Monthly Archives: September 2022

‘The Case Against The Sexual Revolution’ – Book and Film Globe

Posted: September 9, 2022 at 6:05 pm

British journalist makes an old-school feminist case about changing the way we view sex in modern society

Culture writer Louise Perry released her book The Case Against the Sexual Revolution earlier this year in England, where she works on both sides of the aisle with major bylines in The Daily Wire and The New Statesman. The late August U.S. release of The Case Against the Sexual Revolution comes out in quite a different contextin the wake of the Dobbs decision allowing for local abortion bans. Here, Perrys argument holds quite a different tone. We take it for granted that women have a right to their own bodies and their own sexuality. Yet Perry suggests that just because women can have sex with whoever they want, doesnt mean that they should, and that the sexual revolution has been much more forceful on the latter point than the former.

Perrys thesis is fairly simple. She posits that sex drive is an essential difference between men and women. Men tend to want more of it than women, with distributions of these populations existing on a bell curve, so there are outliers. Perry roots this difference in evolutionary biology. Men can impregnate women with far less effort than a woman needs to expend to bring a single child to term. Consequently, pair bonding is much more important for women in regards to reproduction because they would prefer to have a coparent for the very labor-intensive process of raising a kid. While a man can go for quantity children over quality children, women dont really have that option, and miserable single mothers with miserable children tend not to be very fit.

Perry means this in the literal sense rather than the moral sense. Single parents tend to have worse outcomes. But issues of single parenthood, much like any other issue adjacent to the sexual revolution, has become an issue largely detached from material analysis. Perry quotes a lot of statistics in the book, nearly all of them uncontroversial and not the kind of thing anyone would think to argue against except for ideological reasons.

Yet virtually all of them are quite politically incorrect. Take the chapter which deals with sexual violence. Not explicitly criminal sexual violence, but in a BDSM context. If that very juxtaposition sounds very oxymoronic, well, thats pretty much Perrys point. The media portrays an image of the typical BDSM practitioner as strong, empowered, sexually dynamic woman ordering a consenting man to do her bidding while wearing fetish gear and probably stepping on him. They might exchange money, but the media mostly portrays BDSM acts as empowering for women.

But the reality of BDSM in practice is a vastly different story. The huge majority of doms are men, not women. A lot of what they do isnt kinky and harmless-looking, but actually the kind of behavior that could result in the sub going to the hospital. Perry has found a disturbing number of cases where male defendants have successfully contested rape and even murder charges, claiming that their partners were literally asking for it, because they were into that kind of thing. Yet outside of relationships with men, women writ large show almost no masturbatory interest in, say, choking during sex, suggesting a dubious notion of consent in even the best circumstances.

From its big mainstream debut in Fifty Shades of Grey, the image of BDSM has softened considerably in the last decade, and pornography has increasingly likewise emerged as an empowering personal choice that we shouldnt judge. So it shouldnt surprise anyone to learn that men watch a lot more porn than they used to, that porn contains a lot more violence than it used to (mainly choking), and that the typical young woman on the bell curve who experiences this is more than a little alarmed by its prevalence.

Perry gives this same basic treatment to a wide variety of subjects. Sex work is another major one, with Perry noting that the relatively well-off minority that can charge $200 an hour and be choosy about clients dominates the field of sex-work activism. But most sex workers charge $20 an hour, have drug problems, and are often runaway minors. With any other kind of work, liberals would at least claim to prioritize the interests of the more vulnerable group, yet the abstract idea of prostitution is of greater importance than the living conditions of prostitutes. Were not even supposed to use the word prostitute anymore, the stigma of the word itself being of greater concern than the fact that people, again overwhelmingly women, end up doing work thats quite dangerous physically and mentally.

Perry deals more with reality than image, leading to a lot of uncomfortable, counterintuitive truths. Take how birth control pills appear to have caused a massive spike in pregnancies to unmarried women, who arent generally trying to become pregnant. But combine the fact that birth control pills have never been as foolproof as people like to pretend with the simple logic of their existence making it harder for women to put off an eager partner, and its no surprise at all how that happened.

