The SMILE mission’s boat journey has begun - www.esa.int/Science_Expl... (Interestingly, the boat ride distance ~7,500km is much further than the distance from Earth to low earth orbit ~400km) #heliophysics

Happy Periapsis Day to those that celebrate! Earth is at periapsis in its orbit around the sun. The closest point between Earth-sun in the year-long orbit.

Gorgeous first-light images from Carruthers Observatory - absolutely amazing #heliophysics science.nasa.gov/science-rese...

The top social media moment of 2025 was when BU's telescope, the Lunar Environment heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI), was about to land on the moon. It is part of NASA’s Blue Ghost Mission 1, which launched from Florida on January 15. This historic event tops our annual recap.

Dismantling NCAR would be devastating for the research community and the public. Join AGU to ask Congress to speak out and save NCAR: agu.quorum.us/campaign/151...

Good views west of Boston tonight

This looks like it could be a big one! Look to the skies this evening.... But now that I've said that, I've jinxed it.

Power on! That small step function is the first power on in space of the COSSMo instrument from yesterday. The BU student-developed payload is on the Carruthers Geocoronal Observatory and will monitor the sun in UV and soft X-ray. #heliophysics

A small experiment - over the past 2 months I saved all the junk mail I received, ~7.1 lbs. Projecting to the number of adults in the US, that’s 813 million pounds of unsolicited mail every month in the US

SMILE spacecraft passed through thermal testing. A nice video of the progress by the ESA team www.youtube.com/embed/8soC68...

'NASA is under attack.' Space agency employees and lawmakers protest mass layoffs, science cuts amid budget turmoil - They're telling everyone to 'jump ship.'" By Josh Dinner at Space.com Go to: www.space.com/space-explor... Image credit: Josh Dinner

This month marks 10 years teaching at @bostonu.bsky.social. It has been almost 1,000 energetic and curious Terrier students

Motivating to be part of 450 US space scientists in Des Moines this week. My favorite line of the workshop “whether they know it or not, everyone in this country is becoming a space worker” in reference to the growing reliance of daily life on the space environment

LEXI made it to lunar orbit. 2 weeks to landing and X-ray imaging

One of the most exciting step-functions in electrical current I’ve seen. Lexi powering up successfully shortly after reaching orbit. ☀️

And we’re up

T-8 hrs to launch. Weather in FL is looking good

T-less than a day to LEXI’s launch on the Blue Ghost. Weather in Florida is looking good

In 1651 if you wanted to bash someone’s idea you wrote a book with a gorgeous art critique. It looks like Riccioli didnt like geocentrism If there’s room you could also include one of the first maps of the moon defining many of the names we use today. Thanks to #bostonpubliclibrary for sharing

T-8 days to LEXI's launch blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/2025...

Quickly approaching launch. Excitement is growing to image Earth's magnetosphere from space science.nasa.gov/science-rese...

de Magnete (1600) by Gilbert started magnetospheric physics. Earth is a magnet! When this was written this also resolved a debate of why compasses pointed north. Thanks to BPL Special Collections for sharing an original copy. #heliophysics

SMILE is on the move! Always impressive the logistics that go into shipping spacecraft youtu.be/7aJTuJPGYy8?...

Two months out from launch! LEXI’s science mission ends when the sun and Earth are too close in the sky to image earths magnetic field without solar background. From LEXI and the moon, this is “new Earth.” From Earth’s perspective - a full moon. Graphic from @firefly-aerospace.bsky.social

SMILE mission is coming together www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed...

Back to Helsinki with the Vlasiator team for more sabbatical numerical simulations. I’ve been told February is still the “dark” part of the year here

Print(‘hello, world’)