Astronomy C

[RiverWalker88]

The A-team doesn't really set a topic rotation for astronomy, so it's difficult to know for sure. However, usually they will run large topics two years, and if they do something low-mass (ex. Type Ia SNE), they usually follow with the high-mass equivalent (ex. Type II SNE). Based on this, since this year was low-to-mid-mass variables, I'd predict next year to be high-mass variable stars.

[syo_astro]

Any predictions for next year's topic rotation?
I'm guessing something along the lines of supernovae and their remnants (black holes, neutron stars, etc) because a) they're cool and b) the SOINC gods seem to like them: https://scioly.org/wiki/index.php/Astronomy#Topics.

...Personally, I'd really enjoy something about the universe as a whole, type Ib and type Ic supernovae, dark matter and energy, or relativity. A lot of tests ask about the universe anyway and those questions are always my favorite...

Just wanted to comment on this part that we actually did have a topic about that (galaxies, galaxy evolution, basically cosmology) for a few years from 2019 to 2021 (correct me if wrong anyone).

...And like you'd expect the universe to be really uniform because it's homogeneous and isotropic and the same forces act in the same way everywhere, but nope! There're galaxy filaments and that questionable Chandra study that was a DSO last year. Type Ib and type Ic supernovae is mostly because type Ia and type II have already both been done twice, and because massive stars are cool. Dark matter has a bunch of funny acronyms (WIMPs, MACHOs, SIMPs) but it honestly probably wouldn't be a very good topic. Neither would relativity but there's so much mind-boggling stuff like lorentz transformations and light cones and geodesics that I would love to have an excuse to put a lot of time into learning.

Why is the Chandra study questionable or dark matter a bad topic? (context if you don't know me: I work on lots of astro tests and such, just curious really). I'm sorry if you missed out on cosmology if it's your favorite! Just so you know, It likely won't come back until we go through some more stellar and planet-related topics. I think depending on the year, sometimes we still may advocate for or include rules content related to that anyway based on highlighting cool NASA things (e.g. promoting Planck, JWST, distance ladder, etc). Likely not a main topic, DSO, or dominating theme, though.

The A-team doesn't really set a topic rotation for astronomy, so it's difficult to know for sure. However, usually they will run large topics two years, and if they do something low-mass (ex. Type Ia SNE), they usually follow with the high-mass equivalent (ex. Type II SNE). Based on this, since this year was low-to-mid-mass variables, I'd predict next year to be high-mass variable stars.

Hey, we just like things exciting...just normal astro things...yeah, fair to all this, lol. Higher-mass objects would make sense (not official!~). But speculations welcome:D.

[Sapphire]

Just wanted to comment on this part that we actually did have a topic about that (galaxies, galaxy evolution, basically cosmology) for a few years from 2019 to 2021 (correct me if wrong anyone).

Yup, I did notice quite a few cosmology questions last year. Luckily I did not miss out! I made the team in 2021 with astronomy as my only event lol.

Why is the Chandra study questionable or dark matter a bad topic? (context if you don't know me: I work on lots of astro tests and such, just curious really). I'm sorry if you missed out on cosmology if it's your favorite! Just so you know, It likely won't come back until we go through some more stellar and planet-related topics. I think depending on the year, sometimes we still may advocate for or include rules content related to that anyway based on highlighting cool NASA things (e.g. promoting Planck, JWST, distance ladder, etc). Likely not a main topic, DSO, or dominating theme, though.

For why the Chandra study is questionable, I think this article by Ethan Siegel says it best. As for why dark matter wouldn't be a good topic, I don't think it would fit with the other astronomy topics (which have all been about galaxies, stars, or planets). It would also probably have to be more theoretical and speculative, as no one knows what dark matter really is. Not a bad thing, but most tests seem to focus on what is known and there isn't much known about dark matter when compared to things like variable stars. Or maybe it would be a good topic. A lot of the DSOs last year (Bullet Cluster, the MACS galaxy clusters, and H1821+643) would fit in nicely, and there's plenty that we do know about dark matter.

[AstroClarinet]

Nationals is coming up! And, historically, is one of the most likely competitions to actually have a JS9 investigation (I have no idea if they will or won't this year, but historically they usually have something). Thus, for anyone who wanted it, I put together a couple of JS9 sample questions and solutions to practice with. In addition, I added a list of all of the resources I knew of for learning JS9.

In addition, if you have any questions related to JS9 at all, I (and others) check this forum daily and hover around the discord, or you can always directly PM or email me.

(I apologize for the weird little formatting quirks in this; I was testing a new word processor. Additionally, sorry about any quick rushing mistakes or typos, I have a final due tonight, but I wanted to get this out.)