The obvious counter to this argument, that before the pill women were trapped in loveless marriages, is actually really misandrist, since it implies that men writ large are and always have been unstoppable rapists. Contrary to popular belief, such all men are rapists rhetoric has never been essential to feminist movements. Perry notes how first-wave feminists, who did far more social work with the poor than the more academic waves that proceeded them, had this sloganvotes for women, chastity for men. Once upon a time, people commonly believed that men could control themselves, but that society conditioned them into violent behavior. Theres even an academic term for this, toxic masculinity, which almost no one uses correctly, as we increasingly see maleness as an inherent trait that we cant change or influence.

Perrys book has drawn surprisingly little controversy or attention. Only right-wing websites have featured it, and left-wing ones havent seen fit to rebut her. Part of this is because of the strength of her argument. Her statistics are rock solid. Theres also the awkwardness, which Perry discusses at length, of how #MeToo and other anti-rape movements awkwardly exist alongside a feminist discourse of encouraging everyone to have as much sex as possible. Then theres just the sorry state of feminist discourse in general, which revolves so much around LGBT issues that people barely discuss anything else.

Another interesting statistic from Perrys booklesbians are far more likely to form family units with children than gay men are. This isnt meant attack anyone. Acknowledging and negotiating the differences between people used to be, and should be, what feminism is all about. Instead we have a gross, Victorias Secret-esque distortion of the idea, where women are literally the same as men, but whose lives in general and sex lives in particular appear to suffer dramatically when they actually try to act like it.

The Case Against the Sexual Revolution isnt some polemic with clearly-defined bad guys. The book is a serious, thoughtful discussion of cause and effect thats a lot more romantic than it sounds just because it emphasizes that women want romance, yet make themselves miserable chasing orgasms. Not all of them, obviously. Its just youd never know that if all you read or watch is media prioritizing womens sexual liberation as a theme.

Read the original post:
'The Case Against The Sexual Revolution' - Book and Film Globe

Posted in Politically Incorrect | Comments Off on ‘The Case Against The Sexual Revolution’ – Book and Film Globe

We are amused: how the Queen saw the funny side – The Guardian

Posted: at 6:05 pm

A group of American tourists once approached the Queen as she was out walking near her Balmoral estate. Not recognising the unassuming woman in a headscarf, they asked if she lived nearby. She answered quite non-committally that yes, she had a house quite close by, says the writer Karen Dolby, recounting a talk given by Richard Griffin, the Queens former protection officer. They asked if shed ever met the Queen, and without missing a beat she replied no but pointed at Richard Griffin, and said, but he has. And then they walked on, none the wiser. I think her sense of irony and lightness of touch reflected her humour very obviously.

The Queens sense of humour was not always obvious in public, but those who knew her or met her privately would often remark on it. Speaking in 2012, Rowan Williams, the then archbishop of Canterbury, said: I found, in the Queen, someone who can be friendly, who can be informal, who can be extremely funny in private. Not everybody appreciates just how funny she can be. Who is quite prepared to tease and to be teased.

In his memoir, Sir Elton John wrote that the Queen could be hilarious. During an event, she asked her nephew Viscount Linley to go and check on his mother her sister, Princess Margaret. When he repeatedly tried to fob her off, wrote the musician, the Queen lightly slapped him across the face, saying, Dont SLAP argue SLAP with SLAP me SLAP I SLAP am SLAP THE QUEEN! As he left, she saw me staring at her, gave me a wink and walked off.

Her public face was one of duty and seriousness, not only influenced by her position but because she was also from a generation that shied away from showing emotion in public. This could have an unintended effect. Richard Crossman, the leftwing intellectual and politician, noted after meeting the Queen in the 1960s: She laughs with her whole face and she cannot just assume a mere smile because shes really a very spontaneous person. Godfrey Agnew [clerk of the privy council] was right when he said to me that she finds it difficult to suppress her emotion. When she is deeply moved and tries to control it, she looks like an angry thundercloud. So, very often when shes been deeply touched by the plaudits of the crowd, she merely looks terribly bad-tempered.

Humour, says Dolby, who compiled The Wicked Wit of Queen Elizabeth II a collection of some of the monarchs humorous remarks and sense of fun was a key part of her character but certainly, in the earlier part of her reign, she was very aware of the need to be dignified. Whereas other members of the royal family might have been more open, Prince Philip in particular, her humour was more apparent in private.

