Its that time again: go check out my latest Astrobite 🤩

Low key love doing a little bit of work at the airport. I’m sure everyone else loves overseeing my coding escapades. ✈️ 🔭

Ever wondered what an Australian Masters of Research Programme is like? Well i finally wrote a blog post on my website about it! 🔭🌌 jaydewillingham.github.io/Rd2Dr_Pages/MRes_Thesis.html

Was so fun being among the first people to present in Swinburne’s Virtual Universe! I had the great opportunity last week to show a group of work experience students what amazing things they can see and learn in Astrophysics. 🔭🌌

One of the best parts of working in astro is that you never really have to say goodbye to friends. Yes, you may move for this that or the other but likely a conference will come up where you both get to meet again. 5 stars to see you later. 👋 🌌

In honour of my very first paper going live on the journal website, I have made annotated version of the paper! 🌌 🔭 Checkout the official version of the paper here: doi.org/10.1017/pasa... And the annotated version here: drive.google.com/file/d/18tCUE9Rrloppf7DJyV0QPKngZ1pnLvmt/view?usp=sharing

Day in the life of an astrophysicist: Sat down to finally catch up on papers and the literature… only to discover I’ve somehow accumulated twice as many new ones to read in the process. 🌌 😅 🔭

Masters Degree ✔ Last week I trekked back to Sydney to collect my Masters of Research Degree and officially graduate! I am continuously grateful for the time spent at Macquarie, exploring the universe from my computer.

From Ryan White @astroryan.bsky.social and Jayde Willingham @jaydewst.bsky.social : Literally and figuratively, Australia is closing its eyes to the future of astronomy. Where does that leave its next generation of students? ⚛️ 🔭 ☄️ 🧪 astrobites.org/2026/05/01/a...

Found out that the Euclid team needs help classifying some gravitational lensing through @mpe-garching.bsky.social. This was much better than looking at my emails while I had my coffee. (60 done today - i'll update my stats as I go on). 🔭 🌌

Every person ever when you first start reading papers says to just look at the plots... well what do you do when they need Fort Knox level knowledge to decipher? Read my newest astrobite, that's what!

This is doing something for the existential dread (good or bad I have yet to decide)

fun perk of working on simulations of the universe: increase in existential dread. 😅

This was certainly interesting to be involved with 😂

Are we totally wrong about how much dust there is at high redshifts? 🌌 🔭 ☄️ ...You'll have to read my very first paper to find out! It just became available on arxiv, but I'll be posting a simplified annotated version and a blog post in the coming weeks too. arxiv.org/abs/2603.17429

Growing up is realising that my 2016 galaxy leggings were in fact 2016 nebula leggings.

From @astroryan.bsky.social: There’s no sugar on this doughnut – might we need to ditch tori for large nuclear disks around active galactic nuclei? Today’s authors peer deep into NGC 4151 to find out! ⚛️ 🔭 ☄️ 🧪 astrobites.org/2026/03/17/ngc-4151-with-my-binocular-eyes/

I bought these freeze dried strawberries to try but good to know that the US government hasn’t cut funding to space food. 🛰️ 🔭 😂

Idk if these big guys are real but they are part of my research 🔥

Trying to explain my Monday work to my family: I’m running a simulation that is in a virtual box with side length approx 10000000000000000000000000 kilometres to see how many black holes I find. Surely that makes sense 😅

I've recently started making little astro images to procrastinate reading 70+ page review papers. If you want to see more, like this post 🔭🌌 ☄️

I think my biggest compliment while teaching came when I was running a physics unit for environmental science students. I showed one student some Excel hotkeys and they said: “Wow, you’re a weapon, miss!” 💪 When I'm struggling with some code I think: No, You're a weapon Jayde.

Okay now I can reveal the exciting news that this year i became a part of the @astrobites.bsky.social writing rotation, that means you can see writing from me on the internet every few weeks. And the first one has just come out!

I believe my complaints about the lack of rain has backfired because I saw no glimpses of a super epic blood red lunar eclipse last night. However, I will always have the The Twilight Saga: Eclipse 🐺🦇

The three books i'm begging my Sci-interested folk to read 🔭👽🚀

Everyone told me when I moved to Melbourne to get ready for the rain. Joke’s on them — I love the rain. Joke’s on me — the forecast keeps promising rain and then… no rain.

the world is making me sad again and i need some space from it all.

*chooses a PhD to challenge myself and learn a ton of new things 🙂* me this week: wait… I actually have to learn all these things 😳

Well actually my first week of PhD was two weeks ago but I spent it over in Perth at the Aus National Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics science workshop! 🤓 An insane first week but it was good to get to know the simulation tools I’ll be using over the next 3 years! UWA is beautiful btw 🌱

I’ve been totally MIA on socials because over the last few months I’ve been organising my move to th big city. 🏙️ Ya girl just started her PhD @ Swinburne Uni in Melbourne! Very excited for this new chapter and much news on the way 📚

Thread of things I’ve learnt at the Mount Stromlo Student Seminars over the last few days: 1. The pythagoreans were a cult of triangle loving, bean haters. #MSSS2025

ooo! Adding to the reading list!

What are some of the things you do between projects? Astro or unAstro related. #astro #research

Finally got around to writing a Blog Post about my experience at @eso.org as a Summer Research Student, so go check it out if you're curious! jaydewillingham.github.io/Rd2Dr_Pages/... #astro

I had the pleasure of being a part of Macquarie University's Astronomy Open Night talk line up a few weeks ago. It was such a cool night and I always love an opportunity to talk about our Universe's history!

Reading Piranesi by Susanna Clarke and tell me if this is a thesis worthy quote: “When she was a teenager D’Agostino told a friend that she wanted to go to university to study Death, Stars and Mathematics.” Either way that’s what I’m telling people I do from now on. 💀✨🧮

And just a few days after getting back to Australia, I was at Macquarie University’s Higher Degree Research poster session, showing off the work behind my Master’s thesis. 🎆🤓

Last week I finished my 6-week research programme at @eso.org with a presentation highlighting my work. It was such an amazing opportunity, I had the best time, met cool people, saw beautiful places and learnt so many things! Definitely would recommend the experience and the institution! 🌌🔭

Can we take a moment to appreciate how cool the names "Cosmic Dawn" and "Cosmic Noon" are? So dreamy 🤩🌌✨

Today I had the pleasure to present at the ESO journal club. It was very scary but I am so excited to develop my sci-comm skills! 🌌🎤

Biggest shock of 2025: I'm using viridis instead of plasma 💀

Only the coolest thing you will read all week 🌌🏃‍♀️

For the next three nights me and the other summer students get to play with ESO’s New Technology Telescope (NTT). Here’s a nice little pic of a YSO! ⭐️✨💫

Spent way too much time this morning looking through the ALMA archive, here are some pretty sources 🤩🔭🌌

Aus is being blessed with so many @astrokatie.com events right now and I’m devastated to be missing them 😭 But here’s my contribution to the Dr. Mack hype: Check out the 11 ep podcast she co-hosts with John Green. I found it last year and it's an absolute gem! open.spotify.com/show/5sdOcHY... 🌌🔭🎤🎧

Hey Siri, play “Supermassive Black Hole” by Muse

I made my first 4D plot today - dreams do come true kids.

Real sky or @eso.org Supernova Planetarium? 🌌

A Haiku Review for my first week ESO: Endless caffeine tide. Universe did not notice. Brain just exploded. 🚀🌌👽📡✨☄️

I am very excited to announce that over the next few weeks I’ll be a summer research student at @eso.org. Stay tuned for some cool science and beautiful pics! #ESOSummerResearch.