New @astrobites.bsky.social story from first year OSU astronomy grad student Serat Saad! 🔭⚛️🧪☄️

I wonder how many soccer players will be detained, deported, and banned from the US when they try to enter to play in the World Cup. According to the OSU Office of international Affairs, 5 OSU students have been detained & deported upon entry to US recently despite valid visas.

We are now that country.

To understand what the Supreme Court is doing, you have to recognize that this is how authoritarians in Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela consolidated power. Scholars call it autocratic legalism. The Court isn’t complicit. It’s an active participant. Roberts is following a script.

President's Statement on the Reported Dismissal of the National Science Board AAS President Dara Norman issues a statement expressing concern about the reported dismissal of the National Science Board. aas.org/posts/news/2... 🔭

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!

The administration that ended DEI became the best argument for needing it.

HWO is meant for launch in the 2040s, 15 to 20 years from now, and is a single telescope. Design not chosen yet. "Launch part of it in 4 years, no budget change" is.. wut? I'm not following what's even suggested here.

In 2030 we can print out the pdf of the full Mission Concept Review and launch it into space.

WHAT in the (habitable) world(s)? 🔭

Rep. Dean (D-PA) asks who made the decision to omit the >50 science missions proposed for cancellation from the budget request. Isaacman doesn't clearly answer, but says other missions can fill the gap.

U.S. President Donald Trump has fired all 24 members of the National Science Board, the body that oversees the National Science Foundation. https://scim.ag/4cxQWhl

Great article on the lack of consequences for the ultra-wealthy, with a gift link.

The same NSB that silently went along with his destruction of the NSF for the last year. DID NOT SAVE THEM

Breaking: Trump has fired the membership of the National Science Board, which is oversees NSF. I have confirmed separately with multiple now-former members of NSB.

⚛️🔭 Hey physics/astronomy science communicators: apply to come to @perimeterinstitute.ca for a workshop in October on how to engage the public in science! Anyone can apply, working in any kind of scicomm (video, audio, text, live performance, whatever it is you do). Check the link for more details!

On April 13, OSU's senior VP of Administration and Planning, Chris Kabourek, resigned from OSU for failing to address/report inappropriate behavior by OSU President Carter. On April 16, West Virginia U announced Kabourek would be their new VP & chief financial officer. 🫠

'The NSF has only committed $500 million of the $8 billion it was appropriated for the fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1. The NSF will lose the billions of remaining funding if it does not spend it by Sept. 30.' thehill.com/homenews/adm...

🔭 Chief Executive Officer Search The AAS seeks a strategic, mission-driven CEO to serve as an inspiring advocate for the discipline, the Society, and its members. Full job description: aas.org/jobregister/...

From Tori Bonidie and Skylar Grayson: The president’s budget requests for NASA and the NSF were released last week. We summarizes the major cuts and their impacts while providing resources to help fight back against this attack on science. ⚛️ 🔭 ☄️ 🧪 astrobites.org/2026/04/16/budget-request-fy2027/

This report came out today by minority staff of the House science committee on how three NASA missions were aborted due to NASA illegally following the FY26 president's budget request instead of congressionally approved budget. Very important reading. 🔭🧪 democrats-science.house.gov/staff-report...

Physics bachelors programs at Bowling Green, Kent State, Ohio U, and Wright State will be eliminated! ⚛️🧪🔭

DESI finished its originally planned survey last night!! ..and will keep going :) I made a cake to celebrate. 🌌🔭 @desisurvey.bsky.social

I study racism for a living and can still manage to be shocked by how institutionalized it is. What do you mean they were giving tax-breaks to white supremacists celebrating treason? just a wild country

NASA FINESST announced, due July 14! Does not include astro or planetary science yet, but it says "NOTICE: Applicants to Astro ^ Planetary may not be able to create proposals on the day of release but please be patient while we get everything set up for you." 🔭 nspires.nasaprs.com/external/sol...

NSF Grad Research Fellowship awardees were announced, & the total awards are back up to 2,599 this year after only 1,500 (1000 initially+500 later) last year! Congrats to all awardees, including 3 OSU astro undergrads and 6 UCSC Lamat REU participants!! 🎈🎉🔭🧪 www.research.gov/grfp/Awardee...

It's really not difficult to trace all of the problems in America right now to racism.

