Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays #OTD in 1895 when he noticed that emanations from a Crookes tube caused a platino-barium screen to fluoresce. The rays exposed photographic plates but were blocked by bone and metal. This early plate shows his wife's hand. 🧪 ⚛️ Image: Wellcome Trust

Light speed is fast, but space is vast...

In somewhat terrifying but hopefully positive personal news, I've decided to purchase an extremely expensive 10x10 booth in the exhibit hall at the American Geophysical Union meeting in December. I'll be selling my gemstone and wire jewelry and art. I hope you'll come find me there.

Let's unravel the mystery of Saturn's polar hexagon. A jet stream speeds around the pole at 320 km/h (200 mph). That’s common among planets, but what's not is that it oscillates up and down *very* stably. Each low point of this sine wave becomes a corner of a hexagon, when projected onto a sphere:

This is what democracy looks like. #NoKings

Everyone writing about Perseverance today should be asking how many of the scientists and engineers who were involved in this discovery no longer work for NASA bc of Trump.

Lunar Eclipse - An hour after rising! #astronomy #astrophotography @stormhour.com @photohour.bsky.social

Worst video ever, but go check out the lunar eclipse going on right now 🙂

Good luck UK Lunar Eclipse hunters. The Moon rises in the east in one hour!

Join us for International Observe The Moon Night in-person (registration required) or online!🔭 Held and organized by the @uniofreading.bsky.social alongside Reading Astronomical Society, @royalastrosoc.bsky.social, Troodos Observatory (Cyprus) and supported by STFC www.reading.ac.uk/news/2025/Un...

August 5 was a whole millisecond shorter. Strap in for the full explanation.

Time nerds! This is def. one for you! Today was/is one of the shortest days of the year. @interplanetary.bsky.social has got you covered as to many of the reasons why this is likely happening. Bonus - how quasars, and #RadioAstronomy lead to precision timing, orientation, etc. that gives us GPS!

It's about time that I wrote this: theconversation.com/why-on-earth...

💯.

Tiny black dot on Saturn. Early this morning, I photographed a rather rare astronomical event, a shadow transit of Saturn’s largest moon Titan across its parent planet. This is a composite of two frames. Questar telescope /Olympus camera. Observed from metro Chicago. #astrophotography

Our global petition to save NASA science closes this Thursday, and we’re just shy of 15,000 signatures! Every name counts, this petition will be hand-delivered to members of Congress. Add yours today, Save NASA Science. planet.ly/petition

The auroral oval seen from space during the early morning on June 1 - captured by the NOAA-21 satellite flying over North America

Update on the ongoing geomagnetic storm: the main magnetic core of the 31 May #solarstorm has arrived at Earth starting around 1 June 12 UTC, BUT it is one of those kinds that are VERY unfavorable for #aurora - the field is entirely northward and very likely to remain so for the next few hours.

Looks like that fast CME is here already, about 2.5 hours before our predicted window. Funnily enough, we've *just* worked out why fast CMEs are often earlier than predicted and will be rolling this into the forecast soon! agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

The WH proposes $6 billion cut in NASA budget, an overall 24% reduction from previous year – and a shocking 47% cut in funding for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate [reductions to to NASA’s fleet of spacecraft already in space, or proposed], an extinction-level event for the Earth & space sciences.

There's a fast CME heading into some fast solar wind and some pre-existing slower CMEs. We're currently putting arrival at noon-to-midnight tomorrow, but this forecast may change as more observations become available. Updates here: research.reading.ac.uk/met-spate/hu...

Please, please, please contact your representatives. Jobs like mine are on the line. 🔭🧪☄️ www.planetary.org/save-nasa-sc...

BREAKING: The president's budget request just hit Congress, which could usher in a dark age for NASA space science. Congress has the final say, but you can help shape the outcome by adding your name to our global petition. This is just the start of our fight. Sign the petition: planet.ly/petition

The NASA planetary science fleet chart if the president’s budget is enacted.

The proposed NASA and NSF cuts feel like when ISIS destroyed the monuments of Palmyra with sledgehammers. These things not only pay for themselves, they return several dollars for every $1 spent. Kill the science, kill the spin-offs, startups, patents, talent pool and global influence.

The Presidents Budget Request for NASA is out. It’s a bloodbath Canceled are DAVINCI, VERITAS, Juno, OSIRIS-APEX, US participation in ExoMars and EnVision… Huge cut to R&A. No funding to begin development of the Uranus Orbiter. If you’ve ever cared about NASA, time to contact congress.

NEW: Mars, like any world with an atmosphere, has aurora—but they’re ultraviolet, invisible to the human eye. Scientists wondered if visible, green, aurora did exist though. And thanks to Percy the rover, they’ve finally seen them! 🤩 Me @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/s...

