Some stars don’t just shine, they steal. 🧛⭐️🧪 @erikahamden.bsky.social ‬dives into how, in close binary star systems, one star nearing the end of its life can expand so much that its outer layers are pulled in by the gravity of its companion.

You might’ve heard the news: SpaceX just passed 10,000 Starlink satellites launched. And that number is already old news, as there’s now a new Starlink batch launched every other day. Here’s what that looks like in a short animation of Comet A6 Lemmon courtesy of Michael Jaeger:

A part of you has existed since almost the moment of creation. 🌌💥🧪 Astrophysicist @erikahamden.bsky.social ‬breaks down how the hydrogen in your body was formed within the first 20 minutes after the Big Bang.

#NASAWebb provides high-resolution details of Herbig-Haro 49/50—an outflow from a nearby still-forming star and background galaxies. Webb reveals the fuzzy object at the tip of the outflow in the Spitzer image is actually a distant spiral galaxy: https://bit.ly/4mXuQHW 🔭 🧪

How did the Moon form? 🌕💥🧪 Astrophysicist @erikahamden.bsky.social breaks down the giant impact theory, which suggests an object the size of Mars collided with early Earth, liquefying the surface and launching debris that formed ... Watch the full interview here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2Zl...

Juno is an AMAZING mission. The camera onboard was never supposed to last this long (the radiation around Big J should've zapped it a while back) but it just keeps on ticking. Killing this mission while it's still working and producing great science is a crime.

Which would you choose: 5 pounds of diamonds or 5 pounds of gold? 💎🪙 Astrophysicist @erikahamden.bsky.social breaks it down: Diamonds are made of carbon, one of the most common elements in the universe. Gold is forged in incredibly rare events like neutron star collisions.

My latest paper on interstellar sulfur was highlighted recently in a NASA press release 🥳 science.nasa.gov/centers-and-...

Hubble observations of interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS show that it looks like a comet. It has a teardrop-shaped cocoon of dust coming off a solid icy nucleus. The nucleus is roughly no wider than 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers): go.nasa.gov/3UenJhD 🔭 🧪

Hey, wanna see a weird Mars rock? Here you go

A reminder that LPL, along with Steward Observatory, is a host for 51 Peg b Fellowships. Whether it's exoplanet or legacy planetary science you are interested in, be sure to contact me or our faculty!

‪On Venus, every day is your birthday, thanks to some wild planetary physics. 🪐🎉 As @erikahamden.bsky.social explains, the planet spins backward, and so slowly that one day lasts 243 Earth days. But a year on Venus? Just 225 Earth days. So its year finishes before a single day ends. 🧪

Okay I finished the @erikahamden.bsky.social book Weird Universe. I’m not sure I understood it all, especially the part about dark energy, but I definitely learned a ton. Get a copy. Read it. And then let’s go outside and stare at the wonder that is our universe.

Congratulations on the book! 🥳 This article was so fun to read. Time to pick up a copy of Weird Universe! And I might have to bring it to the next SPIE conference you attend so that you can sign it, of course! 🪐 -Emily

Chuan Luo, PhD candidate at the University of Arizona, has been awarded the 2025 Michael Kidger Memorial Scholarship in Optical Design. 🎊 The $7,500 award honors Kidger’s legacy + supports excellence in lens, illumination, and computational optical design. spie.org/membership/...

A recently discovered extraterrestrial "visitor" is hurtling toward the inner solar system at 130,000 miles per hour and has quickly captured the attention of astronomers and space enthusiasts around the world, including here at LPL. news.arizona.edu/news/emissar...

What’s really at stake if NASA’s science budget gets slashed and entire science missions are canceled? We asked the scientists leading those missions, and their stories reveal what we all stand to lose. Here’s what they told us: www.planetary.org/articles/sci...

LPL’s Dani DellaGiustina explains the impact of the proposed APEX cancellation.

A lovely article about "Weird Universe" on Tucson Daily Star!! tucson.com/news/local/e...

@spacelawshitpost.me taught me the basics of space law on the latest Pale Blue Pod! Listen to find out if a billionaire could buy the moon 🌙 art19.com/shows/pale-b...

Please join us in congratulating Samuel Myers, who today successfully defended his Ph.D. Dissertation, Understanding the Limits of Simple Thermal Models for Characterizing Near-Earth Asteroids. Congratulations, Sam! 📸: Sam is pictured with his Ph.D. advisor, Dr. Ellen Howell

I got to appear on the fabulous "Talk Nerdy" with Cara Santa Maria, talking about space and my new book, "Weird Universe"!- listen for a fun and wide ranging discussion! www.carasantamaria.com/podcast/erik...

