sky. A lot of scientists are so excited about it, saying I hope the star explodes in my lifetime! But I think its a little sad because if it does explode then we lose the shoulder of Orion! Orion has been a really strong constellation for like, thousands and thousands of years, and if it explodes youll just get these really weak Instagram posts for a couple of weeks then itll go into the data banks and were left with a lacking constellation. So, Im on the side where I hope it doesnt explode. Who knows how long humanity even has left on earth? Itd be nice for future generations to have a full Orion. Let another star explode!

Orion being one of the brightest constellations makes it a lot of peoples favourites, and he was my favourite as a kid. I used to dream of taking photos of the stars but it was impossible, but now with technology, its become possible for me, so one of the first things I started doing when I moved back to Humbolt and once I got a camera was to start taking pictures of Orion. I dont want to sound like a cosmic hippy, but Im reconnecting with Orion; hes kind of a buddy when youre a kid and have no friends in the country!

Celestial bodies are all over Six Organs new album, Companion Rises

A picture I took of Orion is on the cover of Companion Rises, and the title Companion Rises is a reference to the star Sirius being a companion star of Orion. I did a record in 2012 called Ascent, which was about a specific story but similar themes. I had this dream of a spacecraft that was being constructed outside of Jupiter. I dont know where I was, maybe on another spacecraft or one of the moons, but the spacecraft looked like a huge lobster. I never really went back to that space theme except for now, with me being concerned with the stars again, with more appreciation of the constellations and Orion. Sound-wise its very different this time, I was trying to do acoustic music and its a lot folkier, but lyric-wise it has a lot to do with the stars again.

One song on Companion Rises, The Scout Is Here, is influenced by the darker side of the new age, and the darker side of the New Age. Do you remember that elongated asteroid Oumuamua? It was the first interstellar object we detected in our Solar System; the name translates from Hawaiian as Scout. When it flew through there was a scientist in Boston who said it was probably an alien spacecraft, which caused a lot of controversy. I thought that was fascinating, so I decided to write a song from the perspective of a UFO cult, welcoming the asteroid in. And I also thought, just in case it is an alien spacecraft, maybe they wont want to kill me because I wrote a song for them

Theres always something more to see

Ive never seen a full solar eclipse but Ive seen full lunar eclipses when it gets kind of dark, then kind of pink. Nick Drake style. But to see everything go completely black would be amazing. Sometimes you read about these really magnificent meteor showers, that really do look like a shower, I think itd be great to witness something like that in my lifetime. Ive seen where meteors come in every minute or two at best, those are really exciting, but you read these reports, maybe theyre exaggerating, but they say that the whole sky was just falling. That would be cool.

Something I hadnt thought about until recently is the idea of modern constellations that are just the brightest stars you can still see in the city. A lot of constellations have lots of small stars, but now because theres so much light pollution its like modernity has had to create new geometric shapes, stuff like the Summer Triangle which was always a favourite of mine Aquila, Cygnus and Lyra. Ive just recently found out about the Winter Hexagon too.

There is more than one way to look at the stars

From the simple act of going out and looking at the stars, you can go a couple of ways. One way is to be interested in astronomy and astrophysics and outer space, or you could go the other way and just look at it in a more inspired, poetic way. It seems very entertaining to me to just watch the stars. One of the dangers of stargazing is the over-pedantic stargazer who feels like he has to describe everything, telling you this star is that, and this star is that. Maybe you just want to enjoy the movement of the stars, but unfortunately I think it lends itself to mansplaining. Thats the danger of stargazing!

Theres a guy called Gaston Bachelard that I talked about a lot when it came to my last record because it was really influenced by him. He has a funny thing about the constellations. Hes really against them as a concept, because he says theres these imposed forms. He says the night sky should be a Rorschach Test for humanity go out there and make your own constellations, which is also really cool. We do the same thing with clouds, because theyre always different and changing. I mention that because theres this thing about stargazing, youve got to know the constellations, do you know them?! and that goes back to that pedantic thing I talked about before. I think the best thing is to just go out there. If you can see some stars, just to go out to look at them.

