Fair winds and following seas Artemis II! I’ll be on site at KSC today and am doubly proud to include information about @thenrao.bsky.social as I talk about space, rockets, science and the Moon! PS, the GBT is my favorite telescope. 🧪🔭

I have nothing to add. The data is/are clear and compelling. They have been for more than 3 decades. Continuing to fetishize fossil fuels will have catastrophic results. 🧪

Pithy fact about science?! None needed. Just savor this dizzying, dazzling image of star-forming regions in M33, the Triangulum Galaxy - one of our cosmic neighbors. The universe is strange, but I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. 🧪🔭 www.eso.org/public/image...

Newborns are a mess. It's remarkable humans make it to adulthood. In the "good old days" infant mortality was as high as 30%. Nostalgia for 'times gone by' has deadly consequences as more parents say 'no' to vitamin K for newborns. @newswise.bsky.social 🧪💉 www.newswise.com/articles/stu...

I'm Dragonfly! GET TO KNOW ME! This flying fortress of scientific instrumentation will zip around Saturn's moon Titan, where it rains organic molecules and hosts hydrocarbon seas! 🧪🔭 Titan's atmosphere also has vinyl cyanide (see image), which - in liquid methane - can form cell-like membranes.

"Take a ball (we'll call it Earth). Give it an elliptical orbit around an average star. Tilt it. Spin it. Add a moon. Include oceans, an atmosphere, landforms, polar caps, and monkeys that love burning stuff. Now predict the weather in Des Moines a week from Tuesday." H.T. to Bob Ryan ~1997 🧪

Arthur C. Clarke posited communication satellites in his story ‘Islands in the Sky.” As @philplait.bsky.social chillingly warns, satellite mega constellations are the Great Pacific Garbage Patch equivalent. Shareholder value > night sky. www.scientificamerican.com/article/ramp... 🧪🔭

On this day in 2013, a small band of hearty science journalists joined @thenrao.bsky.social for the inauguration of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile. Before venturing to San Pedro de Atacama, we enjoyed the sights and food of Santiago.🧪🔭 @noisyastronomer.com

My life sucks! Why? This bastard: Taliktaalik, a lobe-finned fish that decided to walk on land 375 million years ago. Spine & pelvis ideal for aquatic life, but a bipedal engineering disaster. Sciatic, double hip replacements, SI joint fusion; I had ‘em all. Intelligent design, my ass. Literally. 🧪

Prevention has a dollar value: TEENY-TINY compared to ~$781 billion dementia-related costs each year. About 500,000 folks in the U.S. will be diagnosed in 2026; million NEW cases/year by 2060. Routine vaccinations are shown time and again to protected against age-related diseases. 🧪💉

Same telescope (JWST) -- both infrared images -- but ssttrreettcchhh the near-IR (left) to mid-IR (right, duh) and you see GINORMOUS differences! Why? Dust from this dying star glows more brightly in the mid-IR! Dubbed "Cranium Nebula" ~5k light-years away. 🧪🔭🧠 science.nasa.gov/missions/web...

I “doom scroll,” too. But the QUALITY of doom is AMAZING these days! New data reiterates what we all should know: turn the feckin’ phone off in bed; unless you’re watching actual trauma surgeries. They help me sleep. 🧪🩺 www.newswise.com/articles/ame...

Is it just me, or does the potential new head of NSF remind you of Larry “Bud” Melman? Venture capital management seems an odd background to navigate the nuances of peer review… 🃏 🧪https://www.science.org/content/article/trump-s-nsf-pick-stranger-its-research-community

ESO excels at crafting evocative images that also expand our understanding of stellar evolution. Here, 2 stars were born together, grew old, and are now shuffling off their mortal coils. Shakespearean astrophysics, indeed. www.eso.org/public/image... 🧪🔭

Heading down to Cape Canaveral for March 6. Fair winds and following seas... Go Artemis II! www.bbc.com/news/article...

Allow me to recommend the "Rabbit Hole of Research" podcast. We spent 90 minutes last night talking asteroid impacts and planetary defense, movies, novels, the Big Bang, and more. A champion of outreach and the public understanding of science. @jomega22.bsky.social jothamaustin.substack.com 🧪🔭

FOUND! A smattering of globular clusters & a sprinkling of stars glimmering through a whopping huge clump of dark matter: a so-called "dark galaxy." But with dark matter comprising 99% of this unconventional cosmic critter, dare we even call it a galaxy? 🧪🔭 iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

With a dish 110 meters across, the GBT is a pulsar-hunting machine!

"What if we're wrong?"... one of the best questions to ask in science. 🔭🧪 What if the gravitational monster at the center of the Milky Way wasn't a black hole & was instead a dense core of dark matter? If true, it could explain many a vexing cosmic question. Source: doi.org/10.1093/mnra...

"Attempt No Landings There." Clarke "Multiply flybys? Sure!" NASA Europa Clipper arrives March 2031 to hopefully find habitable environs. New look at Galileo data raises hopes by confirming ammonia, another piece in the "potential for life puzzle." iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3... 🔭🧪

"Sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand." On subatomic scales, fleeting particle/antiparticle pairs appear and disappear in the nothin' of the quantum vacuum. In energetic proton/proton collisions at the RHIC, virtual particles transform into real particles.🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Happy birthday to Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto in 1930 (when he was 24 years old). 🧪🔭

Headline in a venerable science publication: "NASA quietly pushed the launch date of the Artemis II moon mission into March..." "Quietly" with a press conference, live video coverage, social-media posts, and updates to its homepage. Quietly like The Who's 1976 concert at Charlton Athletic Grounds.

