Mōrena May #waipara

The episodic reassuring 'clock' 'clack' of jar lids inverting as the marmalade cools

Time for my yearly update on how we're doing in AoNZ vis-a-vis PhD stipends (poorly). I use the Marsden Fund PhD and Masters stipends as the benchmark because they are at the *top* end of what is offered, btw. 🧪

As the Artemis II crew was rounding the Moon—the first crewed lunar mission in 54 years—the White House was proposing to cut NASA's budget and terminate FIFTY science missions. Here's a timely rundown of just *some* of what we'd lose if those cuts came to pass. www.planetary.org/articles/mee...

Today on the #arXiv : @elizabethtasker.bsky.social et al. 2026, "The science from asteroid sample return missions" - arxiv.org/abs/2604.22182 Reviewing what has been learned from bringing samples from Itokawa, Ryugu, and Bennu back to Earth.

Pretty sure the last eight weeks has been about ten million elapsed years

"the sky will be a moving net of light" -me, 2019

i feel like society moved on from these too quickly

Wilson et al. have found a system of four #exoplanets orbiting a red dwarf star, in the sequence: rocky - gaseous - gaseous - rocky again. This spans the radius valley within a single system, and distinguishes between two different planet formation theories. ☄️🔭🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Saved by the clip

This year, for Hubble's 36th anniversary, NASA released a gorgeous close-up of a region of active star formation in the Trifid Nebula. 🧪 🔭 Image: NASA, ESA, STScI Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI, @stsci.edu)

00:13 on Wednesday April 22nd, over the North Pacific Ocean

When Einstein developed general relativity the closest thing to a practical application that could even be imagined at the time was a slightly more precise description of where to look for the planet Mercury in the sky, and yet now we’d all be literally lost without it. Anyway: fund basic research.

You don't speak of dreams as unreal. They exist. They leave a mark behind them.

In honor of #EarthDay, here is a reminder that there is a bot account that posts a photo of the whole Earth from a million miles away, taken by the Deep Space Climate Observatory, several times daily. You can view all the images (and zoom in) here: epic.gsfc.nasa.gov

"These findings are highly concerning. The accepted definition of a rare disease is one case in 2000 people. The NZHS Long Covid prevalence is more than a hundred times greater than this. Hence, Long Covid is a burden that needs its own health-service resources." 🇳🇿

In honor of Earth Day: a thread of environmental wins

Science-folks: If we run 100 experiments, we might find 1 or 2 of them may have results that can make many dollars. NZ Govt: Excellent. We will fund those 1 or 2 experiments.

Swedish researchers are desperately looking for Johnson's Baby Oil Gel with Chamomile in order to continue their research into biting midges - the product has been discontinued and so will the research unless fresh bottles (new and opened!) are found. I can't help them - can you?

Don't be shy to take on a little two-week side project. These five months will be the most precious three years of your academic journey.

Just as the impacts of climate change are really starting to bite, AoNZ as a nation is busy 'deprioritising' research funding into it. You can probably tell from some of the quotes how chill I'm feeling about this.

Sending peace.

Therapeutic planting of a cool new-to-me species: soft speargrass (Aciphylla dieffenbachii). Needs a cool root run, hoping the spot is full sun+damp enough

Solo Sunday morning bagels just isn't the same (No, NZ doesn't have decent bagels. Yes, muttering about the bagels was part of the enjoyment)

Seven years.

Oh, they used to put poems at the beginning of science papers, and this was allowed and published?! I like it! Rankin, J. M., 1983, ApJ, 274, 333 'Toward an empirical theory of pulsar emission. I. Morphological taxonomy'

The human face of science funding cuts – Expert Reaction

Oh to be a 17 day old Kakapo snoring face down in the dirt.

Friday the 17th at 9:45AM is this webinar about the 'reforms' of the research sector and the recently released report. 👇 I encourage anyone with interest to attend, particularly if you are or have been involved with the public research system in any capacity. #NZPOL

We uploaded our co-authored paper to arXiv. Using a total solar eclipse image from the Artemis II lunar flyby, we studied the optical F-corona over a wide field. Our result hints that dust near the Sun may be more extended than standard models predict.🔭 arxiv.org/abs/2604.13908 image credit: NASA

💔🥹

DESI finished its originally planned survey last night!! ..and will keep going :) I made a cake to celebrate. 🌌🔭 @desisurvey.bsky.social

For those interested in learning more about the surface of the Moon, I recommend Moon Trek. Start with the tutorial. 🧪🔭🚀🌔 trek.nasa.gov/moon/index.h...

They also model Reflect Orbital's stupid idea, showing that with giant mirrors in orbit, the entire night sky worldwide would become as bright as in a typical suburb, even if you're outside their beams.

That hauntingly beautiful song towards the end of Project Hail Mary? Erima Maewa Kaihau is who you have to thank.

Fun fact: many of the prettiest photos taken by robotic spacecraft were similarly framed ahead of time by humans using simulators of view geometry to pick when the spacecraft should shoot the photo. Case in point: this photo of Europa over Jupiter from New Horizons science.nasa.gov/image-detail...

A great read on NZ’s current science strategy.

“When the river bursts its banks, or drains are popping manhole covers, that’s the river talking to us. It’s telling us: Hey, you’ve constrained me, you’ve constricted me, and I’m screaming and shouting about that.” — Dan Hikuroa.

It's The Great Trampoline Migration Charlie Brown #kikorangi

A good friend of mine works at NASA, and has spent the last TEN years of his life working on the Orion CPAS (Capsule Parachute Assembly System), testing it in the deserts of Arizona. Ten years of design & testing. For this moment. Science is so good, y'all.

Senior space nerd: with Apollo, all we saw live was none-too-great live TV from helicopters or shipboard relayed through 1970-era satellites. The best-quality images were on film, had to await developing and distribution (and with news cycles, some wasn't publically seen for decades). Yay digital!

Science is good. We should fund it.

Humanity did that. Science did that. Publicly-funded research did that. Excellent universities did that. Diversity did that. International cooperation did that. Artemis II is a perfect example of what we can do at our best. Welcome home, Integrity crew!

Feels relevant #Artemis

here's an image of Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa from the last 20 minutes. Aotearoa is in the lower left of Earth’s disc in this image (under cloud : ) Cyclone Vaianu is clearly visible to the north…

Splashdown! Vehicle is stable and upright. “A perfect bulls-eye splash for Integrity and its four astronauts!” #Artemis

My mind is playing the From the Earth to the Moon theme tune very loudly rn

Really need to share this again right now. Still my fav pic. See reasons below.

Three good main parachutes. That is a beautiful sight