astro updates

*solar system*	stars and in between	*exoplanets* *(and ET life)*	galaxies & cosmology	relativity, particle & quantum physics	cultural literacy	teaching/education, science & tech
late November 2020
*An Apohis impact?* *(Starts with a Bang)* *zero chance in 2029 (it will miss by 29,000 mi)* *but chances for 2068 depend on the details of 2029 interaction and subsequent Apophis outgassing* *🔥 climate crisis🔥* *how we know the planet is warming* the big picture climate solutions Wind and solar global capacity will overtake gas and coal by 2024 *(Carbon Brief)* *based on* *Renewables 2020* *(International Energy Association)* *analysis and forecast through 2025* *172-page report* *and* a summary breakdown by topics Expanding the reach of a carbon tax (RHG) emissions impacts of pricing combined with additional climate actions *the summary* *the 53-page report*		*The most hellish planet: a magma ocean and rocky rain* (Earth & Sky) K2-141b ET life Stephen Webb: still desperately looking for ET (Astronomy) or reasons for not finding it		*About those quantum fluctuations...* (Starts with a Bang) pretty unconvincing...	election security Homeland Security: 2020 was "most secure election in American history (Time) Election results: fact vs. fictitious claim *(Washington Post)* 59 election security experts speak: election fraud is "unsubstantiated" and "charges are technically incoherent" *(NY Times)* *and documenting the unbearable hypocrisy of Mitch McConnell* *who last year squashed anti-fraud bills passed by House Democrats* *The criminal hypocrisy of 'Senator' Lindsey Graham* *(Politico)* *add in treason, too* ------------------ last of the post-election analyses Biden won places that are thriving (Washington Post) Trump won places that are hurting *Biden won counties that account for 70% okf the U.S. economy* *but* *Biden also won counties that suffered higher unemployment* *(NY Times)* *5 failures of American democracy* *(The Guardian)* *and all interrelated* *Religious authoritarianism is sadly here to stay* *(NY Times)* *GOP claims election validation: they got more votes where covid flared stronger* *(Washington Post)* but why not: more GOP voters *→ more ignorant voters* *→ worse pandemic behavior* → more covid cases? The case for prosecuting Trump and his cronies (New Republic) book reviews & interviews Getting away with (white-collar) murder (NY Book Review) review of Corporate Crime and Punishment: The Crisis of Underenforcement it's time to start prosecuting executives who commit crimes on behalf of their companies *Obama's new book* The Atlantic interview why Obama is afraid for American democracy NPR interview full transcript *museums & travel* *The Arctic: culture and climate* *(British Museum)* *Montana: 32 images of the Treasure State* *(The Atlantic)*	*Platypuses glow under uv* *(NY Times)* *How geese know to fly south for the winter?* (The Conversation) an 'internal sunlight clock' and past wisdom handed down pandemic medical Moderna says its 2-dose vaccine could be 94% effective *(The Guardian)* *initial reports* *What it's like being back in school with covid ravaging NC?* (Cardinal & Pine) scary! say parents *Why we need more than 1 vaccine* *(Ars Technica)* bad tech Obama: 'The internet is the single greatest threat to democracy' (Vox) a bit late to the realization, though *Americans no longer have a shared set of facts*
highlights of early November 2020 1) The election conquers all what happened in NC and in the U.S. how science fared in the election climate politics, post-election the best post-post-election commentary the best post-election commentary pre-election hype 2) the pandemic gets much worse 3) rocky exoplanets are everywhere 4) magnetars and FRBs: at last a connection? 5) bad climate news climate consequences (including a very controversial article in Nature) climate solutions 6) the Standard Model is not enough 7) black holes continue to make news black hole mergers the black hole information paradox
early November 2020
