Yes. Exams are finished. Stellar structure a little less than satisfying, radiative transfer processes pleasantly as expected, and classical mechanics most amusing in that several questions were recycled in their entirety from the papers of previous years. I could have floated down the stairs with the happiness of just having everything done ( Read more... )

Very good talk this morning on the hunt for extrasolar planets by Debra Fischer of SFSU. I agree with her that the most important factors for determining if a planet is habitable are its mass (retain an atmosphere, oceans, stay tectonically active, etc) and distance from its star (correct degree of heating, etc.). Really, everything else is ( Read more... )

Yesterday featured a fascinating lecture by the curator of the Vatican Meteorite Collection. We got to hold a meteorite with inclusions that at their centres are little spheres of pure r-process elements. Little pieces of other stars ( Read more... )

The Specola Vaticana is the accumulation ground for all the Vatican's natural history-related things. Such as the print of Taurus Littrow signed by Gene Cernan and presented to the Pope that was found by one of the Jesuits on the floor of a closet ( Read more... )

Which possibly requires a word of explanation ( Read more... )