The historian and royal biographer Robert Lacey says: She had a wonderful wry and dry sense of humour, and it was a very important ingredient of her identity. I would say that her sense of humour and her religious faith were two of the personal elements that kept her so much on track.

Her famous annus horribilis speech of 1992 the year in which three of her childrens marriages publicly broke down, and a fire wrecked part of Windsor castle was a classic example, says Lacey. That phrase annus horribilis has been taken seriously, an expression of the Queens anguish, but Lacey points out it was a wry joke. Its not correct Latin. Classical scholars regard it as a joke on the expression annus mirabilis. This was her joke that she opens the proceedings with, and suddenly everybodys on her side, shes acknowledged the problem, but shes moved on.

There is something inherently ridiculous about the monarchy, says Lacey, who believes her sense of humour was an acknowledgment of that. This goes right way back to the fact she wasnt born into the succession. She was the Princess Beatrice of her day: she was the elder daughter of the Duke of York, she wasnt destined for this job. On her uncles abdication she was suddenly in line to the throne. So its a pure lottery that cast her into it. She could see the funny side of that.

Humour, says Dolby, has been important to the whole family, from the joke presents exchanged each Christmas at Sandringham to their informal barbecues and picnics. They have nicknames for one another, and quite a lot of teasing goes on, says Dolby. They dont let anyone take themselves too seriously, or have an overinflated sense of their own importance. I think teasing, jokes and nicknames are all part of the whole family ethos.

Humour also defined the Queens relationship with her husband. I dont think anyone without a sense of humour would have been so happy, or forge such a successful partnership, with a man like Prince Philip, says Dolby. What people forgot, says Lacey, when they talked about Prince Philip, his gaffes and his dreadful politically incorrect sense of humour, that the main person that was designed for was the Queen.

In public, particularly in later years, the Queen was prepared to poke fun at herself, whether in her starring role in a James Bond sketch for the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony, or in a video with Prince Harry before his Invictus Games. She could also turn a witty remark, and would use humour to defuse a tricky situation. Making a speech after being confronted by anti-monarchist, egg-pelting protesters on a visit to New Zealand in 1986, she said: I myself prefer my New Zealand eggs for breakfast. In the US, in 2007, after President George W Bush said the Queen had helped celebrate the US bicentennial in 1776, when he meant 1976, she began her speech with a smile and said I wondered whether I should start this toast by saying, When I was here in 1776 to roars of laughter.

During a visit to the Chelsea flower show in 2016, the gardener Jekka McVicar explained to the Queen that lily of the valley was once used as a poison. The Queen, according to McVicar, quipped: Ive been given two bunches this week. Perhaps they want me dead.

Behind the scenes, staff have reported a warm relationship with their boss, in which humour played an important part. The royal yacht, Britannia, was one of the places she could be off-duty and the atmosphere was informal, where crew members were reportedly recruited for their sense of humour.

In her book, The Other Side of the Coin, Angela Kelly, the Queens dresser, wrote that whenever she was overcome with emotion, particularly when helping the Queen into robe and crown for state occasions, the Queen rolls her eyes and playfully tuts at me. Once, on a royal tour of Australia in 2006, Kelly bought a toy kookaburra and put it on the Queens balcony. The Queen, thinking it was real, was very excited to see it. When she realised it was a joke, she had, writes Kelly, only two words for me: Youre sacked!. Kelly has previously said the Queen was a talented mimic, and liked to imitate her Liverpudlian accent. As Dolby writes:Her repertoire is said to include politicians like Tony Benn and Tony Blair, familiar TV characters and a very convincing Russian president Boris Yeltsin, along with several US presidents.

In the later decades of her reign, the Queen seemed more willing to show a lighthearted public face. It was partly being completely confident in her own position, says Dolby, but there was a change after Dianas death, when I think the royal family realised they needed to be more human. For the Queen, that meant a broad smile, a ready laugh and a reminder that under the heavy sense of duty was a woman who could see the funny side.

Continued here:
We are amused: how the Queen saw the funny side - The Guardian

Posted in Politically Incorrect | Comments Off on We are amused: how the Queen saw the funny side – The Guardian

Twice as Many People Left Russia in the First Half of 2022 as in the First Half of 2021 – Kyiv Post

Posted: at 6:05 pm

In the first 6 months of 2022, 419,000 people emigrated from Russia, RBC news agency reports, citing data from the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat). This is twice as much as in the same period last year.

