Astrophysicists Find No ‘Hair’ on Black Holes | Quanta Magazine

https://www.quantamagazine.org/astrophysicists-find-no-hair-on-black-holes-20250827/

#blackhole #astrophysics #science

I built a more accurate Galactic GPS for aliens to find us!

In the 1970s, the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft were launched into deep space - each carrying a message from Earth in the form of plaques and golden records. These included a now-famous diagram: the pulsar map, originally proposed by Carl Sagan, Linda Salzman Sagan, and Frank Drake.

It uses the positions and spin periods of 14 pulsars to show where we are in the galaxy, effectively a cosmic return address.

But there’s a catch: the original map used canonical pulsars, which we now know can glitch and show timing instabilities. Back then, millisecond pulsars hadn’t yet been discovered (they came in the early '80s), so they weren’t included.

As someone studying millisecond pulsars and their long-term timing stability for my PhD, I decided to write some code to rebuild this iconic map - with a little upgrade.

Enter: the Millisecond Pulsar Map.

This version features:

- A top-down view of the Galaxy, with a central measuring bar showing our distance (8 kiloparsecs) from the Galactic Centre.
- Radial lines showing the distance to each millisecond pulsar. These can be measured against the central measuring bar to work out this distance
- Binary encodings for each pulsar's spin period and spin-down rate. These parameters will remain much more stable over the long term.
- A decoding scale to interpret the binary inscriptions.

With 40+ years of high-precision timing data, millisecond pulsars are far more stable than their slower cousins - making them ideal for building a map that could stand the test of cosmic time.

This also highlights how millisecond pulsars could be used as an intergalactic GPS network (because these stable pulsars are like cosmic clocks distributed across the sky). This might be an application for future spacecraft to navigate around the Solar System. Have a read of this article for how we are already building this technology now: https://www.spaceaustralia.com/feature/breaking-free-shackles-terrestrial-time

So, if some distant civilisation stumbles upon this new pulsar map ... well, they’ll know exactly where to find us.

The question is: do we really want to leave our full galactic home address out there?!

#Pulsars#RadioAstronomy#Astrophysics#GPS #Astrodon

So when people say, "what kind of places are using common lisp", 66 hours on Tufts supercomputer biggest-ever-cosmic-string-simulation is one current example.

https://communitymedia.video/w/9kysH4ZwVuP4J4erZozqFT

So when people say, "what kind of places are using common lisp", 66 hours on Tufts supercomputer biggest-ever-cosmic-string-simulation is one current example.

https://communitymedia.video/w/9kysH4ZwVuP4J4erZozqFT

I built a more accurate Galactic GPS for aliens to find us!

In the 1970s, the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft were launched into deep space - each carrying a message from Earth in the form of plaques and golden records. These included a now-famous diagram: the pulsar map, originally proposed by Carl Sagan, Linda Salzman Sagan, and Frank Drake.

It uses the positions and spin periods of 14 pulsars to show where we are in the galaxy, effectively a cosmic return address.

But there’s a catch: the original map used canonical pulsars, which we now know can glitch and show timing instabilities. Back then, millisecond pulsars hadn’t yet been discovered (they came in the early '80s), so they weren’t included.

As someone studying millisecond pulsars and their long-term timing stability for my PhD, I decided to write some code to rebuild this iconic map - with a little upgrade.

Enter: the Millisecond Pulsar Map.

This version features:

- A top-down view of the Galaxy, with a central measuring bar showing our distance (8 kiloparsecs) from the Galactic Centre.
- Radial lines showing the distance to each millisecond pulsar. These can be measured against the central measuring bar to work out this distance
- Binary encodings for each pulsar's spin period and spin-down rate. These parameters will remain much more stable over the long term.
- A decoding scale to interpret the binary inscriptions.

With 40+ years of high-precision timing data, millisecond pulsars are far more stable than their slower cousins - making them ideal for building a map that could stand the test of cosmic time.

This also highlights how millisecond pulsars could be used as an intergalactic GPS network (because these stable pulsars are like cosmic clocks distributed across the sky). This might be an application for future spacecraft to navigate around the Solar System. Have a read of this article for how we are already building this technology now: https://www.spaceaustralia.com/feature/breaking-free-shackles-terrestrial-time

So, if some distant civilisation stumbles upon this new pulsar map ... well, they’ll know exactly where to find us.

The question is: do we really want to leave our full galactic home address out there?!

