The English press release with the first images of asteroid Torifune captured by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft is now live! (I translated, the ISAS PR lead checked it while practically running from the press conference, and someone at JAXA HQ stayed late enough to upload 😆 HIGH-FIVES ALL AROUND!)

And another new asteroid! Here's Torifune, captured during yesterday's flyby by Hayabusa2. www.jaxa.jp/press/2026/0...

That is not a normal rubble pile. Hmm...

😮 www.usajobs.gov/job/875171500

Project UPWARD mapping the moon. This was a joint NRO / NASA plan to send an Apollo capsule to photograph lunar landing sites using a modified recon satellite.

This "Promise" pitch/floater will be a good test for the space press who primarily focus on human spaceflight. Talk to planetary scientists. Where's that RTG gonna come from (and take away from)? How in the world do they think it would actually be flight operable?

June 27, 2006: I graduate from Astronomy Camp at the University of Arizona after a visit to the then-incomplete Large Binocular Telescope June 27, 2026: I obtain the first light spectrum on the iLocater spectrograph, one of the second generation of LBT instruments 🔭🪐 #exoplanets

Just a couple of days left!

My soul frowns whenever I see an AI-generated figure in a science.

Hi everybody, I organized the #Artemis2 photos for you. Index pages containing all ~10,000 images in chronological order with time stamps and focal lengths, color coded by which of three cameras was used to shoot them. countlessworlds.com/data/artemis/

Show me your sand colour art!

Thrusters off 🔴 BepiColombo has switched off its solar electric propulsion as the trio Bepi, Mio and MTM draw closer to Mercury. Meanwhile, on the ground, teams across ESA, JAXA and industry are rehearsing the next critical step for these space adventurers: arriving at Mercury. Stay tuned! 🔭 🧪

👉 if you look though my renders you won't find any SpaceX stuff because I've never simped for billionaires / trillionaires 👉

Apollo Applications Program Micrometeorite Collector, one of the many unflown concepts from the program. The petals would have folded around the central truss to fit inside the top of the S-IVB. #spaceart #alternatehistory

Dear anybody who works at an institition with a good science library: can you please please invite me to have some kind of research visitor electronic library access. A good friend once did this for me through Caltech but it was only allowed for two years and that was a while ago

Email from MEPAG just now about MEP being forced to pay for Skyfall (Isaacman's ridiculous nuclear rocket and Mars helicopters pet project). Assuming it is true; this is horrific since it means probably having to end existing missions unless there is money added to the MEP budget.

There are currently more bills attacking trans youth’s right to play sports across the U.S. than there are trans youth in school sports.

Had a wonderful afternoon yesterday with Aaron at the Cabrillo Aquarium for #SeaCon2026 and @cosplayforscience.bsky.social

'Purple Rain' Earth's atmosphere revealed by a Himawari satellite study of water vapor in the infrared, an extended look at the turmoil in the water-filled skies of planet Earth. Each minute covers one day. Each shot covers one month. The 7h15m40s 4K video is not looped. youtu.be/bjvmUL_A20A

The Planetary Society built an interactive side-by-side "track changes" comparison for the proposed OMB rules. They show exactly what the current rules say versus what the proposed rules would change, section by section, across all *399* affected provisions. dashboards.planetary.org/rules-change/ 🧪🔭

The Surveyor 1 spacecraft touched down on the Moon #OTD in 1966. It was the first soft landing by a US spacecraft on an extraterrestrial body, an important early step towards future crewed missions to the Moon. 🧪 🔭 🚀 Images: NASA/JPL

The current administration forbids mention of #PrideMonth by @NASA but they cannot stomp out #Pride inside, outside, and surrounding #NASA

Happy Pride Month to all the LGBTQs in my phone.

My annual Pride Month sale starts now! All pride-related items - plus some others - are included. Shirts are 12% off, pins 17% off, stickers 50% off! willburrows.art/shop

Please read down the thread for great resources on what is being attempted, why it's terrible for science, and how to provide effective public comments. And then make some time this weekend to write in a public comment! 🔭🧪🚀

It’s truly astonishing to see how comprehensively the US government is tearing down every part of the system that has made it up until now a world-leading power in science, research, and technological development. The entire world will suffer from this wanton destruction.

