I'm hiring 1-2 postdocs this year! If you're interested in: GW astrophysics (Binary) Stellar Evolution Stellar dynamics (esp. w/ massive BHs) Galactic dynamics (inc. stellar streams) plz consider applying! You don't need letters initially, just a list of references. 🔭🧪 aas.org/jobregister/...

My telescope dome controller project is coming along nicely! Ready to install at Stony Ridge Observatory. I plan to post a parts list, STLs, & code when it’s done. #Astronomy 🔭

#Asteroid 2024 YR4 has a ~4 % chance of hitting the Moon on Dec 22 2032. A strike could spike micrometeoroid flux in low Earth orbit ~1000×, endangering satellites—so researchers even study nuclear disruption. arxiv.org/pdf/2509.12351 My sim: 2000 clones; 72 hit.

Last night it fogged over but I left the camera running in case it cleared. Woke up to an hour of the Ring Nebula (M57). I'm showing it starless and in an uncropped version for a reason. All the stars have been removed. Every point of light you see is a galaxy. #astronomy #astrophotography

Yesterday Curiosity took pix of jagged peaks in the distance with its ChemCam. I stitched them together, did some work on them, and... just look at that view... I've been doing this since Sojourner landed & this is one of my fave images ever... Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/S Atkinson

The first natural solar eclipse ever observed by a space-based coronagraph(?). Watch the lights go out as🌕zig zags between🛰️ &☀️ This could be a first. On Sept. 21st, NOAA's CCOR-1 coronagraph onboard GOES-19 observed a solar eclipse from🌎orbit.

Includes the fact that because of "those amateur sleuths, who monitor flight traffic", we know that MQ-9s were over LA for a longer period than officially acknowledged. www.latimes.com/california/s...

Actuellement deux comètes présentes dans notre système solaire semblent se tirer la bourre. Leur nom de code : C/2025 K1 ATLAS (à gauche) et C/2025 R2 SWAN (à droite). En réalité leurs trajectoires respectives sont très différentes. Reunion Island - 20 septembre 2025.

What a shot by CCOR-1 showing a CME (non Earth-directed) leaving the Sun with the moon in the foreground. Super cool!

Perseverance Rover reached a location on Mars which rises rock weirdness to a new level! Pattern like roots or splattered liquid glass and patches imitating lichens. The red material didn't move during brush cleaning by the robot. More from the same day Sep 20, 2025 on areo.info/mars20/ecams...

👀 incoming Mastcam mosaic / Stereo3D view of this most peculiar rock. Stay tuned! rkinnett.github.io/roverpics/?m... @rkinnett.bsky.social #Mars 🧪 #PlanetSci

#CancelDisney ✅

NASA's confirmed exoplanet list has reached 6,000. As I wrote elsewhere, Think of the wonders of our own solar system: the glistening rings of Saturn, the fiery volcanoes of Io, the sapphire oceans of Earth. Now imagine what might exist on these 6,000 worlds. To celebrate, a fav video (sound on!)

From NASA: Check out the view from up here! As the Curiosity rover continues to climb the flanks of Mt. Sharp, it has captured an extraordinarily clear panorama of Gale Crater's rim...and even the lands beyond. Details: photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA2...

#NASA's #Mars rover #Curiosity Sol 4662 2025-09-17: Right Navigation Camera mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/1... Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/j. Roger

🐦 Fly through a 3D map of stellar nurseries ✨ Scientists have created the most accurate 3D map of star-formation regions in our Milky Way galaxy, based on data from #ESAGaia. The map extends to a distance of 4000 light-years from us, with the Sun at the centre 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl... 🔭 🧪

While at CDS, the Aladin project mainly deals with deep sky images, we also map planetary surfaces. We released the HiPS of China's Tianwen-1 MoRIC images, a true-color map of Mars at 76m resolution. Interact with this awesome dataset in Aladin Lite at alasky.cds.unistra.fr/Planets/CDS_...

Magnificent Saturn! 🪐 Atmospheric seeing was as good as I’ve ever seen from this suburb of Los Angeles. #Astrophotography 🔭 Meade LX200 14” @f/20 📸 ZWO asi585mc

Reps. Judy Chu (D-CA) and Don Bacon (R-NE) issued a press release today saying they and others had sent a letter to H App yesterday urging them to include language in the CR protecting NASA at its FY2025 level. chu.house.gov/media-center...

I've been asked a few times over the last few days what I think the chances are that the "leopard spots and poppy seeds" on Mars will turn out to be actual evidence of life. People are naturally skeptical given the history of possible signs of life on other planets. Strap in: long thread ahead...

Last weekend, I took my kids up to Stony Ridge Observatory to check out Saturn, but the atmosphere wasn’t steady, so instead we tried our hand at hunting near-Earth objects (NEOs) and managed to confirm one! The MPC credits my 3 & 7-year-olds with co-discovering this guy: #Astronomy 🔭🧪

NASA Mars Perseverance Rover at Jezero crater Sol 1622 (12-Sept, 2025) Nili Planum basks in the rising Martian sun beyond the receding long shadow of Jezero crater rim. NavCam (left) @ 05:55 lmst 📷 Credits: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS / Martian-Observer Full size > www.flickr.com/photos/13433...

The sun was just 10 degrees above the horizon when NASA's Perseverance rover captured this morning view of Nili Planum yesterday. The rim of Jezero crater is casting a long shadow over the rover and foreground landscape. 🔭 Full res: flic.kr/p/2rt54pJ Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Simeon Schmauß

In the past decades, Mars exploration has offered repeated evidence of Mars’ habitability, and tantalizing but inconclusive hints that the Red Planet may once have hosted life. None of these findings, however, could confirm that life was ever present on Mars. 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬

This will be the biggest news that barely makes headlines tomorrow. Tune in at 11am EST (8am PST, 1500 UTC) Weds Sept 10. www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-to...