asteroids & moons Bennu left the main asteroid belt 1.75 Myr ago (*SciTech Daily) to be 'near-Earth' based on* *published paper* *(Nature)* *says small-crater data* *Sampling the solar system* *(Science)* *a special issue on surveying Bennu* *A magnetized, Moon-forming giant impact* *(AAS Nova)* *Europa glows in the dark!* *(NASA JPL)* *color depends on the salt* *How Io got its hellish atmosphere* *(Earth & Sky)* *hot and cold SO₂ planets How water left Mars (NASA Goddard) global dust storms @ Mars perihelion throw H₂O vapor high into atmosphere where it's dissociated and the H and O ions escape Science* comments How water didn't leave Venus in the past (Universe Today) today's processes can't explain how Venus lost its water *Mars' gigantic Olympus Mons* *(Astronomy)* *Do clues to Earth life's origin lie at the bottom of Chixulub?* (*Gizmodo) supporting an impact- origin-of-life scenario in first GByr of Earth 4 new giant telescopes on the horizon will rock astronomy* *(Astronomy)* ---------------------- *🔥 climate crisis🔥* *how we know the planet is warming* *the big picture* climate consequences Self-sustained permafrost melting (Nature) even if GHG emissions stop in 2020? *beware that the authors are business-school profs* *but* *the dissenters have their knives out* (Gizmodo) did a peer-reviewed paper really mix up thawing and melting? *more dissent here* *(USA Today)* *A greater sensitivity to CO₂ atmospheric concentration than thought?* *(Carbon Brief)* *does it now exceed* 5 *°C?* *based on* *published article* *(Nature GeoScience)* *due to changing composition of clouds* *How climate change disproportionately affects women's health* (Carbon Brief) with maps Waterworlds are better at maintaining climate stability than contintental worlds? (AAS Nova) due to the differing feedback from weathering processes lessons for Earth? *NSfCC: Protected areas, including poles, subtropics, and parks* (The Guardian) 'Not Safe from Climate Change' climate politics Biden stocks transition teams with climate experts *(Scientific American)* *Biden and utilities commissions split on emissions goals* *(Scientific American)* *guess who's the more conservative* What Biden's win bodes for climate (Carbon Brief) or what the media thinks it does repeat over and over: the Senate is going to be a drag *Why we need a Department of Climate* *(Vox)* *How scientists want Biden to take on the climate fight* *(Scientific American)* *Trump's climate legacy* (NY Times) is *climate damage, much of which cannot be reversed* *as easily as environmental rollbacks... and a warming about exceeding the CO₂ threshold of 400 ppm* *What Biden can get done without the Senate* (Washington Post) rejoin Paris; staff intelligently; exec orders reversing Trump's anti-science *NY Times* *has 9 things he could do* *in the first 100 days* *There won't be a Green New Deal* *(Vox)* *Biden isn't powerless either, but ...* *w/o the Senate, nothing big will happen* *Vox* also has 10 ways to fight climate change without Senate control climate solutions *or maybe not* *Emissions from global food production could preclude reaching Paris goals* *(Science)* *so how does this translate to not requiring veganism?* *(AP)* *Renewables alone won't satisfy California's energy needs* (Physics Today) will need carbon capture and storage, etc. Radical geo- engineering cooling proposal gains traction *(NY Times)* as climate disasters pile up environment Is space mining the appropriate ethical choice to replace materials shortage *(Astronomy)* *What the election results mean for environmental protection in NC* *(NC Policy Watch)* *lots of moderate hopes, but unlikely big progress* Durham's new LED streetlights: lower carbon emissions vs. perpetual daylight *(Raleigh N&O)* *along with sleep deprivation, harder-to-see stars* The devastation of AZ's wild lands, its wildlife, its Indian heritage & its burial lands (NY Times) tear down that wall! A running list of 2020 U.S. natural disasters (Scientific American) Regulatory rollback tracker *(Harvard Law)* follows the 100+ environmental regs rolled back during Trump's 4 years many hopefully to be reversed by a Biden exec order asap	*Using lasers to simulate supernovae* *(Science News)* *a long read* *Whence gold?* *(Astronomy, November 2020 issue)* *is it all from stars?* *most of Earth's gold has sunk to its center* *Why are massive stars are found at the centers of clusters?* (Astrobites) born there or settled there later? *How do imines form in interstellar space?