13th November 2008

The planets dance

Today, two separate sets of astonomers released news that they had photographed planets in other solar systems.

Of course, one’s immediate thought is of Apollo- or shuttle-style photos of big blue marbles.  Alas, no; that’s a long way off.  What we have is one real-light image of a large planet circling Fomalhaut (nicknamed “The Eye of Sauron” because of its lovely red ring surrounding an unblinking bright pinprick pupil), looking like just another dot, and not one, not two, but three planets circling a star gracefully named HR8799 (which sounds like one of the multitudes of operating procedures put out by, say, a university human resources department), photographed in infrared.

Oh, man.  It is just so kewl, even if they are still just dots.  We’ve come a long way; astronomers are finding evidence of planets everywhere they look, it seems, whereas just a few decades ago there was serious discussion that planets might be a rarity in the universe.

From the sublime to the wonderfully ridiculous:  Last year, some scientists arranged something called “Dance Your Ph.D.”, in which scientists were asked to do an interpretive dance of the subject of their Ph.D. thesis.  This resulted in some splendid dances (which you can see here).  The winner was a stylized primitive hunt of antelope, followed by the hunter sharing the feast afterwards, illustrating his thesis titled “Refitting repasts: a spatial exploration of food processing, sharing, cooking, and disposal at the Dunefield Midden campsite, South Africa.”  The contest was such a success that this year the AAAS is sponsoring the 2009 Dance Your Ph.D. contest.  Go visit and watch the videos; there’s a tango about electrons and lattices, some mice sharing pheromones, marine animals being caught in nets and dying, insulin growth factors binding proteins, and more!

All of which makes me want to remind you:  Science is Fun(damental)!

posted in News, Science | 1 Comment