Among those who left Russia during this period, 368,000 went to CIS countries, and 294,000 returned. A little more than 50,000 people left for non-CIS countries, and 27,000 returned. Thats a net loss of 22,000 people, compared to a net growth of 2,500 people in the first half of 2022.

After February 24, when Russia launched a full-scale war in Ukraine, many Russians decided to leave the country. For some, this is a temporary solution. Others realize that they may never return to the country. In general, Russian emigrants can be divided into several groups.

The first is big businessmen and apolitical stars who would like to wait out the turbulent times abroad. There is every reason to believe that many of them will return, since their source of income is in Russia, where either their assets or fans are.

The second group is childrens emigration. Parents take their children away in order to enroll them in Western schools, without political indoctrination and patriotic education and without the prospect of serving in the Russian army.

The third group is high-tech emigration. Workers at IT companies can quickly find employment in other countries. Such a brain drain seriously worries the Russian authorities. This is why they have exempted IT employees from military service, and provided tax benefits to the companies in which they work. Whether this will be enough, considering that IT specialists need not only economic relief, but also a free environment with the ability to travel around the world is a big question.

The fourth and main group is political emigration: journalists, politicians and cultural figures. Some of them used to work in structures declared to be foreign agents. Others used to work for media, which were closed after Russians full-scale invasion. Still others participated in opposition protests.

Their return in the foreseeable future looks unlikely. Many people understand that as soon as they set foot on their native land, they can instantly find themselves behind bars on charges of discrediting the Russian army. After all, in todays Russia, a person can be deprived of freedom even for an anti-war position or a politically incorrect statement on social networks.

There is now the specter of a new Iron Curtain dropping. In the USSR, it was believed that in order to maintain stability, it was necessary to keep the border closed so that labor resources remained inside the country. At the same time, allowing emigration can be used to mitigate social contradictions. After all, citizens who disagree with the regime can be the instigators of social unrest or even revolutions.

While the prospect of a new Iron Curtain may run counter to logic and common sense, one must not underestimate the role emotions play in domestic political reasoning. As the Western world rapidly shuts Russia out, Russia, in turn, will also be closing in on itself. It remains to be seen to what extent.

Excerpt from:
Twice as Many People Left Russia in the First Half of 2022 as in the First Half of 2021 - Kyiv Post

Posted in Politically Incorrect | Comments Off on Twice as Many People Left Russia in the First Half of 2022 as in the First Half of 2021 – Kyiv Post

Roy Chubby Brown’s gig slated as ‘racist, sexist and homophobic’ in review – Express

Posted: at 6:05 pm

Writing for Grimsby Live, Ivana said: "I struggled to laugh along, there was an awkward silence from my end so loud that you could probably hear crickets. I strongly questioned why people were labelling him "hilarious" as I just couldn't see past the racist, sexist and homophobic material in his so-called 'jokes'.

"You could argue that he fits the mould of a popular comedian with a very distinctive laugh who, like Jimmy Carr, takes jokes to a limit where people could be offended. Jimmy himself has previously been called out for taking some content from his show "too far" especially in his newest Netflix show 'His Dark Materials'.

"Despite the controversy with Carr, I believe the pair are completely incomparable. What Brown would call a 'joke' is describing ethnic minorities' facial features and mimicking them which has never been funny, now or in the past.

"He is very much of an era when his attitudes were seen as slightly more palatable, although I'm aware that Brown wasn't really welcome on television at the time either which allows me to breathe a little sigh of relief."

Go here to read the rest:
Roy Chubby Brown's gig slated as 'racist, sexist and homophobic' in review - Express

Posted in Politically Incorrect | Comments Off on Roy Chubby Brown’s gig slated as ‘racist, sexist and homophobic’ in review – Express

Yale professor appointed to inaugural position in physics and astronomy department – Yale Daily News

Posted: at 6:03 pm

Astronomy Chair Priyamvada Natarajan has been named the Joseph S. and Sophia S. Fruton professor of astronomy and professor of physics.

