I feel like I couldn't really miss this beer #cambridgebeerfestival

56 of our wonderful colleagues at in the #Physics & #Astronomy department in Nottingham (UK) received “at risk of redundancy” letters. Their University is planning to reduce the size of the Physics department by a third. Consider sign the open letter: 🔭 nottinghamphysics.github.io/Open_Letter/

The beans have been spilled 🫘Gaia DR4 date is released! 2 December 2026, mark the date for another overwhelmingly huge release www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dat...

🍎 To all macOS users: Gaia Sky can now be installed via brew! Learn more here: gaia.ari.uni-heidelberg.de/gaiasky/docs...

Hooray for Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin who now has her own blue plaque in London. 🔭 www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-p... (Thanks to @helenarney.bsky.social for reminding me)

I liked this #ArtemisII picture of the Moon so much, that I tried to recreate it in #GaiaSky. Left is the real picture, right is Gaia Sky.

This magnolia tree is a gift and it almost died. It's the first flower that has blossomed since I have it. This gives me some hope for the world. #firstflower #peace

A new Gaia Sky release is in the horizon. What are the new featrues? Here is a writeup detailing them. 👇 gaiasky.space/news/2026/3....

This is an excellent analogy, because my recollection from grade school is that the pen on the right looks fun and exciting, and then you play with it for a few minutes and realize it's not actually useful for anything and in fact makes some tasks more cumbersome, and never think about it again.

The Eddington Medal has been won by Prof Debora Šijački, of @cambridgeastro.bsky.social, who said she was "profoundly honoured". She's made outstanding contributions to our understanding of the role Active Galactic Nuclei play in the evolution of galaxies, clusters of galaxies and the universe. ⤵️

Lammers and Winn “On the Exoplanet Yield of Gaia Astrometry” makes breathtaking predictions for the Gaia DR4 data release in December 2026 - around 7500 new exoplanets around nearby stars! It will be revolutionary… and indicate new nearby systems to be imaged… #astrodon #exoplanets ☄️

I miss the time when this was a serious problem.

I am furiously, flamingly, incandescently, *supernova-levels* of angry right now. Trump is trying to kill NASA science. And hoo boy, do I have something to say about it. badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/trump-thre... 🔭 🧪

June is LGBT Pride Month. Love is love. Be your fabulous selves. A good piece here for any of my friends that want to learn about its history: lordslibrary.parliament.uk/pride-in-the-u…

Oh yeah nice one kid hook that hope for humanity right into my veins

These are the longest wisteria flowers that I have ever seen.

PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081

If you know, you know

Black Cross, New Mexico (1929) by Georgia O'Keeffe #womensart

Apologies if paywalled for you, but this news piece by Tollefson is partly about my brave and remarkable student Valentina Tardugno Poleo www.nature.com/articles/d41... (If you have an edu account you can probably get access just by authenticating?) What is wrong with this country??

The disappearance of Gaia

📣 Euclid releases first batch of survey data, including a preview of its very own deep fields! With just one scan, #ESAEuclid has already spotted 26 million galaxies 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl... Let's explore the treasure trove that our #DarkUniverse detective has uncovered 🧵 1/ 🔭🧪 #astrosci

🔭 Auroral Hummingbird over Norway Image Credit & Copyright: Mickael Coulon apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap25021...

Great thread! There’s a small (but not zero) chance that 2024 YR4 becomes a menace. The bad news is that we might not know for sure until 2028. The good news is that we should be able to do something about it 😀🔭

We're now into February 2025, and still no outcomes from the 2024 grants rounds. STFC sent an email update to all PIs this morning which basically says no news is still no news, and that they aim to send out the results as soon as they can. 🔭

As one of the many international researchers personally invested & ultra proud of what the US Vera Rubin Observatory has and will achieve this👇 is not OK. My heart is sinking for my amazing 🇺🇸-based colleagues. For decades you've led the way for STEM DEI initiatives - time for Europe to step up. 🧪🔭👩‍🔬

If you see this post, quote with a bridge from your gallery.

It was a pleasure to give the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge’s outreach talk last week on black holes. You can find clips of the video on my social accounts (richardvnd - e.g. www.linkedin.com/posts/richar...) or the full talk on the IoA YouTube channel!

What a perfect face-on spiral that is!

#Gaia has been the most important mission and community for my career! I have immense respect and gratitude for everyone in DPAC and look forward to the meetings, discoveries, and data ahead. Get some rest, #Gaia! 🔭

Gaia has been with us at the Institute of Astronomy for as long as some of us can remember, so its rather sad to see it being retired. But it has been amazingly successful, observing well over a billion stars! www.cam.ac.uk/research/new...

May you live in interesting times, they say. Well, this has certainly been interesting, exciting and long. I am going to miss you girl 💙 #GaiaMission #GaiaDPAC But there is still so much work to do to prepare for next releases! 💪

A revolution in astrometry - Europe's gift to the world. Steep Progress! @esa.int #ESA_Gaia

The end of Gaia observations will be a sad day, but I think it's also something worth celebrating, as Gaia has been an incredibly successful mission. And best of all, the data is completely open and free for anyone to access - it's a monumental triumph of open science. 🔭

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It's the first Wednesday public open evening of 2025 tonight! Dr James Rogers will take us on a "Journey to the centre of an exoplanet". Doors @ 6:30pm, talk starts at 7:15. Stargazing will follow (if the clouds allow). You can also watch on YouTube: www.youtube.com/live/nPksLP7...

🎉🎉🎉

Wandering through Venice and found this!

Happy New Year!!

Happy I managed to get Orion on the Canal Grande even with my stupid phone

Happy solstice everyone! A great opportunity to get back to this image series, the 3rd place in our astrophotography contest last year in the category "Still images of sunrise and sunset location over the year" 🔭 More info in the 🧵 📷 John Paul Pile/IAU OAE (CC BY 4.0) astro4edu.org/resources/me...

Space is gorgeous #savechandra

Aurora borealis in #GaiaSky. Still WIP.

We @flatironinstitute.org are hiring a research scientist (open rank) at the CCA! Our priority areas are (1) plasma, (2) cosmological surveys, (3) stellar theory, (4) machine learning in astro, and (5) software & statistical techniques for astro. Reach out if yr interested! 🔭 aas.org/jobregister/...

@simonspaceman.bsky.social some thoughts you might find interesting

The Solar spectrum, imaged with our homemade Heliostat in Cambridge, UK ☀️🔭🧪 It’s such an amazing teaching tool to bring a shaft of sunlight into a room and turn it into a spectrum, complete with a whole forest of absorption lines, using just a couple of lenses and a diffraction grating.

When you think it can't happen again, and you realise it might be happening already right now. 🧵⬇️