#deep carbon observatory

[honourablejester]

Deep Carbon Observatory (Remastered) (OSR)

I was idly watching youtube reviews for various OSR modules (because honestly some of the adventure ideas are bonkers), and I was so fascinated by the description of one particular module that I went and bought it.

That module was Deep Carbon Observatory (Remastered) by Patrick Stuart & Scrap Princess. And. Look. I’m going to burble about this in extremely spoilery fashion under the cut, because this dungeon? Is fantastic, and the concept behind it is eating my brain.

The basic concept of the module is that you start in a badly flooded town downstream of a titanic ancient dam built by a civilisation no one knows or remembers that lived upriver somewhere around 2000 years ago. The dam has recently broken, flooding out everything below it between it and the sea, and emptying what used to be the reservoir lake above it to expose an entrance to … something. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to venture upriver, racing other teams of explorers all the while, through the flooded Drowned Lands below the Dam, somehow through the barrier of the Dam itself, and then through the strange alien landscape of the Profundal Zone, where the lake used to be, to find out what lies in that strange, newly-exposed Pit.

There are people with theories, prophets and scholars, who have ideas. There are some indications in the Dam and in the lake valley as you go. But the final dungeon, the Deep Carbon Observatory itself, is …

I love it. I love the concept of this dungeon so much. It’s so imaginative in a way that I really vibe with. If you like geology, caving, Deep Time, archaeology, it’s so good.

SPOILERS. The Deep Carbon Observatory is, as it sounds, an observatory. Hanging upside down across a pair of linked stalactites in the roof of an incomprehensible cavern over the vast blackness beneath. And the lens of said observatory, formed of extra-solar minerals that fell to earth in a meteorite, allows you to see through stone.

The Deep Carbon Observatory is a massive observation point, trading post and treasure vault that allowed an ancient civilisation to see into and trade with the vast strange empires in the stone underneath the world. There is a clock, in one of the rooms of the Observatory, that shows a cut-away hemisphere of the world and what lies within it, and I’m just going to quote it, because it’s amazing:

“The south wall holds a gigantic semi-metallic hemisphere showing the onion-rings of the world.

It starts at the iron core, home of the serious hells, then shows the outer core where the terrestrial sub-plains of fire reside, then the mantle with the numerous lesser hells.

Next is the Mohorovičić discontinuity, placed there in ages past by the Lich-Saint Hans Mohorovičić to separate the normal world from the threats below.

After that, the hemisphere shows the crust with continents and subducted plates, the Isles of the Imprisoned Moon, the Nightmare Sea, the Veins of the Earth, the Parliament of Orphan Moons, the inter-penetrating dungeon zones and then a smear of blue for the oceans.

The clock is moving, just incredibly slowly.”

This is … such an amazing pile of world-building to build directly into the concept of your dungeon. It does have treasure, some absolutely spectacular treasure, but the point of this dungeon is knowledge. Knowledge of an ancient civilisation and what killed it (more on this later), knowledge of the history and geology of the world, and current information on the goings on of the civilisations beneath the stone. Because the lens is, at least for a little while, still active. You can use it.

The dungeon is laid out across two stalactites dangling into the abyss, with some rooms above both of them linking to the surface. If you descend through one of the stalactites, you eventually reach the mechanisms and the lens of the observatory itself. If you descend through the other, from the massive winch-hall at the top through the trade halls beneath, following the massive Nightingale Chain, you’ll eventually penetrate out into that abyss, and can venture into the strange dark realms beneath. The Chain used to operate a trade elevator for that purpose.

It's so cool. There are such strange things in this ancient abandoned observation post, such eldritch things, because the things down there are weird, and these people brought some of them up here. And, um. Would you like to guess why this ancient, decadent, opulent, slave-owning society of underworld traders abruptly locked their observatory and flooded the whole damn valley above it to make sure nothing could get in or come out ever again? And were so damaged by the effort that they vanished so completely that 2000 years on no one knows who the hell they were anymore?

Yeah. There are several weird things down here, and one very particular large thing down here that, uh. Would very much like to kill you and everything above you until its finally sated. So.

But. The concept of this dungeon. I’m going slightly insane about it. It’s so scientific, in such a bonkers fantasy fashion. There are treasures and monsters, yes, things to kill and raid, but behind all that there is science. There’s an observation point that lets you see into the earth. There is information, maps and instruments and geological samples and eldritch information storage. The dungeon is not a tomb or a fortress, it’s an observatory. Dangling inside a stalactite above a vast Deep Time abyss of stone and fantasy and hells. It’s a scientific station. It has rock cores of nightmare fossils, it has a magical map that tracks the subduction of continents, it has an eldritch lens that lets you see through stone to vast subterranean cities and nations and biomes. It has a chain that would let you expedition downwards.

One of the first books I ever read for myself, gotten out of the library at seven years old, was Jules Verne’s ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’. Okay? This dungeon is like a high-grade drug to me. What a concept.

