Our Virtual Reality movie about the life of the Milky Way is now out on YouTube in a flatscreen version! We're really proud of this and can't wait to take it out to schools in the North East 🤩🔭✨🧪

Another proud supervisor moment today 🤩 Alex has their awesome paper out on the arXiv about what sets bar rotation in the cosmological context: arxiv.org/abs/2601.20941 Alex finds that galaxies with lower stellar mass and lower baryon-dominance have slower bars ✨ 🔭🧪 #astrosci #astro

Our @durhamphysics.bsky.social astronomers have helped create the highest resolution map of the dark matter that threads through our Universe - showing the mysterious substance’s influence on the formation of stars, galaxies and planets. Discover more 👉 www.durham.ac.uk/news-events/...

Very proud of PhD student Thomas Tomlinson, who's awesome paper is out on the arXiv today, on bar-induced substructures in stellar haloes 🤩🔭 #astrosci arxiv.org/abs/2601.14409

Cakes for Good: an initiative by Durham astronomy's wonderful PhD students reported on in Nature 🤩 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Astronomers have detected a dark blob of...something, billions of light years away. It's as massive as a million Suns & it emits no detectable radiation. It might be a clump of dark matter, revealing new details about the structure of the invisible universe. 🧪🔭 www.ucdavis.edu/news/astrono...

Paper day! My PhD student Mariana Júlio, with @readdark.bsky.social, @pengfeili.bsky.social and others, studies the internal dynamics of dwarf galaxies and finds they don't agree with the Radial Acceleration Relation, challenging the dark matter alternative MOND. arxiv.org/abs/2510.06905 🔭☄️🧪 1/7

🌌 Yesterday, the Durham Advanced School on Astrophysical Simulations kicked off at Durham University! PhD students and researchers are diving into both theoretical and practical aspects of astrophysical simulations. Big thanks to the Institute of Computational Simulations for organizing! 🙏

The wait is over! Next week the Durham Advanced School on Astrophysical Simulations kicks off at @durhamuniversity.bsky.social We’re finalizing preparations for this international event with 50 students and ~12 lecturers 👩‍💻👨‍🏫 Big thanks to the DU-ICC for hosting! 📸 More updates and photos coming soon!

As a member of the Netherlands Royal Academy of Arts & Sciences (KNAW) I support our statement on the war in Gaza. www.knaw.nl/en/news/stat...

From using Arduino to simulate exoplanet transits (perfect for older students fond of technology) to exploring lightning on other planets, and wrapping up with a tactile Jupiter experience designed for younger children: This is the astroEDU summer collection of activities 2025! 1/4 🔭 #astroedu

Great article about the importance of software engineering and open source code in astrophysics 🔭🧪 (and if anyone is keen to work with me on #BlackHoles lmk, I am planning to hire a software engineer soon!) 😊 www.simonsfoundation.org/2025/08/12/a...

Last month we had the privilege of having Durham U's Chancellor, Dr Fiona Hill, record the narration for a new VR movie we're developing about the life of our Milky Way, using the new Auriga Superstars simulations 🔭☄️✨ We're really excited to share this soon with you all 👀 #astronomy #astrosci

Astrophysicist Margaret Burbidge FRS was born #OnThisDay in 1919. During her long career she helped originate the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis, discovered the most distant astronomical object known at the time, and helped develop instruments for the Hubble Space Telescope. #WomenInSTEM #Space

oh dear, scary, but good to know since I often use google for quick calculations and unit conversions 😱

We’ve got a new zooniverse program called Dwarf Quest! Help us find members of our Milky Way’s galactic entourage in data from the Dark Energy Camera www.zooniverse.org/projects/ywy...

So something @stilgherrian.com shared earlier caught my eye and I did some reading. Apparently, SpaceX is lodged a complaint with the FCC that another company, AST, is putting to many satellites into orbit. First and foremost, let's get this out of the way ... fuckin lolz. They have no shame. 1/n

🧪Physicists disagree wildly on what quantum mechanics says about reality, Nature survey shows From nature.com www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Big day for the matriarchy! 🥳 Huge congrats to the awesome Prof. Doughtery, lead on the Jupiter-bound ESA JUICE mission & STFC Exec Chair. If anyone's confused on the astro royal hierarchy: Michele and I are the astro equivalents of 🇬🇧Westminster and 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Holyrood 🤗 ℹ️: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... 👩‍🔬🔭🧪

Our sister institute at Durham, the Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, are advertising for a five year lectureship position 🔭☄️ Advertisement is here, have a look and come join us in pretty Durham: durham.taleo.net/careersectio... #astrosci

🔭 Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, UK astronomy version. Inspired by a comment from LOC chair David Alexander at #NAM2025 🔭

I have a lot of thoughts here, but the most basic one is that it's insane that we've allowed people to get so rich that they can basically fund this with their own money while at the same time not providing any real mechanism for governmental oversight or regulation.

