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First Full-Sky Image From Planck Mission
krou writes "Six months of work has produced a remarkable full-sky map from Planck. 'It shows what is visible beyond the Earth to instruments that are sensitive to light at very long wavelengths — much longer than what we can sense with our eyes. Researchers say it is a remarkable dataset that will help them understand better how the Universe came to look the way it does now. ... Of particular note are the huge streamers of cold dust that reach thousands of light-years above and below the galactic plane. "What you see is the structure of our galaxy in gas and dust, which tells us an awful lot about what is going on in the neighborhood of the Sun; and it tells us a lot about the way galaxies form when we compare this to other galaxies," observed Professor Andrew Jaffe, a Planck team member from Imperial College London, UK.' The ESA has more details on their website, with a higher-res JPG available."
at very long wavelengths — much longer than what we can sense with our eyes.
Thanks for that.
On first sight I thought it was an egg made of lapis lazuli.
I see the Flying Spaghetti Monster in there!
No. I hate hearing this kind of stuff from people who should know better.
However, the silly justifications and flowery language work well with the politicians, who have to be convinced to pay for this stuff. I'm sure most of the people working on Plank would dance in a furry bear costume in front of Congress if it would get them the time and money they need to do the work and be left alone.
I've learned that scientists are a lot like serious artists and musicians. You should just give them the gear they need to work and then let them be. Don't ask for quarterly reports, don't ask for balance sheets. Just toss them whatever equipment they request and an occasional sandwich and get out the way.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Something like this?
Hear hear. It is a creative process as well, people should be allowed to "stay in the zone" or "flow". It burns you out quickly if you have to constantly shift and rechannel your focus and energy to bordering tasks instead of the project at hand.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
I've learned that scientists are a lot like serious artists and musicians.
No they aren't. Serious artists and musicians get paid for results. There is this myth that you just give stuff to scientists, don't supervise them, and you will get wonderful things in return. My view is that doesn't work in practice. If a scientist is willing to dance in a bear costume to get funding, then they're will do real science for funding. That's good enough for me.
I'm just saying...
Are my calculations correct, and is all of the detection band of it on temeperatures under 1K?
Rethinking email
According to the article, one of the goals of this mission is to look for signs of "Faster than light expansion" that occurred shortly after creation of the universe.
This really excites me, it implies, that there existed conditions in our very own universe where at some point we had faster than light travel.
More thank likely not in our lifetime, however if it happened once, its bound to be discovered "how" and potentially exploited to achieve FTL.
Just my 0.02$
I think most scientists would rather do real science for funding but quickly find out that the funding they obtain that way is greatly limited while the "dance in a bear suit" approach gets you a lot more funding. So they grit their teeth, do the little dance and then get back to real science until their funding runs low again.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
actually, that is the real justification. top scientists dream of things normal people call lame and stupid.
However, society found that these dreamers are useful, because they stumble onto stuff that engineers can use.
what is the justification of becoming a champion tennis/football player (since it's the season)? sports was, is and always will be a dick measuring contest (even for women). so is science, for each individual scientist. you can't change that, it's in the genes.
new sig
Don't ask for quarterly reports, don't ask for balance sheets. Just toss them whatever equipment they request and an occasional sandwich and get out the way.
You are putting a hell of a lot of trust in people who in the end behave just like everyone else.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
At first, I wouldn't expect them to. It is dark matter afterall. But they did detect something interesting that I don't know enough to judge.
Rethinking email
I hear what you're saying, but as long as there's a near infinite number of possible science projects and a quite finite level of funding there has to be priorities. On the detailed level you can have science boards, but what about the overall level? How do you decide what degree of funding you'll give to science overall or Hubble versus CERN, for example? Both are ridiculously far into basic science, if you asked the scientists what measurable gains society would get the answer would be ridiculously strained or none at all. In the end it's a political decision, after all we're not paying these people because they think it's a nice hobby to do experiments, we're paying them because we want some form of results. If we just gave them free money and to go have fun, I shudder to think how much useless science we'd do.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I've seen a lot of what you have described.
From a research perspective, the optimal program is the one with the smallest gap between what you say you're going to do with the funding and what you have to actually do in order to advance science in some rigorous and meaningful way.
This perspective doesn't breed cynicism, it's simply realistic. Much as everyone would like to narrow the gap, criteria for a successful grant proposal are not quite the same as for doing actual science.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
...Just toss them whatever equipment they request and an occasional sandwich...
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Am I the only one who wants to see some units?
I know that we can see the milky way, and that the bright band in the middle is that same milky way... but the night's sky is different in winter and summer, and it's different on both hemispheres.
In other words: the galaxy is all around us, and I want to know what part is where.
A good graph has units and numbers, you insensitive clods.
That would be news to must artists and musicians.
You are welcome on my lawn.
That would be news to must artists and musicians.
I did preface it with the adjective "serious". Having said that, how many artists and musicians do you know who just get money, paid in advance, to "do" art? There is the idea of art commissions and sometimes a record label will pay an advance for a band, but these things aren't particularly common nor are they a dominant form of income. Public funding of science is remarkably different in that virtually all of the funding is paid for things that you will do rather than things that you did.