This is an OSR module, designed for early D&D clone systems, but if someone ran a 5e conversion, I so want to go down there as like …

I want to say a warlock? I want Eyes of the Rune Keeper so badly. I want to be able to read all this scientific information, and the language of the Dam-Builders, while there are NPCs who have some grasp of it, is still a barrier to understanding. So. Possibly a warlock. Or a knowledge cleric or wizard with Eldritch Adept. It’s for a party of level 3-5 in OSR terms, not sure how that’d map to 5e, but assuming somewhere around 4th level? I want to build a full archaeologist type character.

One of the suggested hooks for your character, by the way, is the following: “Hollow Earth Theorist. THE WORLD IS A HOLLOW SPHERE! YOUR THEORY PROVES IT! Yet you have received only mockery in response. You believe final proof lies in the mountains somewhere upriver of Carrowmore. You WILL penetrate the Hollow Earth!!!” Which. Yes. Yes I will.

I love the concept here. I love seeing a dungeon that isn’t just a retread of ‘necropolis complex’ or ‘enemy fortress’, that is something bonkers and scientific and cool. And, like. This carries over. The treasures you can find in here are weird and cool and quite a lot of them will do ill-advised and interesting things to your character’s brain. But it’s fine! Who doesn’t want to go mad in pursuit of knowledge?! Live a little!

I love this. Just to summarise here, to finish up. I love this dungeon. The concept is pitch-perfect. Absolutely no notes. Excellent idea is excellent.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

GHOST spies ultra-hot Jupiter with ultra-fast winds

In the hunt for exoplanets, many seek out habitable worlds. There's comfort in discovering planets that remind us of home—ones at a perfect distance from their host star, with oceans of water covering their surfaces and breathable atmospheres.

Some astrophysicists, however, are curious about an entirely different type of exoplanet: the treacherous hot Jupiter. One such scientist is Emily Deibert, a science fellow at Gemini South in Chile, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, operated by NSF NOIRLab.

An ultra-hot Jupiter named HAT-P-70 b was the focus of a recent study conducted at Gemini South, led by Adam Langeveld, assistant research scientist at Johns Hopkins University, with a team of astronomers including Deibert.

The results of this study are presented in a paper appearing in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The team's investigation utilized a new instrument on the Gemini South telescope called the Gemini High-resolution Optical SpecTrograph (GHOST). GHOST is a powerful instrument that has the ability to observe a wide range of wavelengths simultaneously.

It can also complete observations with high efficiency while achieving world-class resolution. These capabilities allowed the team to peer deep into HAT-P-70 b's atmosphere where they discovered winds blowing at incredible speeds.

Hot Jupiters are gas giants that are similar to our Jupiter in size, but that differ greatly in temperament. They sit much closer to their host stars than our planetary neighbor does, giving them notably different physical properties.

To illustrate their distances, it takes our Jupiter almost 12 years to orbit the sun, while hot Jupiters take 10 days or less. Some have even been observed whipping around their suns in less than a day.

Orbiting at such a close distance gives these planets incredibly high surface temperatures, hence their name. They are oftentimes tidally locked, meaning they have one side constantly facing their star experiencing an extremely hot "day" and one side constantly facing away experiencing a colder "night."

HAT-P-70 b is a very "puffy" planet with a radius almost double that of Jupiter. It sits so close to its host star that its orbit is 2.7 Earth days and it has a temperature of about 2,300° Celsius (around 4,200° Fahrenheit), making it one of the hottest planets known to date. The extreme temperatures give this ultra-hot Jupiter an exotic atmosphere with a diverse array of gaseous metallic atoms and ions.

"These ultra-hot atmospheres are ideal laboratories to study exoplanets on a wider scale due to the fantastic opportunity to detect and study multiple chemical species," Langeveld explains. "By measuring the amounts of different elements—especially comparing 'rocky' elements like calcium and iron to 'icy' elements like water and carbon—we can learn about how they formed and evolved."

To study HAT-P-70 b's atmosphere, the team observed the planet transit, or pass in front of, its host star. As the star's light passes through the planet's atmosphere, the chemicals within the atmosphere act like a filter that absorbs specific wavelengths of light.

Using spectroscopy—a method of observation where an object's light is spread out into a spectrum—the team can determine which chemicals exist in the atmosphere by identifying the fingerprint-like patterns of absorption lines that appear in the spectrum.

In HAT-P-70 b's atmosphere, the team detected signatures of ionized calcium—a gaseous and highly energetic form of calcium that can only exist in environments of incredibly intense heat.

They found that the calcium signal extends tens of thousands of kilometers into the upper atmosphere. But more importantly, GHOST's incredible sensitivity allowed them to "time-resolve" the calcium signal. This means they could track how calcium absorption changes from the planet's day to night side.

