LIGO and Virgo gravity wave detectors detect biggest wave to date. “The new signal likely represents the instant that the two black holes merged. The merger created an even more massive black hole, of about 142 solar masses, and released an enormous amount of energy, equivalent to around 8 solar masses, spread across the universe in the form of gravitational waves.”

16 Psyche to be precise... “The Psyche mission will be the first mission to investigate a world of metal rather than of rock and ice. Deep within rocky, terrestrial planets—including Earth—scientists infer the presence of metallic cores, but these lie unreachable below planets' rocky mantles and crusts. Because scientists cannot see or measure Earth's core directly, Psyche offers a unique window into the violent history of collisions and accretion that created terrestrial planets.” This ought to be a cool mission.

Currently... https://www.whereisroadster.com/ Eventually: The random walk of cars and their collision probabilities with planets And here's an Ars Technica article on efforts to track and predict the location of Starman and his roadster.

Interesting article in Astrobiology mag... Photobiological Effects at Earth's Surface Following a 50 pc Supernova

That reminds me of another one... A biologist, an engineer, and a mathematician were observing an empty building. They noted two people entering the building and sometime later observed three coming out. The biologist remarked, “Oh, they must have reproduced.” The engineer said, “Our initial count must have been incorrect.” The mathematician stated, “Now if one more person goes into the building, it will be completely empty.”

Having studied astronomy this is pretty funny This is not really a joke, but I still think it's pretty funny

Ah yes I remember seeing this video when it came out. It is pretty neat! Ever since I discovered the nature of chaotic systems I've always been intrigued by them and their connection to seemingly unrelated mathematics.

TFW you rotate the mandelbrot plot through the third dimension. Kind of like a Flatlander being visited by Mr Sphere.

Geology is without a doubt one of the fields I find most intriguing, personally. It seems to be very much related to astronomy. I believe I've watched the PBD documentary before, they make up possibly half of the total of documentaries I watch every week, hehe. What inspired you first you study geology in particular?

Seeing how it was requested you share some history of yourself/any projects you've worked on and what not...well unfortunately I am not really qualified, I suppose, to be here That being said I do have vast interests and enjoy these sorts of discussions, and thus far have really enjoyed reading previous topics in this club. Soo a bit of background - I was basically a third year Geology student (2.5 years in) until oil and gas tanked in Canada and then just quit school. I have the option to go back but haven't decided (long personal excerpt could go here but I won't bore you). My sister and her husband are both geologists though. My brother in law has a masters in sedimentary rock and my sister was a geo-engineer (she's now a teacher though because...jobs). Geology is still a big interest of mine though. One thing that stuck with me from an intro course, which I thought to be super fascinating, was discussing how we are due for a geomagnetic reversal sometime soon ...by soon I mean eventually (this is not a doomsday type of topic) the reversal would create issues, but not like mass extinction issues. You might have seen articles last year that discussed the need to updating the magnetic polar north much more earlier than planned and then they will have to do it again pretty soon here in 2020 as it is still moving quite fast. But, this process is still slow. Anyways, I thought it was neat and wanted to discuss it (not sure if others knew about the phenomenon). But, you all seem to be very well versed in natural sciences Quick PBS video for anyone who does not know what I am talking about Seriously, I suck at spoiler tags =-=

Oh wow, the animation! How cu...u...ttee? 0_0;;;;;;; Bye bye earth. Hello nuclear winters. This video made me start thinking about if Yellowstone exploded and the ash fall that would basically consume most of America and south Canada. Add in wind. Funtimes. Also, I enjoyed how they pulled a rubber duct from the rock bedding.

Ah I see, so it is actually freezing yourself. When I heard it I thought like putting yourself in a freezer and thought that this couldn't be it (well the AC is kinda that way) ('freezing' is also used in behavioral science to describe standing still, just fyi). It sucks that you don't get those for free though. I always heard about problematic cases with healthcare in the US but didn't realize it actually comes down to such a concrete level. Back to topic though, a relative of mine says he has seen one years ago but wasn't able capture it on a device. I don't think I'll see one with the time I spend looking at screens though. You're quite lucky having seen two of them!

