CK Vul: a smorgasbord of hydrocarbons rules out a 1670 nova (and much else besides)

We present observations of CK Vul obtained with the Spitzer Space Telescope. The infrared spectrum reveals a warm dust continuum with nebular, molecular hydrogen and HCN lines superimposed, together with the `Unidentified Infrared' features. The nebular lines are consistent with emission by a low-density gas. We conclude that the Spitzer data, combined with other information, are incompatible with CK Vul being a classical nova remnant in `hibernation' after the event of 1670, a `very late thermal pulse', a `Luminous Red Variable', such as V838 Mon, or a `diffusion-induced nova'. The true nature of CK Vul remains a mystery

Post-imperialism, postcolonialism and beyond: towards a periodisation of cultural discourse about colonial legacies

Taking German history and culture as a starting point, this essay suggests a historical approach to reconceptualising different forms of literary engagement with colonial discourse, colonial legacies and (post-) colonial memory in the context of Comparative Postcolonial Studies. The deliberate blending of a historical, a conceptual and a political understanding of the ‘postcolonial’ in postcolonial scholarship raises problems of periodisation and historical terminology when, for example, anti-colonial discourse from the colonial period or colonialist discourse in Weimar Germany are labelled ‘postcolonial’. The colonial revisionism of Germany’s interwar period is more usefully classed as post-imperial, as are particular strands of retrospective engagement with colonial history and legacy in British, French and other European literatures and cultures after 1945. At the same time, some recent developments in Francophone, Anglophone and German literature, e.g. Afropolitan writing, move beyond defining features of postcolonial discourse and raise the question of the post-postcolonial

Large-Eddy Simulation of Turbulence in the Free Atmosphere and Behind Aircraft

The method of large-eddy simulation has been used for a wide variety of atmospheric flow problems. This paper gives an overview on recent applications of this method to turbulence in the free atmosphere under stably stratified conditions. In particular, flows in the wake of aircraft are studied in light of the potential impact of aircraft exhausts on the chemical and climatological state of the atmosphere. It is shown that different profiles of heat and moisture in the initial conditions of a jet representing engine exhaust gases may cause larger water saturation and hence earlier contrail formation than assumed up to now. The instability of trailing vortices in the wake of an aircraft is simulated up to the fully turbulent regime. The vertical diffusivity of aircraft exhaust is large in the vortex regime and much smaller than horizontal diffusivities in the later diffusion regime. The three-dimensional formation of a critical layer and breaking of gravity waves is simulated