My friend Michelle Thaller is an astronomer who is doing eduction and public outreach for the new Spitzer infrared space telescope. She is an absolute riot, and one of the reasons I love going to astronomy meetings; it's usually the only time I get to hang out with her.

She writes an astronomy column for the Christian Science Monitor, and if you don't read it, you should. Here is a link to her columns. I just read her description of the Spitzer launch, and it brought back fond memories of seeing the camera I worked on launch on the Space Shuttle, heading for Hubble.

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Phil Plait
The Bad Astronomer
http://www.badastronomy.com
badastro@badastronomy.com

Shoot! I wish I could write like ya'll - velvet smooth and rich in content. 8)

Thanks for the link. Her account of the launch reminded me of those early days watching the space program. Looks like the Delta did it's job!

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board!

I am not sure your character hypothesis is validated by the evidence given.

However, I did glean this....

There may be some hope.

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board!

Smart, good sense of humor, into Ren Faires, and a real cutie.....wow.

And, a good writer, too. Cool. Her column on gravity was pretty impressive.

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Sleep? Isn't that that totally inadaquate substitute for caffeine I've heard so much about?

Quantumfoamy.com, my astronomy/astrophotography blog.

This reminds me of the time some years ago I was reviewing a book about branes and string theory, and in my notes I had written down something to the effect of, "At first I had a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea of branes."



The irony escaped me at the time...

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Starry, starry night...

My site TheSpacewriter.com
and my blog: TheSpaceWriter's Ramblings

Well, now that you've been here a little, are you not more cerebral?

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board!

I was pretty cerebral before -- just ask my spousal unit. Sometimes I get so cerebral it's scary... and now you're telling me I'm gonna get MORE cerebral after hanging around here? Oooohhhhhnnnnnnnoooooo!!!!!! Run for your lives... eeett's cerebral!!!



(I'm giddy. Just had tuna casserole for dinner... )

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Starry, starry night...

My site TheSpacewriter.com
and my blog: TheSpaceWriter's Ramblings

Hello people,

A quick question concerning the article: Gravity: Strength in Weakness by the linked author.

No nothing (light, matter, atom; whatever) can escape from a black hole once it has crossed the horizon; wouldn't that mean that it (gravity) is stronger than the bug (matter, atom) caught in the web?

My all time favorite account of a rocket launch was one written by Issac Asimov called (IIRC) "The Cruise and I" about a time he and a bunch of other eggheads were invited on a cruise down to Florida to watch a moon launch. It's a very funny read.

IIRC, the person who did the inviting was none other than Richard C. Hoagland! :roll:

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Kaptain K
I don't recall. Of couse when I read that, the name Richard Hoagland wouldn't have meant anything to me. Alas, if only it were still so!


Daniel
This is true for a black hole, but that is only because a very great deal of mass has been compacted into a very small space so that the gravitational force is highly concentrated. Under most circumstances matter cannot be compacted to a sufficient degree to create a black hole because the resistance of electric force is so great that it prevents such a collapse. The only way to overcome this is to compress the matter using a lot of energy, such as the energy released by a super nova. When a star collapses into a black hole, it isn't the gravity that initially causes the collapse, it is the force of the super nova blowing off the outer shell of gas and the equal and opposite reaction compressing the iron core to the point where the gravity is concentrated enough to complete the collapse. Or at least that's how I understand it.

P.S. Welcome to the board.

Wow, you guys are so nice. Us NASA folks are seriously starved for compliments. You've all made my week (at least).

Michelle

Welcome.

We were also admiring another one of your articles here.

Oh gosh Michelle, I just read your CS article and realized you were at AAS. So was I and I talked with Phil... but I didn't get a chance to see you!

Ah well... welcome to the Board! I'm a newbie too, more or less...

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Starry, starry night...

My site TheSpacewriter.com
and my blog: TheSpaceWriter's Ramblings

I agree on all three points... I wish more of my old and dear friends were her...

So is she married?? 8) <-- dark glasses... can't be sure who's askin' th' question

It's the mercury contamination kicking in again. Makes ya mad as a hatter... 8-[

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"If a tree is cut down in the rainforest, and is used to make paper to print a book, and the book is really bad, and there's nobody that will read it, do you still hear a sucking sound?"
Charlie in Dayton, A.AsC.

In next weeks column, Michelle interviews Phil on how to remove your head when its stuck in a cathedral.... \/

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"If lightspeed has something to do with speed.
how come things can move fast in the dark?"
-James Driscoll (Spaceman), kook, imbecile, idiot.

Found a nice video done by Michelle at JPL >>> here <<<.



She is cool! 8)

Can we go ahead and establish her as our "Snow White"? She seems to like us. It is obvious there are about 70 dwarfs here (usually red ops: )! Shucks, can I be "Corny"?

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board!

...must...resist...temptation...

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"If a tree is cut down in the rainforest, and is used to make paper to print a book, and the book is really bad, and there's nobody that will read it, do you still hear a sucking sound?"
Charlie in Dayton, A.AsC.

Good. That makes one of us.

It would be great, though, if she would visit regularly.

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board!

Lets take a poll... and make the results binding...

On whom?? :-?

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Well quite frankly I was thinking about requiring Michelle to become a regular when the poll demanded it...

What were you thinking??

Spitzer pictures are out.* That's a lovely M 81!! 8)

*Hard to tell whether this is actually a new article. It was just featured on Slashdot, and they described it as "just released", but /. needs considerable salt on such matters.)

Added: Grr, I was right, it was just Slashdot posting as "news" something three months old. Nevermind.

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GhiaPet Home Page

Hey John!

I haven't heard from you in ages.

What's up? I'm still doing the NASA gig, as you can see. I still read all these nice comments about me when I'm feeling down, and it's been a hell of a week.

Great new results from Sptizer coming out, though.


Michelle

You're awesome, Michelle!

Hope next week is better for you.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Allow me to ditto ToSeek.

Hang in there kiddo!


BTW. I've enjoyed Cool Cosmos . Very attention getting site. 8)

Black paint as a radiator was something I had not realized. I might want to try that myself next time my a/c goes out. :wink:

Here's a radiation joke. In a street interview as to what is the greatest invention, a man answered...the thermos. When asked why, he pointed out that he might put hot coffee in one day and it would stay hot all day, then, the next day ice cold tea and it would stay cold all day. When asked why he felt this was special, he responed....how does it know? :roll:

Ok,ok...I have better jokes. It's the only radiation joke I know. :-?

If you ever wanta talk shop here, I would love to hear your thoughts and news on accretion disks.

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board!

Heehee! I just got an email with a preview, and this news will hit the streets on Thursday. I can't wait to get details! 8) Ironically, I'll miss it because I'll be at an astronomy meeting. More ironically, the meeting's near LA; a short drive to JPL! Arg!

Hi again guys.

Did one of you want to talk about acretion disks? I know there's going to be some cool stuff out of the Keck interferometer. They've already resolved the inner disk in the nearest Seyfert galaxy (can't remember the number offhand), and right now they're installing the nuller, which cancels light out from the central source, whether it be a star or an AGN. It's my understanding that the first targets they look at will be AGN, so get ready for some neat disk observations.

On a personal note, I'm starting to get interested in Star Wars fan groups. I so want to dress up as a Jedi. Anyone a member of one? Got any recommendations?

Michelle

Cool. 8) I look forward to any accretion disk news. I am especially interested in single star disks, although Spitzer views of Active Galactic Nuclei should be very interesting.

Somehow I knew the Snow White bit was too old fashioned. How 'bout a compromise....Princess Leia? :wink:

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