Astronomers Observe Host Galaxy of Extremely Bright and Long Gamma-Ray Burst | Astronomy – Sci-News.com

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Astronomers have investigated the nature of a very bright and long-duration gamma-ray burst, GRB 190114C, by studying its environment.

Hubbles observations suggest that GRB 190114C displayed powerful emission because the collapsing star was sitting in a very dense environment, right in the middle of a bright galaxy 5 billion light years away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / M. Kornmesser.

Gamma-ray bursts are the most energetic explosions in the Universe, beaming out mighty jets which travel through space at 0.99 times the speed of light, as a star much more massive than our Sun collapses at the end of its life to produce a black hole.

GRB 190114C was detected by a suite of telescopes, including NASAs Swift and Fermi telescopes, as well as by the Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov telescopes, on January 14, 2019.

Some of the light detected from the object had the highest energy ever observed: 1 TeV (Tera electron volt) about one trillion times as much energy per photon as visible light.

Follow-up observations were made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to study the environment around GRB 190114C and find out how this extreme emission is produced.

Hubbles observations suggest that this particular burst was sitting in a very dense environment, right in the middle of a bright galaxy 5 billion light years away. This is really unusual, and suggests that might be why it produced this exceptionally powerful light, said Dr. Andrew Levan a researcher at Radboud University.

GRB 190114C: the left panel shows a close pair of interacting galaxies, which is a host system of GRB 190114C; the location of GRB 190114C is indicated with a red circle; the right panel shows the optical counterpart of GRB 190114C. Image credit: de Ugarte Postigo et al, arXiv: 1911.07876.

The astronomers used Hubble, together with ESOs Very Large Telescope and the Atacama Large Milimeter/submilimeter Array (ALMA), to study the host galaxy of GRB 190114C.

They investigated whether the environmental properties of the host system, which is composed of a close pair of interacting galaxies, might have contributed to the production of these very-high-energy photons.

GRB 190114C occurred within the nuclear region of a massive galaxy, a location that is rather unique.

This is indicative of a denser environment than that in which gamma-ray bursts are typically observed and could have been crucial for the generation of the very-high-energy photons that were observed.

Scientists have been trying to observe very-high-energy emission from gamma-ray bursts for a long time, said Dr. Antonio de Ugarte Postigo, a scientist in the Instituto de Astrofsica de Andaluca.

This new observation is a vital step forward in our understanding of gamma-ray bursts, their immediate surroundings, and just how matter behaves when it is moving at 99.999% of the speed of light.

A paper outlining the Hubble observations appears in the journal Nature.

An additional paper that details an analysis of the galaxy hosting GRB 190114C will be published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

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V.A. Acciari et al. 2019. Observation of inverse Compton emission from a long -ray burst. Nature 575: 459-463; doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1754-6

A. de Ugarte Postigo et al. 2019. GRB 190114C in the nuclear region of an interacting galaxy A detailed host analysis using ALMA, HST and VLT. A&A, in press; arXiv: 1911.07876

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Astronomers Observe Host Galaxy of Extremely Bright and Long Gamma-Ray Burst | Astronomy - Sci-News.com

Meet the NASA Engineer Who Secretly Practices Astrology – Free

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David, a NASA engineer, has dreamed about working in aerospace since the third grade. What his coworkers dont know: Hes been passionate about astrology for almost as long, and is a practicing astrologer.

For an hourly rate, David offers readings on the weekends to clients. Hes considering writing a book about his method of reading natal charts. But he keeps this passion tightly under wraps because hes afraid stigma against astrology in the scientific community and among lovers of astronomy, the study of celestial objects and phenomena, can cause problems at work. (David is not his real namehe agreed to this interview on the condition of anonymity.)

Im basically in the closet. It sounds terrible but I dont know how else to phrase it, he said.

In reality both astrology and astronomy date back at least thousands of years, with logs of observations by astrologers playing a key role in modern meteorology and other studies. Until the last several hundred years, many astronomers includingfamously, Johannes Kepler openly studied or practiced astrology and believed celestial bodies had an impact on people.

But from a steady parade of think pieces debating the merits of astrology, to an entire segment of Bill Nye Saves the World devoted to challenging the practice, astrology is a favorite target today for many space lovers. Astrologers believe the hate is based on a misunderstanding of what astrology is. Astrologers love astronomy but many astronomers hate astrology, said Annabel Gat, senior astrologer at VICE, adding that she could empathize with the frustration people feel when astrology and astronomy are confused.

A common misunderstanding by skeptics, for example, is that interpretations are based on the physical location of those constellations today. But if you look into a telescope, youll find they are not where theyre supposed to be, David said. Constellations are not equally spaced...Every 72 years, [they] drift by one degree, and every sign is 30 degrees, so after a certain amount of time you can be off by a whole sign.

When an astrologer calls something that is open to interpretation a science, then asserts that the sun is in Virgo right now when its really in Leo, then astronomers are not going to be very happy, he said. Non-astrologers often think the position of these constellations today prove that astrology isnt real.

Modern western astrology bases interpretations on the location of planets, the sun, and the moonalso called planets in astrology vocabularyfrom the perspective of a persons location on Earth. When reading natal charts or doing forecasting (readings of the cosmic weather of the day), astrologers use zodiacal archetypes, which are indeed linked to 12 constellations, but only symbolicallytheir locations do not matter.

Those who use the tropical zodiac base their interpretations on fixed zodiacal seasons that correspond with the seasonal movement of the sun. At one point, the constellations did align with the signs. That was meant to be a temporary guide. Whats really valuable is how the season progresses, how the sun travels through the season...not where the actual stars are, David said. Nature is driven mainly by the season...and we are linked to the natural cycles of nature.

This disconnect between how astrology is practiced and how astrology skeptics think it is practiced, is enough for David to practice astrology in secret. That wasnt always the casehe harbored passion for both science and astrology since age 11, when his parents first brought home a copy of Kepler, a computer program by Cosmic Patterns Software Inc. that generates and interprets natal charts. In high school, he began studying astrology and doing readings for his classmates.

When David went to college to study aerospace engineering, he didnt immediately tell his classmates he was into astrology since he wasnt sure how it would be received. But a writing class that was part of his honors program led to a paper on the correlation between space shuttle disasters and astrology, and his cover was blown. Everyone was impressed [by my presentation], and it helped that the teacher was a strong believer in astrology, he said.

David is careful again at work, howevernot because he thinks his coworkers would take issue with his interest in astrology, but because he worries about people outside of NASA causing trouble. NASA itself has published some literature, including this Tumblr post in 2016 about constellations and the beginnings of Babylonian astrologya post that seems to incorrectly position astrology as being related to current locations of constellations, but which astrology skeptics nevertheless seized on to pen pieces titled, Astrology is bullsh*t. NASA's scathing takedown perfectly explains why.

Astrology is not in our purview, but astronomy and space science is, a NASA spokeswoman said. The Tumblr post merely pointed out the history and math of how the 12 constellations used in astrology came to be. As for employees studying or practicing astrology, she said, What employees choose to pursue personally on their free time is up to them, and we have no concerns or comment.

David doesnt think the Tumblr post is representative of everyone at NASA. People who work at NASA are human..theyre open-minded, he said. But on the outside, people are ruthless with attacks on the Internet, and its those attacks he fears the most. Just like people attack astrologers online, they would attack a government agency like NASA probably ten times harder, he said.

On the list of ruthless critics? The science guy himself, Bill Nye, who debated with astrologer Samuel Reynolds on his Netflix show, Bill Nye Saves the World, in 2017, arguing that astrology is a pseudoscience. Reynolds response was that, in order for something to be a pseudoscience, its practitioners would first have to believe it is a science.

David said he feels the same way. Whereas an attribute of science is repeatability, astrology is an art...its subject to interpretation, he said. My reading will be different than another astrologers reading. He also uses astrology as a tool for self improvementnot as a predictor of the future. My specialty is using astrology to get to know yourself...It gives you clues for how to exploit your strengths and overcome your weaknesses.

Likening astrology to science makes it easier for skeptics to write astrology off, David said. On the scientific level, none of the known scientific forces apply to astrology, he said. Electromagnetic forces are too weak. The gravitational force between you and the person next to you is stronger than the gravitational force Pluto has on you, because its so far away.

Still, some aspects of aerospace design are also based on statistics, not science, David said. A lot of things in aerospace are based on empirical approaches, just as my belief in astrology is. In that sense, theyre both non-scientific. One may plot a bunch of data points on what other planes have looked like, to predict what would happen if the size or weight of a wing is changed.

In astrology, what Ive seen is significant beyond mere coincidence, by far, he said, noting what fans of astrology know well, which is that a persons chart involves not just their sun signthe most common way astrology is discussed in pop culturebut also their moon sign, and all the planets, asteroids, and more.

Even as astrology is enjoying as much popularity as ever, reactions to astrologers can be mixed. Ashley Otero, an astrologer who writes lunar horoscopes for VICEs Astro Guide app and also practices acupuncture, said people have fallen silent or seemed surprised when astrology came up in conversation as an acupuncturist. Once, she was told by a colleague that they didnt want to be associated with that part of her life.

Alice Bolen, an osteopath and astrologer who writes advanced horoscopes for Astro Guide, said negative perceptions of astrology are something every astrologer has to get over at some point. Because it takes so much time and energy to learn astrology, it will always be easy for skeptics to remain skeptical, she said, adding that she disagreed with the idea that things need to be this OR that, like both spiritual and scientific, or intuitive and logical. Arent we dynamic, fluid beings at this point capable of multi-modal analysis?

