Lucky to get some brief glimpses of Comet Lemmon (C/2025 A6) from Dartmoor this evening around the end of astronomical twilight. This is a single 13s shot taken with a tracking mount at 135mm focal length. Looked great in binoculars too with a grey-green coma and short section of the tail visible.

[BREAKING] The Planetary Society and 14 partner organizations released a joint letter calling for explicit NASA science protections in Congress's stopgap spending bill. Read it here: www.planetary.org/press-releas...

In parts of Michigan, you can pick up a fairly ordinary chunk of limestone & with some polishing, reveal a coral formation that was laid down when this area was a tropical sea in the Devonian, 350 MYA. These are Petoskey stones, the state stone of Michigan.

A tiny Jurassic pterosaur, Bellubrunnus, wingspan, less than a foot (its head is the size of my fingernail)

Jormungandr walhallaensis

Given recent interest in the ankylosaur, Spicomellus & its extreme armour, I thought l'd share this photo of an #aetosaur spike for this #FossilFriday. Highlights how wonderfully weird #Triassic reptiles pioneered many striking traits once thought limited to dinosaurs. #Paleontology #Science 🧵 1/

Having a MONSTROUS September! (And I’m leaving it at that 😜)

A photo I took a couple years ago of Jupiter. The little yellow spot next to it is its moon Io. #astrophotography #photography

Flyby success! ESA's Juice spacecraft passed Venus at 07:28 CEST on 31 August. This photo shows our deep-space antenna in Spain in communication with Juice during the flyby. Juice’s current location, Venus, and its destination, Jupiter, are both visible in the sky ❤️

This is likely the last blazing hot week at the northern edge of lizard-dom. The Mountain Short-horned Lizard will be soaking up the late summer sun before their long idle winter season. #herps

Clarification: when I say “X animal make terrible pets for most people”, what I really mean is that most people are terrible and wouldn’t be able to do right by that animal, not that the animal is terrible.

Habitat overview: Coastal tidal streams and brackish marshes. For a forthcoming book STREAMS: An Illustrated Guide, Yale University Press, later in 2026. 🧪🌿🌎🪶🐡 #wildlife #scicomm #sciviz #wildlifeart #illustration #scientificillustration #natureart #visualscicomm #sciviz #scicomm

I have a semi-leucistic Black-capped Chickadee that comes to my backyard fountain once or so a year, and I saw that one a few weeks ago, but this BCCH that appeared yesterday is the real deal for Leucism. #birding

Liftoff of Ariane 6 flight #VA264 launching Metop-SG-A1 and Copernicus Sentinel-5A to orbit!

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 🔭 🧪

I had an awesome time talking about the Cincinnatian Series and my attendance to the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology conference. There was a big turn out!

Day 2 - (parent) Opabinia #AugArthroAwe My first try at arthropod #paleoart #kleinekunstklasse 🐡

Saguaro’s last stand 🌵⛅️

Really enjoying working on this Jupiter! Unfortunately it’s hot as balls in my living room though, even with AC & fans 🥵. Might need to invest in a portable unit before the temps hit 110 F (43 C) next week lol. Not as hot in my art room, but I didn’t want fabric pieces to land in my wet paint!

This was the Tsunami update I needed.

Science is the most international endeavor in human history. This flagrantly racist administration is destroying the U.S.'s lucrative and life-saving leadership. www.thetransmitter.org/policy/what-... on @thetransmitter.bsky.social

my grains......

A rare job opportunity for Invertebrate Zoology: fieldmuseum.hrmdirect.com/employment/j...

Muppet

The HARPS3 science-grade CCD is installed in the detector head - hooray! Images below show the CCD after installation into the chip carrier and then afterwards when it is sealed behind the last lens/cryostat window ready for vacuum pumping (and then cooling) ...

Here's an Oak Titmouse I saw on a walk a while back in the Angeles National Forest. #wildlife #photography 🪶

Moody Ordovician brachs for this most holy of #FossilFriday

AC is SO MUCH EASIER to decarbonize than heating...we're already like halfway to carbon free AC in the US, while heat is like 10% of the way there.

Hey so uhhh Mantidflies? Yeah they’re metal as hell.

Found my first ant-mimicking jumping spider of the year today. So, so, tiny, this one has some growing to do. Slender Ant-mimic Jumping Spider (Synemosyna formica)

BEHOLD! One of Earth's greatest lineages of life: the lil wiggle arm guys, Meteora. These single-celled critters, originally found in deep-sea sediments, are SO DIFFERENT from other lifeforms on Earth that they're likely in their own kingdom (as in, the Animal Kingdom, the Plant Kingdom etc). 🧪🌿

Whew, ok, with a few hours to spare, the 2025 classroom map is ready! The 7th annual United States of Science competition starts tomorrow. If you wanna get your region off to a head start, just between us night owls, here's that link 😘 givebutter.com/USS2025

Here's a fossilized crab (Pinnixa galliheri) that I found in Central California for #fossilfriday!

Like all arthropods, springtails need to shed their exoskeletons to grow - a process called 'ecdysis'. I recently got very lucky to find a giant springtail that had just moulted! I don't know if anyone's ever photographed this before! #SoilBiodiversity #Macrophotography #Invertebrate 🧪📸

Ahahaha I thought I had a video of Trilo-Bot (my currently beleaguered robot vacuum) a while after I got him when I decided to give him a trilobite and some googly eyes From 2018 in my old place!

Hey I've been working on a thing! www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSrO...

Why is germ theory in the same air quotes as "miasma theory," I ask as a historian of medicine who is very very tired

✨ The opalescent nudibranch is ready for its closeup!

UPDATE: David Huerta was just released from custody!

Lydd on Sea VC15, a rainy mild night by the sea, 90 of 24, again not really many surprises, the only NFY was this Buff Ermine. The walls & fences in the garden remain bare of moths I think the House Sparrows are removing them before i get out of bed. #Teammoth #Mothsmatter

How do fish swim together in a school? Why do orcas wear fish hats? What is the smartest animal in the ocean? Check out Marine Biologist Support with @sternarchella.bsky.social ! youtu.be/2YquYkNcF7I?...

You've heard about the catastrophic cuts to U.S. scientific leadership the Trump Administration has proposed. This chart from Joshua Weitz (joshuasweitz.bsky.social‬) shows just how bad it is—funding levels for NASA, NSF, and NIH so low as to destroy science in America. CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES!

SNOOOOOOOT! The Pitch-eating #Weevil, #Pachylobius picivorus. #fujifilm X-S10, #Laowa 65mm #Macro #MacroPhotography #photography #Invertebrates #insects #Beetles #Coleoptera

Gold standard science

Happy World Otter Day! Today is all about raising awareness and supporting the conservation of the 13 different species of otters around the world. We’re sea-lebrating by sharing some of our favorite things about our iconic southern sea otters!

Ottoia prolifica: a stem-group #priapulid #worm, ~7 cm in length, from the world famous #BurgessShale in #BritishColumbia 🇨🇦. Strongly annulate trunk, anterior to right w retracted proboscis & introvert hooks; pale linear trace along inner curve = gut #Cambrian (~508 MYA) #WormWednesday #fossil

Four more colliding wind nebulae have been observed with JWST, and just yesterday put on the arxiv! arxiv.org/abs/2505.11616 Yes, those rungs of dust are real and not an imaging artefact! 1/ 🔭

Killdeer on the beach. Have a nice night. 🤙🏻🪶