We’ve just had the largest #SolarFlare of 2025! Is the Sun waking up? Newly appeared active region AR 14087 has been very active today, producing an X2.7-class event (alongside two other M-class flares) in the past 12 hours. This region will rotate to face Earth in coming days.

Waxing Gibbous Moon. 2002UT 7 May 2025. 🔭 🧪 🎨 #astrophotography #SciArt #photography #StormHour #ThePhotoHour

With the Trump administration's proposed budget we could be saying goodbye to long-planned space missions, new weather satellites, and crucial life-saving treatments. 🧪🔭 www.iflscience.com/trump-admini...

Tonight's Moon, still in waxing crescent mode at 42.9%, looking great in a clear London sky! #astronomy #astrophotography @stormhour.com @photohour.bsky.social

My first image of the Sun in a while, taken this morning from my back garden. The large sunspot group is AR 4079. Esprit 100. x2 Barlow. Herschel wedge. ASI17MM. Continuum filter. Colourised to make it look like we're conditioned to think it should look like! 🙂 🔭

That big sunspot is getting bigger!

If you have eclipse glasses handy, check out the Sun today and you'll see a Sunspot without a telescope (if you've got modestly good vision). This is a quick pic with my phone, through eclipse glasses

The K2-18b saga deepens with a great new paper out today by @luiswel.bsky.social (arxiv.org/abs/2504.21788). Turns out hydrocarbons can explain K2-18b's new JWST MIRI spectrum *without* the need to invoke DMS or DMDS as biosignatures. Read on to find out more! 🧵 #Exoplanet 🔭🪐

Oh hello 👋 I bet you were wondering when ol’ #ReadingUni were going to join you?! Who are we? We're the UK’s Sustainable University of the Year (thanks @thetimes.com 🎉), located in 130 hectares of historic and award-winning parkland, 30 mins from London. And we live with this lot ♥️ #Introduction

Join us at the #CommunityFestival2025 to see live images of the #Sun through a solar telescope (weather permitting!). Learn how solar activity drives auroras, disrupts technology and impacts other planets. Book now: rdg.ac/3AUYDdZ @interplanetary.bsky.social @unirdg-met.bsky.social (Image: NASA)

𝗡𝗼, 𝗮 𝗯𝗶𝗼𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝗞𝟮-𝟭𝟴𝗯'𝘀 𝗮𝘁𝗺𝗼𝘀𝗽𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲. K2-18b is back in the news, now with a bold claim that biosignature molecules (DMS and/or DMDS) have been 'detected at 3σ'. Most exoplanet astronomers are extremely sceptical about these claims, let's see why (1/n). 🔭🧪🪐 #exoplanet

An astonishing headline reporting on new observations from a team led to Nikku Madhusudhan claims they’ve found ‘hints of life’ on a planet orbiting a dwarf star some 124 light years away. What’s going on? (1/n) www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... 🔭 🧪

This really is an extinction level event for NASA's science programs. arstechnica.com/space/2025/0...

Millions of people took part in protests against President Donald Trump and Elon Musk across all 50 states and globally on Saturday: cnn.it/4hYKFL3

🚨Our new paper is out now! We caught Jupiter’s upper atmosphere reacting dramatically to a bursts of solar wind, which triggered a planet-wide wave of heat to flow from the auroras. This changes how we think about the Sun’s influence at the outer planets. www.reading.ac.uk/news/2025/Re...

It is 100 years since Appleton proved the existence of the ionosphere. To celebrate, a colleague & I wrote an article. You can read it here; academic.oup.com/astrogeo/art...

This morning's partial solar eclipse over Oxfordshire. Time-lapse, 1 frame every 30 seconds.

Starting now!

📻 BBC Radio Sussex "Kevin's just called in to ask, so am I looking for PacMans?" Yes Kevin! PacMan through your colander! Enjoy the partial solar eclipse today! Scotland and I will be shaking our fists at the clouds ☹️ & booking our Spanish holidays for the total eclipse on the 26th August 2026! 🔭

Partial solar eclipse live: watch as moon to block part of sun for people in northern hemisphere

NEW: A catastrophic magnitude 7.7 earthquake shook Southeast Asia today, devastating entire neighbourhoods in cities throughout Myanmar—and the damage even extended as far as Thailand. What caused it? Why was it so powerful? Me for @sciam.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/what...

☄️JWST managed to image asteroid 2024 YR4 this month, and its infrared scopes got a really good estimate of its size. Turns out it was 60m (+/-7)—sufficient to wreck a large city. Good thing it wasn’t heading to Earth after all… iawn.net/obscamp/2024...

The Moon is going to block out a bit of the Sun this weekend! Also known as a partial solar eclipse, on 29th March! See the timing for your region at www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/sola... Don't look at the Sun direct, use some eclipse glasses or make a pinhole camera: www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/resource...