I knew the images would be good, but nothing prepared me for the end result. Just... wow. I think we can say that the Psyche-Mars flyby was a huge success 😍 www.nasa.gov/missions/psy... #MissionToPsyche

From NASA The initial reports are in: #MissionToPsyche aced its Mars flyby. ☑️ With the Red Planet in the rearview mirror, the spacecraft will resume using its solar-electric propulsion system to make a beeline to the main asteroid belt and rendezvous with the asteroid Psyche go.nasa.gov/4dn30CI

Psyche captured this sequence a few hours later during closest approach when Psyche was about 5000 km above Mars. The sequence starts over Isisdis Planitia, moves across Syrtis Major (a bit south of where Perseverance is) and ends over Huygens crater.

Two worlds: Earth, taken by the Artemis II crew and Mars, taken by the Psyche probe... I wonder when human eyes will see Mars as a crescent like this... Earth image: NASA Mars image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU Additional processing: S Atkinson

De nouvelles images acquises par la sonde #Psyche continuent d'arriver sur Terre via le Deep Space Network ! J'en ai ajouté 5 à ma mosaïque précédente, maintenant on distingue bien Syrtis Major Planum (plaines sombres cratérisées en bas de l'image) de Isidis Planitia (plus claire en haut). 1/3

Looks like some of the first images of Mars' surface are down from the Psyche encounter. Images from camera A so far, and no color yet. flic.kr/p/2sdxp6e flic.kr/p/2sdsK58 flic.kr/p/2sdyE2N flic.kr/p/2sdyFQs

Beautiful crescent view of Mars as Psyche continues it's approach for tomorrow's flyby. flic.kr/p/2sd9f6a

Stunning coffee-stain views of Mars seen by the approaching Psyche spacecraft on May 9th and 10th. Colorized using Infrared, Green, and Blue filtered images. flic.kr/p/2scmp1J flic.kr/p/2scr2xn Psyche raw images: solarsystem.nasa.gov/psyche-raw-i...

More about the "high phase" approach of NASA's Psyche mission with Mars: Why is Mars' crescent so extended? And what's that gap over the planet's north pole? Find out some early science here: science.nasa.gov/photojournal... #MissionToPsyche

NASA's Psyche mission has Mars in its sights. Find out more about the spacecraft's gravity assist:

NASA's Psyche spacecraft has Mars in its sights for a gravity assist on Friday, May 15. This is Mars' crescent as Psyche approaches from a high phase angle to the planet. The crescent extends around the planet as sunlight scatters through the atmosphere. Read: science.nasa.gov/blogs/psyche...

For @msnownews.bsky.social, I wrote an article about how ICE Watch is grounded in sociological theories of violence prevention. The reality is that most men will only commit public violence in extremely specific scenarios and ICE Watch disrupts the conditions necessary for escalation.

Just watched The Rip and my review is: Any movie under 2 hours is ok in my books. Also, seeing Ben and Matt on screen together is never a bad thing. 5 out of 10. Totally predictable, then it's not, and then... oh yeah, I knew he was the bad guy. Silly fun with a lot of shooting in the dark.

Just watched "Weapons" and it turns out that my review for the movie is exactly the same as my review for 2025: Gross, tragic, dumb, too long, and poorly executed.

Saturn's largest moon, Titan, has been a member of the deep-sea club for almost 2 decades. New research might revoke its water world card. 🪐 🌊 My 2nd #AGU2025 story of the week for @science.org : www.science.org/content/arti... #space #titan #nasa

I wanted to do a quick thread about this paper led by a great postdoc here at JPL, Flavio Petricca, which suggests that Titan may not have a global ocean after all. www.nasa.gov/solar-system...

Saturn's giant moon Titan may not have a vast underground ocean after all.

Cassini, Saturn, and Titan, what's not to love? 🛰🌕📡 A new Nature study, led by JPL scientists, has taken a new look at archived gravity data from NASA's Cassini mission to reveal that, perhaps, Saturn's largest moon Titan does not have a subsurface ocean: www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-st...

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Text: @astroengine.bsky.social DSOC successfully demonstrated that data encoded in laser photons could be reliably transmitted, received, and then decoded after traveling millions of miles from Earth out to Mars distances. Learn more: buff.ly/NkOiLkL

Interstellar object candidate #A11pl3Z from Deep Random Survey, Chile (obs code X09). No obvious tail, will have to do a stack to see if there's anything... Date is 2025 Jul 2 00:52:39 UTC.

Well, shit. "NASA's budget request is just a going-out-of-business mode" arstechnica.com/space/2025/0...