Deibert shares her experience probing HAT-P-70 b's atmosphere: "We were surprised by the exceptional sensitivity of GHOST, which allowed us to measure minute variations in the individual absorption lines from the ionized calcium, thereby providing information about different regions of the atmosphere. This level of detail has traditionally been difficult to achieve in exoplanet studies, especially for individual absorption lines in transmission spectra."

From these observations, the team determined that HAT-P-70 b hosts powerful winds that rush from the scorching dayside to the cooler nightside at speeds of up to 18,000 kilometers per hour (11,000 miles per hour). They also used the detected signals to infer the planet's mass, revealing that it is likely much lighter than previously thought—a crucial parameter for future comparisons of ultra-hot Jupiter atmospheres.

"This level of detail is only possible with the most advanced spectrographs," says Langeveld, "making GHOST one of the few instruments in the world capable of such measurements."

Deibert adds, "This study showcases that GHOST has the potential to make major contributions towards advancing our understanding of the 3D nature of exoplanet atmospheres, for which there are still many big unanswered questions."

The time-resolving power of GHOST will continue to push the boundaries of exoplanet studies. In fact, Gemini is changing the game for astronomers like Deibert and Langeveld who are looking to gather spectroscopic data, as well as optical and infrared information through its Large and Long Programs.

Langeveld and Deibert's work is part of an approved Large program that they are co-leading, meaning they and their collaborators have secured observing time with Gemini for multi-year research projects in planetary studies.

Gemini's Large programs will promote collaborations and provide significant impact in all areas of astrophysics, paving the way for the future of the field.

IMAGE: Test spectra viewed through the red camera on the GHOST optical bench while John Pazder (National Research Council of Canada (NRC)) performs the final alignment of spectrograph optics. Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. Bassett

[cover-art-showdown]

Round Two, Match II

Deep Carbon Observatory (Patrick Stuart), False Machine Publishing 2014. Cover by Scrap Princess.

Germanes Fatals / Wyrd Sisters (Terry Pratchett), Mai Més Llibres 2023. Cover by Marina Vidal.

[collabs-bunny]

I saw your recent video essay/3 hour ttrpg understanding extravaganza and just. DAMN!

You're an excellent mind to listen to discuss a topic so near and dear to my heart. I'm a ttrpg designer with a couple little games; what's your reading list for ttrpg design as a topic? what books, videos, podcasts etc have shaped how you think? because i love the way you think, and would love to know more

Well hello, thank you for my first tumblr ask of all time. 😅 Congrats on tracking this blog down, and I'm glad you liked the video.

First of all, read Luke, Jared and Snow's blogs. Just read whatever strikes your fancy (https://lukegearing.blot.im/, https://jared.blot.im, nerves.games). Snow's most recent post is actually a reading list, I livestreamed a bunch of Luke's posts, and Jared is Jared. If Jared's ideas and opinions sound declarative, that's his voice. I think he dislikes half-committing to ideas, or couching his thoughts, and he has big opinions, so they can come off uh... standoffish? Unfriendly? But he's a big softie, I love him.

For proper philosophy, read Against Procedurality by Miguel Sicart (blog post: https://gamestudies.org/1103/articles/sicart_ap), and his book "Play Matters." His ideas on appropriation and playfulness have literally changed the way I move about the world in my day-to-day. Not every chapter is a banger, but it's good. The Forms and Fluidity of Play by Thi Nguyen is also great (https://gamephilosophy.org/pcg2014/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/C.-Thi-Nguyen-2014.-The-Forms-and-Fluidity-of-Game-Play-PCG2014.pdf), as is Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature, even if it was written in the 90's. It's very readable, which is important, but also full of excellent ideas.

I'd also recommend um... just reading a lot of adventures. There's a lot of bad ones, but I trust you to form opinions! I'm currently reading Luke Gearing's Wolves Upon The Coast and loving it for different reasons than I loved his adventure The Isle. I'm a big fan of Mothership's instant classics Dead Planet and Pound of Flesh, and I hear the Warden's Manual in the upcoming Mothership boxed set will have some good practical advice. Dread Manse by Micah Anderson was a recent read I liked a lot. I also love/hate/love Orbital Intelligence, but buyer beware: it's a weird as fuck bibliography. XD Dip a toe in as a treat, and treat all of them (including Crapland) at least a little bit seriously.

Also go watch my Zedeck Siew video and pick up a copy of whatever you think sounds coolest. Spy in the House of Eth is a good start, alongside Lorn Song of the Bachelor and of course Reach of the Roach God (which I haven't read yet, but is available at spearwitch.com). This one's a bit sad because of some recent drama, but the books are still good. Oh, and go listen to the Adventure Tourism podcast, and if my episode on Deep Carbon Observatory sounds cool, go read the original (NOT THE REMASTER).

I will say: Don't read any rulebooks for context. Vanilla Game is alright, but people (including me) have said some really Forge-y stuff about Mothership's mechanisms, DCC is huge and its spells aren't especially fun to read, Best Left Buried is... like, I don't want to say anything bad about it because I was (under)paid to edit it, but ehh.

