The obliquity of Pluto

Pluto's obliquity (the angle between its spin axis and orbit normal) varies between ～102 and ～126° over a period of about 3 million years. These oscillations are nearly sinusoidal and quite stable, leading to only modest changes in the insolation regime. Thus, Pluto's rotation has been slightly retrograde ever since its current orbit and rotation rate were established.     

SPIRE point source photometry: within the Herschel interactive processing environment (HIPE)

The different algorithms appropriate for point source photometry on data from the SPIRE instrument on-board the Herschel Space Observatory, within the Herschel Interactive Processing Environment (HIPE) are compared. Point source photometry of a large ensemble of standard calibration stars and dark sky observations is carried out using the 4 major methods within HIPE: SUSSEXtractor, DAOphot, the SPIRE Timeline Fitter and simple Aperture Photometry. Colour corrections and effective beam areas as a function of the assumed source spectral index are also included to produce a large number of photometric measurements per individual target, in each of the 3 SPIRE bands (250, 350, 500μm), to examine both the accuracy and repeatability of each of the 4 algorithms. It is concluded that for flux densities down to the level of 30mJy that the SPIRE Timeline Fitter is the method of choice. However, at least in the 250 and 350μm bands, all 4 methods provide photometric repeatability better than a few percent down to at approximately 100mJy. The DAOphot method appears in many cases to have a systematic offset of ～8 % in all SPIRE bands which may be indicative of a sub-optimal aperture correction. In general, aperture photometry is the least reliable method, i.e. largest scatter between observations, especially in the longest wavelength band. At the faintest fluxes, <30mJy, SUSSEXtractor or DAOphot provide a better alternative to the Timeline Fitter.     

Protostellar Collapse Induced by Compression

We present numerical simulations of the evolution of low-mass, isothermal, molecular cores which are subjected to an increase in external pressure. If the external pressure increases very slowly, the core approaches instability quite quasi-statically. However, for faster compressions, a compression wave is driven into the core (Hennebelle, P., Whitworth, A., Gladwin, P. and André, P.: 2003a MNRAS 340, 870). Quantitative comparisons with observational velocity and density profiles are presented. The consequences of this compression for the fragmentation of the cloud is investigated and discussed.     

Combining the Arc Marine Framework with Geographic Metadata to Support Ocean Acoustic Modeling

A data model for use in a rapid environmental assessment system is constructed. The data model is used in an information layer that supports acoustic assessments of the ocean environment. Such an assessment requires use of both historic and real‐time oceanographic data. The foundation of the data model is Arc Marine, a framework specification for geospatial oceanographic databases that provides structures for containing the basic data types used in oceanographic research. Arc Marine also allows design extensions to account for application specific data structures as demonstrated through incorporation of aspects of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 19115 Geographic Information–Metadata standard. The ISO 19115 standard provides structures for recording the historic processing of the data sets. The data model is used to construct a database in the open source database management system (DBMS) PostgreSQL. The resulting system also incorporates the concept of user exits, the seamless extension of the DBMS through inclusion of application‐specific software.     

Plasma and the universe: large scale dynamics,filamentation, and radiation

One of the earliest predictions about the morphology of the universe is that it be filamentary (Alfvén, 1950). This prediction followed from the fact that volumewise, the universe is 99.999% matter in the plasma state. When the plasma is energetic, it is generally inhomogeneous with constituent parts in motion. Plasmas in relative motion are coupled by the currents they drive in each other and nonequilibrium plasma often consists of current-conducting filaments.In the laboratory and in the Solar System, filamentary and cellular morphology is a well-known property of plasma. As the properties of the plasma state of matter is believed not to change beyond the range of our space probes, plasma at astrophysical dimensions must also be filamentary.During the 1980s a series of unexpected observations showed filamentary structure on the Galactic, intergalactic, and supergalactic scale. By this time, the analytical intractibility of complex filamentary geometries, intense self-fields, nonlinearities, and explicit time dependence had fostered the development of fully three-dimensional, fully electromagnetic, particle-in-cell simulations of plasmas having the dimensions of galaxies or systems of galaxies. It had been realized that the importance of applying electromagnetism and plasma physics to the problem of radiogalaxy and galaxy formation derived from the fact that the universe is largely aplasma universe. In plasma, electromagnetic forces exceed gravitational forces by a factor of 10³⁶, and electromagnetism is 10⁷ times stronger than gravity even in neutral hydrogen regions, where the degree of ionization is a miniscule 10^–4.The observational evidence for galactic-dimensioned Birkeland currents is given based on the direct comparison of the synchrotron radiation properties of simulated currents to those of extra-galactic sources including quasars and double radio galaxies.