galaxymap.bsky.social
The first accurate and detailed maps of the Milky Way and ways to promote and visualize them (including VR).
Website: https://kevinjardine.dev
Tip jar: https://tiptopjar.com/kevinjardine
Also follow me on @[email protected]
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At least for me, Translate is the first option listed in the ... menu.
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4. And finally, P. Jofré et al. used concepts from biology & genetics to study the different populations of stars in the Omega Cen #galactic star cluster (so cool!!!) 🧪
Their work adds more evidence that Omega Cen is the leftover core of another galaxy.
Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2504.01813 (photo: ESO)
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So if you are doing any advanced voting remember that the list of candidates on elections.ca may be incomplete.
In this case the list is missing both the Green and Liberal candidates (at least), both of whom have already been announced in the media at least.
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Note that it says "The complete list of confirmed candidates will be available on Wednesday, April 9, 2025." Which is less than 3 weeks before the election!
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I am curious to see future research about the odd star clusters that do *not* exist within a larger density structure but instead erupt within very low density regions, like NGC 1647 or IC 4665. These remind me of the volcanic islands that suddenly appear in the Pacific Ocean. How did they form?
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One of the most striking results from the Gaia mission is that star clusters are only the most obvious star density features and these are the mountain peaks that are located within a complex density topography with the equivalent of mountain ranges, foothills, uplands, lowlands etc.
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There is also the beginning of another somewhat well known low density region, the Vela shell, at the bottom of the map and I have also labelled several smaller low density regions (I made up the names of the Ara and Vulpecula shells based on the constellations in those directions).
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The large low density region beyond Ori OB1, which is visible in all of my density maps, is much larger in this map. I have labelled it the California shell because it is the location of the California nebula and the California molecular cloud. (Credit: Remidone, Wikimedia Commons).
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As in my previous maps there is no obvious spiral structure and in this map there is not even a clear density gap between the inner and outer galaxy. The Milky Way is not a grand design spiral galaxy.
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Perhaps because the Drimmel/Poggio selection I usually use is contaminated with some A-type stars? The Quintana catalog attempts to include all the OB stars within 1 kpc (although I notice that it does not include the highly reddened Bajamar star that ionizes the North American nebula).
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It's worth pointing out that NASA's original decision to take Hubble data and convert it into beautiful publishable images was all about public relations. They needed to hire people with artistic skill to do that. ESA could (and should) hire cartographers to do something similar with Gaia data.
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I have seen quite a few news articles on Gaia but I've long felt that ESA has missed opportunities to promote the mission, especially by not showing off maps. People are fascinated by maps.
It's not too late. New Gaia data will still be released for years.
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Or is the argument that Gaia is less known because it is not a NASA instrument? Or not an instrument that generates a constant stream of photographs like Hubble or Webb?
I've not seen any public surveys on this so I'm not sure if there is real solid data on space telescope public awareness. (2/2)
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The rise of Trump gives the rest of the world a chance to reorganize. Paradoxically, the worse Trump behaves the more optimistic I am.
Will Europe finally get its act together? Will it develop its own independent foreign policy that might just be slightly more open to cooperating with China?
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I never believed in any kind of intrinsic US superiority.
After 1989, I expected a more multipolar world. But that did not happen as I had imagined. Instead, Europe continued to underperform and China spectacularly returned to its previous role as one of the world's great superpowers.
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I used to get beaten up by bullies when I was a kid. I soon learned that the best response was to aim a punch at their nose. The sight of their own blood gets bullies to back off fast.
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If nothing else that reminds people how incredibly long at least part of the eastern Roman empire managed to survive.
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Date periodization probably does more harm than good but if you must adopt arbitrary dates, yes I always liked the concept that the middle ages began with the fall of the western Roman empire and ended with the fall of the eastern Roman empire.
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Yes, I have been expecting a recession for a couple of years. I think all the signs were there. But the Trump administration seems to be determined to make it much much worse.
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Not an original game design of course, but the hook is that the stars are all real stars from the paper I helped write: gruze.org/10pc/resourc...
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They can later cash in the alien artifacts to buy furniture and other decorations for their own star station, which anyone can visit in Horizon Worlds.
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Current game idea. Player gets a starship which they can share with a team if they like. They travel the nearby stars, visiting ancient star stations and searching for alien artifacts.
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Definitely getting better. This is a low poly game so I'm not expecting the impossible.
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Having my usual Blender experience. I need to try things over and over again until I find a workflow that reliably exports something to Horizon Worlds. 3D models can break in an infinite number of ways. 🤪
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Ah well then, you should it watch sometime perhaps with some kids.
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Personally I don't feel the need to have any opinion about Snow White. But then I never saw the original. My favourite movies about dwarves are the Hobbit trilogy. Which was better than the critics claimed but (inevitably) not as good as LOTR.
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My very first attempt at a scifi star station corridor. No where near good enough for a real game, but gives me hope that I might get there *eventually*.
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Spending the week trying to drill into myself the Imphenzia box modeling key strokes. e for extrude, s for scale!
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And in fact I'm seeing this game project as an opportunity to improve my Blender skills!
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Implementing the game should be straightforward. The challenge will be inventing lots of interesting locations to search for artifacts and creating them in Blender.
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I am hoping that the game will be fun but also players will learn something about the nearest stars.
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You do have to allow recording sound if you want anyone to hear you in Horizon Worlds.
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Then take a selfie to create an avatar and edit it to add improvements.
Say no to connecting a VR headset assuming you don't have one.
Then search for "Star Central", scroll down to Horizon Worlds and click Go.
Hope to see you there!
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Just went through the mobile installation process with my wife. It took 10 minutes.
You go to Google Play or the Apple App Store, search for "Meta Horizon" and install. If you happen to have a Facebook account you can link that or create an independent Meta account.
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Pretty sure my Canadian family has written off the US as a nation of lunatics by now anyway. The problems go *far* beyond Trump.
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Well it is in the Meta Horizon app and Mastodon anyway. It is considerably blurrier on Bluesky for some reason.
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And the text is quite a bit clearer on mobile than it is in the headset.