I say that because a lot of those adventures are for """"OSR"""" games, which people say are inherently high-lethality. This is almost always parroted and twisted to be More Forge Bullshit. The rules don't matter. Most of them are D&D clones in lipstick. I recommended adventures (not rulesets) because they're easily appropriated. Just ask how you would use any piece of them at your table, or how you would change them to fit you or your table. It's a good way to play! It's an inherent part of play. I've said it a million times, but my Mothership home game is 2% Alien, 98% Cowboy Bebop, because fuck the rulebook. I don't like the stress and panic rules anymore. Sorry, Sean!

Let me know if this is coherent or helpful at all, and thanks again for the ask. :)

[doctorslippery]

d100 Rumors for Deep Carbon Observatory

Link Here

[cucumber-pictures]

Looking into 2025

2024 is coming to an end,so I would like to tell you 20 different things, the good and the bad.

The Good

1. All television will start to become internet based.

2. Many cities are banning fossil fuel-powered vehicles.

3. Human brain-scale simulations are becoming possibles

4. First light for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.

5. Sample return mission from Kamo’oalewa.

6. Direct flights from Sydney to London and New York

7. Pixar will release Ellio.

8. Advances in medicine will improve.

9. Humanity will continue experiments in deep space.

10. Toy Story will turn 30.

The Bad

1. The demon runs for four more years. (And then eventually extends his tenor according to The Simpsons.)

2. The US will start to become more authoritarian, no longer making it a free country.

3. Inside Out 2 will win for best animated film, making Inside Out, Pixar’s second animated franchise to win more than one Oscar.

4. More bad Simpsons predictions will come true.

5. The Doomsday Clock will tick closer to midnight.

6. Global carbon emissions will increase.

7. Average world temperatures will increase relative to 2024.

8. Disney will buy Alvin and the Chipmunks, instead of Nickelodeon buying it.

9. The US will walk out of the Paris Agreement again.

10. AI would get worse

[snizx]

my DM really came to me on this, the day of my emotional F1 season finale, and smacked me with the Deep Carbon Observatory giant

[sunaleisocial]

Liquid on Mars was not necessarily all water

New Post has been published on https://sunalei.org/news/liquid-on-mars-was-not-necessarily-all-water/

Liquid on Mars was not necessarily all water

Dry river channels and lake beds on Mars point to the long-ago presence of a liquid on the planet’s surface, and the minerals observed from orbit and from landers seem to many to prove that the liquid was ordinary water. 

Not so fast, the authors of a new Perspectives article in Nature Geoscience suggest. Water is only one of two possible liquids under what are thought to be the conditions present on ancient Mars. The other is liquid carbon dioxide (CO2), and it may actually have been easier for CO2 in the atmosphere to condense into a liquid under those conditions than for water ice to melt. 

While others have suggested that liquid CO2 (LCO2) might be the source of some of the river channels seen on Mars, the mineral evidence has seemed to point uniquely to water. However, the new paper cites recent studies of carbon sequestration, the process of burying liquefied CO2 recovered from Earth’s atmosphere deep in underground caverns, which show that similar mineral alteration can occur in liquid CO2 as in water, sometimes even more rapidly.

The new paper is led by Michael Hecht, principal investigator of the MOXIE instrument aboard the NASA Mars Rover Perseverance. Hecht, a research scientist at MIT’s Haystack Observatory and a former associate director, says, “Understanding how sufficient liquid water was able to flow on early Mars to explain the morphology and mineralogy we see today is probably the greatest unsettled question of Mars science. There is likely no one right answer, and we are merely suggesting another possible piece of the puzzle.”

In the paper, the authors discuss the compatibility of their proposal with current knowledge of Martian atmospheric content and implications for Mars surface mineralogy. They also explore the latest carbon sequestration research and conclude that “LCO2–mineral reactions are consistent with the predominant Mars alteration products: carbonates, phyllosilicates, and sulfates.” 

The argument for the probable existence of liquid CO2 on the Martian surface is not an all-or-nothing scenario; either liquid CO2, liquid water, or a combination may have brought about such geomorphological and mineralogical evidence for a liquid Mars.

Three plausible cases for liquid CO2 on the Martian surface are proposed and discussed: stable surface liquid, basal melting under CO2 ice, and subsurface reservoirs. The likelihood of each depends on the actual inventory of CO2 at the time, as well as the temperature conditions on the surface.

The authors acknowledge that the tested sequestration conditions, where the liquid CO2 is above room temperature at pressures of tens of atmospheres, are very different from the cold, relatively low-pressure conditions that might have produced liquid CO2 on early Mars. They call for further laboratory investigations under more realistic conditions to test whether the same chemical reactions occur.

Hecht explains, “It’s difficult to say how likely it is that this speculation about early Mars is actually true. What we can say, and we are saying, is that the likelihood is high enough that the possibility should not be ignored.” 

