Transit Probabilities: Not As Simple As They Seem
Our simple formula for predicting the probability that an exoplanet will transit might miss something important.
The Frequency of (Habitable?) Planets Around M dwarfs
The census of planets for smaller stars—M dwarfs—is now basically complete. In this paper, Courtney Dressing and Dave Charbonneau use this M dwarf advantage to determine the occurrence rate of small planets around M dwarfs.
Sgr A*: A flickering black hole
Witzel et. al examine the statistical properties of the photometric variability of our Galaxy’s central black hole.
How Common Are Long-Period Jupiters Around Massive Stars?
What fraction of massive stars host gas giants? Vigan et al. observe a sample of A and F stars to find out.
Code you can use: the MCMC Hammer
What’s the best way to sample a banana? A new code implements an efficient solution to this and other Bayesian inference problems.
New Kid on the Block: Scaling the SZ Effect in Clusters
Estimating galaxy cluster masses is difficult, but it might be getting more precise thanks to the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect.