- Some more context on the weird star, Gaia DR3 4582145718700356096 ("fofr's star"). It's an old star, and according to our planet formation models, it really shouldn't have very large amounts of dust. If it's dust, "it holds ~100,000x more dust than a system that old should"Adam @lowgmathThis gets weirder. I searched ~750,000 Sun-like stars for the signature of Gaia DR3 4582145718700356096. At least two more have it, glowing right on the star: J000153 (Gaia DR3 2874265305022213760) J144944 (Gaia DR3 6225457312033584384) All three look normal in visible light but shine 50-100x too bright at 22 microns, at 200-280 K, about Earth to Mars distance from each star. If that’s dust, it’s at least a 200–300 km asteroid ground to powder. Dust like that usually comes from young planets colliding. This is what happened with our Moon. But Fofr’s star isn’t young. It’s probably about as old as the Sun, old enough for a planet to have carried life for billions of years. And it holds ~100,000x more dust than a system that old should, based on the planetary formation models we have. The best-known old case, BD+20 307, has a twin star circling it every 3.4 days, which may stir its planets up. None of these 3 stars have any companion. So either our picture of how planetary systems age has a gap, or this isn’t dust at all, and something else is turning 1–3% of these stars’ light into heat.741468.7K
This gets weirder. I searched ~750,000 Sun-like stars for the signature of Gaia DR3 4582145718700356096. At least two more have it, glowing right on the star: J000153 (Gaia DR3 2874265305022213760) J144944 (Gaia DR3 6225457312033584384) All three look normal in visible light but shine 50-100x too bright at 22 microns, at 200-280 K, about Earth to Mars distance from each star. If that’s dust, it’s at least a 200–300 km asteroid ground to powder. Dust like that usually comes from young planets colliding. This is what happened with our Moon. But Fofr’s star isn’t young. It’s probably about as old as the Sun, old enough for a planet to have carried life for billions of years. And it holds ~100,000x more dust than a system that old should, based on the planetary formation models we have. The best-known old case, BD+20 307, has a twin star circling it every 3.4 days, which may stir its planets up. None of these 3 stars have any companion. So either our picture of how planetary systems age has a gap, or this isn’t dust at all, and something else is turning 1–3% of these stars’ light into heat.
fofr @fofrAII found a weird star with Argon's help. Gaia DR3 4582145718700356096. It's normal in visible light, stable and similar to our sun. In March 2010 it appeared ~60x brighter than expected in deep infrared heat (22 microns). As if something around Mars-distance is catching 1.3% of the star's light and radiating it as heat. Probably a huge cloud of debris from a major planetary collision. Or a radio-silent galaxy hiding behind it. But also the tiniest chance it's a technosignature. Captured by NASA's WISE telescope, no observations at that wavelength since. Needs more data.50348.6K- Some tips on how I'm doing discovery work like this: - make sure your pipeline reproduces known results blindly - make sure it also rejects known imposters and instrument glitches - never trust your results, always spin up an independent agent with a non-leading prompt to do an adversarial review, do this repeatedly - have the reviewer re-verify from raw data - whenever a reviewer finds something, try to distill a generic lesson from that into a skill or processfofr @fofrAII found a weird star with Argon's help. Gaia DR3 4582145718700356096. It's normal in visible light, stable and similar to our sun. In March 2010 it appeared ~60x brighter than expected in deep infrared heat (22 microns). As if something around Mars-distance is catching 1.3% of the star's light and radiating it as heat. Probably a huge cloud of debris from a major planetary collision. Or a radio-silent galaxy hiding behind it. But also the tiniest chance it's a technosignature. Captured by NASA's WISE telescope, no observations at that wavelength since. Needs more data.1681166.6K
- I found a weird star with Argon's help. Gaia DR3 4582145718700356096. It's normal in visible light, stable and similar to our sun. In March 2010 it appeared ~60x brighter than expected in deep infrared heat (22 microns). As if something around Mars-distance is catching 1.3% of the star's light and radiating it as heat. Probably a huge cloud of debris from a major planetary collision. Or a radio-silent galaxy hiding behind it. But also the tiniest chance it's a technosignature. Captured by NASA's WISE telescope, no observations at that wavelength since. Needs more data.
304072741.7K 
- It's fun waking up and seeing what the agent cooked overnight.
fofr @fofrAISome intermediate outputs, an early pipeline on the left, a refined and iterated pipeline on the right. I asked Argon to use NXCORR comparisons between pipeline outputs and official images to automatically iterate.641084.6K - Some intermediate outputs, an early pipeline on the left, a refined and iterated pipeline on the right. I asked Argon to use NXCORR comparisons between pipeline outputs and official images to automatically iterate.
fofr @fofrAIReal, but also, "made with AI". Argon processed this image from raw JWST captures. This is W51A (a massive star formation).20486.4K - Very cool 3D demo with Argongenevieveh@ @genevieve__hThis is my new favorite thing I've built with Argon: an iced coffee simulator, *completely* from scratch. No physics engine, fluid libraries or pre-baked animations, only three.js, WebGL2 math and custom 3D models - all running in Chrome 🤯 Approach, prompt & thoughts below! 🧵50936.4K
This is my new favorite thing I've built with Argon: an iced coffee simulator, *completely* from scratch. No physics engine, fluid libraries or pre-baked animations, only three.js, WebGL2 math and custom 3D models - all running in Chrome 🤯 Approach, prompt & thoughts below! 🧵251922626.7K