* (Astrobites) clues to life? black hole mergers More news & results from LIGO's new black-hole catalog *(Sky & Telescope)* big black holes dominate, but the puzzle of the 90-M_sun black hole remains: is there a black-hole desert? spin & tilt-angle data hint at black-hole origins *AAS Nova* *commentary* *on the eccentricity, spins, and origins of colliding black holes* --------------------- The size of Betelgeuse (Sky & Telescope) is hard to figure out	*How to find missing exoplanets in a given star system* (Astronomy) from the properties of the ones detected 4 hidden rules of planetary arrangement? A solar system formed in less than 2 x 10⁵ yrs (Lawrence Livermore) rocky exoplanets Radioactive elements may be crucial to the the habitability of rocky planets (UC - Santa Cruz) b/c they create electric dynamos that provide both a protective magnetic field and plate tectonics based on published article (Ap J Letters) *Kepler summary: Earth-sized planets are common* *(Sky & Telescope)* 300 million habitable-zone Earth-like planets in galaxy Half of Milky Way stars have habitable Earth-like planets *(MIT Technology Review)* *improved estimates prompted by combining Kepler & GAIA data* preprint for forthcoming publication (arXiv) excellent graphs ---------------------- ET life Why we haven't found ET life yet (Astronomy) closed minds?	*Constructing a family tree of the Milky Way* *(Astronomy)* *Kraken, Sequoia, Gaia-Enceladus, Helmi, & more:* *the galaxies that the Milky Way consumed in its past* *Experiments nail baryon density during Big Bang* *(Nature)* value close to that from theory conclusion: we need dark matter, not MOND? *based on* *published paper* *(Nature)* *Quanta* commentary Did a black hole birth our universe? *(Starts with a Bang)* *still a mystery* magnetars, & FRBs? *a connection?* *Birth of magnetar from neutron-star-merger?* (Northwestern U.) first time seen Magnetars: city-sized magnets from dying stars *(Astronomy)* *The Milky Way's first FRB?* (Nature) will constrain theories Are magnetars responsible for all radio bursts? *(Sky & Telescope)* *Astronomy* *comments* *based on* *published article* *(Nature)* *The physical mechanisms of fast radio bursts* *(Nature)* *review article* free ----------------------- *Milky Way makes dwarf galaxies glow* (Science News) and then snuffs them out as the dwarfs first fall in, get squeezed and starry, and then get ejected out *and a perennial favorite:* *If the universe is expanding, are we expanding too?* *(Starts with a Bang)* nope.... plus where the expansion actually IS happening Was the universe's entropy zero at the Big Bang? *(Starts with a Bang)*	*Gravitational molecules orbiting black holes?* *(Live Science)* *can scalar fields create structures around black holes?* *analagous to the H atom in QM* *Virtual particles don't exist?* (Einstein's Cup of Tea) reading caution advised *but a plea for proof over convenience & imagination* Hossenfelder v. Dorigo: who is anti-science? *(Science 2.0)* *there are lots of kinds of anti-science...* non-standard-model The Standard Model is not enough *(Starts with a Bang)* say recent LHC experiments or are particle physicists making empty promises? *(Not Even Wrong)* ALICE: looking for dark matter by looking for anti-light-nuclei *(CERN Courier)* *Leptoquarks and the 3rd generation* *(CERN Courier)* *searching for more new physics* *MOND vs. dark matter* (History and Philosophy of Modern Physics) *in the light of history* *hidden structure in the universe* (Quanta) part 1 A new map of all the particles and all the forces *is it too complicated to replace the old one?* *unsettled controversy:* *part 2* *Black holes can shed information?* *physics' most famous paradox is about to end?* *is proof without a full quantum gravity sufficient?* *part 3* *What is a particle?* a quantum field excitation? a collapsed wave function? an irreducible representation of a group? a vibrating string? *& more* *a long read* black holes Reality check: No, the black hole paradox has not been solved *(Starts with a Bang)* *but even more speculative* *Are there places black holes can't escape from?* *(Astrobites)* *maybe* ------------------- "How the world came to know about black holes" *(Earth & Sky)* *a very short history of our understanding of black holes*	and in other news.... What determined if schools re-opened? The number of Trump voters in the district *(Washington Post)* *unions played some role; covid infection rates didn't* *Americans were primed for an onslaught of disinformation* (538) Trump set the stage; the pandemic made it worse Pledge time: if you're in Congress, you don't get to trade in active stocks (NY Times) divest yourself John Paul II: sainted too soon? (NY Times) rush to judgment ----------------------- post-post-election commentary Media groupthink (The Atlantic) how much should the media try to rock the boat? *A left that raises money afar for losers* *(NY Times)* *but can't recognize locals who need it* *are the rich not very smart?* The crisis isn't Trump... it's the Republican Party (Vox) *does it still exist?