As a theoretical cosmologist, I'm frequently asked "what is the benefit of the work you're doing for people's lives?" Nothing I work on makes money or cures disease. There are a few different answers one can give, at various levels of "convincing" / "actually relevant to why the work is done." 1/🧵

If any of you fine folks are planetarians in (or want to be in) mid-Michigan, the Abrams Planetarium is hiring a full-time-staff position for the first time in 11 years!! Come work with the astro, scicomm, and informal ed folks at MSU!! 🔭 🧪 (reskeets welcome) careers.msu.edu/jobs/educati...

I'm hiring at Haverford - a 2 year NASA funded postdoc to work on Galaxy Zoo with Roman Space Telescope Data: www.haverford.edu/human-resour... 👩‍🔬🔭

Today, our EDGE simulations are in Nature with the brilliant @astroeth.bsky.social paper on the formation of globular clusters, the clumps of ancient stars that have puzzled astronomers for centuries. Turns out to happen all by itself when you crank up the resolution. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Great article from the Simons Foundation about the open source MESA stellar evolution code, which has a had a huge impact on astrophysics over the past 15 years. I had not heard that the code's architect, software guru Bill Paxton, had passed away in July. www.simonsfoundation.org/2025/08/12/a...

Oh look! Another Nbody Shop paper has hit the arxiv! 🔭🧪 arxiv.org/pdf/2508.19396 — this paper re-explores the simulated dwarf galaxy sample “the Seven Dwarfs” but this time includes on-the-fly radiative transfer (RT)

This is how a real leader acts. A real leader does not quit and run. www.chronicle.com/article/gmu-...

The Destruction of NASA Would Be a Blow to Our Collective Imagination www.wired.com/story/the-de...

Trust me, y'all need to watch this video

Call for Astronomy, astrophysics and space science Editors at the Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS) blog.joss.theoj.org/2025/08/call...

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "Spectroscopic Analysis of Pictor II: a very low metallicity ultra-faint dwarf galaxy bound to the Large Magellanic Cloud" by Andrew Pace (U. Virginia, USA) and 32 others based in the USA, UK, Canada, Chile and Spain doi.org/10.33232/001...

Via a friend who has been in touch with this family for a year: www.gofundme.com/f/help-ameer...

New Romulus paper just dropped, led by Anna Wright!

New paper from the always fabulous Nbody Shop: arxiv.org/abs/2507.21231 🧪🔭

While I have everyone's attention, the genocide happening in Palestine -- in Gaza AND the West Bank -- is a crime against humanity. Please raise your voice in defense of Palestinian lives. They are depending on us to remind those with power that they have a right to live.

This is utterly, utterly horrible. We have barely a few years to contain this in any meaningful way. Weather patterns are changing and eco systems are already straining. Everyone who voted for Trump or sat out, this is on you. I don’t care what your reason is. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/c...

I think this is the most horrifying post I have ever read.

Virginia residents!! Tell Virginia Senate Democrats to say NO to six more extremists Gov Youngkin has nominated to GMU's Board of Visitors. Send your letter using this link: actionnetwork.org/letters/no-m...

Letters to a Pre-Scientist is recruiting STEM pen pal volunteers for the upcoming school year! STEM professionals send and receive 4 rounds of letters throughout a school year with a curious middle school student. prescientist.org/volunteers/

Emmy Noether created the future of physics while forbidden to teach. #Science: “Phillips’ writing shines…everyone will learn something new from this book.” #Physics #Education: “Fascinating” Learn her story: amzn.to/3YZZB4W

Read this. And then call your Senator and tell them to save NASA science. www.planetary.org/articles/sci...

Today, *every* living prior leader of NASA's science directorate have released a joint letter condemning the proposed cuts to NASA science. These individuals every administration from Reagan to Biden, and all believe these cuts are insanely destructive: www.planetary.org/press-releas...

Anyway, it strikes me that the best thing to do now that ICE has that big budget is to make it impossible for them to spend it, starting with manpower: anyone who not only works with ICE but works somewhere that has contracted with them *once* needs to be made a pariah

Indiana University to discontinue more than 100 academic programs, including their PhD in astrophysics, due to low enrollment. So sad- it’s a great PhD program I know great astronomers have started from 😢 🔭🧪🎢 www.forbes.com/sites/michae...

Introducing...your sneak peek at the cosmos captured by NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory! Can you guess these regions of sky? This is just a small peek...join us at 11am US EDT for your full First Look at how Rubin will #CaptureTheCosmos! 🔭🧪 #RubinFirstLook ls.st/rubin-first-look-livestream

NEW: After firing expert scientists on the CDC's vaccine advisory committee, RFK Jr. has named their replacements. The new committee contains many figures known for spreading disinformation about vaccines and COVID including Robert Malone and Martin Kulldorff. This is bad.