Have you read @erikahamden.bsky.social’s new book Weird Universe? It’s so fun! Erika came on Pale Blue Pod to talk about it podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/p...

The Rubin asteroid discoveries are amazing, but note that very few are Near Earth Objects. The observing cadence isn't optimal for such objects so there is still a big niche for ground based dedicated discovery, like Catalina Sky Survey and Spacewatch.

Introducing...your sneak peek at the cosmos captured by NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory! Can you guess these regions of sky? This is just a small peek...join us at 11am US EDT for your full First Look at how Rubin will #CaptureTheCosmos! 🔭🧪 #RubinFirstLook ls.st/rubin-first-look-livestream

The summer solstice has passed, and now we enter into my favourite half of the year

U of A space sciences now ranked #4 in the world in US News ranking as we climb past Princeton and MIT since last time. I take rankings with a huge grain of salt but the US News subject ones are citation focused so not so bad. Harvard, 0.1 ahead, needs to look out. www.usnews.com/education/be...

An international team of astronomers including researchers from LPL has unveiled groundbreaking findings about the disks of gas and dust surrounding nearby young stars, using the powerful Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, or ALMA. news.arizona.edu/news/reveali...

This is the Sculptor Galaxy as you've never seen it before. Taken with the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, this false colour view shows the central part of the galaxy, aka NGC 253, which is 11 million lightyears away.

Two facts I recently learned that shook me: there are three rocket/satellite re-entries *per day* somewhere on Earth, and there are over *one hundred million* pieces of space debris in low-Earth orbit larger than 1 mm in size. Yeah. This is a problem badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/could-aste... 🔭 🧪

The 2025 #NASA astrophysics senior review report is public. "Every mission received the highest possible rating for... scientific return", & are "producing important, impactful science in a cost-effective manner". Some important screenshots: assets.science.nasa.gov/content/dam/...

Read more about Aspera, launching next year! I'm the Deputy PI!

Congratulations to Nikhil Garuda, recipient of the College of Science Outstanding Senior Award. “The astronomical community thrives when knowledge flows freely between generations of researchers,” he says. Read his reflections on his time at Steward: bit.ly/43ffdTm

We are so excited to welcome this meteorite to LPL! Thank you Arizona State Museum for your generosity!

It’s Mary Anning’s birthday, so time to share @katebeaton.bsky.social’s brilliant cartoon again.

Y'all might know that I've been leading a mission concept since 2022 to—one day—fly a balloon at Venus. It's not clear when we'll be able to propose, but the clever folks at JPL have continued to work on the concept in the background. And a few months ago, they built this new test balloon.

The comment period for this ends in 3 DAYS. Please leave a comment telling them EVERYONE should be able to get covid boosters. www.regulations.gov/commenton/FD...

This is a photo of a moonlit night. On Mars. With tiny Deimos shining in the Martian night sky. Photographed on 1 March 2025 at 4:27 am local time.

LAUNCH assigned for Aspera, the Pioneer's mission my group is building! New Zealand, 2026 here we come!!! @stewardobservatory.bsky.social @uarizona.bsky.social

I bought this on Saturday and will finish today! It's such an incredible discussion of strength, history, being in your body, rejecting what society tells you to be, and taking up space. I love it! Highly [email protected] - the next book should be longer so I have more to read!

Open this photo up and look for the small, white dot just left of centre. It looks like Venus, shining brightly in the twilight sky. But it's us. It's Earth. From Mars.

If you're interested in what's going into commercial laser-driven fusion beyond the lasers, this one's for you: www.laserfocusworld.com/optics/artic... #fusion #optics #mirrors #scisky

A thread about the value of the fine structure constant in Quantum Electrodynamics. (1/137)

These are real images of exoplanets. Four super-Jupiters, imaged 10 times over 12 years around a star 133 lightyears away. These are real, giant worlds, out there in the dark. And we can see them.

I'll be doing a talk about translating the Iliad in NYC on May 9th. I'll discuss gaps between ancient and modern ideas about violence, humanity and heroism. Free and open to all! hunter.cuny.edu/event/emily-...

I pre-ordered this MONTHS ago and I'm so excited to pick it up from my local bookstore!! @caseyjohnston.bsky.social is an inspiration, and we are so lucky she's out in the world, being swole and inspiring!!

WEIRD UNIVERSE: this month, Professor Erika Hamden's book comes out! Her expertise shines through as she leads readers on an exploration of the strangest and most awe-inspiring phenomena in space. Secure a copy for yourself: bit.ly/4lU1idY @erikahamden.bsky.social

WEIRD UNIVERSE strikes again!!

It’s funny because it’s true