Well, the application of cold will reduce swelling and that will reduce pain (or flat out numb your nerves). I managed to get myself so cold between the freezing temps and keeping the ac on in my car on top of that to be a block of ice, even after I went to work later. The room I work in, usually cold to me, felt like someone had a furnace in there that day. Numbing by freezing has worked for me many times in the past too. And, healthcare in the US is complicated. If you have insurance, you still have deductibles to meet, copays for the visit, and may have to pay a portion of the cost of any treatments or procedures as well. The only ones coming out ahead in any of this is the insurance companies, but that is what happens when politicians are in the pockets of big companies like that with excessive lobbying power. The insurance companies getting their way screwed up medicare too and is the entire reason why it has a donut hole. Anyone who thinks an insurance company isn't crooked is a fool. Happy to take your monthly premiums when you don't need it and always looking to avoid paying out when you do need it.

Holy moley, that is one bright flash. I can definitely say I haven't seen that. This is not on topic, but I don't understand the part with freezing yourself out of pain. By freeze you probably mean the freezing behavior, not getting colder?, but how exactly is that related to pain? Also, aren't those drugs covered by health insurance in the US?

It happened too fast for a picture and at the time I was sitting in my car thinking about whether I should spend a hundred bucks at the urgent care to get a ketorolac and zofran injection or if I should just try to freeze myself out of my pain and nausea. I'll admit, it was a jaw dropping moment. Ended up choosing to just freeze myself so I could stare at the sky a big longer....lol....priorities, right? Most videos you see of them are from police dashboard cams, home security systems, and people who were recording other things at just the right time. Fireballs are bright enough and low enough you can see them in bright cities too. For instance, this one just happened last night and it is so bright it lights everything up. You'd have seen this in an inner city if you had an unobstructed view. The surrounding lights might drown it out a bit but most fireballs won't be washed out by them. Some you can see during the day even. From under a porch

I saw this video about what would happen if all nuclear bombs were detonated at once. It's from Kurzgesagt which is quite popular. But for some reason I found this one in particular hilarious and thought someone might find it interesting as well

I didn't even know what a fireball was until I looked it up, let alone seen one. But no, if you live in a big city, you don't really get to see many things in the sky unless you really look for it. You didn't happen to take an image?

Well, tonight I reported my first fireball. Actually it's my second fireball....my first I didn't think about reporting and it literally lit up the sky right in front of my husband and me a few years back. First one I reported anyways to the American Meteor Society. I saw it this morning and looking at the most recent compiled reports (which mine will be added to), I'm convinced that over 150 other people saw it too. I know fireballs are supposed to be once in a lifetime events for people so I feel real lucky I saw this one. Makes me happy I went outside to freeze my pain away this morning. Otherwise I would have missed it completely. Anyone else ever spot a fireball in the sky?

Its a damn good read as well. I rather enjoyed it.

How fascinating. I may read it once I am returned home.

Just read the article. It was very interesting I certainly learned something. Though sound waves do not normally move anything with Mass they can move photons through super fluids which is very interesting.

@Keiko Just saw this (published about a week ago): https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.084501#fulltext Apparently, simple sound waves when they pass through solids and fluids have negative mass too They say that the sound wave/particle "carries (negative) mass. Moreover, this is not due to the usual equivalence of mass and energy in relativity: the effect survives in the nonrelativistic limit. And, finally, it is not a quantum effect, because the formalism of Ref. [1] applies unaltered to classical waves."

That sounds really cool, and fun mixed with just the slightest element of danger.

Photons are crazy in many respects. I once worked on trying to combine photons to create stronger ones which sounds a lot more exciting then it was.