January | 2026 | In the Dark

Archive for January, 2026

Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics – 31/01/2026

It’s Saturday once more so time for another update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further four papers, bringing the number in Volume 9 (2026) to 18 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 466.

I will continue to include the posts made on our Mastodon account (on Fediscience) to encourage you to visit it. Mastodon is a really excellent service, and a more than adequate replacement for X/Twitter which nobody should be using; these announcement also show the DOI for each paper.

The first paper to report this week is “Probing Stellar Kinematics with the Time-Asymmetric Hanbury Brown and Twiss Effect” by Lucijana Stanic (University of Zurich, Switzerland) and 13 others based in Zurich, Lausanne and Geneva (all in Switzerland). This was published on Monday 26th January 2026 in the folder Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics. This research demonstrates that intensity interferometry can reveal internal stellar kinematics, providing a new way to observe stellar dynamics with high time resolution.

The overlay is here:

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the announcement on Fediverse here:

The second paper is “DIPLODOCUS I: Framework for the evaluation of relativistic transport equations with continuous forcing and discrete particle interactions” by Christopher N Everett & Garret Cotter (University of Oxford, UK). This was published on Tuesday January 27th 2026 in the folder High-Energy Astrophysical Phenomena. DIPLODOCUS is a new framework for mesoscopic modelling of astrophysical systems, using an integral formulation of relativistic transport equations and a discretisation procedure for particle distributions.

The overlay for this one is here:

The official version of the paper can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:

Next, also published on Tuesday January 27th but in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics we have “The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: DR6 Sunyaev-Zel’dovich Selected Galaxy Clusters Catalog” by M. Aguena et al. (101 authors altogether), on behalf of the ACT-DES-HSC Collaboration. This article reports on the discovery of 10,040 galaxy clusters in the Atacama Cosmology Telescope data, including 1,180 clusters at high redshifts, using the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect.

The overlay is here:

The official version can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement is here:

And finally for this week we have a paper published yesterday, Friday 30th January 2026, in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies. This is the paper I blogged about yesterday: “A Cosmic Miracle: A Remarkably Luminous Galaxy at z_spec = 14.44 Confirmed with JWST” by Rohan Naidu (MIT Kavli Institute) and an international cast of 45 others. This article reports on the discovery by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) of a bright galaxy, MoM-z14, located 280 million years post-Big Bang, that challenges models of galaxy formation and the star-formation history of early galaxies.

The overlay is here:

The accepted version can be found on arXiv here, and the fediverse announcement is here:

And that concludes the update for this week. I will do another next Saturday.

3 Comments »

A Cosmic Miracle?

Posted in OJAp Papers, The Universe and Stuff with tags arXiv:2505.11263v2, Cosmology, galaxy formation, high-redshift galaxy, Lyman Break, z=14.44 on January 30, 2026 by telescoper

A while ago (last May, in fact) I posted an article about a galaxy with an apparent spectroscopic redshift of 14.44. The paper to which that post related had been submitted to the Open Journal of Astrophysics and I haven’t mentioned that paper again until now as the paper was then, so to speak, sub judice. Well, as of today, the paper is now published and will feature in tomorrow’s traditional Saturday roundup of publications at the journal.

This paper was in fact accepted for publication before Christmas, but it took until this morning for the final accepted article to reach the arXiv. Rather awkwardly, the Space Telescope Science Institute issued a press release about this paper on 28th January 2026 stating that the paper was published in the Open Journal of Astrophysics, when that statement was not accurate. As Editor-in Chief of the Open Journal of Astrophysics, I was subsequently contacted by a number of journalists asking where they could find the paper on the OJAp platform. Since it hadn’t been published then I had to say they couldn’t, so a number of pieces (including, for example, this one in Scientific American) have appeared based on the STSCi press release without links to the final version of the paper. It would have been far better, in my opinion, to have delayed the press release until the paper was actually published. It’s better to wait until the ball is in the back of the net before you start celebrating!

Anyway, thanks to me getting up at 6am today, it’s now published so there’s no real harm done.