Meanwhile, Priya Kale, who writes Astro Guides rising horoscopes, likens staying in the proverbial closet to invalidating something David believes in. There comes the bigger question in every individuals lifedo I live in alignment with what I have experienced to be true, or in fear of what society will think? Kale said she was questioned by her family when she said she would be a full-time astrologer.

David disagreed. What I believe in, or what I dont believe in, doesnt need to be validated for the world, he said, adding that he believes he can have more of an impact in the scientific world if he avoids giving ammunition to people who want to attack or discredit his work.

The double life David lives is weighing on his decision of whether or not to publish a book on astrology. In fact, his day job at NASA is also secretive. It works both ways. Most of the things I do at work are non-sensitive, but there are a few things that I have to keep more on the downlow, he said.

Im still not sure how to come out and still be safe..I want to do it, but I have this invisible hand pulling me back, David said. For now, as a naturally private person and Geminithe sign represented by twins and known for dual personalitieshe doesnt mind. Geminis are good at keeping secrets, when they want to.

Download the Astro Guide app by VICE on an iOS device to read daily horoscopes personalized for your sun, moon, and rising signs, and learn how to apply cosmic events to self care, your friendships, and relationships.

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Meet the NASA Engineer Who Secretly Practices Astrology - Free

Stargazers turn out in droves for last ‘star party’ of 2019 – Visalia Times-Delta and Tulare Advance-Register

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Venus and Jupiter were the opening act.

At twilight, the two planets, visible to the naked eye, appeared to nearly bump into each other before setting in the western sky.

That 'conjunction' kicked off the last star party of 2019 for the Tulare Astronomical Association. Between 50 and 70 people turned out toArthur Pursell Observatory to gaze up at the heavens and see Saturn's rings, the Andromeda Galaxy, double stars, different types of star clusters and various planetary nebulas.

The International Space Station even made a quick appearance, shooting across the sky at 5 miles per second.

Tulare Astronomical Association member Butch Demmers gives a presentation during the star party at the Arthur Pursell Observatory on Saturday, Nov. 23.(Photo: Kyra Haas)

Before most of the viewing got underway, TAA member and former club president Butch Demmers presentedinside the club's meeting roomto give attendees a better sense of what they would see.

"That way, they would have a little bit more knowledge of when they're looking at something, what that something is instead of just a patch of light up in the sky," Demmers said.

Outside the dome, which holds the club's 12.5 inchCave Astrola Telescope, club members set up other telescopes on pads to show gazers different parts of the night sky.

Club members Don and Sally Belflowerof Bakersfieldnot only showed viewers the stars, but also how to operate the telescope, twisting knobs to center the star in a projected bullseye, then adjusting the focus to view the object clearly.

Sally said Don became interested in astronomy when their daughter was 8 or 9, thinking it was a way to "expand her horizons." Ten years later, Don and Sally are active members of both Tulare's and Bakersfield's astronomy clubs. Their daughter occasionally participates, but not as much.

"She's 18," Sally said with a laugh. "She does OK, but it's not her thing."

Star party attendees line up to look in the telescope at the Arthur Pursell Observatory on Saturday, Nov. 23.(Photo: Kyra Haas)

MichaelTeller, 12, was at the star party with his mother, Marianna, and three of his four siblings. They came to surprise his father, Joseph, an English professor and TAA member with a passion for astronomy.

"Our youngest is 4 now, and it's to the point where we can actually all make it," Marianna said.

Michael said his fascination with astronomy started around age 9 when his father started taking him to TAA events. He said the coolest thing he's ever seen is a meteor.

"It was right over there, and there were orange flames shooting behind it for like three seconds," he said.

Saturday was the last star party of the calendar year becausecloudy, rainy and cold weather in December and January aren'tideal for viewing,Demmers said.

Many of the telescopes, he said, have corrector plates thatare subject to getting "dewed up" when the air has high humidity,which also makes winter observation a challenge.

"Once it gets fogged up, you can't un-fog it," he said.

Demmers said they'll start hosting star parties again around February.

TAA started in 1967 and has about 30 active members. The group's next discussion is at 7:30 p.m. onDec. 4, at the observatory.

The Tulare Astronomical Association sign hangs adjacent to the observing dome at Arthur Pursell Observatory.(Photo: Kyra Haas)

Stars light up the night sky during a star party outside Arthur Pursell Observatory on Saturday, Nov. 23.(Photo: Kyra Haas)

Reach reporter Kyra Haasby emailat khaas@visaliatimesdelta.com or find her onTwitter@kc_haas.

Get alerts and keep up on all things Tulare County for as little as $1 a month.Subscribe today.

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Stargazers turn out in droves for last 'star party' of 2019 - Visalia Times-Delta and Tulare Advance-Register

Meteor Shower Was a Dud, But Showing Up Was Half the Fun – Sky & Telescope

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The Alpha Monocerotids happened as predicted, even if not quite as we expected.

Michael Boyle Sr. caught an Alpha Monocerotid speeding through Orion last night. I saw 20 meteors in an hour (not 400) from a dark sky site. But they were faint," writes Boyle. Michael Boyle Sr.

Astronomy is just so weird. Sometimes you have to take it in stride. After the hype of the Alpha Monocerotids of which I'm partly to blame the shower proved to be very weak. Michael Boyle Sr., an amateur astronomer in Florida, an ideal spot from which to view the event, reported about 20 meteors per hour at peak. Others saw a few. I stood in a bitter cold wind for an hour and 15 minutes and saw exactly one.

I can't tell you exactly why the shower was a dud, but it's safe to say our understanding of the Alpha Monocerotids is imperfect despite the fact that the researchers nailed the predicted peak within 10 minutes of the original estimate (5:00 UT vs. 4:50 UT). While the 400 meteors per hour rate was for ideal conditions over a short period of time, the radiant was low for many observers in the U.S., so fewer meteors were expected. Still, I was surprised that I saw almost none. My skies were excellent despite occasional clouds, with the winter Milky Way easily visible. The radiant stood a couple of fists above the horizon. (Nov. 23 update: The count was off by a factor of 5 possibly due to Earth grazing the comet's trail instead of passing directly through it.)

While waiting and watching for meteors, other sights made the outing a special one including seeing Sirius reflecting on Lake Superior. Bob King

While astronomers can predict the positions of planets and stars like clockwork, some phenomena remain elusive. The aurorae are a prime example infamous for either not showing up on time, not happening when they're "supposed to," or appearing unexpectedly.

Native American mythology makes room for nature's unpredictable side by including a character called the trickster, which usually takes the form of an animal. Locally, he's a coyote. The trickster is a supernatural being who likes to mess with humans and break the rules. If you're a skywatcher, it eventually becomes second-nature to allow for a potentially spectacular event to not happen at all. Yes, there is disappointment, but there is often joy in the occasion for the simple reason that you showed up.

Showing up means you invested a part of yourself and time to pay attention to something in that big world out there. In doing so, you've also opened yourself up to experiencing something unexpected. At the very minimum, those who did go out last night got to see Orion and Sirius in all their twinkling glory. I saw that . . . and a little more.

The sky over my house was solidly overcast an hour before the start of shower, but for some reason was clear over the neighboring Lake Superior. I wished for a boat. In lieu of that, I got in the car and drove the two miles down to the lake. Incredibly, a chunk of clear sky hung open in the southeastern sky in the direction of Orion and the shower. Elsewhere clouds hung thickly.

Spectacular shower, right? Nope. What you're seeing is actually a train of F-16 jets flying in a formation over Lake Superior. The bright star is Sirius. Bob King

I set up a camera, stood in the 20 mph, 20 wind, and watched. I saw a couple of sporadic or unrelated meteors but no shower members until around 10:37 p.m. That's when I noticed what looked like sparks flashing from the radiant (from where the meteors appear to stream), southwest of Procyon, a star near the constellation of Monoceros, the Unicorn.

The sparking continued for several minutes and looked almost exactly like distant fireworks pop! pop pop! pop! I started yelling crazy "wows" into the wind, thinking this was it, the event we had all hoped for until I looked around and noticed there weren't any sister meteors plowing across the rest of the sky. That wasn't normal. A couple minutes later the flashes had shifted further west and eventually it became apparent: I was looking at a bunch of airplanes!

We have a national guard air base in Duluth, Minnesota, and the pilots will routinely practice flying at night over Lake Superior and the neighboring state of Wisconsin. I'd never seen so many bunched up so close at a distance. Their flashing lights mimicked head-on meteor flares and created the perfect fake meteor shower with a "radiant" or direction of travel from the southeast of Monoceros.

By 11 o'clock the Big Dipper began to climb the northeastern sky once again.Bob King

The sole Alpha Monocerotid I saw streaked slowly upward from the Unicorn and sliced across Orion, maxing out around first magnitude. For me, though, the Milky Way was enough, the Big Dipper standing on his handle above wispy clouds, and the roar of waves slapping the rocks below the road where I parked my car.

Now nearly frozen, I collapsed the tripod and got back into the car at 11:30 p.m., strangely content after not seeing what might have been the best meteor shower of my life.

This post originally appeared in AstroBob: Celestial happenings you can see from your own backyard.