Elizabeth Watson 12:23 am, Sep 09, 2022

Staff Reporter

Priyamvada Natarajan

Priyamvada Natarajan, chair of Yales Astronomy Department, has been named the Joseph S. and Sophia S. Fruton professor of astronomy and professor of physics.

Natarajans new title honors the legacy of Joseph S. Fruton and Sophia S. Simmonds, both biochemists who taught at Yale and were known for their contributions to research and education. Natarajan was notified of the appointment in May by University President Peter Salovey.

I came into this country as an international undergrad; I was at MIT, and my family was in India, Natarajan said. I lived here as an international scholar, and of course Im an American citizen, but this kind of thing really adds a sense of belonging. [The position] aligns with my values. For me, that was really important. Here are people who know me, who know and understand what I stand for. I stand for equality of opportunity and recognition for all genders in science.

After graduating from MIT and completing her doctoral degree at the University of Cambridges Institute of Astronomy, Natarajan came to Yale as an assistant professor in the physics and astronomy departments in 2000. Since then, Natarajan has been working on research in theoretical physics, specifically pertaining to black holes.

Black holes were often thought to form after the final stages in the life cycle of a star. However, the black hole seeds, or early black holes, that result from this process are often only a few times the mass of our solar systems sun, and there is not enough time for these seeds to reach the size of known supermassive black holes, which can be tens of billions times larger than the mass of the sun, according to Natarajan. To explain this discrepancy, Natarajan and collaborators proposed a theory that these larger black holes result from extremely large black hole seeds that came into being without star formation.

We have very clear-cut predictions out there for the James Webb Space Telescope, and we made these predictions well before the telescope was launched in 2017, Natarajan said. Ive been working for nearly more than a decade on making those predictions. It was very challenging because computers were not fast enough and you just couldnt simulate it all. So we had to wait for computers to become more sophisticated and for the instruments on a new facility like James Webb before it could be tested. Thats what Im really excited about right now.

Natarajan is also one of the principal investigators working on the Harvard Black Hole Initiative. As part of this initiative, she maps dark matter with gravitational lensing, which relates to the way that light bends in response to matter. Natarajan observes this light bending and uses the degree of distortion to ascertain details about the dark matter within a given galaxy. This kind of mapping can help scientists develop a better understanding of dark matter and in turn, the universe.

Its without question that professor Natarajan is one of the worlds foremost experts in studying massive black holes and dark matter, said Michael Tremmel, a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics. Over her career, her work has pushed the field forward and, in many cases, opened up entirely new avenues of research which remain active today.

Erica Nelson, an assistant professor of astrophysics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who was mentored by Natarajan as a graduate student, agreed.

It always felt like she had my back and was on my side, Nelson said. Grad school is a very vulnerable time in terms of your confidence and whether or not you feel like you deserve to be there, and she always gave me confidence and inspiration that I could do it and that I was doing a good job and that she respected my intelligence. She was always a very positive influence in my graduate career. I literally wouldnt be here if it wasnt for her.

Natarajan currently serves as the director of the Franke Program in Science and the Humanities at Yale.

Elizabeth Watson covers breakthrough research for SciTech and illustrates for various sections. She is a sophomore in Pauli Murray College and is planning to major in science and the humanities.

Visit link:

Yale professor appointed to inaugural position in physics and astronomy department - Yale Daily News

Posted in Astronomy | Comments Off on Yale professor appointed to inaugural position in physics and astronomy department – Yale Daily News

Reach for the stars at astronomy party – Moorpark Acorn

Posted: at 6:03 pm

The Moorpark College Astronomy faculty and Ventura County Astronomical Society will present the summers final Star Party at 6:30 p.m. Sat., Sept. 17 at the Moorpark College Observatory, 7075 Campus Road.

Guest speaker Kevin McKeegan will provide a short lecture on meteorites. He is a professor of geochemistry and cosmochemistry in UCLAs Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences, where he served as chair from 2012-16.

McKeegan earned a Bachelor of Science from St. Lawrence University and his doctorate from Washington University of St. Louis.

Moorpark College Astronomy Professor Hal Jandorf will provide a walk-through of the summer stars, constellations, planets and other objects in the evening sky at 7:30 p.m.

Saturn, nebulae, star clusters and galaxies will be visible through the telescopes set up by the VCAS. Attendees can also take a trip through the observation dome.