Astronomers have discovered the most distant cosmic object to date: a weirdly luminous galaxy a mere 2% younger than the universe itself. If we put that in human terms, this galaxy would be like an 18-month-old toddler racing through puberty. 🧪 🔭Source: science.nasa.gov/missions/web...

I did catch them in 2002 (a while ago) yet recall seeing one every 10 seconds or so. Some were remarkably bright. I have yet to see a comparable shower, but hoping this might be the year.

ALMA discovery in 2015 popped up in my OneDrive feed. Still amazing! Einstein ring -- massive foreground galaxy focusing light from more distant galaxy to reveal details never before seen in a galaxy so remote, including phenomenally massive yet concentrated clumps of star-forming material. 🧪🔭

ALMA is so cool! Well, it does observe the cold universe. Here’s a glimpse of what the Sun will look like a few billion years hence. 🧪🔭

A brilliant story by @astrokimcartier.bsky.social! In Romeo and Juliet, Mab is the 'fairies' midwife,' delivering dreams and shaping fantasies. In planetary geology, she's equally mischievous, inspiring scientists' dreams about another rendezvous with Uranus. 🧪🔭

That's really cool, @philplait.bsky.social. So much left to uncover -- cosmically and culturally.

Bravos Blue Origin! New Glenn had a good day. Nailed booster landing... Next milestone, sending the twin Red and Blue ESCAPADE spacecraft to Mars. Nice to see some good news.

Soft drinks linked to increased and more-severe depression, especially among women. The connection? Sugary drinks unbalancing the gut microbiome. Vicious cycle: depression ⬆️ cravings for sweets, soft drinks changes gut, depression worsens. Unsweetened tea, plz. 🧪⚕️ jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Ice-nine of Cat's Cradle fame? How about Ice XXI! Sure, at 2 gigapascals (about 30,000 lbs per sq inch) for a mere microsecond (1 millionth of a second). So much more to learn about this deceptively simple molecule! @newswise.bsky.social 🧪 www.newswise.com/articles/wor...

COVID-19 vaccines save lives, but evidence is mounting that vaccines also protect against heart disease. A study in Nature Communications again shows lower rates of heart attacks and strokes after the first dose. Infections increase those risks. RFK Jr is a prat. 🧪🩺 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Inflation, the theory the infant universe went from miniscule to ginormous in tiny fractions of a second. New research suggests it may actually have been immersed in a hot bath of elementary particles. A testable “warm inflation” scenario. 🧪 go.aps.org/4qoeTfW

Interferometry, the interference patterns of light waves, is already used in astrophysics in radio telescopes and gravitational wave detectors. Existing technology might also detect the elusive “graviton,” the particle theorized to carry the gravitational force. 🧪🔭 res.cloudinary.com/apsphysics/i...

A new study suggests that – in the year 2032 – Earth will encounter a thick part of the Taurid meteor swarm. The cometary debris in the swarm could bring an increased risk of airbursts, or explosions in Earth’s atmosphere, in both 2032 and 2036. earthsky.org/space/hallow...

Sucks that U.S. science is getting the “East Wing” treatment.

public.nrao.edu/news/astrono... It’s not easy to make a star. Gravity wants to pull stuff in. Young stars want to blast stuff away. Magnetic fields might tip the balance in favor of starburst. 🧪🔭

A few friends showed up in Williamsburg, Virginia. #nokings

So much to discover… if only NASA science weren’t being dismantled to pay for tax cuts on 3rd yachts.

news.agu.org/press-releas... Thank you AGU—my professional home. My first job post grad school in 1990. 🧪 @agu.org

Some advice when talking to science deniers: Be nice, it’s unexpected. Be calm, don’t feed outrage porn. Listen, you won’t change their mind about science, but you might change their mind about you. Don’t rise to the bait of “then how do you explain?” It’s fishing for unsatisfactory relies. 🧪

Is there ever a shred of evidence that the assassination/murder of 11 humans (not bound for the U.S.) was justifiable under ever the most tenuous and oblique interpretation of national security? Just another abomination and abuse of power for Republicans to shrug off as they worship plutocracy.

The relationship between the people of Hawaiʻi and astronomy on Maunakea has been complex. I have witnessed both missteps and sincere efforts to be respectful and find common ground. Hopefully this is a welcome development. 🧪🔭

Webb and ALMA: When proposed, these telescopes were touted for their ability to combine observations, uncovering otherwise hidden mysteries of the universe. Multiwavelength astronomy rules! @thenrao.bsky.social 🧪🔭

Had a brief chat with my dentist today about Rosalind Franklin, Joselyn Bell Burnell, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, and other under-recognized women in science. Photo 51 changed our understanding of biology, medicine, chemistry, evolution, etc. etc. 🧪 🧬 www.sciencehistory.org/about/press/...

Mazel tov LIGO.

My mother slept like a squirrel on crack. My father could sleep on bricks. Mother developed dementia; Dad's sharp mind outlasted his flagging heart. Correlation? Perhaps more than that. Sleep-meister Rob Britt tells the story. 🧪😴 medium.com/wise-well/st...

Love the lede. Pretty much what I posted last week. “Doomed” doesn’t even begin to cover it. Source: The New York Times share.google/yyn4mCDJBKA4...

While driving to work last week (at 4 a.m., one has ample time to think), I wondered about human evolution and autism. It appears I wasn't the first to consider this connection. medium.com/@ceblue65/th...