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Meteor Shower Was a Dud, But Showing Up Was Half the Fun - Sky & Telescope

Astronomy Club plans events to engage with the community – The Ithacan

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Gazing up at Ithacas clear night skies, one may wonder what exactly is up there just beyond the stratosphere. For anyone curious to learn about the workings of the universe, the stars and the planet, Ithaca Colleges new astronomy club is here to educate members.

Senior Mia Manzer, Astronomy Club president and co-founder, said the clubs leaders want to share their passion and engage students at the college with astronomy.

Manzer said the club will be holding biweekly meetings and will host different events, like movie nights, theme nights and star parties, which are outdoor observation nights. During the star parties, students will have the opportunity to use portable telescopes, look at constellations and learn about the universe beyond their lenses.

The club was created in Fall 2019 and is currently awaiting official recognition by the college, Manzer said.

Freshman Antara Sen, Astronomy Club secretary, said she is hoping to utilize the colleges Clinton B. Ford Observatory, a building on campus that is not currently in use, to hold open events for students and the greater Ithaca community. Sen said the club is going to host fundraisers to raise money to repair the observatory, but it does not have a set fundraising goal yet.

We have a really good observatory that does not get as much usage as it could, said Matthew Price, Astronomy Club adviser and associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Price said the club will be reaching out to students, alumni and faculty for donations to go toward repairing the observatory.

The club itself supports the Ford telescope, he said. It supports outreach. It helps the students to help to do these things. Its about taking the next step and getting everyone active.

Junior club member George Cozma said the club is looking to involve students in the refurbishing process for the observatory. He said the club may open up the observatory during repairs and have students come in to paint the panels of the observatory dome.

We want to generate interest in the beginning, Sen said. We also want to keep that interest alive for the rest of the year.

Cozma said that he is most excited to get the club fully recognized and to begin having regular meetings and hosting events and that planning club activities has been difficult. He said one of the greatest issues the club has is planning around unpredictable weather. The telescopes cannot be used in the rain or snow, so the outdoor star party events are subject to cancellation.

The clubs first star party was scheduled for Oct. 1 on the quad in front of Roy H. Park Hall but was canceled due to impending rain, Manzer said. The club is still working on rescheduling the first event, she said.

The telescopes, which are provided by the college, function better in colder temperatures, so the club will continue hosting outdoor events throughout the academic year and during the winter months as long as the weather permits, Sen said.

Manzer said her goal for the club is to promote engagement in astronomy from students outside of the colleges Department of Physics and Astronomy. Club meetings will be open to all students, and Manzer encourages anyone to attend regardless of their major or experience with astronomy.

We want people to feel involved and be interested in learning about space and our universe and just have fun with it, she said.

Sen said she believes all students could benefit from learning about astronomy. She said the club officials will help to teach and answer any questions inexperienced members may have.

Thats why were building the Astronomy Club, Sen said. In our club meetings, we want to educate our members about the night sky and about the constellations and planets that we will be able to see.

Price said the club is looking to engage the campus and act as an outlet for students who are interested in the topic and looking for help understanding the basics.

The club can be campuswide, he said. It can recruit across the campus and help people be involved. The telescope can be used by any human who has an interest. They just need a little training.

Sen said she believes the club offers useful information about astronomy and space exploration that students may not learn in their classes. She said that the club will make the topic more easily understood and will initiate discussions about current issues in the world.

We have so many crises on earth right now, like the energy crisis, she said. There are so many things wrong right now, and I think that space exploration gives at least a new avenue for research, a new avenue for looking into something that not a lot of people have ventured into.

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Astronomy Club plans events to engage with the community - The Ithacan

Two Co-Moving Brown Dwarfs Spotted 79 Light-Years Away | Astronomy – Sci-News.com

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Professional and amateur astronomers from the NASA-funded Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project have spotted a co-moving pair of low-mass brown dwarfs in the solar neighborhood.

An artists rendering of two brown dwarfs. Image credit: Roberto Molar Candanosa & Sergio Dieterich, Carnegie Institution for Science.

To shine bright, stars need the energy derived from the fusion of hydrogen atoms deep in their interiors. If too small, hydrogen fusion cant occur, so the object cools, darkens, and turns into something called a brown dwarf.

On the high mass end, brown dwarfs overlap in observable properties with the coolest stars like TRAPPIST-1 which hosts seven terrestrial worlds, said Dr. Jacqueline Faherty, an astronomer at the American Museum of Natural History, and colleagues.

On the low mass end, they overlap with the observable properties of directly imaged exoplanets like 51 Eri b and Beta Pictoris b.

One of the most important and outstanding questions in substellar mass science is how these objects form and evolve, they said.

Co-moving companions are a key sub-population for investigating questions of formation.

The newfound pair of brown dwarfs is older than 500 million years and younger than 10 billion years.

Designated WISE 2150-7520AB (W2150AB for short), it lies approximately 79 light-years away.

The system consists of two brown dwarfs of spectral types L1 and T8.

The primary member of the system, W2150A, has an estimated mass of 72 times that of Jupiter. The secondary member, W2150B, is 34 times heavier than Jupiter.

The distance between the two objects is around 341 AU (1 AU is the distance from the Sun to Earth).

This image shows the brown dwarf binary system WISE 2150-7520AB. Image credit: Faherty et al, arXiv: 1911.04600.

W2150AB was first spotted in data from NASAs Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) via the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project.

The BackyardWorlds: Planet 9 project has been operational since February 2017, Dr. Faherty and co-authors explained.

The scientific goal of the project is to complete the census of the solar neighborhood (including the Solar System, e.g. Planet 9) with objects that are detectable primarily at mid infrared wavelengths and that were missed by previous searches.

Three citizen science users (Sam Goodman, Dan Caselden, and Guillaume Colin) brought to our attention a WISE W2 only detected source with significant motion, the astronomers said.

They used the Google form and emphasized the objects importance by emailing the Backyard Worlds distribution list as well as key researchers on our team. In addition, these users easily noted a bright source that appeared to be co-moving.

The scientists then confirmed the discovery using the 6.5-m Baade Magellan telescope and the Folded-port InfraRed Echellette (FIRE) spectrograph.

W2150AB resembles 2MASS J11011926-7732383AB (2M1101AB), the first brown dwarf binary discovered with a separation of over 20 AU, they said.

2M1101AB, discovered in the Chamaeleon star-forming region, was heralded as a source of definitive insight into the formation of brown dwarfs. But W2150AB leaves us with an intriguing question about whether it is an evolved version of 2M1101AB or perhaps a system that formed in a low density cluster that survived unperturbed by interactions with nearby stellar or giant molecular cloud.

Given that it is easily resolved with ground or space based observatories, W2150AB is an excellent benchmark system for understanding how brown dwarfs form and evolve together, the researchers concluded.

Their paper will be published in the Astrophysical Journal.

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Jacqueline K. Faherty et al. 2019. WISE2150-7520AB: A very low mass, wide co-moving brown dwarf system discovered through the citizen science project Backyard Worlds: Planet 9. ApJ, in press; arXiv: 1911.04600

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Two Co-Moving Brown Dwarfs Spotted 79 Light-Years Away | Astronomy - Sci-News.com

Astronomers use the upgraded GMRT to measure the gas mass of galaxies in the distant Universe – Economic Times

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PUNE: Scientists at the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (NCRA-TIFR, Pune) and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali (IISER- Mohali) have used the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) to carry out the most distant measurement of the atomic hydrogen content of galaxies in the early Universe, informed NCRA.

The GMRT is built and operated by NCRA-TIFR and is among the largest radio telescopes in the world. Galaxies like the Milky-way are made up of stars and gas. The life cycle of a galaxy is essentially the conversion of gas to stars through gravitational collapse of gas clouds.

Understanding how galaxies form and evolve thus requires measurements of how both their stars and gas evolve with time. Over the last two decades, astronomers have accurately measured the stellar masses and star formation rates of populations of galaxies at different epochs in the Universe. However, little is known about the evolution of the atomic gas content of galaxies, the fuel for star formation.

Scientists at the NCRA-TIFR and IISER-Mohali have used the upgraded GMRT to measure gas contents in most distant galaxies. Apurba Bera, a Ph.D. student at NCRA-TIFR and the lead author of the paper, said, Most of the atomic gas in galaxies is in the form of hydrogen, which emits a characteristic spectral line at the radio wavelength of 21.11 cm. Unfortunately, this hydrogen emission is weak, and even powerful radio telescopes like GMRT do not have sufficient sensitivity to detect the emission from very distant galaxies. However, the wide frequency coverage of the upgraded GMRT allowed to add the hydrogen emission signals from a large number of galaxies in the field of view of the telescope, so as to measure their average gas content..

The study resulted in a measurement of the average atomic gas content of star-forming galaxies located 4 billion light years away, when the Universe was about two-thirds of its current age. Remarkably, the authors found that both the star-formation efficiency of galaxies and the cosmological gas mass density in galaxies appear to have not changed significantly over the last 4 billion years.

Jayaram Chengalur, a professor at NCRA-TIFR and a co-author of the paper, said The measurement critically requires simultaneous observations of a large number of galaxies. This was possible due to the recent upgrade of the GMRT, as its large bandwidth and superb digital systems allowed us to cover more than 400 galaxies simultaneously. Jasjeet Singh Bagla, a professor at IISER-Mohali and also a co-author, mentioned that his interest in such studies was initiated by simulations of structure formation in the Universe, and that it was wonderful to see that direct measurements of gas masses of distant galaxies are possible today."

The results have been published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), and have been highlighted by AAS Nova as one of the most interesting recent results to appear in journals published by them.

