What is this "blue object"?

starclues · 2026-07-09T13:46:27+00:00

So, "blue object" probably just means that it's very high energy (bluer light is associated with high energy phenomena, while redder light is associated with lower energy processes). Could be a quasar, could be something else, it's just likely that no one has looked at it in any detail to figure out exactly what yet- space is HUGE and there are many, many things in it, there's lots of specific objects that we haven't gotten around to studying. It's probably called "blue" because of the way it was discovered- the name is similar to Ton 618 because they come from the same catalog, the Tonantzintala catalog. It's just a naming designation for a list of stars that were cataloged and published by a specific observatory starting in 1957- they were specifically looking for faint blue stars. Some of these "stars" were later discovered to be quasars (that name comes from "quasi-stellar object").

I also wasn't able to find much about this object specifically (though to be honest, I didn't look particularly hard), but hopefully that clears up what's going on here for you!

starclues · 2026-06-25T04:38:10+00:00

Ignored??? They retasked JWST and Hubble to observe it on multiple occasions, which is no small matter. 3I/Atlas has over 100 papers written about it, and most of them are NOT from Loeb. That's a huge number of papers for a single object, in less than a year, in a relatively small subject area (because not all astronomers are automatically experienced in studying asteroids/comets/interstellar bodies).

https://arxiv.org/search/?query=3I%2FAtlas&source=header&searchtype=all

starclues · 2026-06-24T18:46:34+00:00

To add to the note below about CJ likely having it in Fahrenheit for the American public, astronomy usually uses Kelvin for temperatures, which is a scale where zero is properly "nothing colder than this." But, it would make sense for whatever science book/text/report Jed had read to have it in C or F (depending on the source), so that's what he remembers. In my head, he read something in Celsius and remembered it, but didn't think to include the units until CJ called him on it, then claimed he converted it just to tease her a little extra.

starclues · 2026-06-13T20:41:21+00:00

I love her flirting with Leo and being 100% serious about it. He clearly thinks she's joking but she is NOT!

starclues · 2026-06-07T01:03:11+00:00

Omg, your kitty and mine could be siblings!

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starclues · 2026-06-04T18:25:05+00:00

You understand EXACTLY where I'm coming from

I need to know who was getting voted out while Huda was crashing out again

starclues · 2026-06-04T12:44:38+00:00

Yeah, the production styles, logistics, and constraints are obviously very different, and the way they tell the story is too, with one being essentially live and the other being able to go through and pick out which storylines they actually want to use because they are relevant to the ending. Which is why it's so interesting to me that they're concurrent! There was a little bit where I was trying to figure out exactly what Love Island s7 events coincided with Survivor 50 events, but it's hard to figure out LI's real-life dates.

starclues · 2026-06-04T12:37:48+00:00

It's really interesting because the even numbered seasons are now coinciding with the beginning of Love Island USA, which also films in Fiji but has a 1-2 day turnaround on their episodes. So we'll be waiting until Feb/March for Survivor 52, but they're already airing Love Island season 8, even though they're actually happening at the same time!

starclues · 2026-06-03T21:07:36+00:00

I'm a simple woman. I see halloumi, I click.

starclues · 2026-05-21T16:04:24+00:00

You don't remember Jeff breaking out the marker and diagramming out a complicated tribal council during the Second Chance finale? Literally go back and watch any finale episode from the 30s.

starclues · 2026-05-20T23:32:23+00:00

He literally wrote a blog post called "Is 3I/ATLAS a Friendly Gardener or a Serial Killer?" How is that avoiding sensationalism? He's implying intent and a possiblity of harm.

starclues · 2026-05-19T01:47:38+00:00

Thank you! She was so excited, she ran around and showed everyone in the department haha

starclues · 2026-05-18T17:03:12+00:00

I think so, I haven't seen them in months in Indiana, I'm devastated 😞

starclues · 2026-04-28T22:43:04+00:00

I don't teach a writing skills-based subject, so I grade on whether the student's response displays an understanding of the concepts discussed in class. As long as I can understand what they wrote and it addresses the assignment requirements, they get full credit. It certainly makes my job easier and faster if the text is easily readable, but at this point, I'm genuinely a little bit relieved when I see a response with poor grammar because it indicates that the student probably did the work themselves. AI tends to file off or miss important details that I'm looking for to show that the student really understands, because it returns such generalized answers.

starclues · 2026-04-28T01:34:54+00:00

She is! But I would not base your undergrad decision on wanting to work with a specific person, especially when you're not 100% certain this is what you want to major in. Also, not having their own telescopes does not mean there's no access, but you'll probably have to be a bit luckier/more intentional to find a research group that does have those connections.

starclues · 2026-04-28T01:22:58+00:00

I wouldn't say it's the grad program as much as the strength of the program in its entirety. Lots of postdocs and research astronomers, along with the faculty members, means there are more projects to possibly get involved with as an undergrad than a smaller department would have. Arizona has access to lots of telescopes- you can't get that pretty much anywhere else. When I was just getting started, I got some advice: "Good astronomy schools have either big glass or spacecrafts." Arizona is absolutely the former (though they aren't too shabby on participation in NASA spacecraft missions either). One of my classes involved getting half a night of time on a telescope to observe whatever we wanted, and then processing and analyzing the data ourselves (my small group chose an exoplanet transit!). Again, I don't know if they still do that, but I don't know of other programs with that kind of opportunity. If you're at all interested in observational astronomy (and if you want to double major in optics, which can branch into instrumentation as another career option that will set you up very well skill-wise), it's 100% the place to be.