[jcmarchi]

Liquid on Mars was not necessarily all water

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/liquid-on-mars-was-not-necessarily-all-water/

Liquid on Mars was not necessarily all water

Dry river channels and lake beds on Mars point to the long-ago presence of a liquid on the planet’s surface, and the minerals observed from orbit and from landers seem to many to prove that the liquid was ordinary water. 

Not so fast, the authors of a new Perspectives article in Nature Geoscience suggest. Water is only one of two possible liquids under what are thought to be the conditions present on ancient Mars. The other is liquid carbon dioxide (CO2), and it may actually have been easier for CO2 in the atmosphere to condense into a liquid under those conditions than for water ice to melt. 

While others have suggested that liquid CO2 (LCO2) might be the source of some of the river channels seen on Mars, the mineral evidence has seemed to point uniquely to water. However, the new paper cites recent studies of carbon sequestration, the process of burying liquefied CO2 recovered from Earth’s atmosphere deep in underground caverns, which show that similar mineral alteration can occur in liquid CO2 as in water, sometimes even more rapidly.

The new paper is led by Michael Hecht, principal investigator of the MOXIE instrument aboard the NASA Mars Rover Perseverance. Hecht, a research scientist at MIT’s Haystack Observatory and a former associate director, says, “Understanding how sufficient liquid water was able to flow on early Mars to explain the morphology and mineralogy we see today is probably the greatest unsettled question of Mars science. There is likely no one right answer, and we are merely suggesting another possible piece of the puzzle.”

In the paper, the authors discuss the compatibility of their proposal with current knowledge of Martian atmospheric content and implications for Mars surface mineralogy. They also explore the latest carbon sequestration research and conclude that “LCO2–mineral reactions are consistent with the predominant Mars alteration products: carbonates, phyllosilicates, and sulfates.” 

The argument for the probable existence of liquid CO2 on the Martian surface is not an all-or-nothing scenario; either liquid CO2, liquid water, or a combination may have brought about such geomorphological and mineralogical evidence for a liquid Mars.

Three plausible cases for liquid CO2 on the Martian surface are proposed and discussed: stable surface liquid, basal melting under CO2 ice, and subsurface reservoirs. The likelihood of each depends on the actual inventory of CO2 at the time, as well as the temperature conditions on the surface.

The authors acknowledge that the tested sequestration conditions, where the liquid CO2 is above room temperature at pressures of tens of atmospheres, are very different from the cold, relatively low-pressure conditions that might have produced liquid CO2 on early Mars. They call for further laboratory investigations under more realistic conditions to test whether the same chemical reactions occur.

Hecht explains, “It’s difficult to say how likely it is that this speculation about early Mars is actually true. What we can say, and we are saying, is that the likelihood is high enough that the possibility should not be ignored.” 

[valkyries-things]

DR. LOUISE KELLOGG // GEOPHYSICIST

“She was an American geophysicist with expertise in chemical geodynamics and computational geophysics and experience in leading multidisciplinary teams to advance geodynamics modeling and scientific visualization. Kellogg was a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Davis and director of the Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics. She was also a major contributor to the Deep Carbon Observatory project of the Sloan Foundation.”

[sercorgi]

Scrap Princess and Patrick Stuart are a match made in heaven for evoking precisely why the Minotaur (or something Minotaur adjacent) is so so so evocative. From the Deep Carbon Observatory Adventure, relatively recently remastered

Dungeons & Dragons: Your character has contracted a disease which reduces your maximum hit points.

Heart: The City Beneath: Your character has contracted a disease which compels you to spend your downtime slots constructing a labyrinth; if the disease isn't cured before you finish building the labyrinth, a minotaur comes out of it and eats you.

[hobbyspacer]

ESO: Merger of 2 stars creates a magnetic star and a nebula

The latest report from the European Southern Observatory (ESO): Beautiful nebula, violent history: clash of stars solves stellar mystery

This image, taken with the VLT Survey Telescope hosted at ESO’s Paranal Observatory, shows the beautiful nebula NGC 6164/6165, also known as the Dragon’s Egg. The nebula is a cloud of gas and dust surrounding a pair of stars called HD 148937. In a new study using ESO data, astronomers have shown that the two stars are unusually different from each other — one appears much younger and, unlike the other, is magnetic. Moreover, the nebula is significantly younger than either star at its heart, and is made up of gases normally found deep within a star and not on the outside. These clues together helped solve the mystery of the HD 148937 system — there were most likely three stars in the system until two of them clashed and merged, creating a new, larger and magnetic star. This violent event also created the spectacular nebula that now surrounds the remaining stars. Credit: ESO/VPHAS+ team. Acknowledgement: CASU When astronomers looked at a stellar pair at the heart of a stunning cloud of gas and dust, they were in for a surprise. Star pairs are typically very similar, like twins, but in HD 148937, one star appears younger and, unlike the other, is magnetic. New data from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) suggest there were originally three stars in the system, until two of them clashed and merged. This violent event created the surrounding cloud and forever altered the system’s fate. “When doing background reading, I was struck by how special this system seemed,” says Abigail Frost, an astronomer at ESO in Chile and lead author of the study published today in Science. The system, HD 148937, is located about 3800 light-years away from Earth in the direction of the Norma constellation. It is made up of two stars much more massive than the Sun and surrounded by a beautiful nebula, a cloud of gas and dust. “A nebula surrounding two massive stars is a rarity, and it really made us feel like something cool had to have happened in this system. When looking at the data, the coolness only increased.” https://youtu.be/1pPnHX4YukE “After a detailed analysis, we could determine that the more massive star appears much younger than its companion, which doesn't make any sense since they should have formed at the same time!” The age difference — one star appears to be at least 1.5 million years younger than the other — suggests something must have rejuvenated the more massive star.