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Astronomers use the upgraded GMRT to measure the gas mass of galaxies in the distant Universe - Economic Times

Black hole horror: Earth to be consumed by monster black hole – astronomer warning – Express.co.uk

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At the centre of the Andromeda Galaxy the Milky Ways much larger next door neighbour lies a black hole with more than 4.1 million times the mass of the Sun. The supermassive black hole is truly a galactic powerhouse, destroying everything in its wake. While the black hole is 25,000 lightyears across space from Earth at the moment, scientists have warned Andromeda and the Milky Way will one day collide, which could spell the end for our planet.

Andromeda, which at 220,000 lightyears across is twice the size of the Milky Way, is approaching the our galaxy at around five million kilometres a year.

When the galaxies do meet, Earth could be flung into the centre of Andromeda, where its supermassive black hole would consume the planet.

Fabio Pacucci, an astrophysicist at Harvard University & Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, said during a Ted Talk: Unlike their stellar cousins, supermassive black holes arent wandering through space.

Instead, they lie at the centre of galaxies, including our own. Our solar system is in a stable orbit around a supermassive black hole that resides at the centre of the Milky Way, at a safe distance of 25,000 lightyears.

But that could change. If our galaxy collides with another, the Earth could be thrown towards the galactic centre, close enough to the supermassive black hole to be eventually swallowed up.

In fact, a collision with the Andromeda Galaxy is predicted to happen 4 billion years from now, which may not be great news for our home planet.

However, Mr Pacucci added that black holes get a bad rep, and said they are actually vital for the existence of life in the cosmos.

The Harvard astrophysicist continued: But before we judge them too harshly, black holes arent simply agents of destruction.

READ MORE:Black hole measuring just 1mm would destroy Earth

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Black hole horror: Earth to be consumed by monster black hole - astronomer warning - Express.co.uk

See Mercury at its best meet Mars in the dawn sky – Astronomy Now Online

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Innermost planet Mercury puts on its best morning display of the year for Northern Hemisphere observers from late November to early December. Skywatchers in the British Isles should find a location offering an unobstructed view of the southeast horizon about 45minutes before sunrise to get the best views. This looping animation shows the changing configuration of Mercury, Mars and Virgos brightest star, Spica, from 18November through 3December at dawn. Note the span of a fist at arms length (about 10) for scale, but the Moons apparent size on 24 and 25November has been enlarged for clarity. AN animation by Ade Ashford.Mercurys transit of the Sun on 11November is still fresh in the memory, but it doesnt take long for the innermost planets orbital motion to carry it far enough west of the Sun to be visible low above the southeastern horizon in dawn twilight. Mercury attains its greatest westerly elongation of 20degrees on the UK morning of 28November. In fact, for Northern Hemisphere observers, the remainder of the month into early December offers Mercurys best morning viewing prospects for the entire year.

Any opportunity to get a glimpse of this elusive and fast-moving planet is well worth getting up a little earlier for, particularly when as now you get a chance to see Mars nearby at the same time. As with any observation made in the eastern sky during dawn twilight, timing is everything: you need to view late enough that Mercury gets a chance to rise high enough above the horizon murk, but not so late that impending sunrise makes the sky too bright to see it. (Never look anywhere near the Sun with an unfiltered optical instrument after it has risen.)

Observers in the British Isles need to find a location that offers an unobscured view of the southeast horizon about three-quarters of an hour before sunrise between now and the first week of December. Our interactive online Almanac gives you the time of sunrise for your nearest town or city, so just subtract 45minutes from that.The slim crescent of the 27-day-old waning Moon lies slightly less than 4degrees above magnitude +1.7 Mars at UK dawn on Sunday, 24November 2019, hence the pair will fit in the same field of view of 10 and lower magnification binoculars. On this morning, the Red Planet sits midway between magnitude -0.2 Mercury and first-magnitude star Spica in Virgo. Note that the Moons apparent size has been enlarged for clarity in this illustration. AN graphic by Ade Ashford.Mercury is located in the constellation of Libra for the period illustrated in the animation at the top of the page. The planet lies about 9degrees (almost the span of a fist held at arms length) above the southeast horizon at the optimal viewing time between 23November and the beginning of December. The Red Planet sits midway between Mercury and the first-magnitude star Spica, the brightest in the constellation of Virgo, at UK dawn on 24November.

Magnitude +1.7 Mars remains in Virgo until the morning of 1December when it crosses the constellation border to join Mercury in Libra. Mercury brightens more than fourfold from magnitude +1 to -0.6 during the 18November to 3December observing window. If clear, dont miss the binocular highlights of 24 and 25November at dawn when the old waning crescent Moon lies 4 above Mars and 3 to the lower left of Mercury, respectively.

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Tulare Astronomical Association invites you to see Venus and Jupiter ‘collide’ in celestial light show – Visalia Times-Delta and Tulare…

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For Choices Published 2:47 p.m. PT Nov. 20, 2019 | Updated 2:47 p.m. PT Nov. 20, 2019

A specialStar Partywill take placeat theArthur Pursell Observatory sevenmilessouthwest of Tulare.

Jupiter and Venus "colliding" is just one of the many exciting celestial phenomena you can observe duringthe Tulare Astronomical Associations public viewing eventonSaturday, Nov. 23.(Photo: Ron Holman/Times Delta)

Shortly after sunset onNov. 23, Venus and Jupiter, the two brightest planets, put on a thrilling show by appearing like they are headed for a collision (although Jupiter is actually four times farther away).

This dramatic twilight pairing called "aconjunction"places them merely 1.5 degrees apart just a fingers width at arms length.

This is just one of the many exciting celestial phenomena you can observe duringthe Tulare Astronomical Associations public viewing eventonSaturday, Nov. 23.

This specialStar Partywill take placeat theArthur Pursell Observatory sevenmilessouthwest of Tulare.

(Photo: News-Press)

BecauseVenusandJupiterwill sink below the horizon shortly after 6 p.m., this unique eventwill beginpromptly at5:30 p.m.(please be on time) and officiallyend at 9 p.m.Thecost is $5 for those 12 and older.

BeforeJupiterslides below the horizon, we will probably be able to observe three of itsGalilean moons(Io, Europa, & Callisto) through a telescope as well as therings and possibly some moons of Saturn.During this 5:30 -6 p.m. period of viewing, the Venus-Jupiter conjunction,feel free to eat any picnic dinner or snacks that you brought; a table and trash cans will be provided, but please bring your own chair.

As the sky darkens and stars appear, we will congregate for a short tour of theconstellationsandbright starsvisible in the night sky. Visitors will then be able to look through theTAAs 12.5 Cave Astrola (Newtonian) Telescopein theobserving domeas well as through about 6 TAAmembers' personal telescopes.

Each telescope will feature a different celestial object. Featured telescopic objects will includeUranuswith itsblue-greenish hue,as well as blue-grayNeptune,the farthest planet from the Sun;incredibly,we may see a total of 6 of the 8 planets(if you include the Earth).

Displays, pictures and telescopes are all around the lecture room at the Arthur Pursell Observatory, home of the Tulare Astronomical Association.(Photo: Ron Holman)

Viewing conditions are forecasted to be excellent, dark, moonless, and clear, perfect for stargazing; ideal for viewing more challenging targets likePlanetary Nebulasincluding theBlue Snowball Nebula(NGC 7662),theDumbbell Nebula(M 27,NGC 6853), theLittle Dumbbell Nebula(M76, NGC 650, NGC 651), theRing Nebula(M57), TheCat's Eye Nebula(NGC 6543), and theBlinking Planetary Nebula(NGC 6826), as well as several spiral galaxies likeNGC 891, theSculptor Galaxy(NGC 253),and theGreat Andromeda Galaxy(M31).

M31 is the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way; being2.5 million light-years from Earth,it is the farthest object that can be seen with your naked eye! This spiral galaxycontains an estimatedone trillion stars, about twice the number found in our Milky Way.

Telescopes will also be used to separate severalDouble StarsincludingPolaris(theNorth Star),Sigma Cassiopeiae,Eta Cassiopeiae,as well as the colorfulAlberio, known asthe most beautiful double star.

If you havebinoculars, bring them; they provide excellent viewing ofopen clusterslike thePleiades (M45)known as the Seven Sisters, theOwl Cluster(NGC 457)- which contains 2 bright star that look like owl eyes,Messier 52 (NGC 7654), the famousDouble Cluster(NGC 869, NGC 884), theGlobular ClusterMessier 15 (NGC 7078),and possibly evenUranusand our ownMilky Way Galaxy.

TheArthur Pursell Observatory (APO)is located at9242 Ave 184 Tulare, about halfway between Tulare and Tipton.Travel on Highwat 99 and turn west on Ave 184; drive west about3.4 miles on Ave 184until you reach the signed APO entranced driveway (about 0.5 miles beyond the Road 96 intersection). Drive north on this entrance road a short distance to the APO parking area.

If the sky is too cloudy, foggy or raining, the event may be canceled. Cancellations are usually decided by 4:00 pm the day of the event (Check TAAs Facebook page). If you arrive on time and the gate is closed the event has been canceled.

Tips

Information: Reece Williford (559) 592-4379 orrtwill2@verizon.net

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Tulare Astronomical Association invites you to see Venus and Jupiter 'collide' in celestial light show - Visalia Times-Delta and Tulare...

