Saturday 8 December 2018

JJ's 2018 in review...


So 2018… it wasn’t as busy nor as stressful as 2016 and 2017 were. I finally listened to what I was writing! I didn’t necessarily say no so many times to things but ran out of energy and motivation to do many things, which has had some negative impacts on the amount of stuff I’ve done. I’ve also just had many fewer requests for things this year. So, all in all I’ve got to the end of the year with a list of things I could/should have done but didn’t, but I’m not completely stressed out and exhausted. I’ve still got to improve my fitness and that will help with my productivity, but this is good and I can move forward for sure.

Also it’s worth nothing I’ve tried again this year to be a good parent and partner. This is always difficult as anything in life. Especially as I’m also trying to come to understand myself – which is also still difficult – think I’m starting to know who I am but working out how to fit that into life and not impact those I love most.

Anyway things I’ve done in research. First I’ve been on 9 articles this year:

Things I’ve done in Teaching
  • Had one student, Lin Xiao, go through their graduation ceremony!
  • Had another student, John Bray, pass his viava!
  • Only lectured on course, 1st year astronomy which went well, despite some administrative mistakes, but it’s important to learn from those.
  • Finished the text book on the structure and evolution of stars I’ve written with Chris Tout! (Link here: World Scientific Press).
  • Observing my 2nd year redesign from a few years ago really seems to be going well.
  • Taught 4 honors project students and 1 masters student.
  • Ended a student project.

Things I’ve done in Service & Leadership
  • Unfortunately, this year I’ve just had not enough energy to do enough in this space this year and that makes me sad. But I guess it balances with needing a break and trying to get research done. This is something I really see as a failure as there are so many things I should have done.
  • Trans on Campus, had some meetings and did some work with the University giving feedback on transition at work, trans and sporting and travelling guidelines. This needs more effort next year!
  • Rainbow science was also very quiet, but there are a few new interested people around, so we might be able to get it busy again.
  • Was nominated as NZ LGBTI Hero – a controversial event but a fun evening at least.
  • Public talks at continuing education groups in Te Awa Mutu and Thames. The latter was my first talk as myself. Also just about to give a talk at Stardome to the Auckland Astronomical Society. As well as talks at RASNZ annual meeting, Hidden perspectives seminars and for a trans group in London.
  • Curated the Real Scientists account for a week, wow that was fun and busy!



Thursday 29 November 2018

School question time!

So I just had some questions on twitter and via email from school children about astronomy. So rather than just replying to the people in question I thought I'd put the answers in a blogpost so everyone can read them.

Set one:

Q1 "What would happen if two red giants collided?" - context is discussions about neutron stars colliding and forming a black hole

This happens sometimes in binary stars systems where two stars orbit around one another. If their masses are similar enough they can both become red giants at the same time, grow in radius and eventually touch. To work out what will happen we need to think about the structure of a red giant. In the center is the star's helium core, the remnants of it fusing hydrogen to helium over it's main sequence lifetime (i.e. the phase our Sun is in). The core is then surrounded by the hydrogen envelope that is the material that wasns't hot enough to burn during the main sequence. 

Then in a binary when the two red giants touch one of two things will happen, either they will merge, losing some of the hydrogen and making a supersized helium core. Or all the hydrogen will be removed and the two helium cores will orbit each other in a much shorter orbit. If these are close enough they may eventually merge as they emit gravitational radiation and explode in some way.

If the helium cores were big enough then supernovae might happen and the stars could eventually become neutron stars or black holes and then eventually also merge via gravitational radiation to cause a GW event. Especially in the case where the two stars touching results in the orbit shrinking so the stars are closer together. If they're closer together they'll merge more quickly.

It's also worth noting it's very rare for the two stars to both become red giants at the same time. More typically one star will become a red giant while the other in still a main sequence star. But we're pretty sure they must touch and interact strongly to get close enough to form GW events.

Finally two single stars might me moving around a star cluster and just bump into each other. The same two possible results apply but this would be even rarer as space is big and stars are small.


Q2 - " Is Betelgeuse the only red giant we can see in the night sky? How soon can we expect to see a supernova?"

There are many red giants/supergiants we can see in the sky, for example: Betelgeuse, Aldebaran, Antares and Arcturus. Also a star atlas will definitely contain many more. It's worth noting that many red giants won't go supernova, only those that were more massive than 8 times that of the Sun will explode. Betelgeuse is likely to be above that mass but we really can be sure about when it'll explode as we can't see inside it. It could explode tomorrow or in a few 100,000 years, so we just need to play a waiting game!

We do see many red supergiants explode in other nearby galaxies and they're 60% of all supernovae we see. It's just within our own Galaxy we can only expect 1 supernova every 50 to 100 years.


Q3 - Could the stuff thrown off a supernova go and form another star?

Yes, that's where all the iron in your blood game from as well as many (but not all) the elements in your body that aren't hydrogen came from. The iron comes mostly from a specific type of SN, type Ia which is from exploding white dwarf stars in a binary star. 