The fediscience announcement is here:

For reference, here is the key plot showing the spectrum from which the galaxy’s redshift is determined. It is rather noisy, but the Lyman break seems convincing and there are some emission lines that offer corroborative evidence:

5 Comments »

A New STFC Funding Crisis

Posted in Science Politics with tags Michelle Dougherty, Science and Technology Facilities Council, STFC, UK Research and Innovation, UKRI on January 29, 2026 by telescoper

I started doing this blog back in 2008 and over the subsequent couple of years wrote many posts about a funding crisis affecting the Science and Technology Facilities Council, the UK funding agency that covers particle physics and astronomy research that had been created in 2007. I particularly remember the cancellation of the experiment Clover back in 2009 which had devastating and demoralising consequences for staff at Cardiff (where I was working at the time). It looks like a return to the Bad Old Days.

I moved from the UK eight years ago and haven’t really kept up with news related to the science funding situation there so I was very disturbed last night to see a message from the Royal Astronomical Society containing the following:

In a letter from its Executive Chair, Professor Michele Dougherty, the research council indicates that the budget for particle physics, astronomy and nuclear physics together will drop by around 30%. The letter also asks project teams to plan for scenarios where their funding is reduced by 20%, 40% and 60%.

All this is on top of a recent squeeze that has led to grants being delayed to make savings of around 15%. The full letter is here:

There’s a further report about this in Research Professional News which, unusually for that source, is not behind a paywall. It leads with

Exclusive: Science and Technology Facilities Council seeks £162m cost savings, with existing projects facing axe

The article goes on to point out the dangers of cuts of this scale to physics departments in the UK, many of which have a significant fraction of their activity in astronomy and particle physics.

The additional reduction and prospect of cuts to ongoing projects is likely to be felt as a hammer blow by physics departments in UK universities, of which a quarter are already at risk of closure.

Grim times indeed. It looks to me like the people running UKRI, the umbrella organization for all the UK research councils which has an annual budget of £8bn, have decided to throw STFC under the bus to chase shorter-term economically driven projects and to hell with the long-term funding of basic research. In Ireland we’re familiar with the consequences of that approach.

Still, at least the UK has the Astronomer Royal as an independent voice to speak up against these cuts. The current Astronomer Royal is… checks notes… oh… Michelle Dougherty, Executive Chair of STFC.

17 Comments »

Maynooth off X!

Posted in Maynooth with tags Maynooth University, Twitter, X on January 28, 2026 by telescoper

Following on from my post earlier today, I was sent a copy of a letter (below) instructing those people who run its social media accounts to desist from posting on X/Twitter.:

It stops short of deactivating accounts, but that is probably just to prevent someone else taking over the username/handle and using it for nefarious purposes. It’s a pity they don’t recommend Mastodon as well as BlueSky, as I think that is better for disseminating research-based news than BlueSky, but this is positive news and I’ll count it as a win.

6 Comments »

Request to Iarnród Éireann to move from X

Posted in Uncategorized with tags Iarnród Éireann, Irish Rail, Twitter, X on January 28, 2026 by telescoper

I’ve posted a number of items recently (e.g. here) about why public institutions in Ireland (and anywhere else, for that matter) should not be using X. I noticed today a message on BlueSky containing the following clear and compelling letter from a number of commuter organizations to Irish Rail (Iarnród Éireann), which can be found here but which I’m taking the liberty of sharing in full here to amplify.

–o–

We are writing as rail and commuter advocacy groups across Ireland, to request that Iarnród Éireann move its real-time service updates regarding cancellations and delays from the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to your own website and official channels.

Currently, passengers seeking up-to-date information about service disruptions must have an active X account to view these critical updates. This creates several significant problems:

Accessibility Concerns: Requiring passengers to maintain an account on a third-party social media platform to access essential public transport information creates an unnecessary barrier. Many passengers, particularly elderly travellers or those who choose not to use social media, are effectively excluded from receiving timely service updates.

Platform Concerns: Recent controversies surrounding X, including serious issues with child safety and content moderation failures involving Grok AI, make it an increasingly inappropriate platform for a state-owned public service to rely upon as its primary and in some cases, only communication channel. Iarnród Éireann should not require its customers to engage with a platform facing such significant ethical and safety concerns. Dublin City Council have this week stopped posting on the platform because of these concerns.

Service Reliability: Relying on a third-party platform also creates vulnerability. Changes to X’s policies, accessibility, or availability are beyond Iarnród Éireann’s control and could impact passengers’ access to vital travel information. EU and Irish law limiting access to these platforms for under 16’s could be introduced in the coming years which would remove the ability for young people to receive up to date journey information.

