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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • It still is a blurry orange ball, where the orange is the location of radio wave emission. The team did a new image where they measured the polarization of the light, which is the result of strong magnetic fields where the light was emitted. The lines are drawn over the image to depict the polarization orientation of the light as a function of location.

    I want to be clear that this is an incredible feat, both the fact that they can produce an image of a black hole from the center of our galaxy AND determine the polarization of the light. But they don’t have a super crisp image of matter swirling into a black hole.







  • Lots of doom and gloom in the comments here. As the article describes, the hole in the ozone layer varies in size over time. It is slowly recovering, but the annual variability means it sometimes is larger than before.

    The variability of the size of the ozone hole is largely determined by the strength of a strong wind band that flows around the Antarctic area. This strong wind band is a direct consequence of Earth’s rotation and the strong temperature differences between polar and moderate latitudes.

    If the band of wind is strong, it acts like a barrier: air masses between polar and temperate latitudes can no longer be exchanged. The air masses then remain isolated over the polar latitudes and cool down during the winter.

    Although it may be too early to discuss the reasons behind the current ozone concentrations, some researchers speculate that this year’s unusual ozone patterns could be associated with the eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai in January 2022.

    And

    Claus concludes, “Based on the Montreal Protocol and the decrease of anthropogenic ozone-depleting substances, scientists currently predict that the global ozone layer will reach its normal state again by around 2050.”