Awesome photos of Venus and Jupiter after sunset | Astronomy Essentials – EarthSky

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Read more: Venus/Jupiter conjunction on November 24. In all of the photos below and in the sky Venus is brighter than Jupiter.

EarthSky 2020 lunar calendars are available! They make great gifts. Order now. Going fast!

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Andrea Deegan in Western Australia caught Venus and Jupiter after sunset on November 23, 2019. She wrote: I noticed Venus and Jupiter were shining brightly low on the horizon while at the beach with friends doing some light playing. Thank you, Andrea!

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Dr Ski in Valencia, Philippines, wrote on November 22, 2019: Been waiting for a long time to capture this shot of Venus and Jupiter alongside my Traveller Palm at sunset!

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | David Rojas in Villa Caneles, Guatemala, caught the planets on November 21 and wrote: The capture was made on the slopes of a volcano called Pacaya. The distance between the planets and their brightness was very similar. The colors after the sun went down behind the horizon bathe the sky that could already be seen with countless stars, a little away from the citys pollution. Thank you, David!

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Kathy Wollman in Valley Center, California,caught this image of Venus and Jupiter on November 21, 2019. She wrote: Venus, Jupiter, virga. Thank you, Kathy!

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Peter Lowenstein in Mutare, Zimbabwe, captured this image on November 18, 2019. He wrote: A break in the weather after the onset of the rains provided a good Southern Hemisphere view of Jupiter (above) and bright Venus (below) getting closer together in the twilight sky. Antares is also faintly visible (lower left). Thank you, Peter! The planets after sunset now are most easily viewed from Earths Southern Hemisphere, where the ecliptic or path of the sun, moon and planets makes a steep angle with the sunset horizon.

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Carl Keene also caught the planets on November 18, from San Jose, California. You can see that, from this Northern Hemisphere location, the planets are exceedingly low in the west after sunset. Theres a 3rd planet in this photo, too, Saturn, in the upper left. Thank you, Carl!

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Low in the sky or high in the sky these 2 planets are bright! Kannan A caught Venus and Jupiter over one of the most brightly lit cities in the world Singapore on November 14. Thanks, Kannan A!

View larger. | For reference here are Venus and Jupiter on October 30, 2019, when the young moon was sweeping past them. They were much farther apart in late October than they will be in late November. By early December, Jupiter will be visible only with difficulty in the western twilight. Itll disappear in the suns glare before the year ends. Venus will go on to be the evening star visible from all of Earth for the first part of 2020. Photo by Steve Pauken of Winslow, Arizona. Thank you, Steve!

Bottom line: Photos from the EarthSky Community of the very bright planets Jupiter and Venus, now in the west after sunset. Watch for them!

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Awesome photos of Venus and Jupiter after sunset | Astronomy Essentials - EarthSky

People are starting to notice – The Bowdoin Orient

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When I see the word mental illness, my mind goes straight to the word illness. Then a host of other words start to flow through my mind: disease, disability, impaired, bad, inferior, unworthy. The list continues, but the negative connotation of the words remain the same.

In our society, mental illness has a history of stigmatization. For example, in World War I and World War II, soldiers would come back from war and never speak about the debilitating stress they experienced. They pushed the stress to the side and gave it a name, shell shock. It was just how they got by. As my Great Uncle Bob said, None of them spoke about what happened overseas. No one.

All of these soldiers were suffering. These men had to come back to America and provide for their families. Who was going to listen to their stories? If they were lucky, maybe they could talk to their wives, or a childhood friend, but in actuality, there was a slim chance of this happening.

It is a different story today.

Just take a look at the new Joker movie and Joaquin Phoenixs stunning performance. Director Todd Phillips has taken a risk by exploring what it means to be human and to have empathy for a character you are supposed to despise.

As I watched the movie, I had a desire to rage against the nihilism of Arthur Fleck while simultaneously realizing that these emotions exist inside me. Obviously these emotions dont push me to the point of psychopathic action, but that is not the point, even though many critics draw the conclusion that by watching the movie one can become a nihilist or, in the extreme sense, a psychopath or school shooter (how silly).

In opposition to these claims, Joker is a piece of art that provokes and operates as a way of suggestion, as the American poet Franz Wright said about his poetry. The provocative nature of the film allows viewers to see how a mental illness develops in childhood through physical and emotional abuse, untold lies and a lack of humility from parents to ask how you are feeling.

All of this couldnt be done without Phoenix, who uses his acting talent to convey something of value to the viewers. Whether it be Phoenixs melodic dance in the bathroom or his unorthodox laughter (a medical condition), he portrays in the fullest sense of what it means to be destroyed in a world where you were never accepted in the first place.

Phoenix, through his acting, demonstrates that Arthur Fleck is a human with a history. He provokes viewers to writhe in their seat, leave with an uncomfortable empathy and ask themselves, am I supposed to feel this way?

In a way, Joker lends itself to what Carl Jung, a famous analytical psychologist, calls the social significance of art: Therein lies the social significance of art: it is constantly at work educating the spirit of the age, conjuring up the forms in which the age is most lacking.

Joker says what has not been said, making it a great piece of art that will hopefully win Phoenix and Phillips Oscars and provoke viewers to think about their own mental health and that of others.

I would admit that Joker made me think about what mental illness meant to me after having been through countless psychologists, psychiatrists, a 10-day trip to the psychiatric hospital and a diagnosis of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

In my own view, I see mental illness through a scene from Good Will Hunting. The scene takes place at a pond, where Sean McGuire (Robin Williams) and Will Hunting (Matt Damon) are sitting on a bench. Sean goes on to tell Will that he doesnt know anything about life, love, art or war, but then ends the scene with a very important message to Will: I cant learn anything from you I cant read in some fucking book, unless you want to talk about you, who you are.

Dylan Welch is a member of the Class of 2022.

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People are starting to notice - The Bowdoin Orient

The 13 Bleakest Rock And Metal Albums Ever – Kerrang!

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The days are shorter. The sun grows wan in the sky. Everyday existence becomes a trudge from darkness to further darkness, with only biting cold and the misery of the working day wedged in-between. As December looms, most folk might be looking towards the electric light and popping parties of the festive season, but true miserabilists and misanthropes know that the dark end of the year belongs to them. In celebration, weve compiled our rundown of the 13 bleakest and most outright nihilistic releases in the history of rock andmetal.

Prepare to feel themisery

13. Godflesh Streetcleaner

Thirty years old on November 13 just passed, the monolithic masterpiece from Birmingham industrial metallers Godflesh still delivers that stomach lurching sense of hollow dread as severely today as it did the first time. Streetcleaner might face stiff competition in the bleakness stakes even within Godfleshs own discography hello, Pure and A World Lit Only By Fire but its sheer apocalyptic atmosphere and scene-changing impact is unsurpassed. Picking up on the work of American noise rockers Swans and their Brummie brethren in Napalm Death, songs with the suffocating power of Like Rats, Dream Long Dead and Devastator helped define the still emergent industrial subgenre and set a bar that has arguably yet to bereached.

12. Black Flag My War

Itd be impossible to put together a list like this without at least one mention of legendary Californian punks Black Flag. Representing the dark underbelly of The Golden State, the hardcore progenitors grappled with social isolation, paranoia, poverty and neurosis throughout their career (indeed, 1981 debut Damaged couldve easily made this list but for its sheer up-punching pugilistic spirit), but 1984s My War was the height of their sheer nihilism. Put together in poor conditions over four tense years where the band were unable to release material for legal reasons and during which legendary frontman Henry Rollins was becoming ever more of a powder-keg during live performances tracks like Beat My Head Against The Wall and The Swinging Man have oceans of misery beneath their high energyexteriors.

11. Gallows Grey Britain

When Watford punks Gallows signed a major-label deal with Warner Bros. records and hit the studio with renowned producer Garth Richardson, even longtime fans couldnt help but wonder whether their heroes had sold their souls for a pot of gold. Spectacularly, Frank Carter and his not-so-merry men did quite the opposite, emerging from the studio with one of the most unapologetically nihilistic records imaginable. Grey Britain is burning down, rang out the opening lyric on The Riverbed. Well be buried alive before we drown. These fair isles mightve actually slipped further towards oblivion in the decade since, but the soundtrack remains thesame

10. Manic Street Preachers The Holy Bible

The third LP from Welsh alt.rockers Manic Street Preachers remains a miserabilist landmark both within rock and the more mainstream indie genre the band would go on to inhabit in the 25 years since. Recorded while legendary rhythm guitarist/lyricist Richey Edwards was in the grip of depression, alcoholism, self-harm and anorexia, it unfolds as a tortured journal of his experience. The songs within darkly reflect his mental state, referencing subject matter as troubling as prostitution, serial killers, self-starvation, capital punishment, fascism and suicide and present an overwhelming sense of anger and resignation. Richey would infamously disappear just over five months after the records release on February 1 1995. The album remains a harrowing monument to his torturedgenius.

9. Type O Negative World Coming Down

Written in the wake of a series of deaths in frontman Peter Steeles family, World Coming Down plumbs a remarkable well of darkness even for the prodigiously depressive Brooklyn goth-metallers. Provisionally titled Prophets Of Doom And Aggroculture, album five saw a departure from the lyrical themes of love, sex and heartache with which theyd made their name in favour of far more desolate subject matter like cocaine addiction (White Slavery), bereavement (Everyone I Love Is Dead) and existential angst (Everything Dies). Incorporating cold, industrial instrumentation and reversed vocal backmasking alongside the sound of Gregorian chanting and organ music, it delivers lurching dread with realdynamism.

