A little 3I/ATLAS update building on @marshall-eubanks.bsky.social's nice RNAAS from last week. Given its non-grav acceleration and the rate at which it's losing mass, you can work out its size. The answer: a diameter around 1 km, very typical for comets. arxiv.org/abs/2512.18341 🔭 🧪

Bit of a queue to see the corpse flower at the Botanical Garden in Ōtautahi

Ahead of 3I/ATLAS's closest approach to Earth (at nearly 2 au) tomorrow, here's our Elaine P. Snowden Fellow @astrohopkins.bsky.social on how we determined 3I's age 🇳🇿☄️🔭

A nice overview from our media folks of the theoretical and observational work our team has out so far on interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS ☄️

Meanwhile, we have a new student-led theory paper out on interstellar objects: how the planets of their home systems change what speeds they fly out into the Galaxy. Comments welcome! Albrow et al., submitted

The 3 y.o.'s top 5 cutest current toddlerisms: 5. oak: "oaka" 4. saturn: "satur-in" 3. broccoli: "bruggoli" 2. instead: "umstead" 1. beetroot: "beetfruit"

Why does outlook assume I'm starting a new sentence (and hence autocapitalise the next word) every time I use a full stop? Surely I'm not the only one who uses abbreviations in emails!

Ooh gross just discovered a bunch of youtube channels blaring about 3I/ATLAS using an AI-generated Brian Cox. The channel description says the videos are all AI, but the videos are clearly designed to make people think BC is actually saying these things..

Ohio State astronomy is still waiting to see what happens with the federal funding landscape before deciding whether to proceed. With programs that are still TBD, I recommend waiting right now because *application fees do not get refunded if they decide to cancel after you have already paid*!!

More hostility than I was expecting from a planter!

Incredible stuff happening on wikipedia

PSA to scientists: Google calculator appears to no longer do basic unit conversion correctly! n.b. the correct answer here is 223.4 Myr, a factor of about 60 larger than Google's answer. 🔭 🧪

Crew-11 lifts off from Florida on their way to the International Space Station. The heat signature from the launch could be seen from GOES-18.

Cumulus clouds swirl along the Gulf Coast. This mesmerizing view captured yesterday by GOES-19.

I wrote about Rubin again, this time about the telescope's capacity to find potentially dozens of interstellar objects. It's going to be wild, as one astronomer put it, "like old-fashioned astronomy: Find the thing, point telescopes at it, argue about it." www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...

It's paper day! The first science paper with data from @vrubinobs.bsky.social's survey camera, the mighty LSSTCam, is a VERY quick turnaround of Rubin's observations thus far of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. ☄️ Chandler et al., submitted 🔭 A 🧵

I don't know about "the best," but my April Fool's rant is my personal contribution to this genre. arxiv.org/abs/2003.14327

It's paper day! We use our Ōtautahi-Oxford model of the Galaxy's interstellar object population to understand the origins of 3I/ATLAS, from only its velocity @astrohopkins.bsky.social, Dorsey, @redshiftless.bsky.social, @astrokiwi.bsky.social, @chrislintott.bsky.social & Leicester, submitted A 🧵🔭

It's my favorite time of the year: new black-footed ferret kits born at the National Zoo and the return of ferretcam! nationalzoo.si.edu/webcams/blac...

Looks like a promising night for aurora chasing

As far as I can tell this month is just 8 deadlines in a trenchcoat.

Astronomers have found thousands of planets outside the solar system. All of them are, to my knowledge, garbage. Happy Earth Day to the only good one 🌍

𝗡𝗼, 𝗮 𝗯𝗶𝗼𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝗞𝟮-𝟭𝟴𝗯'𝘀 𝗮𝘁𝗺𝗼𝘀𝗽𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲. K2-18b is back in the news, now with a bold claim that biosignature molecules (DMS and/or DMDS) have been 'detected at 3σ'. Most exoplanet astronomers are extremely sceptical about these claims, let's see why (1/n). 🔭🧪🪐 #exoplanet

New paper! High-order epicyclic description of orbits in spherically-symmetric potentials (plus vertical oscillations in a disk). My love of epicycles is so notorious that the postgraduates made this meme

Ōtautahi YIMBY’s assemble!

I have GOT to stop making small talk about the "elevators"

It's paper day! Led by grad students Rosemary Dorsey and Matthew Hopkins, we bring you a beautifully detailed study of how interstellar objects will be visible to @vrubinobs.bsky.social 🔭🧪

The champions of Free Speech are now forcing scientists to retract submitted publications until they can be checked for the appearance of “forbidden terms.”

Ooh this is a very nice way to grok the Solar Neighborhood 🔭

Chuffed by the YIMBY-adjacent messaging in my 2-yr-old’s current favorite book

My colleagues are using ChatGPT to source data and plot analyses for them. I'm literally reviewing papers written this way. Meanwhile....

Important PSA - don’t give qeios permission to post the paper you submitted to a journal and posted to arxiv! 🔭

I've been trying out julia recently! It's fun, but this stacktrace is next-level. Just page after page of

This is so important: at the college (not departmental) level, highly productive Black and Hispanic faculty were as likely as white faculty to receive tenure; but less productive Black/Hispanic faculty were significantly less likely to receive tenure than equivalent white scholars.

Been loving this feed recently - it aggregates posts from people you might otherwise miss reading, amongst the barrage of people who post a lil too much (sheepishly raises hand). bsky.app/profile/did:...

Caught a little drama on my walk home yesterday

New paper day! Led by @ryanridden.bsky.social, with me, PhD student Sophie Deam & Thomas Nordlander. We present starkiller, a package for forward-modelling flux in IFU datacubes. Need synthetic difference imaging? Have trailed sources? Want spectral classification for everything? No problem 🔭🧵

The Galaxy is full of streams of interstellar objects! Explainer thread below from @astrokiwi.bsky.social 🔭 🧪

From @aip.bsky.social on the other place -- awards to cover grad application fees!

This place could use a chunky dose of delicious satellite imagery. So here are some of my favorites I've shared over the years. Impossible to not start with the unbeatable, the epic... von Karman vortices

Rise of the Kiwis 🥝: Once again thanks to @andrew.donnellan.id.au, the YIMBY worldwide starter pack is getting yet a bit more global, with new follows from NZ, and a few more Aussies go.bsky.app/VsuFjmd

Very cool thread 🔭 🧪

Figured I would get in on this whole starter pack thing and list (in whatever order bsky chooses) scientists working on studying galaxies (broadly defined, including galaxy formation/evolution + near-field cosmology). If I missed you and you'd like to be added, let me know! 🧪🔭 go.bsky.app/5ZZtqDy

A hearty welcome to the latest round of new folks! Have fun exploring your new less-awful microblogging platform. Here’s a picture of my cat Rocket taking his first jaunt outside in a while! (I swear I post about astronomy sometimes!)

Reminder that the UCSC Lamat Institute application deadline is early this year, December 1! Lamat is an outstanding program that offers research opportunities and professional development for undergrads, particularly community college students.

One odd feature of NZ is that healthy children under 5 cannot get a Covid vaccine. Very frustrating!

Last minute, but for any other overseas voters who have the option to Fax in your ballot: rather than having small crowds gather to be amused at your predicament as you hunt in vain for a fax machine in a modern country, you can use a phone app! I had a good experience with "Fax.Plus".

This is very funny because ~0 Americans feel this way.