We have one of these at Ohio State (and disclosure, I’m tenured there but departing next month). The Center is paying kids to enroll in their courses because the demand is so low.

Making tenure count, for MSNOW I wrote about my employer, The University of Iowa, creating a center for intellectual freedom. It's a reactionary project built on decades of conservative propaganda about higher ed.

Outstanding itemization of how the FY27 budget request for NASA, NSF, and DOE impacts astronomy by the @aas.org Policy Team, Colin Hamill and Roohi Dalal 🔭🧪: aas.org/posts/news/2...

Budget requests typically itemize major changes, but the FY27 request totally omits the names of cancelled missions (& doesn't compare to current budget or previous requests, another standard). It requires careful reading/knowledge to identify what's missing, such as 10 astrophysics missions! 🔭🧪

Commentary: Vivek Ramaswamy says Ohio has too many universities. Ohio’s public universities weren’t built to compete with each other or with private institutions. They were built to serve different regions, populations, and economic needs ohiocapitaljournal.com/2026/04/09/r...

Apropros of academics losing their visas over nothing, it is great that they can gain legal victories, but I wonder how much her career, her research, her life were impacted in the >1 year that her visa was revoked.

SPACE NUTELLA

New over here so introducing myself with some commentary on Artemis II!

The #Artemis II crew has just been given their upcoming distance of closest approach to the Moon as 4067 statute miles and they replied jokingly that they would prefer the number in kilometers and parsecs. Astronauts... they're just like us [astronomers] ! 🥲

Half of my 🚀 feed is "that's not what the moon looks like" (tidal locking ftw) and the other half 🚀 are like "omg look at that Nutella float!", and I love all of it. 😍

Hey, I wrote a thing about AI in astrophysics ergosphere.blog/posts/the-ma...

Here is the link for the detailed FY27 NASA president's budget requests. My quick search of astrophysics missions shows ~similar cuts as the FY26 PRB but with no zero mentions of the Chandra, XRISM, or Fermi telescopes. 🔭 www.nasa.gov/fiscal-year-...

I feel like every week, I decide "I'm ready to die on this hill" about some new nonsense that comes our way. Then I don't die, and I move to the next hill. Anyway, happy to have all your company on these hills.

The OMB budget request (www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...) wants to reduce NASA's science budget by $3.4 billion by terminating over 40 "low-priority missions". Does anyone know which 40 missions those are? I can't find them listed anywhere. 🔭🚀

A few people have replied to my Artemis posts with links to Gil Scott-Heron's "Whitey on the Moon." Here's a story from Space.com about Artemis II pilot Victor Glover, currently en route to fly around the Moon, and his connection to that piece. www.space.com/space-explor...

Among the firsts of Artemis II, it will be the first time a person of color and Black astronaut (Victor Glover), first woman astronaut (Christina Koch), and first Canadian and non-US citizen astronaut (Jeremy Hansen) travel beyond low Earth orbit and to the Moon. 🚀

All the news today caused the major outlets to forget that we are taking the first human flight to the moon tomorrow in >50 years! I think about all the wonder & inspiration that came from the Apollo and Voyager missions & how we are missing that now bc of all the terrible things happening. 🔭🚀

OSU astro coffee was so fun today! We talked about @clairelamman.bsky.social's Hawking radiation comic, OSU undergrad Mya Smedley presented on how lessons from SpongeBob (kindness, empathy, and passion) can be applied to astronomy, & we saw new XRISM results on M82! arxiv.org/pdf/2603.24674 🔭

very grateful to have finally made it in person to visit OSU since my virtual Price Prize talk in 2020. thanks to everyone for the invitation and especially @ohdearz.bsky.social for hosting! also love to brag about my awesome grad students!

Honored to have @carlnotsagan.github.io visit OSU today and give an outstanding colloquium on next generation simulations of massive star death & predictions for multi-messenger signals! 🔭🧪⚛️

slop, you can ban it www.theverge.com/tech/901461/...

>10,000 STEM PhDs have left federal service over the past year (including 30% of the federal colleagues with whom I’ve worked closely). Those still left are holding federal science together with duct tape. What an extraordinary act of sabotage against the American people.

Wow... just wow. Dr. Gay's whole thread is very much worth reading. The stupid... it burns... "We choose to do these things, not because they are easy, but because we fired or drove out everyone who had a clue, and our heads are full of dead insects and sometimes worms".