Teaching “The Solar System” to 216 students this quarter! Let’s goooooo! 🚀🪐 🔭🧪🎢

Here it is, your moment of zen

Came out to the coast for the weekend before classes start and this was soooo the right decision! 😍 Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge, Bandon OR

Quite a crowd gathered to listen to @sanjanacurtis.bsky.social talk about the origins of elements! (And the crowd is still growing.)

Brag moment- this round I actually had NASA contact my references, meaning I was in the top 0.5% of astronaut applicants and qualified as a “highly qualified candidate.” I feel that’s almost worth putting on my CV! 👩🏻‍🚀 🔭🧪🎢 www.nasa.gov/news-release...

I will be including this image in my slides, fwiw

Hello, Eugene Oregon! Wanna listen to some FREE space talks by astronomers tomorrow? Come to the relaunched Universe on Tap to hear Ben Farr discuss black holes and @sanjanacurtis.bsky.social talk about the origin of elements- no prior knowledge assumed! Claim 52 Brewing at 6pm, Sept 22 🔭🧪🎢

Went to the Oregon vs Oregon State football game today! Please enjoy this video of a duck riding a motorcycle 🦆🏍️🏈

The inaugural Oregon Astronomy Research Symposium is on Monday, and I paid a student into graphic design to make us a logo, and the UO print shop made us stickers for the participants. Turned out better than I expected! 🤩 🔭🧪 #sciart

Flew up to Seattle for 24 hours for a talk tonight at the Seattle Astronomical Society, and this has to be the most beautiful commuter flight in the country! Mt St Helens with Mt Rainier behind it

Nerd moment- my not yet two year old saw me making histograms today and said “mountain!” 😂

Okay, astro sky! 🔭 Has anyone successfully started a NSF AAPF application on grants.gov or research.gov? My advisee says it is grayed out/not available, but the program officer confirms that the AAPF should be open!

Just saying, I appreciate the journalists pushing back as much as they did in the NASA press conference today. Lots of hammering on the "but how are you going to do science if you're slashing the budget right and left?" in the questions. Well done ✊

It's official- I'm the first person EVER from the state of Oregon to get time on NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory!! 🤩 🥳 🎉 We're gonna look at a particularly weird black hole that shredded a star and is still rising in radio/ X-ray 10+ years later! More here: cxc.harvard.edu/target_lists... 🔭🧪🎢

Rewatching Parks and Recreation is really weird given the events of the last few months. Like Ron Swanson is not as good a character now that we actually have DOGE 🥺

Sunday afternoon mood

Hi, Oregon astronomy nerds! I’m giving a talk on black holes that shred stars THIS TUESDAY, September 9 at 7pm in Corvallis to the Heart of the Valley astronomers, at Scott Zimbrick fire station! See you there! 🔭🧪🎢

Update on my local temperature cross stitch project! Delighted to report we didn’t need the highest colors yet this year! #sciart 🪡🧶

Question for Chandra folks! I notice that my abstract from this Chandra cycle is on ADS already, but we obviously haven't heard the proposal results yet. Anyone know what gives? Do unsuccessful proposals still get on ADS? 👀 🔭🧪

Io and Phoebe are waiting for dinner with their own respective feelings of decorum on the matter

Can I just say- it is such a pleasure and honor to have a career where you can change the lives of others for the better. Being a professor is the best! 🥹

Behold: the Cendes lab! Now with 100% more couch space, and new desk space and a big table and glass boards for small meetings! 🤩 Only took us about a year to get the new furniture. Next step is getting our decorations back up! 🔭🧪🎢

Well this ain’t great- but I confess I don’t fully understand what the allegations against SKA are beyond “financial mismanagement.” Anyone have more intel? 🔭🧪 www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

So a red tailed hawk tried to hunt me this morning 🙀 🪶

Some iPhone astrophotography last night. It’s still amazing to me how good smartphones have become for photos! 🔭🧪

Because some days all you wanna do is disappear on a mountain in the Maine wilderness 🏔️🌲😍

This is the last week of two wonderful undergrad math majors working in my lab. They’re both going to be math teachers in high needs school districts, and the idea is a summer research experience will make them better teachers. They were NSF funded, and the program is now canceled 😠 🧪🎢

It’s pretty fun to visit your parents and show your kid your toys from childhood! Bonus if you remember this toy: this one says “made in Western Germany” on it

We were able to get the application portal closed for the astronomy graduate program at @michiganstateu.bsky.social for the upcoming cycle. Not an ideal circumstance, but we wanted to communicate this to the community as early as possible.

My toddler whenever she picks up one of my books

Let’s do this, 14 hour flight!

Well- haven’t seen one of these before!

Sign of the times- Michigan State, one of the biggest astronomy programs in the USA, is not accepting ANY applications for its graduate program this year 😖 🔭🧪🎢

Congratulations to Professor Michele Dougherty on her appointment as the UK's Astronomer Royal – the first woman to hold the position in its 350-year history! 🔭✨ 🔗 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... #Astronomy

Mine?! Mine?! Mine??

G’day from Sydney, Australia, where we are enjoying “The Dynamic Radio Sky” conference! 🇦🇺📡🤩 Jet lag advantage- getting out of bed early enough to sightsee before things get rolling and the weather turns bad. I was last here 20 years ago- it’s a wee bit bigger a city now!

Fantastic visit to Perth to visit one of the hubs of radio astronomy on the planet! In pic 2 I’m standing next to a Square Kilometer Array (SKA) antenna, currently under construction about 8 hours north of Perth. 🔭🧪

Ok not gonna lie, it’s pretty awesome that the scavenger birds at this cafe are these beautiful parrots! Sure beats sparrows or pigeons! 🦜🦜🦜 Yanchep NP, Western Australia 🇦🇺

Alt text: astronomer extraordinaire Yvette Cendes gesturing: “get a load of this kangaroo” at a kangaroo saying “get a load of this foliage” Yvette is wearing a cool green hat with a sunflower on it, and she’s smiling because it’s a kangaroo

G’day!!! 🇦🇺🦘

Ok Aussies, I did not appreciate how BIG a kookaburra is until now 🐦

Question 10 on the Australia customs form is impossible to say no to if you live in Oregon. Yep, in the past month we went to a blueberry farm, pet some goats, were in a cabin by the lake in the wilderness, thanks for asking! Anyway made it Down Under, waiting to connect to Perth 🥳🇦🇺🦘🐨

😬😬😬

When your 11:30pm flight to Australia is delayed 9 hours for mechanical troubles so they can find you a new plane 😩 Fingers crossed we make it out of SFO!

Leaving my toddler for a 12 day work trip 😭😭😭 I know it’ll be ok but trust me y’all I have the cutest kid ever

The weirdest thing about this astronomer thing is how the astronomical community keeps thinking “wait do we know him?”

Me: “oh cool, my flight next week San Francisco to Sydney has the original Star Wars trilogy! I could watch them to take up most of the flight!” Reality: “that’s actually only 40% of the flying time.” 😳 Wow the Pacific Ocean is HUGE 🌊

If you see this, post a video game that transports you to your childhood

Talk about The Wire, Sopranos, Game of Thrones all you want, but the greatest US television program ever made is Sesame Street. It's not even close. 50+ years of treating kids across class, ethnicity, religion not as mini-consumers...but as citizens with a stake in this world.

Hi folks! Going on a BIG adventure to Australia next week, to Perth and Sydney. Anyone read a good page turner lately? (Also, let me know if you wanna meet up! 🇦🇺🦘🐨)