Effect of monsoon depression of east coast at some distant region in west

Whenever a vortex or system of low or depression forms over head bay during Monsoon months, the west coast experiences heavy rainfall. These heavy rainfall occurrences are usually higher than the normal rainfall. An attempt has been made in this study to visualise the easterly wave model during monsoon months with the help of satellite imageries. The rain is expected heavy and wide spread over Madhya Maharashtra and South Gujarat when third sector of the wave covers these areas, as visualised in satellite wave and depression or vortex lies in the 5th or 6th sector of the wave.

Dusty phenomena in the vicinity of giant exoplanets

Context. Hitherto, searches for exoplanetary dust have focused on the tails of decaying rocky or approaching icy bodies only at short circumstellar distances. At the same time, dust has been detected in the upper atmospheric layers of hot jupiters, which are subject to intensive mass loss. The erosion and/or tidal decay of hypothetic moonlets might be another possible source of dust around giant gaseous exoplanets. Moreover, volcanic activity and exozodiacal dust background may additionally contribute to exoplanetary dusty environments. Aims. In the present study, we look for photometric manifestations of dust around different kinds of exoplanets (mainly giants). Methods. We used linear approximation of pre- and post-transit parts of the long-cadence transit light curves (TLCs) of 118 Kepler objects of interest after their preliminary whitening and phase-folding. We then determined the corresponding flux gradients G1 and G2, respectively. These gradients were defined before and after the transit border for two different time intervals: (a) from 0.03 to 0.16 days and (b) from 0.01 to 0.05 days, which correspond to the distant and adjoining regions near the transiting object, respectively. Statistical analysis of gradients G1 and G2 was used for detection of possible dust manifestation. Results. It was found that gradients G1 and G2 in the distant region are clustered around zero, demonstrating the absence of artifacts generated during the light curve processing. However, in the adjoining region, 17 cases of hot jupiters show significantly negative gradients, G1, whereas the corresponding values of G2 remain around zero. The analysis of individual TLCs reveals the localized pre-transit decrease of flux, which systematically decreases G1. This effect was reproduced with the models using a stochastic obscuring precursor ahead of the planet. Conclusions. Since only a few TLCs show the presence of such pre-transit anomalies with no analogous systematic effect in the post-transit phase, we conclude that the detected pre-transit obscuration is a real planet-related phenomenon. Such phenomena may be caused by dusty atmospheric outflows or background circumstellar dust compressed in front of the mass-losing exoplanet, the study of which requires dedicated physical modeling and numeric simulations. Of certain importance may be the retarding of exozodiacal dust relative to the planet by the Poynting-Robertson effect leading to dust accumulation in electrostatic or magnetic traps in front of the planet.

Initial results from the New Horizons exploration of 2014 MU69, a small Kuiper Belt object

The Kuiper Belt is a distant region of the outer Solar System. On 1 January 2019, the New Horizons spacecraft flew close to (486958) 2014 MU69, a cold classical Kuiper Belt object approximately 30 kilometers in diameter. Such objects have never been substantially heated by the Sun and are therefore well preserved since their formation. We describe initial results from these encounter observations. MU69 is a bilobed contact binary with a flattened shape, discrete geological units, and noticeable albedo heterogeneity. However, there is little surface color or compositional heterogeneity. No evidence for satellites, rings or other dust structures, a gas coma, or solar wind interactions was detected. MU69’s origin appears consistent with pebble cloud collapse followed by a low-velocity merger of its two lobes.

Issue Salience in the U.S. Elections: “Partisan Domestication” between South Korean Newspapers

This study examines how two newspapers in South Korea, one conservative and one liberal, covered the U.S. presidential election of 2008. The study found that there was a significant divergence in the emphasis placed on certain types of issues between the two ideologically polarized newspapers. While the liberal Hankyoreh Daily placed more emphasis on social justice issues –such as racial equality and the abolition of social discrimination, the conservative Chosun Daily highlighted “human interest” issues, focusing on more trivial topics such as the candidates’ gender, family, and fashion preferences. There was also a difference in the types of news sources used by the two newspapers. The Hankyoreh Daily sought to represent the voices of the South Korean elite, while The Chosun Daily used American politicians as one of its major source of information. This study argues that a news organization’s ideological orientation is an important factor, which influences South Korean newspapers’ “domestication” of the U.S. election, which was staged in a distant region.