Star parties are always special because the community can learn about the night sky, learn the constellations, look through dozens of powerful telescopes and learn more about the universe. Wait until you see Saturn for the first time. Its not a photo in a book or on a computer monitor, Jandorf said.

The event is free for all ages and recommended for ages 6 and up. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

Attendees should bring cushions for the concrete seating, a light jacket and binoculars. Leave pets at home.

This years series of star parties have drawn 250 to 300 people at each event.

The observatory enables students to participate in courses and labs and allows the college to share the experience with the community, said Debi Klein, chief development officer of the Moorpark College Foundation, which has sponsored the observatory and astronomy programs for more than 30 years.

While this is the last event of the year at the observatory, Molly Shelton, a power systems engineer at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, will speak at 7 p.m., Frid., Oct. 21, at the Moorpark College Forum in the Applied Arts Building.

The Astronomy Department, VCAS and the Moorpark College Foundation will coordinate the event.

View original post here:

Reach for the stars at astronomy party - Moorpark Acorn

Posted in Astronomy | Comments Off on Reach for the stars at astronomy party – Moorpark Acorn

Discovery of alien world with strange, tilted orbit puzzles astronomers – Space.com

Posted: at 6:03 pm

The orbit of an exoplanet around a star in a binary star system has been portrayed in three dimensions for the first time. The planet orbits its star at a different angle to the plane of the orbit of the two stars, and the misalignment could offer clues as to how planets form in binary systems.

The exoplanet, GJ 896Ab (note the lower case b for the planet), was found in the binary system GJ 896AB (note the capital A and B for the two stars) that is located 20.3 light-years away from Earth. Astronomers tracked the motion of the binary star system through space with the help of archived optical observations dating from 1941 to 2017, with extra data covering 2006 to 2011 gathered by the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), which is a network of 10 radio telescopes strung across the United States. The researchers also made new observations with the VLBA in 2020.

The astronomers, led by Salvador Curiel of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), found that as the star GJ 896A moves through space, it appears to wobble along its path. This wobble is caused by an orbiting planet with 2.3 times the mass of Jupiter that completes one orbit every 284.4 Earth days. Between the planet and its star is a common center of mass, known as the barycenter; the star's wobble is the result of its motion around this common center of mass.

Related: 10 amazing exoplanet discoveries

This technique of detecting the motion of stars through space, and any deviations in that motion, is called astrometry. Astrometry is the only means by which the orbits of a planetary system with more than one star can be interpreted in three dimensions, since astronomers are visibly detecting the wobble and the orientation of the orbits.

Intriguingly, the plane in which the planet orbits is misaligned by 148 degrees relative to the plane of the orbit of the two stars around each other.

"This means that the planet moves around the main star in the opposite direction to that of the secondary star around the main star," Gisela Ortiz-Len, an astronomer at UNAM and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany and team member on the project, said in a statement (opens in new tab).

Less than 4% of known exoplanets are in binary-star systems. This small proportion is in part because it's trickier to detect planets in binary systems, but also because models suggest that the existence of a companion star can truncate and destabilize a planet-forming disk.

"Maybe those models need to be adjusted," said UNAM's Joel Sanchez-Bermudez.

One problem in forming such a system is that gas giants are thought to take 5 to 10 million years to accrete all their gas from the planet-forming disk around them. However, the current models suggest that such a disk in a binary system survives for less than 1 million years before gravitational tides from the companion star break the disk apart.

Furthermore, in the case of GJ 896AB, the two stars are red dwarfs, which makes the existence of a gas giant planet in the system even more surprising. Scientists think red dwarfs lack the necessary amount of raw material to form giant planets, but the presence of a gas giant in this binary system suggests that planets could form differently when there are two stars present.

"Additional detailed studies of this and similar systems can help us gain important insights into how planets are formed in binary systems," Sanchez-Bermudez said.

There are currently two competing models for how binary systems and their planets form. One is termed disk fragmentation, whereby there is originally one star- and planet-forming disk that becomes gravitationally unstable and breaks apart into two separate disks that form two stars and any planets around them.

The other model is called turbulent fragmentation. In this explanation, turbulence in the original cloud of gas leads to two or more dense concentrations of material forming, which independently collapse to form the stars and any accompanying planets.

