Jenna Ahart
@jennaahart.bsky.social
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Physics and astronomy writer currently reporting for Nature jennaahart.com
reposted by
Jenna Ahart
NPR
6 days ago
Pythagorean Triple Square Day, as one man affectionately calls 9/16/25, is a day like no other this century.
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On 9/16/25, celebrate a date of mathematical beauty
Pythagorean Triple Square Day, as one man affectionately calls 9/16/25, is a day like no other this century.
https://n.pr/466IzGj
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reposted by
Jenna Ahart
Jonathan O'Callaghan
6 days ago
That's quite the headline
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Jenna Ahart
LIGO Scientific Collaboration
10 days ago
"This detection will quickly 'become one of my favourites', says David Reitze, executive director of the LIGO laboratory"
@jennaahart.bsky.social
reviews some of our greatest discoveries, including the new
#GW250114
in Nature News
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
#GW10Years
🧪⚛️🔭
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Jenna Ahart
LIGO Scientific Collaboration
8 days ago
Happy birthday to GW150914, our first (of many)
#GravitationalWave
discoveries, detected 10 years ago today!
#GW10Years
🧪⚛️🔭 🖼️:
@chirpmass.bsky.social
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reposted by
Jenna Ahart
Alexandra Witze
11 days ago
Ten years ago, the
#LIGO
gravitational-wave detectors in Louisiana and Washington first heard the ripples in spacetime created by some of the most violent cosmic collisions. For
@nature.com
,
@jennaahart.bsky.social
looks back at LIGO's greatest hits:
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
#physics
🧪
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Clearest gravitational-wave detection yet confirms Hawking’s black-hole theory
Discovery joins a list of the greatest hits of the LIGO detector, which ten years ago became the first to detect gravitational waves.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02872-5
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New from Nature: Latest LIGO results from GW250114 confirm Hawking’s black hole area theorem with 99.999% confidence!! “It was the perfect 10-year anniversary present.” More on this detection and LIGO’s other greatest hits from its first decade of discovery 🧪🔭
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
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Clearest gravitational wave detection yet confirms Hawking’s black hole theory
Discovery joins a list of the greatest hits of the LIGO detector, which ten years ago became the first to detect gravitational waves.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02872-5
12 days ago
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Amazing early birthday present for GW detections !!
add a skeleton here at some point
23 days ago
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reposted by
Jenna Ahart
Alexandra Witze
25 days ago
Do you drink Budweiser or Sam Adams? Here's
@jennaahart.bsky.social
with the latest science on what that says about the chemistry of your taste preferences 🍻🧪
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
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Beer lovers fall into two flavour camps — which one are you in?
Research shows that beer drinkers are split depending on which types of flavour chemicals they prefer.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02709-1
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New from Nature on last week’s ACS meeting: the science behind your favorite beer Can next year’s meeting explain the magic of pink whitney
@acs.org
?
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
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Beer lovers fall into two flavour camps — which one are you in?
Research shows that beer drinkers are split depending on which types of flavour chemicals they prefer.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02709-1
24 days ago
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reposted by
Jenna Ahart
Reuters
about 1 month ago
OBITUARY Jim Lovell, commander of NASA's Apollo 13 moon mission, dies at 97
reut.rs/3UPKubN
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OBITUARY Jim Lovell, commander of NASA's Apollo 13 moon mission, dies at 97
American astronaut Jim Lovell, commander of the failed 1970 mission to the moon that nearly ended in disaster but became an inspirational saga of survival and the basis for the hit movie "Apollo 13," has died at the age of 97, NASA said on Friday.
https://reut.rs/3UPKubN
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reposted by
Jenna Ahart
Alexandra Witze
about 1 month ago
Trump's new executive order "looks like an explicit attempt to destroy peer review for federal science grants,” a physicist in Texas tells
@dangaristo.bsky.social
. 🧪
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
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Trump order gives political appointees vast powers over research grants
Researchers are alarmed that the move might upend a long-standing tradition of peer-review for grants.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02557-z
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reposted by
Jenna Ahart
Paul Byrne
about 2 months ago
The marketing for Avatar 3 is getting a bit ridiculous
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Jenna Ahart
Dr. Jessie Christiansen
about 2 months ago
WELCOME TO THE FAMILY, ALPHA CEN A b!!! First hinted at in Wagner+21, now Chas Beichman, Aniket Sanghi and team have published new JWST images of alpha Cen A showing another hint of this Saturn-sized planet candidate!
exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/overview/alp...
