The annual pumpkin display at the entrance of Governor Pritzker’s personal residence on Astor Street. He is the pumpkin king. Illinois produces the most pumpkins, including canned, than any other state in the U.S., twice as many as the next five states combined.

Yesterday's piece from @jamellebouie.net is the only high-profile piece I've seen that specifically discusses the watchlist, its effect on academics, and its effect on public attitudes toward academia as a whole. (gift link) www.nytimes.com/2025/09/13/o...

A timeline of GW150914. A story that begins a billion years ago and ends with our first #GravitationalWave detection 10 years ago today Discover more in the @ligomagazine.bsky.social ligo.org/wp-content/u... #GW10Years ⚛️🧪🔭

ARP! ARP! ARP! ☄️🔭 arxiv.org/abs/2509.09011

CAL-CITE CAL-CITE CAL-CITE

The Path

The results of the 4th Gravitational Wave observing run are out! 👀 arxiv.org/abs/2508.18080, arxiv.org/abs/2508.18081, arxiv.org/abs/2508.18082, arxiv.org/abs/2508.18083, arxiv.org/abs/2508.18079

This is what I have always suspected…

this is due to a combination of (a) having a wayyy bigger than expected incoming class and (b) the state of federal funding as much as it sucks, it's important to be transparent about where we stand. hopefully other departments will follow

Wow we have already got 250k+ classifications with almost 1000 volunteers! I have to say it is much more satisfying than I expected to find the known objects, even when it turns out to be a simulated object. And then even better when you pick a good one and the “you found it” pop up doesn’t show up

We’ve got a new zooniverse program called Dwarf Quest! Help us find members of our Milky Way’s galactic entourage in data from the Dark Energy Camera www.zooniverse.org/projects/ywy...

So you’re telling me the Wizard of Oz presented itself as a towering force of overwhelming technology, only to be unmasked as just some guy, off-screen?

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...

Powerful letter by Prof. Rashid Khalidi, on why he is withdrawing his course on Middle East history at Columbia University next academic year www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Hello, I’m an astronomer in a film. I turn the lights on in the dome when I’m observing.

Next we have Shivani Shah talking about the rise of gold, platinum and more with HWO. We don't know how these elements have built up with cosmic time. They are formed via neutron capture along with other elements, some critical for life such as iodine, and radioactive elements such as uranium #HWO25

Today, President Trump signed a bill into law that will eliminate $1.1B of federal funding for public media. This devastating act tipped the threat against journalism in America into a crisis. Millions depend on the NPR Network. Now, we’re counting on you. Donate here: n.pr/458sOhq

It's paper day! The first science paper with data from @vrubinobs.bsky.social's survey camera, the mighty LSSTCam, is a VERY quick turnaround of Rubin's observations thus far of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. ☄️ Chandler et al., submitted 🔭 A 🧵

Alt text included!

Arrived at @royalsociety.org for a conference on the future of scientific publishing, representing @aas.org Journals. Been a while since I went to one of these - has the discussion moved on, or are we still having the same arguments about open access and how to pay for it?

We have a data release! Check out sdss.org/dr19 for all the data that just became publicly available with our 19th data release #DR19

With the release of DR19 of @sdssurveys.bsky.social we published a suite of tutorials to help astronomers use the data. I’d like to highlight two tutorials that are a little different and are targeted at introductory astronomy undergrad classes. 1/4

NASA is more than rockets and moonwalks. NASA is behind much of our everyday technology. From space discovery, to Air Jordans, to CAT scans, NASA has played a role. We get it all on less than a penny of every federal dollar. Now their science may be gutted by 50%. #NASADidThat

Today is a big day for us: it's DATA RELEASE DAY!!! And to celebrate our nineteenth data release, we have not one, but two papers for you to read all about our data: we have a DR19 paper (arxiv.org/abs/2507.07093) and an SDSS-V Overview paper (arxiv.org/abs/2507.06989) #DR19

originally I made a serious version of this meme, which I'm non-ironically gonna use in talks now

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "Chemical Abundances in the Metal-Poor Globular Cluster ESO 280-SC06: A Formerly Massive, Tidally Disrupted Globular Cluster" by Sam A. Usman (U. Chicago, USA) and 8 others based in the USA, Canada and Australia doi.org/10.33232/001...