This collection of panels shows three artist’s impressions depicting the violent event that changed the fate of the stellar system HD 148937; a real astronomical image is shown in the last panel. Originally, the system had at least three stars (top left panel), two of them close together and another one much more distant, until one day the two inner stars clashed and merged (top right panel). This violent event created a new, larger and magnetic star, now in a pair with the more distant one (bottom left panel). The merger also released the materials that created the spectacular nebula now surrounding the stars (bottom right panel).Credit: ESO/L. Calçada, VPHAS+ team. Acknowledgement: CASU Another piece of the puzzle is the nebula surrounding the stars, known as NGC 6164/6165. It is 7500 years old, hundreds of times younger than both stars. The nebula also shows very high amounts of nitrogen, carbon and oxygen. This is surprising as these elements are normally expected deep inside a star, not outside; it is as if some violent event had set them free. To unravel the mystery, the team assembled nine years' worth of data from the PIONIER and GRAVITY instruments, both on ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), located in Chile’s Atacama Desert. They also used archival data from the FEROS instrument at ESO’s La Silla Observatory. “We think this system had at least three stars originally; two of them had to be close together at one point in the orbit whilst another star was much more distant,” explains Hugues Sana, a professor at KU Leuven in Belgium and the principal investigator of the observations. “The two inner stars merged in a violent manner, creating a magnetic star and throwing out some material, which created the nebula. The more distant star formed a new orbit with the newly merged, now-magnetic star, creating the binary we see today at the centre of the nebula.” https://youtu.be/DfYV0cZ9Ym0 “The merger scenario was already in my head back in 2017 when I studied nebula observations obtained with the European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Telescope,” “Finding an age discrepancy between the stars suggests that this scenario is the most plausible one and it was only possible to show it with the new ESO data.” This scenario also explains why one of the stars in the system is magnetic and the other is not — another peculiar feature of HD 148937 spotted in the VLTI data. At the same time, it helps solve a long-standing mystery in astronomy: how massive stars get their magnetic fields. While magnetic fields are a common feature of low-mass stars like our Sun, more massive stars cannot sustain magnetic fields in the same way. Yet some massive stars are indeed magnetic.

This wide-field view, created from images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2, shows the rich star clouds in the constellation of Norma (the Carpenter’s Square) in our Milky Way galaxy. The beautiful nebula NGC 6164/6165, also known as the Dragon’s Egg, appears in the centre of the image. Credit: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin Astronomers had suspected for some time that massive stars could acquire magnetic fields when two stars merge. But this is the first time researchers find such direct evidence of this happening. In the case of HD 148937, the merger must have happened recently. “Magnetism in massive stars isn't expected to last very long compared to the lifetime of the star, so it seems we have observed this rare event very soon after it happened,” Frost adds. ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), currently under construction in the Chilean Atacama Desert, will enable researchers to work out what happened in the system in more detail, and perhaps reveal even more surprises. Links - Research paper (preprint; for the final version of the embargoed paper, please check https://www.eurekalert.org/press/scipak/ or contact scipak@aaas.org while the embargo lasts) - Photos of the VLT/VLTI - Find out more about ESO's Extremely Large Telescope on our dedicated website and press kit - For journalists: subscribe to receive our releases under embargo in your language - For scientists: got a story? Pitch your research === Amazon Ads === Celestron - NexStar 130SLT Computerized Telescope - Compact and Portable - Newtonian Reflector Optical Design - SkyAlign Technology - Computerized Hand Control - 130mm Aperture ==== An Infinity of Worlds: Cosmic Inflation and the Beginning of the Universe Read the full article

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Study reveals new source of the heavy elements

Stellar collapse and explosions distribute gold throughout the universe

Magnetar flares, colossal cosmic explosions, may be directly responsible for the creation and distribution of heavy elements across the universe, suggests a new study. 

For decades, astronomers only had theories about where some of the heaviest elements in nature, like gold, uranium and platinum, come from. But by taking a fresh look at old archival data, researchers now estimate that up to 10% of these heavy elements in the Milky Way are derived from the ejections of highly magnetized neutron stars, called magnetars. 