Six Organs Of Admittance's new album Companion Rises is out via Drag City on February 21

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Features | Things I Have Learned | Six Organs Of Admittance's Ben Chasny On Stargazing - The Quietus

Until now, all the pictures of the sun have been straight-on head shots. Soon, scientists will be getting aprofile.

NASA and the European Space Agency are set to launch a joint mission on Sunday to provide the first-ever look at the suns poles. Previous images have all been taken from approximately the same angle, roughly in line with the starsequator.

Scientists are hesitant to guess what the elusive poles of the star might look like. I hate to speculate, says Holly Gilbert, the NASA project scientist for themission.

Were constantly taken by these discoveries where we thought we knew what something would be before we measured it for the first time, says David McComas, an astrophysics professor at Princeton University. And then we go like, Oh, geez, thats really different than we expected. So, I think we want to keep an open mind aboutthat.

After the NASA/ESA probe called Solar Orbiter takes off from Floridas Cape Canaveral, itll use Venus and Earths gravity to propel itself outside that equatorial plane where all the planets in our solar system orbit the sun. Orbiter eventually will be able to look down onto the poles of thesun.

There are many reasons why scientists want to know more about the suns poles. They think the poles might be driving some important aspects of space weather throughout the solar system, which can impact spacecraft and even humans on Earth. It has real world effects on our satellites, our GPS, our power grid and things like that, McComassays.

As we get more and more technologically advanced, the more susceptible we are to space weather and the more important it becomes to be able to forecast and hopefully ultimately predict, Gilbert says. The data that Orbiter collects could eventually help build models forecasting spaceweather.

The mission will map the suns magnetic fields from the poles. Scientists think these fields have a complicated relationship with whats happening inside thesun.

Since the 1800s, scientists have noticed that the sun goes through cycles between points of relative calm and high activity. The active times are associated with a lot of sunspots, a lot of flares, and solar storms, Gilbert says. These cycles happen roughly every 11years.

Scientists dont fully understand what causes these cycles. But theyve noticed that they line up with major changes in the suns magnetic field. One pole is positive and one is negative and every 11 years, the poles swap and have the oppositecharge.

Gilbert says the changing polarity is likely because of activity inside the sun. Its a very complicated, rotating ball of gas and that causes the magnetic fields to get all tangled up. The fields store magnetic energy, which can escape in the form of solar storms when the fields get snarled. Its a chaotic process that can result in the poles switchingpolarity.

It would be useful for scientists to better understand when the biggest flares are going to happen, in order to protect satellites and other spacecraft. Even though we have ideas about how many sunspots and how many storms and how often they might occur, we cant really predict how strong theyre going to be, Gilbertsays.

The Solar Orbiter will also be able to collaborate with another probe circling the sun. NASAs Parker Solar Probe launched in 2018 and will eventually come within 4 million miles of the suns surface far closer than this new mission. It will move through the suns corona, a super-hot aura of gases around the star, and gather data on its magnetic fields and energetic particles, as NPRs Nell Greenfieldboyce has reported.

At certain points, the Solar Orbiter will be positioned along the same magnetic field line as the Parker probe. Gilbert says this means theyll be able to measure particles at two different times once at Parker and then once again when they reach the Solar Orbiter. Were going to have a nice picture of evolution of some of these particles and how that flow is changing as its moving away from the sun, shesays.

McComas, who is involved in the Parker mission, says hes excited to be able to look at the solar wind from two different latitudes at that same time. That solar wind blasts the suns magnetic field in all directions, which can create the space weather bursts that interfere with satellites andGPS.

We almost always measure it from this one perspective in the equatorial plane, he says. Having these measurements from two perspectives will allow them to determine whether the perspective that weve always known is representative or as he explains, maybe theyll say, Gee, its really different when you get to be, you know, 30 degreeshigher.

Its worth noting that scientists are also getting unique views of the sun from the National Science Foundations Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope. Last month, the foundation released unprecedented, mesmerizing photos of the suns surface.

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