DAY 3 #NAM2025durham 🌟 Midweek at #NAM2025 brings one of our busiest days of sessions! Join us for these special events: 🎨 Artwork unveiling in OCW including dance and poetry performances 🎲 board games night in the TLC And reminder to vote for most engaging exhibitor by 5pm!

My awesome PhD student 🤩

We're excited to be hosting almost 1,000 leading space scientists at the @royalastrosoc.bsky.social ‪National Astronomy Meeting #NAM2025 next week, 7 to 11 July! Leading up to NAM, discover more about our amazing research into the mysteries of the Universe 👉 www.durham.ac.uk/news-events/...

Still confused by all the fuss about our new interstellar visitor? check out this new explainer by @astrokirsten.bsky.social ☄️🔭🧪 theconversation.com/astronomers-...

Finding out about Gaia at #EAS2025Cork! ☄️ Just announced: Gaia DR4 will be released in December 2026!

am I... the only person who likes the game of "submit to arXiv at exact time to be first"? 👀 I totally understanding those who don't want to play it and submit at any time. I always go through the whole list anyway, or lately tend to use something like benty-fields which sorts the papers for me

allowing myself a small moment of pride to say that I'm really happy to have been promoted to associate professor 😊

What's that you say? You don't have 400 HD TVs to see the #RubinFirstLook images at full resolution? Fear not, surf through Rubin's view of the cosmos with the @vrubinobs.bsky.social skyviewer app! Click the link to visit these little beauties 🥰 🧪🔭 🏄‍♀️: skyviewer.app

wow look at how deep the VRubin image is!

much stars, very beautiful 🤩

I don't post super often here, but I just came by to share this news article with you (published alongside the paper in Nature yesterday). www.nature.com/articles/d41... There are a couple of sentences in the news article that stuck with me more than anything: 1/x

Planning to attend #NAM2025 but don't have a ticket? Time to get your skates on because registration closes at the end of this week! 🛼🛼🛼 👉 🎟️ You can book your spot at: conference.astro.dur.ac.uk/event/7/over...

Cluster is down for maintenance

Final weekly problem set for our methods of computational astrophysics class in Vienna: self-gravitating Vlasov-Poisson dynamics with a symplectic PIC method and spectral Poisson solver. Dear students, we've come a long way!

Yes. Plot everything. (Do not put all of those plots in your paper/lab report!) A favourite exercise when I taught stats was to get students to calculate the mean and std deviation of one set each from the 'Datasaurus dozen', and then get them to plot their data! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datasau...

We're so excited to be welcoming NAM back to Durham! Here's a bit more about the history of NAM ✨️ #NAM2025Durham #community #sciencethroughconnection

The Moon is peering over the shoulder of one of the antennas of ALMA, spread out atop the Chajnantor Plateau in Chile 📡 🌕 ALMA's antennas observe the cool Universe using wavelengths between infrared radiation and radio waves. Read more: www.eso.org/public/image... 🔭 🧪 📷 Y. Villalon/ESO

NAM is the @royalastrosoc.bsky.social National Astronomy Meeting - 5 days bringing together the astronomy community from many different areas of the field to share their research and build connections! Remember to register to be part of NAM before the 20th June (6th June for presenters)!

🎉 #50YearsOfESA: today, 30 May, we’re celebrating 50 years since the signing of the Convention for the creation of a single European Space Agency in May 1975.

Next paper I want to highlight: the paper for STRAUSS by @trayford.bsky.social et al. came out! ☄️ #astrocode STRAUSS is a tool for sonifying scientific data, meaning you can enhance the presentation & accessibility of your data. Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2504.01660 Here's a great example:

correction: it's a bar within a star-forming oval overdensity INSIDE A WEAK BAR WITHIN A LARGER DISC. WHAT! A *chef's kiss* fractal galaxy. I think it's my new fave 🥰

my office mate today, seriously slacking off

very proud of Paula Lopez, PhD student in Argentina, on her paper out on arXiv today 🤩🥳 Paula explored the formation and evolution of boxy/peanut bulges (the vertically extended part of stellar bars) in the Auriga cosmological simulations ☄️🔭 #astronomy arxiv.org/abs/2505.13590

This galaxy is mad tings. It's a bar within a star-forming oval overdensity WHAT IS GOING ON

Hey I’m hiring a 4-year PhD student in #astronomy at UCC to work on studying massive black holes in cosmological simulations! Fast turn around on this bc it is so late (due 6 June) but please pass on to any interested and qualified students! Feel free to dm/email me! 🔭🧪 www.ucc.ie/en/astro/job...

Congratulations Prof Ryan Cooke from our Department of Physics - the joint recipient of the 2025 Gruber Foundation Cosmology Prize, for his work with Prof Max Pettini @cambridgeastro.bsky.social. measuring the composition of the Universe just after the Big Bang.👉 www.durham.ac.uk/news-events/...

2025 Gruber Cosmology Prize Ryan Cooke and Max Pettini awarded for bringing the light element abundances and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis into the realm of precision cosmology. gruber.yale.edu/press/2025-g... 🧪 #Cosmology

Bleak. nymag.com/intelligence...