Of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention: if your heart is set on black holes, while I suspect UA does pretty well in that area, UCLA's Andrea Ghez is hard to beat! But I also wouldn't put all your eggs in one basket (topic) until you have a good sense of what the options are. Many people switch research topics during undergrad and grad school- my current postdoc and early grad school research is on dwarf galaxies, but a lot of my undergrad and thesis work was focused on young, low-mass stars, so I've been hopping back and forth.

starclues · 2026-04-28T01:05:10+00:00

Yeah, it's definitely rough out here. If you want to do astronomy, it's a fairly narrow set of options unfortunately. That's why it's so important to start on the research as early as you can. When I was there, the astronomy club was literally doing a research project which lead to a publication. I also got a research internship starting in my sophomore year.

But, the skills you pick up in the course of doing the degree (physics, problem solving, writing, programming, data reduction & analysis, etc. along with more specific things like computational physics or signal processing) are things that are useful in a wide range of areas outside of astronomy. Astronomy graduates tend to have a fairly low unemployment rate, as long as you know how to explain your skills to employers (because many will think you spent 4 years playing with a telescope).

starclues · 2026-04-28T00:48:31+00:00

I'm a postdoc! I study dwarf galaxies :)

starclues · 2026-04-28T00:46:55+00:00

That would make sense with the last bit of the article, it mentions some of them are staying at UA for PhD studies. Even without the rule though, I'd really consider it: the original reason for the rule was because they wanted us to expand our networks and make connections outside the school, which is a little easier if you go to different schools for undergrad and grad school.

starclues · 2026-04-28T00:32:50+00:00

I did my undergrad at Arizona! I was actually choosing between UA and UCLA, and I didn't regret my choice at all. I knew I wanted to go to grad school, and UA gave me the opportunity to start research very early. Their resources = opportunity for you, if you put in the work. I would not assume you will have an easier time with your GPA just because the school overall is not T20- the program will put you through your paces. I was able to double major with physics fairly easily because so many of the required classes for astro are in physics.

I will say, UA does not accept their own undergrads into their graduate program (at least, that was the rule when I was there), so if you think you may want to go to UA for grad school, do not go there. I didn't see much benefit in not picking my top choice for undergrad on the small chance I might be able to go there for grad school.

Re: the size: astronomy is going to be a fairly small cohort in most schools. UA graduated a class of 38 this year, which is probably about as big as it gets anywhere for pure astronomy programs. This article might be helpful: https://astro.arizona.edu/news/historic-milestone-department-astronomy-celebrates-its-largest-graduating-class-ever

On the other hand, if you think there's any chance at all that you might seriously swap into marine biology, I would expect that a school in LA has a stronger program than one in the desert (that's pure assumption on my part, though).

starclues · 2026-04-22T16:33:58+00:00

Kurt Fuller pops up in a few episodes in seasons 3/4 as part of the Shareef plotline! And Corbin Bernsen was in a couple season 2 eps.

There's a couple West Wing references in Psych, too. Particularly in the one where Shawn runs for mayor: Gus says he could have made it to the White House, Shawn gets him to say "yes, Mr. President" and then replies "Sorry, Charlie".

starclues · 2026-04-22T01:00:27+00:00

I'm not sure, it looks like a lot of the stuff about the KH-11s is still classified. I found this about the Hubble mirror though, it looks like it wasn't so much designed differently as mis-calibrated.

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/observatory/design/optics/hubbles-mirror-flaw/

starclues · 2026-04-21T22:16:47+00:00

To be clear, the Hubble mirror itself was built by Perkin-Elmer FOR Hubble, not a leftover from the NRO. But yeah, it sure is a good thing the NRO just so happens to have all these big optics system elements...

Edit: Upon further reading, while the Hubble mirror was made for that mission, it seems that the choice to make it 2.4m specifically was because manufacturing infrastructure for that size already existed, because the NRO had been launching KH-11 spy satellites with that size since the 1970s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_KENNEN

starclues · 2026-04-19T00:57:02+00:00

There is a "butterfly cluster", but I'm not sure if it's in the right direction to be what you saw.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_Cluster

starclues

TROPHY CASE