A huge wheel of aged cheese flying through the streets of Sicily 🇮🇹🧀 Every year this tiny town turns into a full-blown cheese battleground, rolling wheels to the finish line in one of Italy’s wildest ... TikTok video by Foodporn

Wow! This is so GOUDA ... And yes, I have wondered about rolling cheese. A student actually brought this up this year:
www.tiktok.com/@foodporn/vi...

I use paper towel tubes, cut down one side and lay flat and they never get tangled!

The Integrity capsule floating in the water surrounded by small boats a side hatch is open and someone is going in

The #Artemis II crew capsule Integrity’s side hatch is open and recovery crew are going in to assess the astronauts and (hopefully soon) pull them out

As seen from Artemis 2, the Moon with an earthshine crescent eclipses the Sun, and four planets are visible to the lower right of the Lunar disk. These are Saturn, faint Neptune (which needs a pointer), Mars and Mercury

Here it is.👍🙂

As the astronauts of the Artemis II mission emerged from the other side of the moon, they experienced yet another breathtaking sight: a solar eclipse, from a vantage never witnessed by any human being. See more photos released on Tuesday by NASA. nyti.ms/4tzKL21

[alt text from NASA] Earth sets at 6:41 p.m. EDT, April 6, 2026, over the Moon’s curved limb in this photo captured by the Artemis II crew during their journey around the far side of the Moon. Orientale basin is perched on the edge of the visible lunar surface. Hertzsprung Basin appears as two subtle concentric rings, which are interrupted by Vavilov, a younger crater superimposed over the older structure. The lines of indentations are secondary crater chains formed by ejecta from the massive impact that created Orientale. The dark portion of Earth is experiencing nighttime. On Earth’s day side, swirling clouds are visible over the Australia and Oceania region.

Because the Moon is tidally locked to the Earth, if you build your habitat on some plot of near-side regolith you can put the little Earth anywhere in the sky you want & it’ll stay there, lazily meandering around just a little as the Moon wobbles in its orbit.

A view of Earthset from #Artemis II.

Captured by the Artemis II crew during their lunar flyby on April 6, 2026, this image shows the Moon fully eclipsing the Sun. From the crew’s perspective, the Moon appears large enough to completely block the Sun, creating nearly 54 minutes of totality and extending the view far beyond what is possible from Earth. The corona forms a glowing halo around the dark lunar disk, revealing details of the Sun’s outer atmosphere typically hidden by its brightness. Also visible are stars, typically too faint to see when imaging the Moon, but with the Moon in darkness stars are readily imaged. This unique vantage point provides both a striking visual and a valuable opportunity for astronauts to document and describe the corona during humanity’s return to deep space. The faint glow of the nearside of the Moon is visible in this image, having been illuminated by light reflected off the Earth. [alt text from NASA]

The #Artemis II astronauts said they needed more superlatives to describe their view of the eclipse, when the Sun was behind the Moon and its near surface was faintly illuminated by Earthshine

See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.

🔭 Hello World

Image Credit: NASA, Reid Wiseman, Artemis II

ap260404

The Moon. NASA/Artemis II/Kevin M. Gill

New shot of the Moon taken only a few hours ago by the Artemis II crew! More of the lunar far side coming into view :-D

flic.kr/p/2s676GN

Screenshot: Key lunar flyby times, milestones All times Eastern, subject to change based on real-time operations 1 p.m. NASA+ coverage of lunar flyby begins 1:56 p.m. Crew passes distance from Earth record set by Apollo 13 in 1970 2:45 p.m. Lunar flyby begins 7:02 p.m. Orion closest approach to the Moon (4,070 miles) 7:07 p.m. Orion reaches maximum distance from Earth (252,760 miles) 8:35 p.m. Orion enters solar eclipse

NASA #Artemis II flyby coverage schedule; all times in Eastern. You can follow along live on NASA+ (plus.nasa.gov) or on the NASA YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/@NASA).

It should be amazing to watch!

Screenshot of the Artemis II tracker showing the path it will take to get to the Moon and back

You can keep track of Artemis II's progress here: artemistracker.com

Comic. Planets and Bright Stars Identification Chart. [Bright glowing dots over black background with labels underneath: Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Sirius, Procyon, Antares, Altair, Betelgeuse, Vega, Polaris]

Planets and Bright Stars

xkcd.com/3219/

Happy #piday - one of my favorite pi-ism is that pi = sqrt(g). Why?