I would respectfully suggest that Iarnród Éireann implement real-time service updates (including information on delays/cancellations/amendments) directly on irishrail.ie , along with TFI Live and the Irish Rail app, where they can be freely accessed by all passengers without requiring any third-party account. This information is essential public service data and should be universally accessible.

Recommendations for Improved Service Communication

Beyond relocating updates to your own platform, we would like to suggest several improvements to how disruption information is communicated to passengers:

Clear Alternative Transport Information: When disruptions occur, guidance on alternative transport options is often vague or incomplete. For example, announcements stating “Dublin Bus will accept tickets” leave passengers uncertain whether LUAS, Go-Ahead, or LocalLink services are also available. Clear, specific information about all accepted alternative services would significantly reduce passenger confusion and stress during disruptions. Additionally, when a delay does occur, stating ‘operational issues’ does not allow commuters to determine the length of disruption. Commuters could utilise alternate modes of transport in the event of disruption, but cannot make the decision on whether to do so or not without clear information from Iarnrod Éireann. Other international providers have recently switched to a more detailed information provision in the events of issues or delays. For example, Dutch Railways, instead of saying ‘operational reasons’ now say ‘a fallen wire, or broken down train’ that allow passengers to more accurately determine whether to find alternative transport or to wait. It may also be useful to include a scale, letting the customer know whether or not the incident is minor, notable, or major where possible.

Visual Aids and Information Hierarchy: Reading lengthy blocks of text to understand service disruptions is inadequate, particularly for passengers trying to quickly assess their options whilst at stations or en route. Disruption information would benefit greatly from visual aids such as maps showing affected sections, clear headings, and structured information that allows passengers to quickly grasp the extent and nature of disruptions. A balance must be struck between providing sufficient detail and maintaining clarity.

Integration with Journey Planning Tools: Iarnród Éireann maintains a GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification) data feed that enables real-time information to be pushed to the TFI Live app and third-party applications such as Google Maps or Transit. We strongly encourage Iarnród Éireann to utilise this capability fully, ensuring that disruption information reaches passengers through the multiple platforms they already use for journey planning.

Location-Specific Disruption Guides: For locations where service disruptions occur regularly, Iarnród Éireann should provide dedicated journey planning resources. For instance, a guide explaining “My train has broken down in Greystones, what services can I access from here and where can I find further disruption information?” would be invaluable. Such resources would empower passengers to make informed decisions quickly during stressful situations.

We would appreciate your consideration of this matter and look forward to your response.

South East on Track, Cork Commuter Coalition, Dublin Commuter Coalition, Galway Commuter Coalition.

6 Comments »

Storm Chandra

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth with tags flooding, Met Éireann, Storm Chandra, Weather on January 27, 2026 by telescoper

The Irish news today has been dominated by the arrival of Storm Chandra on these shores, accompanied by strong winds, heavy rain and widespread flooding. The whole country has been under a yellow alert, which will last until 11pm today.

The fact that it had been raining very heavily for days before the storm must have saturated the ground, which would have contributed to the flooding. Unusually, the worst has been on the East Coast, with Counties Wexford, Wicklow, Carlow, and Dublin badly hit. Usually it’s the West of Ireland that bears the brunt of storms which typically come from across the Atlantic.

It’s been a strange day in Maynooth because, despite the storm, the weather hasn’t been too bad at all. There was a long window this morning during which it was actually quite sunny and pleasantly mild, though a bit breezy. The picture on the left shows the situation in mid-morning when the prevailing wind was southerly.

The main mass of raincloud to the North had passed over us by then, and the small but intense strip off the Louth/Dublin coast missed Maynooth entirely. You can see a big gap. Rain was heading towards us from the South, and did reach us in the afternoon, though it wasn’t particularly severe. It remained reasonably warm throughout the day, though it is much colder now (I’m writing this at about 7.30pm).

Dublin is only about 25km from Maynooth and it was a surprise to see major flooding, with parts of the M50 flooded for a time while we experienced nothing particularly severe. Not that I’m complaining!

For more about Storm Chandra, including animations of its progress can be found here. It seems that Great Britain had a lot of weather to contend with!