A new concept of transonic galactic outflows and its application to the Sombrero galaxy

We study fundamental properties of transonic galactic outflows in the gravitational potential of a cold dark matter halo (DMH) with a central super-massive black hole (SMBH) assuming a polytropic, steady and spherically symmetric state. We have classified the transonic solutions with respect to their topology in the phase space. As a result, we have found two types of transonic solutions characterized by a magnitude relationship between the gravity of DMH and that of SMBH. These two types of solutions have different loci of the transonic points; one transonic point is formed at a central region (< 0.01kpc) and another is at a distant region (> 100kpc). Also, mass fluxes and outflow velocities are different between the two solutions. These two transonic solutions may play different roles on the star formation history of galaxies and the metal contamination of intergalactic space. Furthermore, we have applied our model to the Sombrero galaxy. In this galaxy, the wide-spread hot gas is detected as an apparent trace of galactic outflows while the star-formation rate is disproportionately low, and the observed gas density distribution is quite similar to the hydrostatic state (Li et al. 2011). To solve this discrepancy, we propose a slowly accelerating outflow in which the transonic point forms in a distant region (~ 120 kpc) and the subsonic region spreads across the stellar distribution. In the subsonic region, the gas density distribution is similar to that of the hydrostatic state. Our model predicts the possibility of the slowly accelerating outflow in the Sombrero galaxy. Igarashi et al. 2014 used the isothermal model and well reproduced the observed gas density distribution, but the estimated mass flux (1.8M⊙/yr) is lager than the mass of the gas supplied by stars (0.3-0.4M⊙/yr). Then, we expect that the polytropic model may reproduce the observational mass of the supplied gas (Igarashi et al. 2015). Such slowly accelerating outflows should be distinguished from the conventional supersonic outflows frequently argued in star-forming galaxies.

Transonic galactic outflows in a dark matter halo with a central black hole

We study fundamental properties of transonic galactic outflows in the gravitational potential of a cold dark matter halo (DMH) with a central super-massive black hole (SMBH) assuming an isothermal, steady and spherically symmetric state. Transonic solutions of galactic outflows are classified according to their topological features. As result, we find two types of transonic solutions distinguished by a magnitude relationship between the gravity of DMH and that of SMBH. The loci of transonic points for two types are different; one transonic point is formed at a central region (< 0.01kpc) and another is at a very distant region (> 100kpc). Also, mass fluxes and outflow velocities are different for two solutions. Thus, these solutions may differently influence the evolution of galaxies and the release of metals into the intergalactic space.Furthermore, we apply our model to the Sombrero galaxy. In this galaxy, the wide-spread hot gas is detected as the trace of galactic outflows while the star-formation rate is low, and the observed gas density distribution is similar to the hydrostatic state (Li et al. 2011). To solve this discrepancy, we propose a solution that this galaxy has a slowly accelerating outflow; the transonic point forms in a very distant region (~ 120 kpc) and the wide subsonic region spreads across the stellar distribution. Thus, the gas density distribution in the observed region is similar to the hydrostatic state. Such slowly accelerating outflows are different from high-velocity outflows conventionally studied (Igarashi et al. 2014).However, this isothermal model requires an unrealistically large mass flux. Then, we apply the polytropic model to this galaxy incorporating mass flux supplied by stellar components. We find that it can reproduce the observed gas density and the temperature distributions with the realistic mass flux. Thus, our polytropic model successfully demonstrates the existence of the slowly accelerating outflow in the Sombrero galaxy (Igarashi et al. 2015).

Scholars discover local history: the case of northeast Lapland in the 18th century

ABSTRACTThe academic study of local and regional history in Sweden took on a quite new form and significance in the 18th century. Humiliating defeats in wars had brought the kingdom's period of greatness to an end and forced the crown to re-evaluate the country's position and image and reconsider the internal questions of economic efficiency and settlement. One aspect in this was more effective economic and political control over the peripheral parts of the realm, which meant that also the distant region of Kemi Lapland, bordering on Russia, became an object of systematic government interest. The practical local documentation of this area took the form of dissertations prepared by students native to the area under the supervision of well known professors, reports sent back by local ministers and newspaper articles. The people responsible for communicating this information may be said to have functioned as ‘mimic men’ in the terminology of H.K. Bhabha. This supervised gathering and publication of local information created the foundation for the nationalist ideology and interest in ordinary people and local cultures that emerged at the end of the century and flourished during the 19th century.