This budget request would cripple NASA's space science efforts. Active and planned science missions scrapped. $ billions of wasted taxpayer money. This is sick. www.science.org/content/arti...

Such an amazing view right now. www.youtube.com/live/BqmpkUd...

Which news outlet is actually informing its readers about what happened?

This movie shows the bubbling surface of a distant star, as captured with unprecedented clarity by the ALMA observatory. R Doradus is a huge star. Each of these bubbles is 50-75 times the diameter of our entire Sun! 🧪🔭 www.almaobservatory.org/en/press-rel...

National missile defense is the longest-running scam in the history of the Department of Defense. Musk didn’t invent it, but he’s about to get a whole lot richer by perpetuating it. https://trib.al/Qpb9WJE

The Coyotes of San Francisco www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/u...

Rob From the Poor, Give to the Rich, Steal Like Crazy newrepublic.com/post/195695/... via @newrepublic.com

Not entirely surprising, though sudden and... sad. Thinking, especially, about my remote telework colleagues today, who will need to make some very hard decisions 😔 www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/jpl-to-...

Not one but TWO science features today 🙌 In this one, NASA's Magellan is a mission that just keeps on giving. By combining topography and gravity data from the spacecraft, VERITAS scientists have detected tectonic processes shaping the planet's coronae. More: www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-m...

I got to work on a neat feature about the Moon. It posted today. The cover art was too good not to share. Basically, using high-resolution gravity data, scientists at JPL could measure the very tiny flexing of the Moon as it orbits Earth. More: www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-st...

NASA JPL's Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) tech demo flying with NASA's Psyche mission streamed the now famous (and historic) UHD video of Taters the cat over 19 million miles to Earth in late 2023. Today, the orange tabby up for a Webby. Vote! vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting...

This is a bigger issue than people realize. Not just jobs lost. But their families losing benefits. Landlords losing tenants. Cities and towns losing revenue. This is how recessions start Ready Fire Aim is no way to govern.

The latest on Lunar Trailblazer: The ops team at @caltechipac.bsky.social continue to work on reestablishing communications with the small satellite, with ongoing support from NASA's Deep Space Network and ground based observatories: blogs.nasa.gov/trailblazer/...

On March 1, the Europa Clipper spacecraft will soar past Mars, using that planet’s gravity to shape its trajectory, sending it first back by Earth, then on toward its 2030 rendezvous with Jupiter. Onward and upward! #Europa #EuropaClipper www.nasa.gov/missions/eur...

It has been quite the week. After the Intuitive Machines IM-2 launch on Wednesday, mission operators at @caltechipac.bsky.social received telemetry from NASA's Lunar Trailblazer that things weren't right with its power system. They then had communications issues with the spacecraft.

Led by Caltech and managed by JPL, NASA's Lunar Trailblazer is launching (no earlier than) Wed., Feb. 26, as a rideshare on the Intuitive Machines mission to the Moon, IM-2. Apart from the awesome science Trailblazer will do, its journey is quite interesting, too: www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/how-nas...

Pin this, save it, we’ll need it. “When a prison camp opens in your town…when a DREAMer is disappeared from your classroom…when the President destroys what’s left of the Constitution…They will all say they didn’t know this was coming. And I want the American people to know that they did.” AOC 🔥🎯

Super Bowl USAID Save Foreign Aid

Excellent by @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social "If you’re always consumed by the next outrage, you can’t look closely at the last one. The impression of Trump’s power remains; the fact that he keeps stepping on rakes is missed. The projection of strength obscures the reality of weakness. Don’t believe him."

More information about how CNEOS assesses the impact probability of newly discovered near-Earth objects and the development of the Sentry system: How we monitor impact hazards: www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-n...

NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at JPL has stood up an information page about asteroid 2024 YR4. The near-Earth object's probability of impacting our planet in 2032 has risen to more than 1% and is now a 3 on the Torino Scale. CNEOS is monitoring: cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news210...

Rain! 🥲

During the Sol 4432 drive this week, the Mars Curiosity Rover stopped to take updated images of the wheels. This is a MAHLI image of the largest break. flic.kr/p/2qH9LCv

Dumb ideas yield dumb (and predictable) results 😆

The folks obsessively posting about egg prices for the past few years have gone strangely quiet just as egg prices hit an all-time high.

The price of eggs in the US is spiking, mostly due to #H5N1 bird flu. Solving the problem requires urgent, important communications from the CDC & FDA* and rapid development of research by the NIH** * Currently paused by Executive Order ** Grant reviews now all canceled www.kcur.org/news/2025-01...

probably my favorite part of doing these pop-sci press pieces is seeing just how many strange things I say off hand make it into the paper without context