2 Comments »

The Next Semester

Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Education, mathematics, Maynooth with tags Artificial Intelligence, ChatGPT, Computational Physics, Copilot, education, GenAI, generative AI, theoretical physics on January 26, 2026 by telescoper

There’s just a week to go before the next Semester at Maynooth University so I’ve been looking at my calendar for the weeks ahead. Actually, I won’t start teaching again until Tuesday 3rd February, because Monday 2nd February is a national holiday. As it turns out, however, I don’t have any lectures, labs or tutorials on Mondays anyway so I won’t be missing a session either on February 2nd or on May 4th, another holiday. I will have to miss one on Friday 3rd April (Good Friday), though.

The Timetable has given me two 9 o’clock lectures a week for the forthcoming Semester, one on Tuesdays and the other on Thursdays. I don’t think the students like 9am lectures very much, but I don’t mind them at all. I find it quite agreeable to have accomplished something concrete by 10am, which I don’t always do. This schedule might mean that I defer publishing papers at the Open Journal of Astrophysics on those days. I usually do this before breakfast, but I might not have time if I have to be on campus and ready to teach for 9am.

As usual, Semester 2 is a stop-start affair. We have six weeks until the Study Break, which includes the St Patrick’s Day holiday, then we’re back for two weeks (minus Good Friday) before another week off for Easter. We return on Monday April 13th to complete the Semester; the last lectures are on Friday 8th May and exams start a week later. This arrangement creates no problems for lecture-based teaching, but it takes some planning to organize labs and project deadlines around the breaks. I’ll have to think about that for my Computational Physics module.

A more serious issue for Computational Physics is how to deal with the use of Generative AI. I’ve written about this before, in general terms, but now it’s time to write down some specific rules for a specific module. A default position favoured by some in the Department is that students should not use GenAI at all. I think that would be silly. Graduates will definitely be using CoPilot or equivalent if they write code in the world outside university so we should teach them how to use it properly and effectively.

In particular, such methods usually produce a plausible answer, but how can a student be sure it is correct? It seems to me that we should place an emphasis on what steps a student has taken to check an answer, which of course they should do whether they used GenAI or did it themselves. If it’s a piece of code to do a numerical integration of a differential equation, for example, the student should test it using known analytic solutions to check it gets them right. If it’s the answer to a mathematical problem, one can check whether it does indeed solve the original equation (with the appropriate boundary conditions).

If anyone out there reading this blog has any advice to share, or even a link to their own Department’s policy on the use of GenAI in computational physics for me to ~~copy~~ adapt for use in Maynooth, I’d be very grateful!

(My backup plan is to ask ChatGPT to generate an appropriate policy…)

Man was Made to Mourn – Robert Burns

Posted in Poetry with tags Burns Night, Man is made to mourn, Poem, Poetry, Robert Burns on January 25, 2026 by telescoper

When chill November's surly blast 
Made fields and forests bare, 
One ev'ning, as I wander'd forth 
Along the banks of Ayr, 
I spied a man, whose aged step 
Seem'd weary, worn with care; 
His face was furrow'd o'er with years, 
And hoary was his hair. 

"Young stranger, whither wand'rest thou?" 
Began the rev'rend sage; 
"Does thirst of wealth thy step constrain, 
Or youthful pleasure's rage? 
Or haply, prest with cares and woes, 
Too soon thou hast began 
To wander forth, with me to mourn 
The miseries of man. 

"The sun that overhangs yon moors, 
Out-spreading far and wide, 
Where hundreds labour to support 
A haughty lordling's pride; - 
I've seen yon weary winter-sun 
Twice forty times return; 
And ev'ry time has added proofs, 
That man was made to mourn. 

"O man! while in thy early years, 
How prodigal of time! 
Mis-spending all thy precious hours- 
Thy glorious, youthful prime! 
Alternate follies take the sway; 
Licentious passions burn; 
Which tenfold force gives Nature's law. 
That man was made to mourn. 

"Look not alone on youthful prime, 
Or manhood's active might; 
Man then is useful to his kind, 
Supported in his right: 
But see him on the edge of life, 
With cares and sorrows worn; 
Then Age and Want - oh! ill-match'd pair - 
Shew man was made to mourn. 

"A few seem favourites of fate, 
In pleasure's lap carest; 
Yet, think not all the rich and great 
Are likewise truly blest: 
But oh! what crowds in ev'ry land, 
All wretched and forlorn, 
Thro' weary life this lesson learn, 
That man was made to mourn. 

"Many and sharp the num'rous ills 
Inwoven with our frame! 
More pointed still we make ourselves, 
Regret, remorse, and shame! 
And man, whose heav'n-erected face 
The smiles of love adorn, - 
Man's inhumanity to man 
Makes countless thousands mourn! 