🧵 Public science in the US has taken some heavy hits over the last year, but the White House OMB is proposing a series of changes that will result in a TKO for science as we know it unless we fight back. Here's what's happening, and why it matters. 1/n

What's really astonishing is not the far right authoritarian party doing this, but the near-total lack of <loud public collective action> by university chancellors & presidents to oppose this existential crisis. Almost impossible to overstate how total a failure of leadership this is.

The National Academies literally exist so that scientists and engineers who understand science and engineering better than elected officials & their appointees do are available to report on those things. Yet again, USA: Require that Congress do its job, end all of this, and #ImpeachTrump.

Gas Station Price Sign Using Scientific Notation

“…hallucinated references disproportionately assign credit to already prominent and male scholars, suggesting that LLM-generated errors may reinforce existing inequities in scientific recognition…” 🧪 arxiv.org/abs/2605.07723

Fundamentally, the reason we do science is the same reason we make art. Both are creative expressions of our humanity and both are tools for us to explore and understand reality. To treat either as a commodity is to diminish ourselves.

Back to where it all began

Experimental 3D visualization of Io, created from a processed JunoCam image acquired by NASA’s Juno mission. Source image: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / JunoCam Image processing: Gerald Eichstädt / Thomas Thomopoulos 3D visualization: Thomas Thomopoulos.

Are you looking for an alternative to overwhelming AGU or complicit LPSC? Try DPS! It's right-sized, inclusive, and backed by an active professional society who lobbies hard for planetary science. We'd love for you to join us in expanding our meeting scope to encompass your science!! 🔭🧪

Earth eclipses the Sun as seen by Artemis II on Orion. Satellites showing off as usual...

#Artemis II Crew / NASA JSC / ESRS / j. Roger eol.jsc.nasa.gov

Spock visited JPL today 🖖🏻

Well, hello there little fella. Juno's Stellar Reference Unit captured this view of Thebe from a distance of 5,000 km on May 1, 2026 during PJ83. science.nasa.gov/photojournal...

DPS 2026 prize announcements! dps.aas.org/news/aas-div... LPL sweeps the scientist prizes! @markmarley.bsky.social, @planetneish.bsky.social, @alibramson.bsky.social, Tad Komacek

Trump's proposed NASA budget is a 'horrible threat to our future' in space, Planetary Society CEO says www.space.com/space-explor...

Less than 800 NSF grants awarded over the first half of the fiscal year for the entire country. Previous years were already over 2-3k awards by now. It is not particularly overdramatic to say we are seeing the death of federally funded science research in the United States.

The Planetary Society led a coalition letter with 23 organizational signatories calling for the rejection of draconian cuts to NASA and science in FY 2027 proposed by the White House. Coverage here, letter PDF in comments. www.nbcnews.com/science/spac...

As a Pluto scientist, it's wild to "make Pluto a planet again" while decimating the careers of those of us that study it! The idea of dominance in space and planetary science supersedes the actual practice of planetary science.

This is very similar to the 2026 cycle. House sets NASA Science at $6B, not great, but much better than the $3.9B proposed. Sets the floor going forward, Senate will likely come in higher.

This was us! APAC was an advisory to provide a connection between NASA and the astrophysics committee. It was an honor to serve. We were decommissioned last spring with the rest of the advisory committees. It's like closing the shades, or cutting the phone lines.

"GOP-dominated House Subcommittee proposes cutting NSF by 20% and NASA science by 17%" Be accurate in your headlines, @science.org. That Trump and those with him want to destroy US science is not a reason to excuse GOP Representatives trying to destroy parts of it. www.science.org/content/arti...

www.science.org/content/arti... House budget is out. 17% cut to NASA science 😭 🧪 🪐

I feel like we’re willing to make Pluto a planet again, at least provisionally, if they’re willing to fund astrophysics. I’d say $100 billion/year is reasonable But if you keep cutting our budgets, I swear we’ll keep eliminating them. Hope you like a three planet solar system!