8. Killing Joke Killing Joke (1980)

When the debut LP Killing Joke was reviewed in K! predecessor Sounds, the reviewer awarded the album a perfect 5/5 score, but opted to addend a 1/5 rating for morality and warned that the music contained within might prove corrosive to the soul. They had a point. From cover artwork depicting the use of CS gas by British troops against peaceful protesters in Derry, Northern Ireland to the weird, industrial-inflected post-punk of Wardance, Requiem and Bloodsport, this was Jaz Coleman let off the leash. Its darkness has leached right through mainstream rock, too, with Dave Grohl naming the album amongst his all-time favourites, while Metallica covered The Wait on 1987s Garage Days RevisitedEP.

7. Nirvana In Utero

Nirvanas final release before Kurt Cobains death unfolds with a predictably caustic worldview. Teenage angst has paid off well, he sings on Serve The Servants, betraying an ominously shrouded worldview, now Im bored and old Kurt even originally wanted to name the album I Hate Myself And I Want To Die. Striving for an abrasive, naturalistic sound throughout recording, the album audibly matches up. Its as we dig into the darker themes underlying that things get really bleak, though. Scentless Apprentice retells the dark surrealism of Patrick Sskinds Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer. Milk It envisages lovers as conjoined parasites feeding off each others bodily waste. Heart Shaped Box reimagines the umbilical cord as a noose. Rape Me more or less speaks for itself Not a happyalbum.

6. Shining V: Halmstad

When a band self-define as suicidal-depressive black metal you know their output isnt ever going to be the cheeriest. Their infamous fifth LP, however featuring a monochrome picture of a young woman with a gun in her mouth on its cover remains their deepest, darkest moment. Beginning with a haunting excerpt from William Hughes Mearns 1889 poem Antigonish As I was going up the stair, I met a man who wasnt there. He wasnt there again today. I wish, I wish hed go away - on Ytterligare Ett Steg Nrmare Total Jvla Utfrysning (Yet Another Step Towards Complete Fucking Isolation), it simply does not letup.

5. Nailbomb Point Blank

The first and only release from industrial metal supergroup Nailbomb was a darkly uncompromising exercise. Bringing together Sepultura/Soulfly frontman Max Cavalera and Fudge Tunnel founder/producer extraordinaire Alex Newport (whose vocals are credited simply as Mouthful Of Hate) along with a handful of co-conspirators, Point Blank is an unrelenting slab of sonic cruelty. If that cover image of a U.S. soldiers gun pressed to the head of a female Vietcong fighter didnt give you an idea of the sheer nihilism contained within, song titles like Blind And Lost, Sum Of Your Achievements and Cockroaches certainlywill

4. My Dying Bride Turn Loose The Swans

Legendary West Yorkshire doomsters My Dying Bride are another of those outfits where any individual release could have made this list. The fact that 1993s sophomore LP Turn Loose The Swans outstrips 2015s bluntly-titled Feel The Misery in terms of sheer bleakness should signpost just how much of a plunge into suffocating darkness this album delivers. Far slower and more considered than their debut As The Flower Withers, this one saw the band delve into the trademark mournfulness and complexity that would become their trademark across tracks like The Songless Bird and The Snow In My Hand. Album closer Black God even takes its lyrics from 18th century Scottish poem Ah! The Shepherds Mournful Fate and it doesnt get much more forlorn thanthat.

3. Alice In Chains Dirt

Layne Staleys performance on the second Alice In Chains LP might just be the most painfully poignant in all of music. Specifically referencing heroin usage and its ravaging effects across tracks like Sickman, Junkhead and God Smack, the record was a window into Laynes spiralling personal experience. The concept loosely follows the anguish and uncertainty of usage through to the ultimate realisation that addiction itself is not an escape from suffering, but the prison that keeps the user tied in. Both Layne and bassist Mike Starr would ultimately pass away from overdoses, underlining the dark reality at the heart of thesesongs.

2. Nine Inch Nails The Downward Spiral

After 1989 debut Pretty Hate Machine had established Nine Inch Nails new brand of darkly seductive industrial to dancefloor dominating effect, few expected the lurch into much colder darkness that would follow. Moving into Los Angeles 10050 Cielo Drive the scene of the Manson familys infamous murders and christening his studio Le Pig, mainman Trent Reznor wove together a concept album without any radio ready singles charting the descent of one man from the beginning of his Downward Spiral right through to his eventual suicide. Courting controversy from conservative social commentators, copping blame for the Columbine massacre and going on to shift well over four million units worldwide, it remains arguably the most controversial mainstream rock release inhistory.

1. Warning Watching From A Distance

There is no notorious public backstory to Watching From A Distance, no lurid context in which it should be viewed. Its imagery unfolds with a sense of heart-rending romance, not expounding every tortured detail but largely in the abstract. The depths of anguish conjured by Essex-based frontman Patrick Walker (now of 40 Watt Sun), however, are still utterly, utterly unmatched. His music does the talking, he has previously explained, so why would he say more himself? And how it talks. Drawing from a palette of hopeless greys and washed out sepia tones, the five tracks of this 2006 masterpiece unfold at a funereal pace, all earthen riffage and hauntingly plaintive vocals, conjuring a potent, timeless atmosphere of melancholia. At recent reunion shows, the album was played in full, and grown men were seen openly weeping. To fully understand why, youll need to listen foryourself

Posted on November 18th 2019, 5:52pm

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The 13 Bleakest Rock And Metal Albums Ever - Kerrang!

FROZEN 2 Is A Mythic Portrait Of Feminine Strength And Vulnerability (Review) – Nerdist

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Frozen 2 is about a lot of things. Colonialism and the silencing of indigenous cultures. Sisterhood and its powerful, unknowable reach. The quest for personal identity at whatever cosmetic cost. The nihilism that comes with growing older and more cosmically aware of lifes virtues and terrors.

Does it marry these threads together elegantly? Not always. But its hard to deny the power of the storytellingboth visual and literalin this entertaining Disney sequel. The film strikes many of the same chords as the first Frozen, but does so more gallantly this time around. Its an epic story with an interior core and a mythic sensibility that sends a powerful message to young girls: that sometimes the home you thought you desired isnt the final answer, and personal evolution is lifes real answer.

Frozen 2 finds our heroine, Elsa (Idina Menzel), at a bit of a crossroads. After the events of the first film, shes re-established herself as the queen of Arendelle, but shes not totally content in the role. She watches her sister Anna (Kristen Bell) enjoy her new life in the kingdom, as she banters about with her doofy but lovable boyfriend Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), his reindeer Sven, and the sentient snowman Olaf (Josh Gad)but Elsa cant find that same complacency. Shes left with the nagging feeling that theres more out there for her, she just isnt sure where or how to get it. Until one day a voice starts calling to hera voice that only she can hear, which seems to exist in the margins of the wind.

Disney

Soon, cataclysm comes to Arendelle, and its up to Elsa, Anna, and the others to find the source of whats preying on their homeland. The mystery that ensues has ties to Elsa and Annas parents, but more than that, to the foundation of every establishment they once trusted. The plot involves a series of revelations that disrupt the sisters worldview. Maybe this harmonious land theyve fought to protect doesnt deserve such esteem. And maybe their personal histories deserve some cross-examining as well.

The film is all about identityits presentation, its dissolution, and the acceptance of its amorphousnesswhich makes Frozen 2 more challenging than its easier-going predecessor. While the first Frozen told Elsas story from a place of confusion and fear, Frozen 2 tells it from a place of reconciliation. Shes accepted who she isa woman with an incredible magical ability to freeze the atmosphere around herbut what does it actually mean to have that power, and how does it inform your future whereabouts?

Frozen 2 begs that question through its soundtrack, which is more robust this time around, though not exactly more memorable. Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, who wrote the music and also directed the film, are doubling down on Menzels incredible range with a few ballads that exceed the power of Let It Go but dont necessarily rival its catchiness. All of the songs in Frozen 2 are great, but have a hard time living up to the more digestible tunes from the first film, which are so ingrained in our zeitgeist that it feels a little unfair that this one should have to measure up to that high bar.

And yet there are songs like Into the Unknown that will challenge young audiences to not only look inward, but into themselves on a meta-textual level. (Anna also gets a lovely song called The Next Right Thing near the climax that serves a similar purpose.) Tunes that get into the fiber of peculiar womanhood and examine it microscopically. Im not sure any Disney musical has ever been so powerfully, indelibly mythic as Frozen 2which erupts into moments of visual richness to match the music, with visions of underwater horses and women figures in the wind; markers that acknowledge the storys roots in Danish writer Hans Christian Andersens The Snow Queen, making it feel of an old-time culturethough it remains, ultimately, of its time.

This deep feminine mystique coupled with concepts like Olafs growing sense of innate awareness and Kristoffs masculine ineptitude, make Frozen 2 a strange Disney movie. Its arguably too big and too muchand those moments of grandiosity might float right over its target audiences headsbut its hard to resist a kids movie thats this audacious. Theres a messiness to Frozen 2; it gets lost in its own self-importance occasionally, and loses the plot as it indulges in moments like Kristoffs 80s-esque power ballad (finally, they let Groff sing!) and the confusing mythology of Elsa and Annas parents.