* *Evangelicals:openly rooting for the death of America* (Washington Post) and at its root is racism A down-ballot Democratic washout (New York) a growing education gap & Latinos moving to the GOP How Trump sold failure to 70 million people (The Atlantic) America in big trouble *NC voters to legislature & Governor: cooperate and compromise* *(WRAL)* oh, and the legislature is listening? then why haven't they fixed partisan gerrymandering? Dems won 53% of state vote, but only 42% of GA seats in the 2020 election *How Western media would have covered the U.S. election if it had happened in another country* *(Washington Post)* Georgia Georgia is blue? (The Atlantic) yeah, yeah: it voted for Biden, but .... *you think it's going to vote for even 1 D senator?* *Biden's presidency depends on Georgia* *(The Nation)* the right's millionaires vs. the left An attempt to defy history (NY Times) *---------------------* Trump's mob enforcer *(Washington Post)* Obamacare at the Supreme Court Facing a court remade by Trump *(Politico)* *SCOTUSblog* *complete coverage* *of the case known as California v. Texas* *4 possible outcomes* *(WebMD)* *the best post-election analyses* *The blue wave that didn't happen* *(The Intercept)* *why not?* *The crisis in American democracy is not over* (The Atlantic) solving the pandemic and reviving the economy will not be enough *Much of America still does not understand the Trump attraction* *(NY Times)* *but those who choose to remain uneducated perhaps deserve to be told what to do* *Polarization of place replaces that by race* *(The Atlantic)* *The danger of white moderates setting Biden's agenda* *(NY Times)* *no pain, no progress* *How Trump changed America* *(538)* or What Trump revealed about America (538) too many people unwilling to challenge their prejudices How TX Hispanics turned to Trump *(Washington Post)* --------------------- but undemocratic America lingers The undemocratic Senate *(Vox)* *and its current spawn, the Supreme Court* *The faux grievance of Justice Alito* *(Washington Post)* *A map of America in 2020, as it should be* (Washington Post) by population, not acreage -- as the right wing would like What AOC (& the left?!?) want *(NY Times)* *respect? or salve for their bitterness?* polling vs. reality The polls weren't great...but that's normal *(538)* The end of polling -- or end of media ob- session with polling/ *(Washington Post)* or *is it more complicated?* *(Undark)* *meanwhile, America sets a daily record for new covid infections* *election results in NC Why NC is still in the 'undecided' column (Raleigh N&O) mail-in votes can come until 11/12, 5 pm How NC counties shifted (blue and red) in the 2020 election (NY Times) On Tuesday, NC voted for applesauce tax breaks, but not for teacher raises (Cardinal & Pine) anyone paying attention? A disastrous election for NC & the US* *(NC Policy Watch)* State Dem judges lose; Tillis beats Cunningham the embarrassment; Dems lose ground in legislature, meaning GOP control of redistricting & forget Medicaid expansion *Turnout records in NC, but more than* *⅓ of eligible voters didn't vote* *(Cardinal & Pine)* *and more than 3 million aren't even registered in NC* *Urban vs. rural divide grows in NC* *(Raleigh N&O)* *or is it really an education vs superstition divide?* *A frantic Election Day at the USPS* *(Pro Publica)* *and finger-pointing the day after* *A big blue map for Biden, but less success down-ballot for Dems* *(538)* *red shifts and blue shifts elsewhere* *in the U.S.* *our long national nightmare is over* *0 for 5: the non-existent charges of voter fraud* *(Washington Post)* *A dreadful 2 years to come?* (Politico) a Dem president with a GOP Senate *as Georgia decides the nation's fate* *and similar disasters in other states* *Dems lose seats in Congress, gain zero state legislatures; 70 million+ vote for authoritarianism, anti-science, & ignorance* How Trump undid himself (Politico) it wasn't only the virus.... Trump presidency nears end as it began: lies piled upon lies (Washington Post) a fact check What the exit polls showed (New Yorker) Biden won by earning back votes from seniors and non-college-educated whites The rest of the world welcomes America back to reality (USA Today) pre-election An election about: How serious the pandemic will become (The Atlantic) whether federal, state, & local government voter suppression continues (Washington Post) whom taxes get raised on The GOP is about to raise your taxes -- not Biden (J. Stiglitz, NP-Economics winner, via NY Times) whether peaceful protesters should expect to be tear-gassed (Raleigh N&O) and behave appropriately?!? whether we survive Trump's attack on democracy (NY Times) his impugning of judges, his normalized lying, his attack on free and fair elections, his attack on the free press, .... voting & elections Kolena's page on gerrymandering, elections, voting rights, electoral college, and more Which states will report results first on Election Night (Washington Post) NC should report 95% by end of day Why predicting elections is not like predicting rainfall (NY Times) non-linearity in NC "We are in control" (Raleigh N&O) the GOP's decade of voter suppression, big-business-over-people fiscal policy, decreasing support for education and labor, and more ------------------------- How to prevent war in space (Scientific American, November 2020 issue) free for a very short time exhibits & travel Saqqara, Egypt Discoveries of coffins, statutes, & mummies at Saqqara announced (The Guardian) with another discovery to be announced later this year Revealing the secrets and mummies of Saqqara (Smithsonian) Saqqara: Living in a city of the dead (Rijksmuseum) an exhibition just ending -------------------- Don't go to Lake Tahoe during a pandemic (Washington Post) wait, so trash profusion, spray-painting trees & boulders, bad behavior around bears, ... are in-bred American habits? Suffering, faltering Manet (NY Book Review) review of Manet and modern beauty: Manet's last years (Art Institute of Chicago) and a NY Times review Sit beneath a starry sky (Smithsonian) an immersive van Gogh exhibit NW Spain's Asturias (NY Times) a local's tour Rafting through Alaska's Tongass (NY Times) national forest before its being opened to logging by Trump**	science & the election Memo to Joe Biden: you must rebuild trust at EPA, DoE, CDC, & other quasi-scientific agencies (Scientific American) Memo to Biden: 5 steps to getting more from science (Nature) a revamp is required A win for facts, research, & empathy (Nature) but Biden must quickly restore science to government The denialist playbook (Scientific American) how anti-vaxxers, anti-GMOers, anti-evolutionists get away with pretense it begins with "doubt the science" Science election wins and losses (Science) personnel & research Scientists aghast at support for Trump (Nature) a wake-up call for scientists to work harder for science biology & anthro Signs of ancient life under Chixulub (Earth & Sky) support for impact origin of life? Life teems below Earth's surface (Eos) *How birds branched out and became more diverse* (Scientific American, November 2020 issue) free for a very short time Fluffy pterosaurs revive feather origin debate (The Conversation) just physics Newton's Principia received surprisingly wide distribution during its time *(NY Times)* *Why nuclear weapons only use U-235 and Pu-239* (The Physics Teacher, November 2020 issue) When does maximum KE happen for a rocket? max momentum? (The Physics Teacher, November 2020 issue) political science How American politics became so polarized *(Science)* *and* *a short conversation with the lead co-author* *(Scientific American)* pandemic medical Good news/bad news for the next 8 months (Raleigh N&O) death rate could double over winter; vaccines may allow us to get back to normal by July 2021 Covid is ripping us apart (Washington Post) among the losers: schooling, women, neighborhood restaurants, cities Current covid risk levels *(Georgia Tech Biorisk)* *by county, with map: 42% for Durham Co., 38% for Wake, 30% for Orange risk level = estimated chance that at least 1 covid-positive individual will be present at an event or by congressional district* *(Global Epidemics)* *CD#4 (Durham) has least deaths in NC* And now a 3rd surge: no one is paying attention to health care workers *(The Atlantic)* The CDC now wants to go back to science? (NY Times) guess what: masks have benefits... as of 11/11/2020.... have you heard? gee, I guess it's ok now that we're rid of Trump What we know (and don't) about the Pfizer vaccine (Vox) based on small numbers? What Pfizer's covid vaccine 'could mean (Nature) but questions remain about how much its '90-effective' protection it offers, for whom, and how long *requires 2 doses & Intense refrigeration* and another what-it-means (Stat) *Trump campaign rallies: 700 covid deaths?* *(Vox)* *Playing it down* (Washington Post) why the White House was slow to respond to the pandemic -- and the consequences of its inaction *in 3 parts*