Four Stars and One Planet

Artist depiction of PH1. Credit: Ron Miller

A really cool new planet discovery has been announced today and I wanted to mention it here for those who haven't heard about it yet.
You may recall the Kepler Space Telescope has been starring at a patch of sky to look for periodic dips in the light of distant stars. Such dips can be caused when planets orbiting those stars transit in front of the star (just like our own Venus transit a few months back). There are so many stars to look through, though, that there is a public program available for anyone interested to look at the data. That's right: ordinary people can look at scientific data and help find planets. This Planet Hunters program is ongoing and has already discovered several planets.
Today, a really cool planet has been discovered by these citizen scientists. Read on to learn more.

Exoplanet Visualizations

If you're interested in astronomy, you're probably aware that we know of hundreds of extrasolar planets -- planets outside our solar system -- and that we have thousands of candidate planets. Many of these new candidates come from NASA's Kepler mission, which looked at the dimming of light when a planet passes in front of another star. By the current count, there are over 2000 such objects identified.

Many people have come up with clever ways to display these planets in a way that's fun and easy to understand. In this post I've gathered some of my favorites (mostly videos) and will walk you through what they show. Click through to check them out!

A Year as a Postdoc Astronomer in Chile

As of October, I have now spent one year as an astronomy postdoctoral researcher straight out of graduate school. It has been a great year, though with plenty of ups and downs. I figure I should write down my thoughts about this experience. I have both good things and bad things to say, but I try to be honest, fair, and positive throughout. This may be of interest to curious grad students, or anyone really, especially if they have wondered about pursuing a postdoc or are just interested in astronomy in Chile. One thing to keep in mind is that this is an individual, personal experience and your own story or circumstances may be quite different. It's obviously difficult to approach this critically and unbiasedly, but here goes nothing...

Book Review: The King's Blood by Daniel Abraham

The King's Blood, by Daniel Abraham, is the sequel to The Dragon's Path, one of my top 5 books of 2011. The story continues where we left off with mostly the same characters. Not sure if I'll have the sequel among my top 5 this year, since I've read so many other good books in 2012.

A tyrant's power increases with the help of priests of a ravenous Goddess while a young banker struggles to hold on to her bank. Things are going to get messy as war breaks out in the lands once ruled by dragons.

Read on, to find out what I thought.

Chile on September 18

September is a month of history in Chile. Back on September 11, we saw the remembrance of the military coup that overthrew Allende and established the Pinochet dictatorship. Today, however, we go further back in history: to September 18, 1810 and the first steps in Chile's independence. From my readings, it looks like there were many notable dates throughout the process for independence, but September 18 is celebrated as the Day.

Chile on September 11

In the United States of America, September 11, 2001 (aka 9/11) is remembered as the day terrorists hijacked several aircraft and crashed them, most famously into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. While those events were tragic, it's sometimes easy to forget, particularly in this political climate, that the US is not the only country of the Earth. There is a whole world out there for whom the date may or may not have special significance.
Chile is one country that remembers something similar for September 11.

Video Book Reviews

As you may know, I've written several reviews for books I've read and enjoyed this past year. You can see them all by searching for "book review" on the right-hand search box, or showing all those entries with the label "books" (for example, the tab above). You can also filter by science fiction or fantasy if you prefer.

One thing you may have noticed, though, is that my reviews tend to be a bit long. I have suffered when people ask me what a book is about and I can't tell them quickly enough.

Enter: 1-minute book video summary/reviews/thoughts.

Book Review: A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

There are some books people frequently recommend. I've heard a lot of people praising Vernor Vinge for A Fire Upon the Deep, but never once do they tell what it's about. Then I read the basic blurb, which talks about Zones in the Galaxy that control where advanced technologies (like faster-than-light travel) can work. That sounded original so I finally got it. And was blown away. This was one of the best pieces of fiction I have read in a long time. It is certainly among my Top 5 this year. It's not just because of the Zones, though. There is a lot to enjoy in this book: a medieval society experiencing first contact, "world"-building on a galactic and extra-galactic scale, a Blight that threatens to destroy the civilizations in the Galaxy, and some very odd alien races. Read on to see my full review.