What happens is the material formed in the explosion gets through out to get mixed with the material surrounding the star making it richer in heavier elements. We can actually see in more and more distant galaxies that there are less and less heavy elements showing us in reverse how stars have built up all the elements over 13.7 billion years.


Set two:

1. Do you believe we will get to Mars by 2030?

We've been there since the 1960s with space probes so I guess you mean humans. My only answer is maybe. It depends on whether there is the political will to spend that large amount of money that such a large project will require. We could get there before 2030 if we wanted to. Also the other question is whether it is a one-way trip or a return journey. The latter is more tricky.


2. Do you believe there is currently life on Mars?

It's certainly possible but unlikely. Although life on Earth has been found in increasingly extreme environments. This is why it's key to go there and at least check whether there is or ever has been life there.


3. Do you believe we could possibly live on Mars in the future?

It would be hard, recent research has suggested it may be even more difficult to terraform Mars than we thought. There is only a very sparse atmosphere so people will need to use spacesuits and pressure domes to live in and will not be able to walk through the open air on Mars.

Then there is also the problem that the planet has no magnetic field so people would have to live underground rather than on the surface. This is to avoid the solar wind and cosmic rates that are dangerous to life.

So again it's certainly possible just really, really difficult. 

Monday 8 October 2018

What the 13th Doctor means to me...

So I’ve been meaning to write a short blogpost about what it means as a trans person to see the Doctor change sex and gender. I mean it’s been on the cards for some time now with the Mistress/Master leading to the casting of Jodie Whittaker as the 13th Doctor. My first reaction upon learning this months ago was “hey the Doctor is going to go through the same thing I’m kinda going through”.

As a quick aside it’s worth noting that I am not going to say the Doctor is trans, they’re not they are cisgender. Why? Well we’re talking about aliens here and I’ve got an entire set of blogposts that I need to write about gender and sci-fi but for Timelords we have to treat the fact that a regeneration is like a rebirth (based on this talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAMiWRi7_Yo). So while for cisgender humans their sex assigned at birth and gender align, the equivalent for Timelords is that their sex at regeneration and their gender align. This does of course reinforce the idea that sex and gender are both binary which they’re not, for humans at least, but anyway this is the topic for another blogpost not this one, also there are probably intersex regenerations but if it’s a rate of 1% as for humans then we probably have seen enough Timelord characters to know.

a few friends used to jokingly say I did remind people of the 10th Doctor and I may be listened to them too closely, also it was a time when I was still male. But then when the 10th Doctor left it was around the time of my move to New Zealand and that’s when I really began to change and come to understand myself. This has lead me to my journey reaching a moment of me moving over to being more female. It’s a funny coincidence for me to see a character I associate with so strongly reflect my own change.

It’s worth noting that I’m a theoretical astrophysicist which is as close to being a Timelord as possible on Earth. I mean there is the understanding the Universe from one side to the other and running around showing young people the wonders it contains (i.e. lecture undergraduates and teach project students). (Un)fortunately there is a lot less running and no daleks or cybermen.

To not give away any spoilers, the Doctor is still the Doctor. There is that regeneration confusion when she’s still working out who she is but then the moment everything clicks it is as clear as day and I can’t wait to watch more. There is one quote though that I need to share when the Doctor explains her regeneration to her new companions, there are so many aspects of the description that parallel experiences of trans people:

Doctor: “You should have seen me a few hours ago. My whole body’s changed. Every cell in my body burning. Some of them are still at it now, reordering, regenerating”.

Grace: “Sounds painful love.”

Doctor: “You have no idea… there is this moment when you’re sure you’re about to die and then... you’re born, it’s terrifying. Right now I’m a stranger to myself, the’s echos of who I was, and a sort of call towards who I am and I have to hold my nerve and trust all these new instincts, shape myself towards them. I’ll be fine. In the end… hopefully… but I have to be cos you guys need help and if there’s one thing I’m certain of, when people need help I never refuse. Right! This is going to be fun.

Trans people when they transition in some ways do die, that’s why previous names are referred to as “deadnames”. We have to become reborn but then we have our previous lives still with us and we do have to move forwards and reinvent ourselves. There is so much to unlearn, so many habits we have to break that we've had to fit in and go undiscovered. To move forwards and reinvent ourselves we really have to trust instincts and thoughts that for so long we have suppressed to become the person we are.

Also personally I think the wanting to help people in trouble is what the Doctor is all about and it’s one of the things I like most.

So for me at least, and may be other transgender people seeing this change and seeing a popular character go through similar changes to us inspires us a little, who knows, to me at least it’s a big deal.
Anyway personally it’s strange to see past photos of me and remember times from so long ago. I don't hate them and there are aspects of my oldself that I hate but there is a lot I love about my oldself too. Now though I still don’t know where I’m going or who I’m going to be. I really hope it’ll be okay in the end.

Right, time to get on, think I’ll leave you with two last quotes, “Allons-y!” and I just hope my adventure is going to be “Brilliant!”
(And yes sorry this was a rush job but was just toooooooo excited).