#LunarEclipse FAQ:

Q: Is it safe to look at?
A: Absolutely! Unlike a solar eclipse, there's no UNsafe time to look at a lunar eclipse.

Q: Do I need a telescope?
A: Nope! Best view is with naked eye. Just look up!

Q: Does the eclipse portend terror & doom?
A: Not at all! The news has that covered.

Why haven’t humans been back to the moon in over 50 years? | CNN Humans haven’t been back to the lunar surface since the Apollo moon program ended over five decade ago. The reasons why go beyond science, according to experts.

'Cause it's haunted

www.cnn.com/2026/02/13/s...

🚀 LIFTOFF! ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot and #Crew12 are on their way. GO #εpsilon!

You can't... repeal... a scientific finding. At that point it's just called lying about it.

Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio) YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

Stay free

Neil deGrasse Tyson presenting at the American Museum of Natural History

"Year in Review" with @neildegrassetyson.com never disappoints. I was glad to share the experience with friends, family, and this year - students. Shared space for scientific thought to inspire motivation is important, now more than ever. @amnh.org

Flying Pig with bulging biceps saying "You can count on me!'

What a find! I'm not so shocked this exists but reminded how deeply appreciative I am of the humor in the physics community.

It's the most wonderful time of the year 🐖 #Iteachphysics #physics 🧪🎢 🍎

🧵
Under a dark sky, the Milky Way looks like a bright band interrupted by black rivers.

Those rivers are not empty space; they are curtains of tiny dust grains that swallow nearly all the starlight trying to reach us.

➡️ apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap25111...

🔭 🧪 #galactic #science #MilkyWay

1/6

Color photo of an oscilloscope running Higinbotham's "Tennis for Two" game. A horizontal line represents the ground, a short vertical line is the net, and a small green dot with a glowing trail is the ball. Image: Brookhaven National Lab

Physicist William Higinbotham was born #OTD in 1910. During the Manhattan Project he was the Electronics Group leader at Los Alamos.

In 1958, while working at Brookhaven Lab, he invented one of the first video games: “Tennis for Two.” It ran on an oscilloscope! 🧪 ⚛️

Image: Brookhaven National Lab

When dividing by a fraction, a lot of people think about the measurement model, but we can think about the partitive model too! Here's why I think the partitive model is powerful.

Tom Lehrer - The Elements - LIVE FILM From Copenhagen in 1967 YouTube video by The Tom Lehrer Wisdom Channel

We're saddened to hear that the musical satirist Tom Lehrer passed away this weekend. His original and witty songs were loved by audiences worldwide, but to chemists he'll always be remembered for this classic: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcS3...

Apollo 11.
Rarely seen shot of Eagle, the Moon and Earthrise, taken on this day, July 21, 1969.
Mike Collin's alternate photo is extremely well known, but this one - shown remastered and cropped - is an absolute beauty!

Happy 82nd birthday to Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, born #OTD in 1943. 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬 🎂

Free, unsolicited advice for physics students: many things will go more smoothly for you if you can derive and explain the simple harmonic oscillator in your sleep

My linocut portrait of Emmy Noether in front of a blackboard with diagrams and equations. Noether is printed in blue. She has her hair up and wears a pin-striped buttoned shirt with puffy sleeves, bow tie, tweed skirt with belt and is shown from waist up, turned slightly away from the viewer. The blackboard is green and shows a simple form of Noether’s equations at the top. On the left are three diagrams to represent translational symmetry (a frame of reference or 3 orthogonal axes and a straight diagonal arrow to a second frame of reference); rotational symmetry (a frame of reference and curved arrow to a second rotated frame of reference); and time symmetry (two simple clocks with an arrow between them and their hands at different places). On the right are the three associated conserved quantities: momentum (a p with arrow above it); angular momentum (an L with arrow above it); and energy (E).

Happy birthday to one of greatest #mathematicians of all time Emmy Noether (1882-1935), here with her eponymous theorem, the backbone of modern physics. 🧪🐡👩🏼‍🔬🧮🎢 #histsci Noether’s theorem links any symmetry of a system with a conservation law. In my portrait, I chose to depict a young Emmy in front 🧵