@lickobservatory.bsky.social update: the dome is now sealed! Thanks to the summit staff, contractors, and main-campus staff for an amazing amount of work over the past four months. Now we can catch our breath and plan how to checkout/repair the telescope and the dome.

Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin’s autobiography is just amazing. Every astronomer should read it. Here she is talking about her memories of Annie Jump Cannon.

Are you looking for a postdoc position working on asteroids and comets? Would it help if it's in a beautiful place in southern France? If yes, then consider applying to the following position of my colleague Benoit Carry at the Observatory in Nice: euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/402212 #planetSci

Here's a short timelapse of last night's aurora from Ōtautahi-Christchurch, NZ, before my camera battery went flat. https://flic.kr/p/2rSMH8h #aurora #christchurch #nz #Ōtautahi #timelapse

This is fine and perfectly normal and not an indication of climate crisis effects becoming commonplace.

We're so excited to share the results of the ALMA large program ARKS that studied the distribution of dust and gas in a sample of 24 exoKuiper belts. With @lucaroundtheworld.bsky.social, Meredith Hughes and a large collaboration, we just published 10 papers presenting our first results arkslp.org

Should you have clear sky right now, it is worth a look

Holy aurora, Batman!! :O

My textbook on SETI is published! I hope you like it! Please see if your libraries offer a free download—mine does! iopscience.iop.org/book/mono/97... 🧪🔭

Tens of thousands of New Zealanders live with endometriosis and chronic pelvic pain. For the first time, and study reveals the cost of these conditions - NZ$22.6 billion per year - with the largest economic toll not for treatment but the inability to work theconversation.com/chronic-pelv...

MORE NEW HUBBLE IMAGES OF BABY STARS ✨

If you wanna watch a really big rocket roll very slowly out to the launch pad in Florida, live, go here now m.youtube.com/watch?v=nrVn... It’s the Artemis II mission, aiming to launch in the coming weeks to send humans to the Moon for the first time in over half a century 🧪

Looking forward to seeing what TESS measures of 3I/ATLAS through opposition. This is an interruption of TESS's regular survey cadence, for the remarkable event of an interstellar comet bright enough for TESS within the mission's lifetime

A small film of spring flowers from my garden because we recover from stress 60% more quickly when we look at plants & if we find them beautiful our brains release dopamine, lifting mood. Pause for a few moments to help your synaptic soup 🌿🧠:

Means increased delta-v 💪☄️

Sometimes in the hard places, it's worth the reminder just to be amazed by things as simple as the shapes of leaves against the sky

Almost a decade ago Emma Johnston, Tanya Monro and I appeared at The National Press Club of Australia to talk about our stories and our views of issues that impact on Women in Science. It was an amazing experience… I will miss you Emma. theconversation.com/if-we-really...

"I was completely overwhelmed by the beauty of it all, to the point of forgetting everything around me! A sky of absolute purity, free from artificial light.”   This is how astrophotographer Julien Looten remembers the night he captured this VLT view https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2602a/ 🔭 🧪

As parts of Aotearoa are due to cook under 38C today, a reminder about the humble 🌳 in keeping you cool and fresh Time for the 3-30-300 rule Able to see 3 trees 30% urban forest canopy 300m from the nearest park or green infrastructure

What’s that in the sky? Satellite light trails could corrupt images captured by space telescopes like Hubble and potentially make some data unusable. #physics #astronomy

When you look at that bright point of light this evening, think of the Jovian fleet. #Juno (2016) is there right now, peering beneath the cloudy veil. #EuropaClipper (2030) and #ESAJuice (2031) are sailing through interplanetary space with a mission to explore Jupiter's ocean moons. (Credit: ESA)

#LEAG - Lucy is on its way to the Trojan Asteroids, performed flyby of Donaldjohanson, a full dress rehearsal of the trojan flybys, very sucessful. OSIRIS-REX findings continue along with 3I/ATLAS Observations, which will continue through January.

Statistically most probable outcomes do not lead to creativity, flexibility, or well, getting the job done

We’re looking for a postdoc to join the Hendrickson lab! The project will involve dissecting the molecular mechanisms of a fascinating mobile element in our honeybee biocontrol phages. Sound like something you would be interested in? Get in touch! Details: jobs.canterbury.ac.nz/jobdetails/a...

The Ministry of Transport have released 2 new Easy Read about the review of Total Mobility. You can tell them what you think about the changes they are thinking of making until 22 March 2026. Find the Easy Read documents and more about how to have your say on their website at bit.ly/49vXzxX

The members of the Pluto system, to scale at 1 km per pixel in the original version, from New Horizons in 2015.