Until recently, astronomers had unwittingly overlooked the role that magnetars, essentially dead remnants of supernovae, might play in early galaxy formation, said Todd Thompson, co-author of the study and a professor of astronomy at The Ohio State University.

“Neutron stars are very exotic, very dense objects that are famous for having really big, very strong magnetic fields,” said Thompson. “They’re close to being black holes, but are not.”

While the origins of heavy elements had long been a quiet mystery, scientists knew that they could only form in special conditions through a method called the r-process (or rapid-neutron capture process), a set of unique and complex nuclear reactions, said Thompson. 

Scientists saw this process in action when they detected the collision of two super-dense neutron stars in 2017. This event, captured using NASA telescopes, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory (LIGO) and other instruments, provided the first direct evidence that heavy metals were being created by celestial forces.  

But further evidence showed that other mechanisms might be needed to account for all these elements, as neutron star collisions might not produce heavy elements fast enough in the early universe. According to this new study, building on these clues helped Thompson and his collaborators recognize that powerful magnetar flares could indeed serve as a potential ejectors of heavy elements, a finding confirmed by 20-year-old observations of SGR 1806–20, a magnetar flare so bright that some measurements of the event could only be made by studying its reflection off the moon. 

By analyzing this magnetar flare event, researchers determined that the radioactive decay of the newly created elements matched up with their theoretical predictions about the timing and types of energies released by a magnetar flare after it ejected heavy r-process elements. The researchers also theorized that magnetar flares produce heavy cosmic rays, extremely high-velocity particles whose physical origin remains unknown. 

“I love new ideas about how systems work, how new discoveries work, how the universe works,” Thompson said. “That’s why results like this are really exciting.”

The study was recently published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 

Magnetars may provide unique insights into galactic chemical evolution, including the formation of exoplanetary systems and their habitability. 

Not only do magnetars produce valuable metals like gold and silver that end up on Earth, the supernova explosions that cause them also produce elements like oxygen, carbon and iron that are vital for many other, more complex celestial processes. 

“All of that material they eject gets mixed into the next generation of planets and stars,” said Thompson. “Billions of years later, those atoms are incorporated into what could potentially amount to life.” 

Altogether, these findings have deep implications for astrophysics, particularly for scientists studying the origin of both heavy elements and fast radio bursts – brief shivers of electromagnetic radio waves from faraway galaxies. Understanding how matter ejects from magnetars could help scientists learn more about them. 

Due to their rarity and short duration, magnetar flares can be difficult to observe, 

and current space-based telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble don’t have the dedicated abilities needed to detect and study their emission signals. Even more specialized observatories like NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope can only see the brightest part of gamma-ray flashes from nearby galaxies. 

Instead, one proposed NASA mission, the Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI), could bolster the team’s work by surveying the Milky Way for energetic events like giant magnetar flares. Though another event like SGR 1806-20 might not occur this century, if a magnetar flare did detonate in our backyard, COSI could be used to better identify the individual elements created from its eruption and allow this team of researchers to confirm their theory about where heavy elements in the universe come from. 

“We’re generating a bunch of new ideas about this field, and ongoing observations will lead to even more great connections,” said Thompson. 

IMAGE: Magnetars have magnetic fields that are a trillion times more powerful than those of ordinary stars.  Photo: Getty Images

[cover-art-showdown]

Round Three, Match LXVII

Black Stone Heart (Michael R. Fletcher), self-published 2020. Cover by Felix Ortiz.

Deep Carbon Observatory (Patrick Stuart), False Machine Publishing 2014. Cover by Scrap Princess.

[spacenutspod]