Now, these models will need to factor in the misalignment of GJ 896Ab by 148 degrees. Whichever better replicates the strange system could indicate how binary systems form.

The research was published on Sept. 1 in The Astronomical Journal.

Follow Keith Cooper on Twitter @21stCenturySETI. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

The rest is here:

Discovery of alien world with strange, tilted orbit puzzles astronomers - Space.com

Posted in Astronomy | Comments Off on Discovery of alien world with strange, tilted orbit puzzles astronomers – Space.com

Yale astronomers weigh in on newly captured sound emitted by black hole – Yale Daily News

Posted: at 6:03 pm

NASA has extracted the sound waves from a black hole 250 million light years away and made them audible.

Sammi Kwon 11:06 pm, Sep 07, 2022

Contributing Reporter

Jessai Flores, Staff Illustrator

NASA released a groundbreaking audio clip of the soundwaves emitted by the black hole in the Perseus Galaxy Cluster, located 250 million light years away from Earth.

Astronomers have been aware of the sound waves emitted by the black hole at the center of the Perseus Galaxy Cluster for nearly 20 years, since they were first captured by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory in 2003. However, the sonification the conversion of astronomical data into sound is a recent development by researchers at NASA. The process involves sound waves being extracted radially, outwards from the center of the black hole, and then transposed up by 57 to 58 octaves to make them audible to the human ear. While the audio is fascinating in itself, it also provides another dimension of data in investigating black holes, star formation and galaxies for researchers. Yale astronomers underscored the significance of this development.

It provides sort of a unique way to study the environments of black holes, said astronomy professor and department chair Priyamvada Natarajan. Right around the vicinity of the black hole, there is a medium, theres a lot of gas sitting around. And this gas reverberates, so you can see these sound waves, and thats the sonification project.

The black hole at the center of the Perseus Galaxy Cluster has been investigated ever since researchers at NASA realized that it emitted pressure waves that would interact with gasses around it and produce sound waves. These sound waves are not audible to the human ear without modification, but now that NASA transposed the waves they can be listened to, interpreted and analyzed.

The waves are indicators of how energy from the black hole is interacting with the surrounding gasses. Energy propagating from the black hole interacts with gasses in the form of sound waves, and this interaction heats gasses up. Star formation relies heavily on heated gasses, so the sonification project and investigation of sound waves could help researchers better understand the formation of stars.

The general research used for data like this is to understand the role supermassive black holes play in regulating the star formation in the universe, said Michael Tremmel, post-doctoral associate of astronomy.

For researchers, the importance of this development stems from the tangible representation of the way black holes, specifically their sound waves, interact with the surrounding space.

Its not so much directly the black hole. Its more of the effect the black hole has on its surroundings, said Frank van den Bosch, Yale professor of astronomy and physics, whose research focuses on cosmology and galaxy formation.

The sonification project has provided a new way for astronomers to interact with data in different forms. While astronomers are familiar with visual forms, the project has provided data that will expand the ways in which researchers can learn about black holes. In addition to information, the sonification project also provides further accessibility of data in non-visual forms.

When you hear something, you learn about it in a very different way, no matter how many different times youve looked at it, said Kimberly Arcand, data visualizer and science communicator at NASA. It would be fantastic to be able to capture the sound waves of other black holes in the universe.

Albert Einstein first hypothesized the existence of black holes in 1916.

Continued here:

Yale astronomers weigh in on newly captured sound emitted by black hole - Yale Daily News

Posted in Astronomy | Comments Off on Yale astronomers weigh in on newly captured sound emitted by black hole – Yale Daily News

Astronomers launch campaign to protect the dark night sky from light pollution – The Independent

Posted: at 6:03 pm

Humanity is blinding itself with light and losing sight of the starry night skies that once guided our ancestors and filled them with wonder, according to the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and the international astronomy organization is doing something about it.

More than 80% of the worlds population has their view of the night sky curtailed due to light pollution, according to the ESO. The increasing number of satellites in orbit are photobombing the views of professional telescopes at the few remaining dark sky sites, such as the Very Large Telescope the ESO operates in Chile.