Delighted that the first paper from our Cy2 JWST program was published today, reporting the discovery of molecular hydrogen in the 3% Solar metallicity galaxy Leo P. This was a very fun project with @karinsandstrom.bsky.social strom.bsky.social and fabulous co-authors! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A quarter for your thoughts? 🪙 We think Vera C. Rubin is a great choice to be honored with a quarter... and with an observatory! Rubin was an accomplished astronomer who provided the first convincing evidence of dark matter, influencing a new subfield of astrophysics. 🧪🔭

We're going to learn some tough stuff today about the White House's proposed budget for fiscal year 2026—including what they have in mind for NASA. I'll share what I hear, but remember: CONGRESS decides how much money NASA gets, not the White House. So whatever happens today, the fight continues.

Everyone involved in trying to pass off that ChatGPT-extruded disinformation manifesto as a scientific report should be, at the very least, barred from public office for life. The MAHA report is dangerous criminal misconduct and an offence to the process of science.

Totalling around 120 hours of observing time, this is the longest the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has ever focused on a single target. The deep field aims to probe the Cosmic Dawn, when the Universe was only a few million years old. Read more 👉 www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed... 🔭 🧪 ☄️

In response to the ever-increasing number of submissions to the Open Journal of Astrophysics, I'd like to invite more astrophysicistsonto our Editorial Board. We're looking for volunteers with expertise in any area of astrophysics! Please contact me or @ojastro.bsky.social astro.theoj.org

NSF Physics was cut by 85%, basically wiping out most of its capacity for supporting research. NSF Astronomy was cut by 53% Undergrad education was cut by 71% and research on learning by 79% Graduate education was cut by 100% to ZERO. #GiftLink ⚛️🔭 www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

BREAKING: ICE deported a Burmese man who doesn’t speak English to South Sudan—a country he’s not from and on the brink of civil war. He refused to sign English-only papers. They deported him anyway—with 11 others. No hearings. No translators. Court order ignored. This is state-sponsored kidnapping.

JWST has extended the cosmic frontier to z=14.44, a new record for the most distant galaxy. The paper led by @rpnaidu.bsky.social is on the arXiv arxiv.org/abs/2505.11263

WOW: Absolute RESPECT to Cecilia Culver for delivering a courageous, and kickass, commencement speech that calls out her university's complicity with genocide www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE6w...

Maybe boycott the singing competition platforming propaganda by a state committing an ongoing genocide, perhaps. A little proposal for the bare minimum. Something to consider.

One of the few paid opportunities to do research related to space sustainability swfound.org/news/all-new...

Great article on Cecilia Payne, who discovered that the Sun -- and therefore stars -- is made of hydrogen and helium. newhumanist.org.uk/articles/641...

NPR has identified three Trump administration officials with close ties to antisemitic extremists, including a prominent Holocaust denier.

Let's talk about these two department store owners: brother and sister Louis Bamberger and Caroline Bamberger Fuld. From Newark, New Jersey. They are random people, basically. But in the late 1920s, with fascism taking over Europe, they made a choice that profoundly changed the world: 🧵

"Imagine the auto industry without 3D printing. NSF funded that. Artificial intelligence? NSF. MRI machines that help doctors diagnose you? NSF. Doppler radar technology that makes aviation safer by conquering wind shear? NSF. Duolingo‘s underlying programming? NSF. The internet itself? NSF."

"Women are PIs on 58% of the canceled grants, although they are PIs on only 34% of all active NSF grants. Similarly, Blacks are PIs on 17% of the terminated grants, although they make only 4% of the total pool. Hispanic PIs and those with disabilities were twice as likely to lose a grant."

While #OMB guts the NSF FY 2026 budget by 55.8% Rep. Brian Babin, Rep. Jay Obernolte, and the nice folks over at House Science Committee simultaneously wish #NSF happy 75th birthday.

Things are going from bad to worse at NSF; www.science.org/content/arti...

I can't believe we have a Pope from Illinois. People from Chicago usually hate the Cardinals.

Hey I’m hiring a 4-year PhD student in #astronomy at UCC to work on studying massive black holes in cosmological simulations! Fast turn around on this bc it is so late (due 6 June) but please pass on to any interested and qualified students! Feel free to dm/email me! 🔭🧪 www.ucc.ie/en/astro/job...

This is the NSF's plan for the fact that it didn't have money to support anywhere near the amount of graduate research fellows this year as they usually do: They are asking business and philanthropy to fund NSF fellows, because the NSF can't afford it.

Open portion of the National Science Board meeting starting at 3 p.m. I'll try to follow along and provide some live coverage here. www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1PE...