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The SCEC CyberShake platform implements a repeatable scientific workflow to perform 3D physics-based probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA). Earlier this year we calculated CyberShake Study 24.8 for the San Francisco Bay Area. Study 24.8 includes both low-frequency and broadband PSHA models, calculated at 315 sites. This study required building a regional velocity model from existing 3D models, with a near-surface low-velocity taper and a minimum Vs of 400 m/s. Pegasus-WMS managed the execution of Study 24.8 for 45 days on the OLCF Frontier and TACC Frontera systems. 127 million seismograms and 34 billion intensity measures were produced and automatically transferred to SCEC storage. Study 24.8 used a HIP language implementation of the AWP-ODC wave propagation code on AMD-GPU Frontier nodes to produce strain Green tensors, which were convolved with event realizations to synthesize seismograms. Seismograms were processed to derive data products such as intensity measures, site-specific hazard curves and regional hazard maps. CyberShake combines 3D low-frequency deterministic (≤1 Hz) simulations with high-frequency calculations using stochastic modules from the Broadband Platform to produce results up to 25 Hz, with validation performed using historical events. New CyberShake data products from this study include vertical seismograms, vertical response spectra, and period-dependent significant durations. The presented results include comparisons of hazard estimates between Study 24.8, the previous CyberShake study for this region (18.8), and the NGA-West2 ground motion models (GMMs). We find that Study 24.8 shows overall lower hazard than 18.8, likely due to changes in rupture coherency, with the exception of a few regions: 24.8 shows higher hazard than both the GMMs and 18.8 at long periods in the Livermore area, due to deepening of the Livermore basin in the velocity model, as well as higher hazard east of San Pablo Bay and south of San Jose. At high frequencies, Study 24.8 hazard is lower than that of the GMMs, reflecting reduced variability in the stochastic components. We are also using CyberShake ground motion data to investigate the effects of preferred rupture directions on site-specific hazard. By default, PSHA hazard products assume all events on a given fault and magnitude are equally likely, but by varying these probabilities we can examine the effects of preferred rupture directions on given faults on CyberShake hazard estimates. 

Abstract Over 1500 balloons are launched every day, from every continent on Earth, to provide forecasting of tropospheric weather. Similar balloons, which can fly to the edge of space (>30 km), can be used for other science projects. Professional scientists, military users, commercial organisations, and interested amateurs, all fly payloads that provide a relatively low-cost means to reach the upper atmosphere. Weather ballooning is perfectly suited to student education and has been carried out for decades by groups of school, college, and university students. Here we report on one such a project. During March/April 2023 a series of balloons were launched from Sodankylä, Finland, in order to study the particle and radiation environment, along with ozone, in the stratosphere. Inexpensive off-the-shelf Geiger-counters were part of a payload flown to investigate how the radiation environment changed over time. Balloon payloads can be tracked with simple and inexpensive radio receivers. Similar projects to the one outlined here should be possible for any school, college, or university that has a reasonably well-equipped workshop, a group of interested and capable students, and a desire to investigate and learn something new about the planet we live on. 

Context. Gravitational waves from black-hole (BH) merging events have revealed a population of extra-galactic BHs residing in short-period binaries with masses that are higher than expected based on most stellar evolution models - and also higher than known stellar-origin black holes in our Galaxy. It has been proposed that those high-mass BHs are the remnants of massive metal-poor stars. Aims: Gaia astrometry is expected to uncover many Galactic wide-binary systems containing dormant BHs, which may not have been detected before. The study of this population will provide new information on the BH-mass distribution in binaries and shed light on their formation mechanisms and progenitors. Methods: As part of the validation efforts in preparation for the fourth Gaia data release (DR4), we analysed the preliminary astrometric binary solutions, obtained by the Gaia Non-Single Star pipeline, to verify their significance and to minimise false-detection rates in high-mass-function orbital solutions. Results: The astrometric binary solution of one source, Gaia BH3, implies the presence of a 32.70 ± 0.82 M⊙ BH in a binary system with a period of 11.6 yr. Gaia radial velocities independently validate the astrometric orbit. Broad-band photometric and spectroscopic data show that the visible component is an old, very metal-poor giant of the Galactic halo, at a distance of 590 pc. Conclusions: The BH in the Gaia BH3 system is more massive than any other Galactic stellar-origin BH known thus far. The low metallicity of the star companion supports the scenario that metal-poor massive stars are progenitors of the high-mass BHs detected by gravitational-wave telescopes. The Galactic orbit of the system and its metallicity indicate that it might belong to the Sequoia halo substructure. Alternatively, and more plausibly, it could belong to the ED-2 stream, which likely originated from a globular cluster that had been disrupted by the Milky Way. Full Table B.1 and Table B.2 with Gaia epoch data are available at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr (ftp://130.79.128.5) or via https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/686/L2