But all of this adds up to a movie that feels recognizably itself. Strange and big, but unparalleled in its ability to communicate certain ideologies to its viewers. Ideas about interiority and self-satisfaction, of forging a future that looks so different from the template you once imagined. Those may sound like understandable concepts to adults, but theyre monumental to childrenanything that tells us we can change ourselves, better ourselves, and always do the next right thing is important. Frozen 2 may get lost in its own mirage every now and then, but when it finds its way, it forges some of the most powerful storytelling ever seen in Disney animation.

Featured Image: Disney

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FROZEN 2 Is A Mythic Portrait Of Feminine Strength And Vulnerability (Review) - Nerdist

Albert Camus: The Philosopher of the Proletariat – Free Press Journal

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AThe only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

Albert Camus, The Rebel, 1951

TThis year's Nobel laureate in Literature Peter Handke of Austria recently said that today's world needs rebellious thoughts, and who can be more rebellious than Albert Camus (1913-1960)? Increasing religiosity across the globe, violence, social and racial discrimination, a pervert notion of nationalism (esp. in the context of Indian society), sectarianism, dissent and all the malicious practices that have plagued the mankind can find their solutions in Camus' works, be it The Plague, The Myth of Sisyphus, The Fall, The Rebel, A happy death, The Guest or his scores of essays like The Reflections on the Guillotine.

Camus was an existentialist who never believed in god and man-made faith/s. In a letter to Jean Paul Sartre, the 30-year-old Camus envisaged like a prophet in 1943 that after half a century, the world's biggest headaches would be god/s and religions. Here's the translation of that French letter into English by Conrad Walsh: Mankind is fast degenerating into a cesspool of religions and their gods. What we're creating, will soon swallow the whole world. A human can be completely free when he's beyond all faiths and gods. LET FAITH NOT BECOME THE FATE OF MANKIND (he wrote the whole line in upper case). Today, unfortunately faith has become mankind's fate and it'll worsen further. We're killing each other in the name of a god or gods who we created in a state of ignorance aeons ago but despite a semblance of some sense with the passage of time, we still stick to them. Truly prophetic words of a prophetic writer, who could visualise fifty years ago that we'd be in the quagmire of religions and gods in the new millennium. And we're in!

In his book The First Man (published posthumously in 1971), Camus urged the New Man of the Millennium to become so FREE as not to be encumbered by any social or state decree. He wrote: The times to come will expect a Man who would have no ideological moorings, no country, no state, not even a home (because a home is a sign of complacency) to call the whole world as his home.

It was Camus who declared in L'envers et L'endroit (Betwixt and Between, 1937) that Spirituality is but a euphemism for religiosity. Completely against gurudom (babadom in Indian context), Camus thundered, Man needs no guru, master or leader. He's guru of his own self. He believed that mankind's collective belief in all esoteric things and phenomena is inimical to a natural progress, evolution and (human) development.

Camus was dead against the false morality and called it (morality) the 'deadwood of humanity' (The Adulterous woman).

Having studied Buddhism's Shoonyavaad and Nihilism, Camus was the greatest exponent of the validity of the moment one's in. The Upanishadic 'Kashnvaad' found an expression through Camus' profound works. It must be mentioned that the Urdu poet Sahir Ludhianavi was very fond of the great French existentialist. Camus' momentarism (kshanvaad; the sole validity of a given moment) inspired Sahir to pen, Ik pal ki palak par hai thahari hui ye duniya/Ik pal ke jhapakne tak har khel suhana hai (The world is precariously placed on the eyelid of a moment/everything appears so beautiful till it blinks).

In his 47 years on earth, Camus waged a crusade against five things: God, religion, nation, faux morality and capital punishment.

His 'Reflections on the Guillotine' (1959) is an essay that must be taught at all schools, colleges and varsities in the world. Throughout his life, he argued against the significance of death rap and fought tooth and nail to abolish it from all countries. "The State is supposed to project its subjects. How can it (State) eliminate its subject/s?' Camus wondered in " Reflections on the Guillotine." Humanity's deep-seated sadism and voyeurism come to the fore through our macabre desire to execute a human.

Today's god and religion-oriented world can literally take a leaf out of Camus' books. To be a good human being, one needs no religion and belief in a concocted entity, called god. His own ethical life is a clinching proof that to be a nice human, belief in god, religion and any kind of spirituality is absolutely unnecessary.

What Sartre and Camus believed about nationalism as a modern form of tribalism or troglodytism is all the more relevant in today's India where nationalism has become a badge of showmanship and false pride.

Camus' relevance will keep increasing in these ghettoised times because man will sooner or later realise his folly and understand that beyond individualistic existence, all other things are redundant and superfluous. Mull over his famous line in 'Between Hell & Reason' : ' I love humans because they've the potential to be humane.' Camus' audacious faith in humanity and love for the mankind make him a benign philosopher who didn't believe in living in an ivory tower. Sartre read the obituary on the death of his friend and fellow existentialist Camus: He (Camus) never sat on the highest pedestal, rather preferred to alight from there to mix up with all. This allness paved the way for the oneness and demolished the walls of otherness. Camus was the philosopher of the proletariat. So very true. In these turbulent times, more than ever do we need to study and follow Camus' edifying philosophy and his humanitarian approach to man and his numerous existential conundrums. To study Camus is to study life and all its facets. Humankind's estranged humanity can be retrieved through Camus' philosophy.

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Albert Camus: The Philosopher of the Proletariat - Free Press Journal

Podcast: Is it really the end of California as we know it? – Black Voice News

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By Matt Levin | CalMatters

Please subscribe to the Gimme Shelter podcast onApple Podcasts,Stitcher,Soundcloud, Google Play, Spotify or Overcast

Youd forgive Californians for rolling their eyes. When a vaguely apocalyptic combination of wildfires and power blackouts left vast swaths of the state without electricity and breathable air last month, a bevy of stories in national media outlets fromThe AtlantictoThe New York Timesdeclared the state officially unlivable.

A very un-Californian nihilism has been creeping into my thinking, wrote California-based New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo. Im starting to suspect were over. Its the end of California as we know it.

The hyperbole from most of the national pieces was as predictably familiar to longtime Californians as Thanksgiving, when visits from out-of-state relatives result in a game of passive aggressive California bingo: Dont you miss seasons? B!. Wow, so much traffic on a holidayI! Good lord the sales tax here BINGO!

The California is over national media trope has been its own cottage industry for decades. We were over after the Manson murders, the Rodney King riots, the record budget deficits of the late 2000s, the collapse of the whole boutique-cupcake phenomenon.

But to many Californians, deep down in places we dont like to talk about, this time does feel different. The twin threats of climate change and the states housing affordability crisis both slow-moving disasters we feel increasingly helpless to address have changed the mental calculus for an entire generation of residents.

Why pay twice as much for a home here as elsewhere in the country to breathe bad air, endure hours-long commutes and then have our power turned off so we dont catch on fire? Polling and migration data show younger and lower-income Californians are increasingly deciding its just not worth it.

On this episode of Gimme Shelter: The California Housing Crisis Podcast, CalMatters Matt Levin and the Los Angeles Times Liam Dillon interview Manjoo about whether California has reached a true tipping point, and why the state cant fix some of its fundamental flaws.

CalMatters.orgis a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

The author wrote this for CalMatters, a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how Californias Capitol works and why it matters.

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Podcast: Is it really the end of California as we know it? - Black Voice News

Crikey Comments: Don’t expect anything to change in broken banking – Crikey

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Crikey readers respond to recent revelations of transgressions by Westpac, and question whether we'll ever see the effects of the banking royal commission (or even an adequate response from the government).

Stephen Wigney writes: Revelations of Westpacs venal behaviour with respect to money laundering, together with the litany of continued abuses post-royal commission should make a few things clear: first, that regulators as currently constituted and funded do not have the resources to police an obviously corrupt sector; secondly, the invisible hand of the market has (surprisingly) failed in ensuring optimal outcomes for ordinary Australians; and thirdly, and in my view most importantly, it is now time for the prudential presence of a government run banking entity to be re-established. A commonwealth bank (no relation), offering retail banking with a remit to break even or return a mandated small profit back to government, overseen by a parliamentary committee, should be established to use market forces to complement a seriously funded and empowered financial regulator. There appears to be no other way given the total untrustworthiness of the current oligopoly.

Joanne Knight writes: Free markets are encouraging such fundamental levels of corruption that society is breaking down, rise of authoritarianism, child abuse, increasing poverty and inequality. Capitalism has reached a point where it defeats humanitys basic instinct for self preservation.

Marcus Hicks writes: Meanwhile we have a government obsessed with criminalising unions and further removing red tape for their big business donors.

Anne Lampe writes: Most likely the major cause of Westpac indifference to where money flowed abroad was that monitoring this area, or allocating resources to it, was regarded as a waste of money. It wasnt a profit centre that could deliver bonuses up the chain, so no point in resourcing it. Never mind that transactions might be funding terrorists, or child exploiters. If the transactions provide a profit, why put resources into stopping them

Gregory Bailey writes: Of course, it is time some senior bank executives received appropriate justice, but I cannot see this happening when the quiet Australian is indifferent to this situation and has been for the past thirty years or more. Nihilism and neoliberalism go together beautifully as the worlds best trickle-up theory.

Send your comments, corrections, clarifications and cock-ups to[emailprotected]. We reserve the right to edit comments for length and clarity. Please include your full name if you would like to be considered for publication.