Fun fact, the current coronal hole about to face Earth has been alive since FEBRUARY this year. This is a very long-lived coronal hole and a hallmark of a descending-phase solar cycle. Check out this movie of the Earth-facing disk via SDO/AIA (212 Å filter) over the past seven or so months.

Yesterday, I reposted this with a bit of sarcasm, but the gross ignorance of Duffy with regards to the very basics of how we do space exploration keeps gnawing at me. JFK in starting Apollo said, "...landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" in a single sentence. (continued)

A rather special RMI telephoto mosaic (10 images from Curiosity rover) looking towards the not so distant Yardang Unit. We've been driving towards that unit for many years, but this view is really nice. I'm assuming the lack of suspended dust in the atmosphere […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]

Let silence set the world in tune

Happy to see former colleagues at JPL working together toward a better future for the JPL workforce - the lifeblood of our planetary exploration programs (among other talents). 💪 jplworkersunited.org

The growing tail of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, captured by the Gemini South Telescope Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/Shadow the Scientist; Image Processing by J. Miller, M. Rodriguez, T.A. Rector, M. Zamani noirlab.edu/public/image... 🧪🔭 #3IATLAS

#NASA's #Mars #Perseverance rover Left Navigation Camera (Navcam) Sept. 3, 2025 (Sol 1614) mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mul... NASA/JPL-Caltech/j. Roger

Watch as the familiar pattern of the Scorpius constellation distorts into a whole new perspective. The opening of the sequence pans up to Scorpius in the night sky. The brightest star in the constellation, Antares, is a red supergiant known as the "heart of the Scorpion." 🔭 🧪

A teaser for the Pluto map I'm working on, originally scheduled to be released on the 10th anniversary of the New Horizons flyby of Pluto. These are minimaps which supplement the main map and contain less information - the main map is much larger and contains all the official and unofficial names.

Pick of the week is easy this time: the Starship IFT-10 launch this evening (7:30 pm ET), weather permitting. And SpaceX will have a Starship "technical update" in advance (6:00 pm ET). What’s Happening in Space Policy August 24-30, 2025 spacepolicyonline.com/news/whats-h...

Fifty years since the Viking 1 launch (20 August 1975). Images show (very) preliminary Viking landing sites (c. 1970). #Mars #Viking1 #maps #spaceflight

I photographed dwarf planet Pluto last night at a distance of 4.3 billion km from Stony Ridge Observatory. We just passed opposition, the closest we’ll get to Pluto all year. At apparent magnitude 14, Pluto should be detectable with modest backyard telescopes and #Astrophotography equipment.

New Study Narrows the Hunt for the Source of the Mysterious 1977 “Wow! Signal” phl.upr.edu/wow #AreciboWow #Astrophysics #SETI #WowSignal

The clouds cleared away for a portion of last night and the meteor cameras recorded more Perseid meteors. The first pair of images were acquired from within the city of Calgary. The second pair of images were recorded by a camera south of Calgary. Moonlight was still a factor last night.

This image from India's Chandrayaan-2 orbiter from 7 March 2025 shows Intuitive Machines' IM-2 lunar lander lying on its side in a crater. On the left rim is the shadow of one of the legs sticking up into space. Long gouges at right show how the lander dragged across the surface before tipping.

I see the first articles in the UK press giving space to the claim that 3I/ATLAS is an alien spacecraft. Briefly: It’s a comet that formed billions of years ago, passing through our Solar System. It’s behaving like a comet. There is no evidence it’s artificial.

Follow-up observations of interstellar comet C/2025-N1, a.k.a. 3I/ATLAS, made by Stony Ridge Observatory near Los Angeles on Aug 5, 2025, for the Minor Planet Center. 🔭 #Astronomy #Astrophotography #Comet3I

A little snapshot of Saturn I captured last night. 🔭

MISSING MOON RACE HISTORY: For the first time, the 1971 concept for the Soviet response to the Apollo Moon landing is described and illustrated! Please consider subscribing: www.russianspaceweb.com/insider-cont...

prepare to feel trolled. JWST over an ESO image (www.eso.org/public/image...)

3I/ATLAS measurement from HST is in: can see the coma but not the nucleus. Sets effective nuclear radius of r < 2.8 km (H>15.4), significantly smaller than earlier estimates (as anticipated). Jewitt et al, (submitted?) arxiv.org/abs/2508.02934 🔭☄️

Emission nebulae Sh2-115 and Sh2-116 (lower right), imaged on Saturday night from Frazier Park, CA. Integrated 2 hrs with Hydrogen-alpha filter (red tones) through smoke from the #GiffordFire, 100 miles away, then shot 4 hrs of Oxygen-III (cyan) after the smoke cleared. #Astrophotography 🔭

Teachers: This fall, bring your students to Mount Wilson Observatory for an unforgettable NGSS-aligned STEM field trip—where Einstein, Hawking & Sagan once stood. Science comes alive where history was made! Learn more: www.mtwilson.edu/stem

www.nasa.gov/missions/mar... Our JPL engineers continue to blow my mind with their talent. Squeezing every drop of science out of our wonderful rover that we can! (h/t to @dougellison.bsky.social for making my late night request to acquire this Navcam postcard a reality. The view was too good!)

Congratulations to Prof Michele Dougherty who became the first woman to be appointed the UK's Astronomer Royal in the post's 350-year history, during the week 🔭