This enhanced image of the Jovian moon Ganymede was obtained by the JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft during the mission’s June 7, 2021, flyby of the icy moon. Data from that pass has been used to detect the presence of salts and organics on Ganymede. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kalleheikki Kannisto (CC BY) This look at the complex surface of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede came from NASA’s Juno mission during a close pass in June 2021. At closest approach, the spacecraft came within just 650 miles (1,046 kilometers) of Ganymede’s surface.Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSSImage processing by Thomas Thomopoulos (CC BY) Data collected by NASA’s Juno mission indicates a briny past may be bubbling to the surface on Jupiter’s largest moon. NASA’s Juno mission has observed mineral salts and organic compounds on the surface of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede. Data for this discovery was collected by the Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) spectrometer aboard the spacecraft during a close flyby of the icy moon. The findings, which could help scientists better understand the origin of Ganymede and the composition of its deep ocean, were published on Oct. 30 in the journal Nature Astronomy. Larger than the planet Mercury, Ganymede is the biggest of Jupiter’s moons and has long been of great interest to scientists due to the vast internal ocean of water hidden beneath its icy crust. Previous spectroscopic observations by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft and Hubble Space Telescope as well as the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope hinted at the presence of salts and organics, but the spatial resolution of those observations was too low to make a determination. Processed data from the Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) spectrometer aboard NASA’s Juno mission is superimposed on a mosaic of optical images from the agency’ s Galileo and Voyager spacecraft that show grooved terrain on Jupiter’s moon Ganymede.NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM/Brown University On June 7, 2021, Juno flew over Ganymede at a minimum altitude of 650 miles (1,046 kilometers). Shortly after the time of closest approach, the JIRAM instrument acquired infrared images and infrared spectra (essentially the chemical fingerprints of materials, based on how they reflect light) of the moon’s surface. Built by the Italian Space Agency, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, JIRAM was designed to capture the infrared light (invisible to the naked eye) that emerges from deep inside Jupiter, probing the weather layer down to 30 to 45 miles (50 to 70 kilometers) below the gas giant’s cloud tops. But the instrument has also been used to offer insights into the terrain of moons Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto (known collectively as the Galilean moons for their discoverer, Galileo). The JIRAM data of Ganymede obtained during the flyby achieved an unprecedented spatial resolution for infrared spectroscopy – better than 0.62 miles (1 kilometer) per pixel. With it, Juno scientists were able to detect and analyze the unique spectral features of non-water-ice materials, including hydrated sodium chloride, ammonium chloride, sodium bicarbonate, and possibly aliphatic aldehydes. “The presence of ammoniated salts suggests that Ganymede may have accumulated materials cold enough to condense ammonia during its formation,” said Federico Tosi, a Juno co-investigator from Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome and lead author of the paper. “The carbonate salts could be remnants of carbon dioxide-rich ices.” Exploring Other Jovian Worlds Previous modeling of Ganymede’s magnetic field determined the moon’s equatorial region, up to a latitude of about 40 degrees, is shielded from the energetic electron and heavy ion bombardment created by Jupiter’s hellish magnetic field. The presence of such particle fluxes is well known to negatively impact salts and organics. During the June 2021 flyby, JIRAM covered a narrow range of latitudes (10 degrees north to 30 degrees north) and a broader range of longitudes (minus 35 degrees east to 40 degrees east) in the Jupiter-facing hemisphere. “We found the greatest abundance of salts and organics in the dark and bright terrains at latitudes protected by the magnetic field,” said Scott Bolton, Juno’s principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “This suggests we are seeing the remnants of a deep ocean brine that reached the surface of this frozen world.” Ganymede is not the only Jovian world Juno has flown by. The moon Europa, thought to harbor an ocean under its icy crust, also came under Juno’s gaze, first in October 2021 and then in September 2022. Now Io is receiving the flyby treatment. The next close approach to that volcano-festooned world is scheduled for Dec. 30, when the spacecraft will come within 932 miles (1,500 kilometers) of Io’s surface. More About the Mission NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Italian Space Agency (ASI) funded the Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft. More information about Juno is available at: https://www.nasa.gov/juno News Media Contacts DC AgleJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.818-393-9011agle@jpl.nasa.gov Karen Fox / Alana JohnsonNASA Headquarters, Washington301-286-6284 / 202-358-1501karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov Deb SchmidSouthwest Research Institute, San Antonio210-522-2254dschmid@swri.org Marco GallianiNational Institute for Astrophysics+39 06 355 33 390Marco.galliani@inaf.it 2023-157

[particularly-stupid-angel]

I’m with you on my general dislike of Lamentations, but there are a few pieces that manage to break out of the normally shallow gore in order to become something really brilliant.

It helps that the creators were never regulars at Lamentations. They published in other places prior and went right back to it after Veins, only ever creating two things with Lamentations: Veins itself, and the earlier themed adventure Deep Carbon Observatory.

Both authors run blogs if you want a more unfiltered taste or the sort of derangement that produced the work.

PS: Another author did a list of what happens when you try and eat any of the beasties on their own blog, which is both relevant to current tumblr trends, and a nice quick read that gives you a nice indication of the book’s tone as a whole. Most of the monsters fall somewhere on a triangle of “You can eat this, but it’s disgusting”, “You will die horribly if you eat this”, and “You are physically incapable of consuming this creature because it is either made out of rocks or made of metaphysics.”

It’s totally possible that you’ve already talked about this and I just missed it because your blog is Quite Large and I lack the mental fortitude to cross-reference all 1885(!) wonderful monsters you’ve adapted, but have you ever had the chance to look at the iconic and horrific Veins of the Earth?

If not, I give it my highest recommendations for any monster-lover, even if a lot of the beasties are only really usable in a very specific sort of tonal context. Like, I don’t think I’ve ever actually used any of them in my games, but they’re So Fucking Evocative that more than one of them sticks in my mind years on after my first readythrough!

I haven't even heard of Veins of the Earth! I haven't been a fan of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess stuff I've read so far; what I've read leans heavily into misogyny and threat of sexual violence. But I am intrigued enough by your recommendation to at least give this book a look!