Day 3 of #AAS244
First Plenary of the day was: The Lives and Deaths of Star Clusters, and the Black Holes they Make along the Way by Carl Rodriguez, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
It's actually quite hard to create the 30-solar-ish black holes found by LIGO and Gaia with normal stars, but it might be possible in the dense environment of stellar clusters.
They simulate star clusters moving through their host galaxies to see if mergers can create black holes with the right mass.
Next was Creating the Story of Community in Astronomy: Multimedia Storytelling that Reflects, Honors, Includes, and Inspires, a panel discussion on storytelling.
The One Sky project brought together partners from across the world to tell a traditional astronomy story in an animated, full-dome video for planetariums.
My colleague Yesenia Pérez got to debut a rough cut of the video The Physics of Pō, that we have been working on with our Hawaiin partners from 'Imiloa. #AAS244
Next Plenary Lecture: When Data is Not Enough: Illustrating Astrophysics for the Public by Robert Hurt, Caltech/IPAC.
He discussed his career working on producing visualizations and illustrations to communicate science.
Art connects known facts, possibilities, and even known falsehoods (like relative scales), to give you visual context to understand scientific results. It can even form visual hypotheses with the available information (since you have to commit to something). #AAS244
Next: The STScI Town Hall
Hubble is transitioning to 1-gyro mode after issues with gyro 3. The probability that at least one gyro will be functional to 2030 is above 90%. Budget cuts from NASA will reduce the operations budget by about 10%, and the only way to cut costs is by reducing support for science instruments.
JWST is continuing to function well and is doing great science.
Roman data is so big that you will have to run analysis on the cloud science platform, not your laptop. #AAS244
Next a panel with Historic Observatories: Current Activities and Potential for Education, Public Outreach, and Research, with representatives from the Washburn Observatory, Detroit Observatory, Lick Observatory, Lowell Observatory, Yerkes Observatory, and Alliance of Historic Observatories.
Where do historical observatories fit into a modern scientific context? Developing smaller instruments for larger telescopes. Testing new technology, making connections to industry and universities. #AAS244
Next the RAS Gold Plenary Lecture: Challenges to the Cosmological Model, John Peacock, University of Edinburgh.
Do headlines about results that break the consensus Lambda CDM model of the Universe hold up?
"Maybe there is something wrong with cosmology. Ok, fine, but I’m not giving the medal back."
The Hubble tension — "Once upon a time this level of agreement would be considered miraculous."
Observational evidence prefers a Lambda CMD model with a slightly smaller matter density #AAS244
At least you can see the mac and cheese, and make an informed decision to eat or not.
I grabbed these schnitzels marked down at the supermarket, and didn't spot the fine print.
At second chew my taste buds went "WTF?" and "Oh No! What does bird-flu infected chicken taste like?"
Examining the rest of the schnitzel was a bit scary, because the mac bit could look like various yucky things, until one's brain's pattern recognition kicks in and then you fish the packaging out of the garbage to check what you actually bought.
@kellylepo that is an abomination, and proves evil exists in the universe.
however, fabulous thread. thanks!
Kelly Lepo
Ovadex 
Judy Schmidt
_
BashStKid
Paul McO'Smith III