#Pulsars#RadioAstronomy#Astrophysics#GPS #Astrodon

https://anonradio.net:8443/anonradio

8pm Tuesday Boston time
#lispyGopherClimate#commonLisp #astrophysics #supercomputing#softwareEngineering #archive , https://communitymedia.video/w/9kysH4ZwVuP4J4erZozqFT we will have (now done) a live interview with

https://as.tufts.edu/physics/people/faculty/ken-olum

about the recent largest-ever cosmic string simulation also introducing their new spacetime-volume pseudo-parallel simulation technique, relating to gravitational backreaction.

People sometimes ask, "who uses common lisp today".

Olum learned #lisp from John McCarthy.

A very hungry planet! 🪐

That little dot is WISPIT 2b, a newborn exoplanet. About 5 times the mass of Jupiter, the planet is eating its way through its dusty cradle as it orbits the host star, a younger version of our Sun 🌞

Taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in #Chile, this image is the first clear detection of a baby planet in a disc with multiple rings.

Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2534a/

📷 ESO/R. F. van Capelleveen et al.

#astrodon #astronomy #astrophysics #space #science

A very hungry planet! 🪐

That little dot is WISPIT 2b, a newborn exoplanet. About 5 times the mass of Jupiter, the planet is eating its way through its dusty cradle as it orbits the host star, a younger version of our Sun 🌞

Taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in #Chile, this image is the first clear detection of a baby planet in a disc with multiple rings.

Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2534a/

📷 ESO/R. F. van Capelleveen et al.

#astrodon #astronomy #astrophysics #space #science

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 is humanity’s farthest emissary, over 15 billion miles (24.8 billion km) from Earth, racing at 38,000 mph (17 km/s). It still carries the Golden Record, a time capsule of Earth’s culture, into the uncharted depths of the cosmos.

🧵 1/3

#Voyager1#Voyager#GoldenRecord#Science #Astrodon#Space#Universe#Physics#Astrophysics#NASA#MilkyWay#Galaxy

So thrilled to realize that the German Astronomical Society ✨ @GermanAstroSoc ✨ has sneaked into the Fediverse last week!

Greetings 🥳

Let's make them welcome, shall we? Go ahead and start following them if you're interested in astronomy at all, and boost their introduction post above so everyone can know about this exciting new arrival.

I personally think this is huge, so let's make this work for them 🚀

I am also sure they will in turn be able to lure even more astronomers here, and we'd all love that, wouldn't we?

#Introduction#NeuHier#FollowFriday#Astronomy#Astrophysics#Astrodon#Space#GermanAstroSoc#AG#AstronomischeGesellschaft #ag2025goerlitz#Fediverse

To grasp the vastness of space, Voyager 1 will pass near Gliese 445 in about 40,000 years. Yet even then, it will hardly have traveled across the galaxy. One full orbit of the Milky Way would require over 400 million years—an unimaginable timescale.

Learn more: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/mission-overview/

🧵 3/3

#Voyager1#Voyager#GoldenRecord#Science #Astrodon#Space#Universe#Physics#Astrophysics#NASA#MilkyWay#Galaxy

Crossing into interstellar space in 2012, Voyager 1 marked a milestone in exploration. Yet on a galactic scale, its motion is almost imperceptible. Even after drifting for a million years, it would remain within the Orion Spur, close to its origins.

🧵 2/3

#Voyager1#Voyager#GoldenRecord#Science #Astrodon#Space#Universe#Physics#Astrophysics#NASA#MilkyWay#Galaxy

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 is humanity’s farthest emissary, over 15 billion miles (24.8 billion km) from Earth, racing at 38,000 mph (17 km/s). It still carries the Golden Record, a time capsule of Earth’s culture, into the uncharted depths of the cosmos.

🧵 1/3

#Voyager1#Voyager#GoldenRecord#Science #Astrodon#Space#Universe#Physics#Astrophysics#NASA#MilkyWay#Galaxy

So thrilled to realize that the German Astronomical Society ✨ @GermanAstroSoc ✨ has sneaked into the Fediverse last week!

Greetings 🥳

Let's make them welcome, shall we? Go ahead and start following them if you're interested in astronomy at all, and boost their introduction post above so everyone can know about this exciting new arrival.

I personally think this is huge, so let's make this work for them 🚀

I am also sure they will in turn be able to lure even more astronomers here, and we'd all love that, wouldn't we?

#Introduction#NeuHier#FollowFriday#Astronomy#Astrophysics#Astrodon#Space#GermanAstroSoc#AG#AstronomischeGesellschaft #ag2025goerlitz#Fediverse

As the Milky Way band appears to pour into our Extremely Large Telescope in #Chile, the cranes around it seem to do the same while they further advance the telescope.

Once complete, the ELT will be breaking down the light above in unparalleled detail with its huge 39 m mirror.

More: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2533a/

📷 C. Letelier/ESO

#astrodon #astronomy #astrophysics #astrophotography #space #science