A sliver of #Earth is illuminated against the blackness of space in this photo taken by an #Artemis II crew member through an Orion spacecraft window on the third day of the mission.(April 3, 2026)"

"NASA astronaut and #Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman took this picture of Earth from the Orion spacecraft’s window after completing the translunar injection burn. There are two auroras (top right and bottom left) and zodiacal light (bottom right) is visible as the Earth eclipses the Sun."

"Without mathematics it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of the universe; without math's symbols and concepts, one is wandering around in a dark labyrinth." - Galileo, paraphrased

In #Shakespeare's Cymbeline, in the final act, in this dream/vision scene, the god Jupiter descends on an eagle, accompanied by four ghostly figures (Posthumus’s family members), who appear around him in a kind of celestial formation. Coincidence? Or an allusion to the four #Galilean moons?

Galileo Galilei’s given name is a virtual copy of his family name. In 'Galileo’s Daughter', Sobel explains that in Tuscany, it was customary to give the 1st-born son a Christian name based on the family name. 1st name won out & we know him simply as “Galileo.” www.mentalfloss.com/article/7508...

"Theologians before Galileo had understood that many things in Scripture should be interpreted in non-literal ways&had insisted that Scripture should never be interpreted in a way that contradicts what's known by reason, including facts about the natural world "https://share.google/kOOgx19kxDdeQSblY

(1/3)In 1610, #Galileo was the first ever to observe Saturn's rings. But he didn't realize what he saw. He thought it consisted of three bodies that were almost in contact but which never moved or changed with respect to one another. We know this from a letter he wrote to the Duke of Tuscany.

(1/3)1605 letter to Galileo brought the 1572 supernova & 1601 nova to Galileo's notice. He observed Kepler's Supernova in 1604. Since these new 'stars' displayed no detectable diurnal parallax, Galileo concluded they were distant stars,disproving the Aristotelian idea in the heavens' immutability

(1/7)The purple/pink glow in the Orion Nebula is hydrogen emission lines — specifically Balmer-series recombination emission. This is a classic H II region (ionized hydrogen cloud).

(1/5)Delivered into Earth orbit on October 18, 1989, by Space Shuttle Atlantis, #Galileo was an American robotic space probe that studied the planet #Jupiter and its moons, as well as the asteroids Gaspra and Ida.

Rømer’s conclusion that the speed of light is finite, derived from observations of #eclipses of the Galilean satellites of #Jupiter, is one of the key results of astronomy. A rare modern replication of his experiment: oasi.org.uk/Obsvns/20140... commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?...

#Apollo15: Scott held out a hammer & a feather & dropped them at the same time. Because there was no air resistance , the feather fell at the same rate as the hammer, as #Galileo had concluded 100s of yrs before. youtu.be/KDp1tiUsZw8?...

"An astrophysicist traces genealogy and art history to discover the origin of the famous motto." scientificamerican.com/blog/observa...

3 of the Galilean moons influence each other. Io is in a gravitational tug-of-war with Ganymede &Europa, driving the tides that make these moons so geologically active. Europa’s orbital period is twice Io’s, & Ganymede’s period is twice that of Europa. nasa.gov/wp-content/u...

Newton was born on Christmas Day of 1642, in the same year that Galileo died, if you go by the old Julian calendar.

“There are categories of scientists in the world: those of 2nd or 3rd rank who do their best but never get very far. Then there are those of the 1st rank who contribute to scientific progress. But then there are geniuses like Galileo &Newton. Majorana was one of these.” - Fermi

Evangelista Torricelli is credited with discovering #atmosphericPressure, building directly on ideas from his teacher #Galileo Galilei. Centuries later, people misunderstand his idea when they hear things like, "Water got sucked into to the straw". t.co/YIIwwrxMp1

We tend to overidealize some historical figures, but revisionist history at its worse can distort the #historyOfScience. #Galileo t.co/yZk0WlrcyX

I've always admired Galileo for his contributions to physics and for standing up to stubborn authority. I've decided to dedicate an X blog to him his works, to some of his biographies, to his museum in Florence and to NASA missions and other good projects named after him

"As #Galileo predicted, much of our prediction of the world is based not on vague, qualitative descriptions but on detailed mathematical models &numerical simulations." -Mario Livio: "He'd have resisted any attempt to exclude either the humanities or sciences from human culture."

"It is fitting that Marcellini immortalized #Galileo, who understood that humans need both the humanities & sciences. Science explains & predicts the universe; literature & art provide out heartfelt response to Earth & the stars." -Mario Livio

Discovering Pleasant Smells from Rotten Wood No one questions the value of companionship, soul-gripping music, houseplants, beautiful works of art or poetry. Yet none of those help us put food on the table or fight off the elements. Why then, does science or mathematics or even technology always…

Iridium, Why Was it Named After a Goddess? What got me thinking about iridium this morning is that it's currently at $234/gram---more expensive than gold. Its volatile price, has gone up by a factor of 7 between 2018 and 202. It is influenced by the growing demand for iridium in the aerospace,…

Sherlock Holmes: "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly, one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."

Sunday morning formula. Can easily be derived by induction. For n = 0,1,2,3...