"See yonder poor, o'erlabour'd wight, 
So abject, mean, and vile, 
Who begs a brother of the earth 
To give him leave to toil; 
And see his lordly fellow-worm 
The poor petition spurn, 
Unmindful, tho' a weeping wife 
And helpless offspring mourn. 

"If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave, 
By Nature's law design'd, 
Why was an independent wish 
E'er planted in my mind? 
If not, why am I subject to 
His cruelty, or scorn? 
Or why has man the will and pow'r 
To make his fellow mourn? 

"Yet, let not this too much, my son, 
Disturb thy youthful breast: 
This partial view of human-kind 
Is surely not the last! 
The poor, oppressed, honest man 
Had never, sure, been born, 
Had there not been some recompense 
To comfort those that mourn! 

"O Death! the poor man's dearest friend, 
The kindest and the best! 
Welcome the hour my aged limbs 
Are laid with thee at rest! 
The great, the wealthy fear thy blow 
From pomp and pleasure torn; 
But, oh! a blest relief for those 
That weary-laden mourn!"

by Robert Burns (1759-1796); in case you hadn’t realised, tonight is Burns Night, marking the Poet’s birthday on 25th January 1759.

3 Comments »

Bologne, Mozart and Mendelssohn at the National Concert Hall

Posted in Music with tags Chevalier de Saint-George, Ellinor D'Melon, Felix Mendelssohn, Joseph Bologne, L'amant Anonyme, Mendelssohn Symphony No. 3, Mozart Violin Concerto No. 3, National Concert Hall, National Symphony Orchestra Ireland, Peter Whelan, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on January 24, 2026 by telescoper

Last night I went to another concert by National Symphony Orchestra Ireland at the National Concert Hall in Dublin. This performance was conducted by NSOI’s new “Artistic Partner” Peter Whelan, shown on the programme cover above. The NCH was by no means full, which was a shame, but the concert was warmly appreciated by those of us there in the audience and no doubt by those listening on the radio.

The first item on the agenda was a new one to me, the overture to the Opera L’Amant Anonyme by Joseph Bologne who went by the title Chevalier de Saint-George. He was born in Guadeloupe; his father was a plantation owner and his mother a slave; Saint-George was the name of his father’s plantation. He became an accompished musician, composer and soldier and a member of the Louis XVI’s personal bodyguard. The music we heard is clearly of the same world as Mozart (of whom Bologne was a contemporary) and very enjoyable to listen to. I wonder if we’ll ever get the chance to hear the whole Opera?

After that – and a long pause before she came on stage, that made me worry that something was amiss – we heard Ellinor D’Melon playing the Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, written when Mozart was only 19. This is a lovely piece and was played very nicely by Ellinor D’Melon. Apparently Albert Einstein – himself a keen amateur violinist – said that the second movement Adagio “seems to have fallen straight from Heaven”. It is indeed beautiful to listen to, and does have a sense of unity about it that makes you think it must have been conceived and composed in one go. The play Amadeus seems to have been responsible for perpetuating the idea that Mozart often composed in his head, then wrote the results out without corrections or revisions. That is largely untrue, but it is true that he could construct complex sections in his mind’s ear before setting them down on paper. If he did ever compose a piece entirely from start to finish, then the 2nd movement of this Concerto would be it.

(I can’t resist adding an anecdote suggested by this. A while ago I had to arrange a special sitting of a class test for a student who, for good reasons, couldn’t take the assessment with the rest of the class. I wrote a different paper and invigilated the student myself; there were just the two of us in the room for the test, which was to last 50 minutes. Not anticipating any difficulties I sat at a table in the corner and got on with other stuff. About 15 minutes in, I was concerned that the student hadn’t written anything at all; he seemed just to be reading and re-reading the paper. The questions were not meant to be all that difficult, so it surprised me that the student appeared to be struggling. I didn’t interrupt though. Then, about 5 minutes later the student sat up, grabbed a pen and started to write. Not more that 10 minutes after that he announced he had finished and handed me his script. It contained a perfect answer to everything that had been asked, no corrections or crossings out, and it took up less than one page of A4. I was impressed.)

