Related papers: Perceptual grouping explains constellations across…
We draw on the predictive processing theory of perception to explain why healthy, intelligent, honest, and psychologically normal people might easily misperceive lights in the sky as threatening or extraordinary objects, especially in the…
Computer vision is widely deployed, has highly visible, society altering applications, and documented problems with bias and representation. Datasets are critical for benchmarking progress in fair computer vision, and often employ broad…
We present a novel approach to the riddle of star cluster multiple populations. Stars form from molecular cores. But not all cores form stars. Following their initial compression, such 'failed' cores re-expand, rather than collapsing. We…
It is often assumed that the "Kepler dichotomy" -- the apparent excess of planetary systems with a single detected transiting planet in the Kepler catalog -- reflects an intrinsic bimodality in the mutual inclinations of planetary orbits.…
Starbursts are the light intensity patterns seen when small bright sources are looked at night, typically stars. Starburst shapes are produced when the presence of the eye's wave aberrations generates caustics (light concentration) at the…
Since the early 1970s, stellar population modelling has been one of the basic tools for understanding the physics of unresolved systems from observation of their integrated light. Models allow us to relate the integrated spectra (or…
In this review, I present the case for how massive stars may form through stellar collisions. This mechanism requires very high stellar densities, up to 4 orders of magnitude higher than are observed in the cores of dense young clusters. In…
Traditional clustering identifies groups of objects that share certain qualities. Tangles do the converse: they identify groups of qualities that often occur together. They can thereby identify and discover 'types': of behaviour, views,…
The present-day globular cluster populations of galaxies reflect the cumulative effects of billions of years of galaxy evolution via such processes as mergers, tidal stripping, accretion, and in some cases the partial or even complete…
The paper shows an analysis of the large-scale distribution of galaxy spin directions of 739,286 galaxies imaged by DES. The distribution of the spin directions of the galaxies exhibits a large-scale dipole axis. Comparison of the location…
We present a pedagogical review on the formation and evolution of galaxies in groups, utilizing observational information from the Local Group to galaxies at z~6. The majority of galaxies in the nearby universe are found in groups, and…
To understand how the human visual system analyzes images, it is essential to know the structure of the visual environment. In particular, natural images display consistent statistical properties that distinguish them from random luminance…
Globular clusters (GCs), the oldest stellar systems observed in the Milky Way, have for long been considered single stellar populations. As such, they provided an ideal laboratory to understand stellar dynamics and primordial star formation…
Hierarchical clustering is a common algorithm in data analysis. It is unique among many clustering algorithms in that it draws dendrograms based on the distance of data under a certain metric, and group them. It is widely used in all areas…
(Abridged) Fossil systems are group- or cluster-sized objects whose luminosity is dominated by a very massive central galaxy. In the current cold dark matter scenario, these objects formed hierarchically at an early epoch of the Universe…
The discovery of planets around massive stars is important for understanding how planet formation and evolution is conditioned by different stellar environments. However, current planetary search surveys have failed to detect planets around…
Historically, it has often been asserted that most stars form in compact clusters. In this scenario, present-day gravitationally-unbound OB associations are the result of the expansion of initially gravitationally-bound star clusters.…
Spiral galaxies show axial symmetry and an intrinsic 2D-chirality. Environmental effects can influence the chirality of originally isolated stellar systems and a progressive loss of chirality can be recognised in the Hubble sequence. We…
Some factors connecting the evolutionary histories of galaxies with the characteristics of their cluster systems are reviewed. Unanswered questions include: How is one to understand the observation that some globular cluster systems have…
Numerical simulations and observations show that galaxies are not uniformly distributed. In cosmology, the largest known structures in the universe are galaxy filaments formed from the hierarchical clustering of galaxies due to…