🧪 BREAKING (good news): Senate subcommittee says NO! to Trump's proposed slashes to NASA & NSF funding. Today, the subcommittee said to keep NASA + NSF funding at $33.9 billion, the same as in FY24. See 7:15 below. Full Senate appropriations committee meets tomorrow about it. 🧵 1/3

Apparently the kids don’t drink at conferences anymore so it’s up to Chiaki and me to hold down the fort

Wei Jia Ong on nuclear astrophysics: “All nuclear data are good, but some nuclear data are better than others” -George Orwell, probably

It's paper day! We use our Ōtautahi-Oxford model of the Galaxy's interstellar object population to understand the origins of 3I/ATLAS, from only its velocity @astrohopkins.bsky.social, Dorsey, @redshiftless.bsky.social, @astrokiwi.bsky.social, @chrislintott.bsky.social & Leicester, submitted A 🧵🔭

This is the world’s smallest violin but I would just like to know if I can stop writing this CAREER proposal

If you've tuned into CSPAN anytime in the last 2 hours and found yourself slapping the side of the TV, wondering why the screen isn't changing, here's what's happening...

for all the complaints about git, kids these days don't know how good they have it. back in the day we used CVS. Anytime you wanted to change a file you needed to get in your car, drive to CVS, go to the pharmacist counter and ask to check out the file.

!!!!! Waking up to the news that we might have found an interstellar object passing through our Solar System - only the third ever seen. Looks convincing based on the orbit.

MY FIRST EVER ARTICLE FOR SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN IS OUT!!! It's all about how black holes shred stars and how we discovered that black holes "burp" after eating them, and even includes a black hole called Jetty McJetface! What's not to love? 🤩 www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-... 🔭🧪🎢

This big guy is trying so hard to explode

Super exciting proof-of-principle work with GRaM-X lead by @gonihalevi.bsky.social following a 45 solar-mass low-metallicity progenitor star all the way to black-hole formation in full Numerical Relativity.

Led by former API PhD student Swapnil Shankar, we performed 12 MHD-driven core-collapse supernova simulations and systematically study the conditions under which jets can be successfully launched varying initial rotation rates and magnetic fields.

Finding out about Gaia at #EAS2025Cork! ☄️ Just announced: Gaia DR4 will be released in December 2026!

NEW: NSF will be kicked out of their building. Announcement will be made tomorrow by HUD Sec. and Governor of VA. HUD will take over the NSF building over the next two years. NSF staffer: "There is no planning for NSF, no identified future location, appropriation for a new building or a move."

I have completed my contributions to this field thank you

SKY VIEWER skyviewer.app/explorer

The first images from the @vrubinobs.bsky.social are available! To give a sense of scale, I took one of the first images — of the Virgo cluster of galaxies — and added a box that shows you the size of JWST's field of view. LSST sees ~3600x more of the sky at a time!! 🤯🧪 noirlab.edu/public/image...

THIS

I just got an email saying the embargo is lifted, so here's the full @vrubinobs.bsky.social press release: noirlab.edu/public/news/...

there's so much going on I almost forgot the telescope project i have worked on for TWENTY YEARS is revealing its first images today! Tune in to watch live:

WHAT

Quick and *very rough* comparison between newly revealed Rubin Observatory data and existing DESI Legacy Imaging Survey data. Rubin’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time is gonna rock! 🤯

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

An absolutely fantastic textbook on statistics and machine learning by Prof. Yuan-Sen Ting came out this week - and it's free! #astromethods ☄️ I had a read and it's incredibly comprehensive and well-written - I expect this to become *the* foundation book on stats & ML basics in astro.