"We encourage our planetary science colleagues to consider alternative spring conferences that do not advertise censorship of abstracts"

Interested/involved in the #RAMSES planetary defence space mission towards asteroid Apophis? Wanna get info, news, tech details about its community? Then check 𝐰𝐰𝐰.𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧.𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞, under supervision by the mission team leaders Monica Lazzarin, Patrick Michel & Paolo Martino. 🦕🦖🌍☄️🛰️🌑 image: ESA

If you're in Christchurch, NZ, come to a (free) talk by me at Tūranga Wed 28th Jan 6pm christchurch.bibliocommons.com/v2/events/69...

🧪 New year, same 'ol me. Following last year's piece about early career scientists and their hopes and fears for the future, I cast an even wider net, inviting people in Australia, South Korea, Germany, South Africa and China to share their career journeys.

Happy new year! My all sky camera imaged the sky every 15 seconds and this picture shows what happened in the sky in 2025. It shows the length of the night and day with the hourglass shape, the monthly lunar cycle with the diagonal bands, the elevation of the Sun at local noon, and lots of clouds.

Today on the #arXiv : Qicheng Zhang ( @cometary.org ) et al. 2026, "Covertly Active Comet (139359) 2001 ME1" - arxiv.org/abs/2601.00060 Finding that the dust around the comet forward-scatters sunlight so much that it is 7 magnitudes brighter when observed from one direction than another. Woah.

If you'd like to follow along or catch up, more information about this week's workshop, including all the presenters' slides, is available online: indico.skatelescope.org/event/1307/ #DarkAndQuietSkies Here is possibly my favorite slide from the event so far (from Kristina Vukosavljević) 🔭

A little 3I/ATLAS update building on @marshall-eubanks.bsky.social's nice RNAAS from last week. Given its non-grav acceleration and the rate at which it's losing mass, you can work out its size. The answer: a diameter around 1 km, very typical for comets. arxiv.org/abs/2512.18341 🔭 🧪

2025 goes down as the ~3rd-warmest year on record (based on ERA5). Like in 2024, every single day this past year was warmer than the average of even the most recent reference period (1991-2020).

NZ's native flowers do come in colours beyond white! The Carmichaelia sp. gardening journey continues. 🌱🇳🇿 Excited to get a seedling today of C. glabrescens. Currently looks like a small green stick, so a while before it looks anything like this reference photo, but the dream is alive

When I explain to people what is involved with writing a successful grant, they simply don’t believe me. I explained it once to a famous person from Pixar, and he looked me square in the eye and said: You mean all the cancer and Alzheimer’s grants work that way? You’ve gotta be &$%#ing kidding me!

Happy arxiv:2601 to all who celebrate! 😉🎉🔬 We are so thankful for everyone who uses arXiv everyday to share and discover new research. Happy new year to all - here's hoping for a 2026 full of #openaccess science & lots of new discoveries.

2025 was for me simultaneously incredibly happy and utterly horrendous. Haven't gone into it here, but getting through 2026 will be a lot. At least the ocean is always here for us all

184. The Space Race wasn't all just white men - if you go looking, you will find the women. 🧪 🔭 #WomenInSTEM #TabClosed2026

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "On the statistical convergence of N-body simulations of the Solar System" by Hanno Rein, Garett Brown and Mei Kanda (U. Toronto, Canada) https://doi.org/10.33232/001c.154745

🔭 3I/ATLAS Flyby Image Credit & Copyright: Dan Bartlett apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap25122...

Good day for a moody concretion

The University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor, who has died aged 52, was driven by a deep love of science and a desire to safeguard the planet’s future. 👉 theconversation.com/emma-jo...

Vale Prof Emma Johnston AO FAA FTSE The Academy is deeply saddened to hear of the passing of one of our Fellows, Prof Emma Johnston AO FAA FTSE. She was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2022 recognising her leadership in the field of marine ecology, 🧵 vimeo.com/762105195

Bucket list item unlocked: I'm so proud to be included as a guest in this year's Royal Institution Christmas Lectures! I'm in Lecture 2 which (in the UK) is aired at 7pm on 29th Dec on BBC4, or on iPlayer now. Tune in to find out why moons might be the best places to find non-Earth life! EEEEEEEEP!

How beautiful. #Covid #FiberArts coloradosun.com/2025/11/13/s...

Holy moly. That is not where you want half of your dome shutter to be. Glad no one was hurt.

This year's gingerbread is the Vera Rubin Observatory! @vrubinobs.bsky.social

High viscosity time 🇳🇿