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The Thirty Meter Telescope May Be Cancelled Not by Ordinary People's Protest, but by Wealthy People's Whim

Astronomy, it seems, finds itself at the mercy of political caprice and economic machinations yet...

NASA Predicts Asteroid 2024 YR4 Might Hit The Moon.

According to observations made by NASA using the James Webb Space Telescope, there is a three point...

Basically No chance 2024 YR4 will hit Earth.

Recent observations have virtually eliminated any concern about an impact from asteroid 2024 YR4...

Asteroid 2024 YR4: A 2032 Threat? Not on Our Watch

Back in December 2024, astronomers caught wind of something unusual—a small, fast-moving rock...

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Hontas FarmerRSS Feed of this column.

My research focuses on astrophysics from massive star formation to astroparticle physics. Born and raised in Chicagoland I have lived in Bellwood, IL since 1984 and attended public schools here... Read More »

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The muon collider: Possibly getting more particle physics bang, for less bucks, by accelerating more massive particles.

The muon collider: Possibly getting more particle physics bang, for less bucks, by accelerating more massive particles.

Jun 27 2013 | comment(s)

In short particles with more mass lead to beams with more energy.  More massive particles reach these energies with much smaller machines. Interesting and fundamental physics would be possible with a muon collider, of 6.3 km circumference and neutrino factory which would be far less expensive than a 50 km linear electron accelerator. As we learned from the Superconducting Supercollider less expensive is good, more expensive is less likely to be built


For my readers, I am finishing my thesis.

For my readers, I am finishing my thesis.

May 24 2013 | comment(s)

My readers may wonder what I have been doing.   The answer is I have been working on my thesis is the area of astrophysics.  With much help from my advisor Dr. Anuj P. Sarma I am finally finishing. 
News of gravitational waves and dark matter from the APS April meeting of 2013.

News of gravitational waves and dark matter from the APS April meeting of 2013.

Apr 13 2013 | comment(s)

Probably no signs of gravitational waves, signs of dark matter but not a discovery. That is the word from this first day of the American Physical Society's meeting in Denver Colorado. 

 In the plenary keynote session of the meeting today, I asked a question of Lloyd Knox of the PLANCK collaboration. My question regarded the B mode polarization data and what it may show. He said that this data would be officially released next year. He also expressed the professional opinion that the data may not show a strong gravitational wave signal. This would be significant since the simplest models of inflation predict a strong gravitational wave signal. Dr. Knox went as far as to state “the simplest models are probably ruled out” (not quite verbatim.)
Dark matter non-results of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and ANTARES. What these two observations really mean for dark matter.

Dark matter non-results of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and ANTARES. What these two observations really mean for dark matter.

Apr 04 2013 | comment(s)

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer has found is that there are interesting features in the cosmic ray background which could indicate dark matter particle anti particle annihilations.  That is not the same as finding dark matter.   The ANTARES neutrino telescope was used to take observations of the solar neutrino flux with directionality, which found no excess of neutrinos from the sun  (http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.6516).  That would have indicated dark matter concentrated at the center of mass of our solar system.   Taken together these results indicate that many of our assumptions on the nature of dark matter are wrong.
The compelling case against the universe!

The compelling case against the universe!

Apr 01 2013 | comment(s)

A ground breaking paper has been published in the journal of comparative irrelevance which shows the Lambda CDM model is wrong.  It's all in the numbers..
This theory explains everything better than LCDM.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.7476
Planck confirms WMAP results, and is largely silent on theoretical astrophysics.

Planck confirms WMAP results, and is largely silent on theoretical astrophysics.

Mar 22 2013 | comment(s)

From the perspective of one theoretical particle physicist Planck found far from "nothing". The ESA's Planck probe largely corroborates the findings of NASA's WMAP probe, but it leaves theoretical astrophysics unsettled. After reading my fellow blogger Dr. Tommaso Dorigo's coverage of the Planck announcement I was unsure how to react. We can only conclude that the Planck mission has largely confirmed WMAP's results. Just this kind of confirmation is a basic step in the scientific method.