In response the ESO has launched a campaign to educate people about light pollution and the negative impacts of satellite mega-constellations on both professional and amateur astronomy. They launched a website spelling out the problem and created a social media hashtag, #ProtectDarkSkies, to spread the word. In a Tweet posted Wednesday using the new hashtag, the ESO pointed out that about one third of humanity can no longer see the Milky Way the thick disk of our galaxy rich with dust and stars in the night sky from where they live.

Light pollution, electric light from human settlement and industry, makes it harder to see the more subtle celestial lights of the night sky. A 2019 survey found that 57% of English people could pick out more than 10 stars in the night sky, while just 2% could pick out 30 or more.

But light pollution goes further than cutting off views of the sky, according to the ESO campaign website.

Light can intrude into bedrooms, distract drivers, and upset the natural body clock of animals, the ESO website reads, noting human health can suffer without a clear light-dark cycle. And in the natural world, Flocks of migratory birds and dung beetles alike orientate themselves using the Milky Way, and are disorientated by light pollution.

The loss of astronomical views is more dramatic than most contemporary urban dwellers may understand. In a graphic on the ESO website illustrating a measure of light pollution known as the Bortle Scale, it shows just how much of the further universe is actually visible with the naked eye when standing under a truly dark night sky.

Even more problematic for professional astronomers than light pollution are the swelling mega-constellations of low Earth orbit satellites, such as those being launched by the UKs OneWeb and the Starlink constellation of SpaceX. Companies plan to launch as many as 100,000 of these satellites in the coming years, and astronomers worry that they will reflect sunlight in ways that impairs important astronomical observations.

And in the case of the Starlink satellites, many observations have already been impacted by the long white streaks of satellites passing through a telescopes view during a long exposure.

To combat these issues, the ESO has launched the Protect Dark Skies campaign and suggested new lighting standards, noting that light pollution isnt just any light, but artificial light that shines where it is neither wanted, nor needed.

The ESO is also a member of the International Astronomical Union Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference, which was founded in April to help coordinate efforts to study and mitigate effects of satellites on astronomy. The ESO has also petitioned the United Nations to take action, leading to a discussion of the issue of satellite interference at the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space earlier in 2022.

See the original post here:

Astronomers launch campaign to protect the dark night sky from light pollution - The Independent

Posted in Astronomy | Comments Off on Astronomers launch campaign to protect the dark night sky from light pollution – The Independent

President of the Astronomical Society of Greater Hartford coming to Manross Library – The Bristol Press

Posted: at 6:03 pm

BRISTOL The President of the Astronomical Society of Greater Hartford will be coming to Manross Library Sept. 19 to discuss the recent images captured by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.

The free program will be held at 2 p.m. at the library at 260 Central St. Chris Markiewicz, president of the Astronomical Society of Greater Hartford, will be going over the first images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, which were released by NASA on July 12.

The telescope, which was launched on Dec. 25 2021, has captured high definition images of the Carina Nebula, a young star forming region, Stephan's quintet, a grouping of five galaxies, the Southern Ring Nebula, and more.

Teresa Goulden, supervisor of branch services at Manross Memorial Library, said that Markiewicz will lend his astronomical expertise to further explain the beautiful images captured by the advanced telescope.

People are very curious to take a look at these beautiful images, she said. The James Webb Telescope is capturing images that allow us to see space in ways that weve never seen before. NASA is just starting to release them to the public and there is a lot of buzz about them. It gives you a whole different perspective on your place in the universe.

According to the Astronomical Society of Greater Hartfords website, the organization is a group of amateur astronomers interested in observing, imaging and studying the wonders of the heavens. The group participates in public education in astronomy through its public observing program and outreach events.

Member meeting are held online on the third Wednesday of the month from September through May. The group also holds public observations at the Van Vleck Observatory at Wesleyan University in Middletown.

For more information, visit asgh.org

Registration is required for the program at Manross Library.

People can register at Manross Memorial Library, by visiting bristollib.com or by calling 860-584-7790.

Brian M. Johnson can be reached at 860-973-1806 or bjohnson@bristolpress.com.

View post:

President of the Astronomical Society of Greater Hartford coming to Manross Library - The Bristol Press

Posted in Astronomy | Comments Off on President of the Astronomical Society of Greater Hartford coming to Manross Library – The Bristol Press