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What is Putin up to? Secret Russian sub exercise beneath icy waters north of Scotland – Express.co.uk

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But there is "absolutely no sign" any of the candidates in next month's general election are taking national defence seriously, a UK-based expert has said. Russian President Mr Putin is determined to make the North Atlantic a place where NATO will "fear to venture", said Iain Ballantyne, whose book, The Deadly Trade, published earlier this year, looks at various aspects of modern warfare. Mr Ballantyne sounded his chilling warning after Northern Fleet submarines Nizhny Novgorod and Pskov staged sparring and tracking war games between Scotland, Greenland and Iceland recently, according to Russian Government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

The big message from Putins navy here is that it is getting ready again for state versus state war under the sea

Iain Ballantyne

He toldExpress.co.uk: "The big message from Putins navy here is that it is getting ready again for state versus state war under the sea with a peer enemy.

"Russia is muscle-flexing, aiming to deter by showing battle fitness.

"Long gone are the days when Russian submarines rarely went to sea or trained for combat."

The Pskov and Nizhny Novgorod, which are both titanium-hulled deep diving attack submarines, with a high level of stealth, were "rather long in the tooth", having been commissioned almost 30 years ago, when compared with the US Navys Virginia and Sea Wolf classes of attack boats, and the Astutes of the Royal Navy, Mr Ballantyne said.

However, he added: "Both of these Sierra Class submarines, of the Artic-based Northern Fleet, were recently refitted and received upgrades."

Mr Ballantyne stressed that it was a "stretch" to describe the waters where the subs had been operating as Scottish.

He explained: "They were training in the traditional gateway from the High North seas the Russians consider their backyard into broader North Atlantic, namely the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) Gap of Cold War legend.

"Its a long way from the Scottish mainland. Traditionally, the deadly game under the sea in the Cold War for NATO was to catch the Soviets trying to break through the GIUK Gap and then shadow them, while in time of war they would have tried to stop the Russians breaking out at all.

READ MORE:Russia develops hypersonic weapons no one else owns in WW3 threat

"Therefore, Putin is not trying to establish dominion of the North Sea nuclear submarines generally try to avoid the North Sea as it is shallow and lacks the room for manoeuvre such fast and comparatively large vessels need to fight.

"Conventional diesel-electric submarines of which Russia has quite a few very modern ones do operate in the North Sea."

Nevertheless, in terms of the wider picture, Mr Ballantyne added: "The big league is the North Atlantic and for sure Putin wants his navy to make the High North the Greenland Sea, the seas under the Polar icecap and the Barents Sea mare nostrum for Russia a place NATO will fear to venture."

Neither was it a coincidence that Putin's sabre-rattling was happening against a background of unprecedented strains within NATO, with US President Donald Trump voicing doubts about the future of the alliance, and French President Emmanuel Macron's talk of a European army, he acknowledged.

Mr Ballantyne added: "Since 2014 Russia has been upping the ante in its challenge to the post-Cold War order.

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"Putin regards the end of the Soviet empire as a tragedy and despite the poor state of the Russian economy, the declining birth rate etc, uses his submarines in particular to punch above his countrys weight especially those vessels capable of firing nuclear strategic weapons.

"His submarines are a means to cow the West and ensure Russia is considered a super power still.

"Putin has, with limited military resources, established considerable influence in the Middle East, aims to do so in North Africa and sees the Arctic waters of the High North as Russias own.

"Submarines are the key element of Russian global power projection and, even with conventional weapons, they could devastate the cities of NATO nations without ever leaving their bastions in the Arctic.

"That is how Putin gains influence and deters foes, coercing potential enemies into staying away from Russias zones of key strategic interest."

On the subject of Russia's constant probing, Mr Ballantyne said the UK was in a vulnerable position.

He added: "The Russians have on several occasions in recent times tested UK anti-submarine Warfare forces, which were badly weakened by David Camerons foolish defence cuts in 2010 and will take a few more years to recover their potency, including via the arrival of the new P-8 Poseidon sub-hunting aircraft.

"However, the UK has too few anti-submarine frigates and is not building nearly enough for its future fleet while also not having the required force levels in its own operational attack submarines - the best counter to a Russian intruder or ASW Merlin helicopters.

"No government in recent times has done enough to safeguard the UK against the rising submarine threat and certainly there are no signs of it being promised by any party in the election.

"Could there be a serious incident? That risk is always there if heavily armed nuclear submarines are in close proximity to each other.

"Things did from time-to-time get rather hairy during the last so-called Battle of the Atlantic, during the Cold War.

"The 21st Century struggle for control of the Atlantic may well see dangerous moments, likely to be kept secret by governments keen not to alarm the public. Hopefully cool heads will prevail."

And with the nationwide poll fast approaching on December 12, there were few indications that any of the major parties was alive to the risks.

Mr Ballantyne said: "There is absolutely no sign the parties are treating national defence seriously.

"As usual they cherry-pick a few topics to discuss to try and make them seem interested in it but its all way short of what is needed.

"Anyone who understands the massive challenges facing the UK, especially in naval defence terms, is far from reassured that the politicians comprehend the sheer scale of rising threats."

* The Deadly Trade by Iain Ballantyne (W&N, 12.99). Call Express Bookshop on 01872 562310, or send a cheque/postal order payable to Express Bookshop to: Deadly Trade Offer, PO Box 200, Falmouth, Cornwall, TR11 4WJ or visitexpressbookshop.co.ukUK delivery free.

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What is Putin up to? Secret Russian sub exercise beneath icy waters north of Scotland - Express.co.uk

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Bitfinex partners with ODEM to expand cryptocurrency and blockchain education – HedgeWeek

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Digital asset platform Bitfinex and on-demand education and employment marketplace ODEM SA have collaborated to produce a new model of education on the role of digital token in the blockchain-enabled economy.

The idea is to provide an innovative token transaction simulation model, designed and operated by ODEM, using Bitfinex as its premier liquidity platform.Bitfinex and ODEM will launch a series of programmes and courses aimed at increasing the level of education of both novice and advanced Bitfinex users who are interested in obtaining more knowledge about the technical features of digital tokens. In conjunction with these educational programmes, ODEM will launch a full simulation of its education marketplace. Bitfinex will provide the liquidity for ODEM transactions, reflected through ODEMs smart contracts. This way, Bitfinex users purchasing educational programmes on the ODEM Marketplace using the same credentials as on Bitfinex will be able to view their ODEM Token transactions on Bitfinexs order book.Were excited to be the first to market with completely mirrored fiat-to-crypto trades in our education and employment marketplace, says Richard Maaghul, CEO at ODEM. Mirroring blockchain transactions allows users to view their payment activity reflected through our smart contracts in real-time and viewable through Etherscan.io. Transactions conducted by ODEMs Token simulation are fuelled by liquidity provided by Bitfinex. With their support of the overall decentralised ecosystem and focus on community-driven social impact, Bitfinex was a clear driver for us.Bitfinex users will be able to obtain access to all educational programs on the ODEM Marketplace directly from the platforms website. Bitfinex can leverage these programs to obtain a holistic view of cryptocurrency markets and trends, while also further enhancing users understanding of how the platform operates.Our collaboration with ODEM is a natural extension of our role as the premier trading platform worldwide, says Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Bitfinex. By educating more individuals on the uses and value of cryptocurrency and the vital role it plays in powering the blockchain economy, we are encouraging greater understanding and adoption of digital currencies. Were confident that through continued, dynamic and relevant education provided by expert educators on ODEMs platform, Bitfinex users will receive an advanced service offering.

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Bitfinex partners with ODEM to expand cryptocurrency and blockchain education - HedgeWeek

Venezuela to Back Its Petro Cryptocurrency With 30 Million Barrels of Oil in Reserve – CryptoGlobe

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Venezuela to Back Its Petro Cryptocurrency With 30 Million Barrels of Oil in Reserve

venezuela-to-back-its-petro-cryptocurrency-with-30-million-barrels-of-oil-in-reserve

Venezuelan president Nicols Maduro has said that the country will back its Petro cryptocurrency with 30 million barrels of oil it has in its reserves.

When the OPEC nation initially sold the Petro via its initial coin offering it stated the Petro would be backed by 5 million barrels of oil. Maduros words, Reuters reports, came as part of a renewed push to promote the oil-backed cryptocurrency, as Venezuela deals with hyperinflation and economic sanctions.

In a state television address, Nicols Maduro reportedly stated:

The inventories of crude and products in storage tanks are available for immediate commercialization ... to sustain and back the operations of the sovereign Venezuelan crypto-asset, the petro.

A previous report from Reuters showed that the initial 5 million barrels of oil said to back the cryptocurrency were from an area without infrastructure to get it out of the ground. In his speech, Maduro didnt clarify how the backing would work.

The Petro isnt currently listed on any major cryptocurrency exchanges, and its unclear whether investors can redeem it in any way with the Venezuelan government. Its crude inventories have been on the rise in recent months, as international sanctions scare off buyers from the state-run oil company PDVSA.

Over the last few months Maduro has been pushing for the Petros adoption. As covered he recently stated t has over 27,000 affiliated businesses, after last month a Venezuelan official claiming it can be used for payments at 93 different stores thanks to a new payments gateway called PetroPago.

Venezuela has even revealed plans this year to see its state-sanctioned crypto exchange CriptoLAGO release a debit card and a point-of-sale system to help the Petros use grow at retail stores.

Featured image via Pexels.

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Venezuela to Back Its Petro Cryptocurrency With 30 Million Barrels of Oil in Reserve - CryptoGlobe