Oak forests are now rare due to human exploitation, with old-growth forests—those with very large, long-lived trees and abundant deadwood—comprising only 1% of Europe’s forests. Deadwood, often dismissed as “useless,” stores carbon, enriches soil as humus, and supports countless saproxylic organisms

This reminds me of Sagan's book, Cosmos, which I read in my youth. It also featured a proof of why the root of 2 is irrational.

The Search for Truth: Why Do We Value It? A friend of mine asked several interesting questions. Something I've always found strange: the universe didn't have to be intelligible, yet it is. Why? Why does mathematics map the physical world so uncannily?  Wigner called it ‘the unreasonable…

Corny #sciencehumor Apparently neutrinos have mass. I didn’t even know they were Catholic; I was going to tell you a time travel joke, but you didn’t like it; Did you know Mr. Spock had 3 ears? Left, right and the final front ear; Why didn't the photon have any luggage? He was traveling light.

Robert Bateman(1) spent 20 y teaching Geography in high school. He chose the discipline as an excuse to be outdoors. (2) was originally an abstract artist (3) has never had his works displayed at the National Gallery (4) his foundation uses art to promote a connection to nature and the environment.

This is may have served as the inspiration for the #BatSignal: In 1875, from the roof of the Siemens Halske factory in Berlin, electrically-generated rays were bounced off a large mirror and projected onto dark clouds while an awe-stricken crowd looked on. (Shown: 1875 Scientific American article)

Oceanus Procellarum is the largest of the #Moon's seas, and the only one classified as an 'ocean', its area is greater than that of the Gulf of Mexico on Earth. All "mare" are large, dark basaltic plains formed when ancient lava-flows filled impact basins. Photo credit: greg dunlap

Superb symposium included Weissman's insights into in vivo CAR T therapy's advantages over in vitro; serendipity's role in the mRNA vaccine development; #RKJr 's dangerous hepatitis B policy; Joe's witty intro to #vaccines and a lot more @mcgilloss.bsky.social www.youtube.com/live/tmF0CDq...

In vivo CAR T therapy for killing cancer cells has several advantages over the ex vivo approach www.thelancet.com/journals/ebi... Nobelist Drew Weissman described it at the 2025 Trottier Public Science Symposium last night @mcgilloss.bsky.social

Cooking tips( temperature& pH included) to encourage Maillard reactions, which enhance appearance and especially the taste of food containing protein and sugars.

💫 Celebrate the festival of lights safely, and let the chemistry of joy shine bright! Wishing you and your loved ones a very Happy Diwali filled with love, light, and laughter. #RSCIndia #ChemSky #Diwali2025

Consumers in New Mexico and beyond may soon see a new warning label put on everything from nonstick pans and furniture to cosmetics and baby clothes that contain intentionally added per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). cen.acs.org/policy/New-M... #chemsky 🧪

'Love #nerdyFacts. The chemistry consultant for the Breaking Bad series, organic chemist Donna J. Nelson from Oklahoma State University, was also 2016 ACS President and is currently on the Scientific American's board of advisors. Not every chemist gets their pic flashed on 7th Av! I ❤️ NY. #chemsky

#chemsky Bierling found that among smells perceived to be disgusting, those containing only 1 compound scored 67%; spices 42%. The categories with the most pleasant smells were sweet, scoring 88%, followed by bakery& fruit(44%), whose smells consist of many compounds. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The author criticizes both alarmist narratives, which emphasize worst-case scenarios, & dismissive ones, which treat pesticide fears as mere “scare stories”. It's not a “science vs. vibes” thing— public concern is more than irrational emotion; it's a legitimate risk perception. #pesticides

Robert Bunsen was the co-inventor (along with Kirchhoff)of the flame spectroscope.The invention relied on the Bunsen burner, developed by Bunsen after asking the university mechanic, Peter Desaga, to build a prototype that improved on Michael Faraday's version . uwaterloo.ca/chemistry/co... #chemsky

"I’m a former creationist. Here’s why ‘follow the science’ failed." archive.ph/2025.09.23-0...

Merely because she was a woman, PhD Maria Goeppert Mayer, spent 1930 to 1960 without a permanent paid post. But 3 years later, she was the cowinner of the #Nobel Prize in #Physics for realizing that spin orbit coupling of nucleons led to magic numbers-why oxygen is more common than elements 3 to 7.

The Swiss Water Process is a clever way of removing most caffeine from coffee without relying on CO₂ or toxic solvents. It's used to produce #decaffeinated Kirkland&Loblaws coffees. Max Morgenthaler came up with the method in the 1930s, but it was only commercialized in the 1980s in British Columbia

Poplar leaves go from green to yellow. Why? After chlorophyll is broken down to recycle nitrogen and magnesium, #autumn exposes oxygenated #carotenoids known as xanthophylls in cottonwood leaves. Lutein is their main xanthophyll, which, in the summer, protects them from high light intensity.

The early bird catches the #sunrise. Aren't you glad that Rayleigh scattering is inversely proportional to the 4th power of wavelength? That way, when you look more directly towards the sun, through a longer path- length of air molecules, you get more scattering of blue & more leftover red?