30 July 2006
What takes precedence over blogging?
How about this:
Your Token Reader has been indisposed for the past few weeks, busy depriving himself of sleep observing RS Ophiuchi. Admittedly, it's nothing special to look at, but in my defense I think I have good reasons to obsess over it instead of blogging, eating, or sleeping. Specifically:
Your Token Reader has been indisposed for the past few weeks, busy depriving himself of sleep observing RS Ophiuchi. Admittedly, it's nothing special to look at, but in my defense I think I have good reasons to obsess over it instead of blogging, eating, or sleeping. Specifically:
- it's a cataclysmic variable star that explodes in a thermonuclear nova every 20 years or so, most recently this past February
- it's an overlapping binary system, with the white dwarf so close to the red giant that they share an atmosphere
- it's building toward a type Ia supernova only 2000 light-years away (don't worry, it won't kill us)
- the red giant in the system will probably eventually become a Mira variable that will expand and contract to only periodically dump matter on the white dwarf
- it is very under-studied so far (IMHO), so there is still a lot to discover about it
- it just plain rocks (no cite needed as this is self-evident)