After the wine break we heard the Symphony No. 3 in A minor (“Scottish”) by Felix Mendelssohn. Inspired by a visit to Scotland in 1829 – the first movement was actually composed that year in Edinburgh – it wasn’t completed until over a decade later and should probably be No. 5, but who’s counting? I’ve never really found it very Scottish, actually, but that doesn’t matter either.

It’s a piece consisting of four movements, with little or no break between them. The first movement starts with a slow theme, like a hymn, but then becomes much more reminiscent of the Hebrides Overture Mendelssohn composed in 1830. The landscape of the other three movements is very varied, sometimes cheery, sometimes lush, sometimes tempestuous. The final movement Allegro Vivacissimo has a marking guerriro (“warlike”), which in parts it is, but it also has calmer and more reflective passages before the rumbustious finale. I suppose many people consider Mendelssohn a bit Middle-of-the-Road, but I always find his music very pleasurable and this was no exception.

I always enjoy watching the musicians in these concerts, and could see last night that they were all enjoying themselves hugely. I’d like to single out the sole member of the percussion section, Tom Pritchard on timpani. He had to work hard for nearly all of this performance, as the timpani are kept very busy this work, and did an excellent job.

Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics – 24/01/2026

Posted in OJAp Papers, Open Access, The Universe and Stuff with tags angular bispectrum, arXiv:2501.05422v3, arXiv:2511.23368v2, Astrid Simulations, Astrophysics of Galaxies, bispectrum, Cosmology and NonGalactic Astrophysics, Diamond Open Access, Diamond Open Access Publishing, Gaia DR3, large-scale structure of the Universe, Little Red Dots, Open Access, Open Access Publishing., Open Journal of Astrophysics, Solar and Stellar Astrophysics, The Open Journal of Astrophysics, Thorne-Żytkow Objects on January 24, 2026 by telescoper

It’s Saturday once more so time for another update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further three papers, bringing the number in Volume 9 (2026) to 14 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 462. This week was slightly affected by a Federal holiday in the USA on January 19th; there were no arXiv announcements the following day.

The first paper to report this week is “The Properties of Little Red Dot Galaxies in the ASTRID Simulation” by Patrick LaChance, Rupert A. C. Croft, Tiziana Di Matteo & Yihao Zhou (Carnegie Mellon U.), Fabio Pacucci (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA), Yueying Ni (U. Michigan Ann Arbor), Nianyi Chen (Princeton U.) and Simeon Bird (UC Riverside), all based in the USA. This paper was published on Monday 19th January 2026 in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics; the study analyses mock observations of “Little Red Dot” galaxies created from the ASTRID simulation, having high stellar masses and containing massive black holes; not all features match real observations.

The overlay is here:

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the announcement on Fediverse here:

The second paper is “Angular bispectrum of matter number counts in cosmic structures” by Thomas Montandon (U. Montpellier, France), Enea Di Dio (U. Genève, Switzerland), Cornelius Rampf (Ruđer Bošković Institute, Croatia) and Julian Adamek (U. Zürich, Switzerland). This was published on Wednesday January 21st, also in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. This paper presents thee first full-sky computation of the angular bispectrum in second-order perturbation theory, offering insights into the Universe’s initial conditions, gravity, and cosmological parameters. The results align well with simulations.

The overlay for this one is here:

The official version of the paper can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:

Next, and last for this week, we have “The Kinematic Properties of TŻO Candidate HV 11417 with Gaia DR3” by Anna J. G. O’Grady (Carnegie Mellon University, USA). This was published on Wednesday 21st January 2026 in the folder Solar and Stellar Astrophysics. This work uses updated data to confirm that HV 11417, a potential Thorne-Żytkow Object, is probably part of the Small Magellanic Cloud and qualifies as a runaway star.

The overlay is here:

The official version can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement is here:

That concludes the update for this week. I will do another next Saturday.

1 Comment »

In the Dark

Archive for January, 2026

Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics – 31/01/2026

Open Journal of Astrophysics

Open Journal of Astrophysics

Open Journal of Astrophysics

Open Journal of Astrophysics

A Cosmic Miracle?

Open Journal of Astrophysics

A New STFC Funding Crisis

Maynooth off X!

Request to Iarnród Éireann to move from X

Storm Chandra

The Next Semester

Man was Made to Mourn – Robert Burns

Bologne, Mozart and Mendelssohn at the National Concert Hall

Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics – 24/01/2026

Open Journal of Astrophysics

Open Journal of Astrophysics

Open Journal of Astrophysics

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