C-3PO, PhD: Machine Learning in Astronomy
AutoScan was able to correctly identify real sources in the validation set 96% of the time, with a false detection (claiming an artifact to be a source) rate of only 2.5%.
Corpse too Bright? Make it Bigger!
The rare (un)lucky star dies by means of black hole, which shreds the star to bits before swallowing it. It’s a spectacular death to observe, but one which is less bright and hot than we thought they would be…
Tuning in to Radio Exoplanets
Title: Limits on low frequency radio emission from southern exoplanetsAuthors: Tara Murphy, et al.First Author Institution: Sydney Institute for Astronomy, The University of Sydney, AustraliaStatus: Accepted for publication in MNRASAstrobites is no stranger to exotic exoplanet discoveries– the Kepler mission alone has increased our knowledge of these worlds by leaps and bounds, and many exciting discoveries have been done by optical telescopes as well through a variety of methods. In today’s paper, however, the authors present results on yet another method of extrasolar planet detection: the possibility of discovering planets in radio frequencies.How does this work? Well we know that planets with high magnetic fields can give of gigantic radio flares in the right circumstances- in our own solar system, Jupiter gives off flares that can be brighter than the sun in radio frequencies thanks to its powerful magnetosphere (which produces bright aurorae like Earth’s magnetosphere- see Figure 1). This is thanks to something called cyclotron maser emission, where electrons from plasma material interact with the magnetic field in a way that beams them like a laser in radio frequencies. In the case of Jupiter, these bursts are visible from Earth when Io– the nearest Galilean moon to Jupiter, which is constantly spewing out material from its volcanoes- is at a particular point in its orbit and this beam of radio radiation is pointed towards us.Of course, if such a thing is a well-documented phenomenon in our own solar system with Jupiter, shouldn’t it also occur around other planets? Astronomers think so, and such flares have been observed from brown dwarfs, but the question is whether these exoplanet radio flares would be strong enough to be detectable from Earth. The answer is “perhaps,” under circumstances such as if the exoplanet is...
The First Two Years of Advanced LIGO and Virgo
How quickly will Advanced LIGO/Virgo be able to detect a gravitational wave, and how precisely will they be able to tell their partner electromagnetic telescopes where to point? Today’s authors answer these questions for the most promising and best-understood type of system, binary neutron star mergers. Specifically, they take a realistic look at LIGO/Virgo’s first two online years, including their early sensitivity and expected downtime.
A Fast Radio Burst From Close to Home?
Astronomers are hearing a new type of radio transient, but no one knows where they come from and how they are created. This paper suggests one of the six documented Fast Radio Bursts detected so far originated close to home, within our own galaxy.