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New from Nature: “I had to take a moment of silence to appreciate what I was seeing.” Astronomers reveal what could be the first ever image of a planet in its star’s habitable zone—and in the same star system as Avatar, no less
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
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Alien planet glimpsed in star's 'habitable zone'
A smudge of light spotted by the James Webb telescope near Alpha Centauri A could be the planet with the tightest orbit ever to be imaged directly.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02549-z
about 2 months ago
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“It’s a ransom to release funds.” During my conversations with Columbia scientists about the university’s new settlement, the word “foreboding” came up in just about every interview. Hear their thoughts in my
@nature.com
story with
@alexwitze.bsky.social
:
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
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Columbia researchers eager to restart science after university’s deal with Trump
The institution agreed to increased federal oversight in exchange for restored grants and an end to government investigations.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02403-2
about 2 months ago
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reposted by
Jenna Ahart
Nature
about 2 months ago
Columbia scientists say they are relieved, yet unsettled, after last week’s deal with the US government to restore university research funding — and they’re figuring out how to get back to work.
go.nature.com/3Ja40wY
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Columbia researchers eager to restart science after university’s deal with Trump
The institution agreed to increased federal oversight in exchange for restored grants and an end to government investigations.
https://go.nature.com/3Ja40wY
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reposted by
Jenna Ahart
Tazz
about 2 months ago
Yall don’t know how grateful I am have born in the age of iPhones, and not the age of useful maggot calories
add a skeleton here at some point
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reposted by
Jenna Ahart
Peter Aldhous
about 2 months ago
NEW from our
@ucscscicomm.bsky.social
classes for
@nature.com
:
@jennaahart.bsky.social
and Rita Aksenfeld on the early-career foreign scientists now planning to leave the US
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
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Meet the early career scientists planning to leave the United States
Decreased funding, reduced opportunities and growing uncertainty has made life tough for international postdocs living in the US.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01900-8
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reposted by
Jenna Ahart
Alexandra Witze
about 2 months ago
"I wanted to stay here." - an early-career stem-cell biologist who is now looking to leave the US for a career in Europe. Reporting by Rita Akensenfeld &
@jennaahart.bsky.social
, for
@nature.com
🧪
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
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Meet the early career scientists planning to leave the United States
Decreased funding, reduced opportunities and growing uncertainty has made life tough for international postdocs living in the US.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01900-8
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Looking for Columbia researchers to talk to for a Nature story on the university’s recent settlement! If you/anyone you know might want to share their experiences, please message me!
about 2 months ago
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reposted by
Jenna Ahart
Lee Billings
2 months ago
Now on
@sciam.bsky.social
, by
@nadiadrake.bsky.social
: The U.S. has axed CMB-S4, its boldest cosmology experiment in generations. Tight budgets and crumbling infrastructure helped doom the project, which was meant to test cosmic inflation. RIP.
www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-...
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U.S. Pulls Back from Quest to Confirm Cosmic Inflation
Researchers hoped CMB-S4, a $900-million cosmology experiment, would answer one of the greatest questions in physics. Instead it’s become another cautionary tale of pursuing big science amid shrinking...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-ends-support-for-cmb-s4-project-to-study-cosmic-inflation/
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How fittingly ironic it was to write this story on a Friday!
add a skeleton here at some point
2 months ago
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reposted by
Jenna Ahart
Thomas Fuchs
2 months ago
We should add a slop factor to the Drake equation, 9 out of 10 alien civilizations fail because they drown in self-made AI slop
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reposted by
Jenna Ahart
Dr. Lucky Tran
2 months ago
NEW: Hundreds of NASA employees have filed a letter of formal dissent. "We are compelled to speak up when our leadership prioritizes political momentum over human safety, scientific advancement, and efficient use of public resources. The consequences for the agency and the country alike are dire."
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Just found this relic from my first SciCom gig writing stellar nucleosynthesis puns for NASA. Happy to have graduated to a full-length feature for
@quantamagazine.bsky.social
! Star stuff, indeed:
www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-s...
2 months ago
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I think the only thing more breathtaking than Rubin’s first images was hearing their lengthy backstory from Tony Tyson. If you’re interested in how it took 30 years to create these snapshots, my story below:
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The Biggest-Ever Digital Camera Is This Cosmologist’s Magnum Opus | Quanta Magazine
Tony Tyson’s cameras revealed the universe’s dark contents. Now, with the Rubin Observatory’s 3.2-billion-pixel camera, he’s ready to study dark matter and dark energy in unprecedented detail.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-biggest-ever-digital-camera-is-this-cosmologists-magnum-opus-20250711/
2 months ago
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reposted by
Jenna Ahart
Quanta Magazine
2 months ago
Tony Tyson is one of the key figures behind an ultra-vivid new era of astronomy. In a conversation with @jennaahart.bsky.social, Tyson discusses dark matter, dark energy and the decades-long effort to build the Rubin Observatory (@vrubinobs.bsky.social):
www.quantamagazine.org/the-biggest-...
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The Biggest-Ever Digital Camera Is This Cosmologist’s Magnum Opus | Quanta Magazine
Tony Tyson’s cameras revealed the universe’s dark contents. Now, with the Rubin Observatory’s 3.2-billion-pixel camera, he’s ready to study dark matter and dark energy in unprecedented detail.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-biggest-ever-digital-camera-is-this-cosmologists-magnum-opus-20250711/
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NEW from Nature: Democrats hosted a protest event featuring ‘things we’ll never know’ because of the US government’s cuts to science.
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Symbolic ‘science fair’ showcases research cut by Trump team
Democrats hosted a protest event featuring ‘things we’ll never know’ because of the US government’s cuts to science.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02164-y
2 months ago
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I think of her often
3 months ago
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reposted by
Jenna Ahart
Quanta Magazine
3 months ago
Zinc, lead, barium, gold. Our world is full of heavy elements. At Michigan State University’s Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, physicists are reverse-engineering the stellar processes that forge these elements. @jennaahart.bsky.social reports:
www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-s...
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Physicists Start To Pin Down How Stars Forge Heavy Atoms | Quanta Magazine
The precursors of heavy elements might arise in the plasma underbellies of swollen stars or in smoldering stellar corpses. They definitely exist in East Lansing, Michigan.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-start-to-pin-down-how-stars-forge-heavy-atoms-20250702/?swcfpc=1
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Happy National Space Day! Here’s an article I wrote this week about how heavy elements like silver and gold seem to spawn in a surprising new cosmic site.
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Astronomers spot a gold mine in massive cosmic flares
Phenomenon behind heavy element creation has been a mystery for 2 decades
https://www.science.org/content/article/astronomers-spot-gold-mine-massive-cosmic-flares
5 months ago
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reposted by
Jenna Ahart
Peter Aldhous
7 months ago
NEW from our
@ucscscicomm.bsky.social
news features class in San Jose Mercury News:
@jennaahart.bsky.social
on an academic effort to make peace between artists and AI
www.mercurynews.com/2025/03/09/u...
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UC teams with Bay Area tech company for new lab that hopes to make AI work for artists
Can a new initiative make peace between human creatives and the technology threatening to displace them?
https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/03/09/uc-new-lab-ai-artists/
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“The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a rare "blue lurker" star that has been feeding on material from its two conjoined siblings. The fast-spinning star provides a detailed look at the complicated family dynamics of multiple-star systems.”
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Hubble telescope spots 'blue lurker' star feeding off of its conjoined siblings
A rare breed of star recently discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope spins faster by feeding on its stellar siblings.
https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/hubble-telescope-spots-blue-lurker-star-feeding-off-of-its-conjoined-siblings
8 months ago
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“If NASA establishes a permanent presence on the moon, its astronauts’ homes could be made of a new 3D-printable, waterless concrete. Someday, so might yours.”
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The moon is just the beginning for this waterless concrete
Made from faux Martian and lunar soil, a new sulfur-based compound could also lead to faster construction on Earth.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/11/29/1107536/moon-beginning-waterless-concrete/
9 months ago
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“The Sun’s magnetic field once helped clump cosmic gas and dust together to birth planets and asteroids in the outer solar system. Though astronomers have studied the field’s ability to coalesce matter close to the Sun, its strength becomes hazy somewhere between Jupiter and Saturn.”
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Magnetic Meteorites May Explain How the Solar System Assembled - Eos
Faint magnetic properties in primitive asteroid fragments suggest an early magnetic field strong enough to shepherd the growth of the outer planets.
https://eos.org/articles/magnetic-meteorites-may-explain-how-the-solar-system-assembled
9 months ago
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