#iau — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #iau, aggregated by home.social.
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💁🏻♀️ TIL: 🪐❄️ #Pluto’s reclassification as a #dwarfplanet in 2006 continues to prompt debate.
Scientists disagree about the #IAU’s definition of a #planet, particularly its requirement that a planet clear its orbital neighborhood. The discussion also considers #Eris, #NewHorizons #findings, and competing approaches to classifying worlds in the #solarsystem.
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A message from Lidia Oskinova, President of the IAU commission G2 Massive Stars:
"Everybody is welcome to join an on-line seminar on December 1st (Monday!) at 16:00 CET
Title: What Stars Are Made Of: Celebrating One Hundred Years of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin's Revolutionary PhD Thesis
Speaker: Floor Broekgaarden (University of California San Diego)
https://rediris.zoom.us/j/6313376939?pwd=akRrd2dmb3dnbDN0MmRCallTTHlLQT09&omn=95383862762
A century ago, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin's PhD thesis, Stellar Atmospheres, transformed our understanding of the Universe. Famously described by Otto Struve as "the most brilliant PhD thesis ever written in astronomy", Payne-Gaposchkin's work revealed that stars are composed primarily of hydrogen and helium - an insight that overturned the prevailing belief that stars shared Earth's composition.
We invite you to celebrate the centennial of this landmark achievement and to reflect on the courage, creativity, and intellectual clarity that defined Cecilia's science. [...]"