"Mission Aborted: How NASA Illegally Implemented the President's Budget Request Without Congressional Approval" - Minority Staff Report Prepared for Members of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, US House of Representatives - April 2026

Just released: "Mission Aborted: How NASA Illegally Implemented the President's Budget Request Without Congressional Approval" - Minority Staff Report Prepared for Members of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, US House of Representatives democrats-science.house.gov/imo/media/do...

This administration really hates Goddard Space Flight Center.

I hope we can save it.

🧪 #planetsci

49197025.hs-sites.com/assessing-th...

a little delayed, but congratulations to MSU grad student Sydney Petz for receiving an NSF GRFP 🥳

astro.natsci.msu.edu/news-events/...

image slightly editing to make more of the earth visible and then superimposed with the "always has been" meme starting with "wait, was the mission just to update this meme?'

Astronauts Victor Glover and Christina Koch in their orange astronaut suits as they sit inside the side of a helicopter after it has landed

LOL, trying to stay offline and do my work, and friends are sending me

"LOOK AT THIS NEW PIC!" texts ....

This one is worth it.

First PoC and first woman to go around another world. Don't stop talking about this point. It's important.

#ArtemisII

Anti-war demonstrations occurred all across Israel this evening. US media decided you really didn't need to know about them.

oh no, my matzah ball timer is scheduled to go off 5 seconds before launch

go #ArtemisII!! 🚀👨‍🚀

Federal Judge Approves Trump Effort to Obtain List of Jews From Penn

Is this a new headline or did they just translate from the original German?

the number of times I've been mistaken for an undergrad on campus is now up to 5

1) Let's
2) Go
3) Mets

we were talking about solar flares and solar activity cycles in the intro astro for non-majors class today and somebody asked, "Do solar flares happen more frequently if a star spins faster?"

ngl, I was shook by this intuition 💪

A Table showing the number of positions posted at AAS job-registed for various categories.

Looking at the AAS jobregister lately, it seemed to me that there are less positions available in all categories than in previous years. Wanting to quantify, I used the wayback machine to check on the number of postings in the January-March window and it is quite depressing.

wavelength versus spot contrast plot and residuals. this figure shows the spot contrast from ~0.5 to 5 microns for a persistent polar spot on an M dwarf star. The temperature of the spot is ~180K colder than the photosphere. there are disagreements between the model and the data at the shortest optical wavelengths

due to the persistence of the spot, Catriona extracted the first panchromatic spot spectrum 👀 it is surprisingly (!) consistent with models, except at optical wavelengths 🤔 which highlights the importance of deriving empirical spot spectra for robust interpretation of planetary atmospheres

seven panel figure showing different JWST transits of TOI-3884 b with a persistent spot-crossing event. TOI-3884 b orbits the pole of a small M dwarf star. the shape of the spot-crossing event changes slightly between each transit. each subpanel has a graphical representation of what the spot looks like during each transit.

really exciting work lead by Catriona Murray! TOI-3884 b is a planet on a polar orbit around an M dwarf. The transit has a persistent starspot crossing event. Using JWST, we measured the properties of the starspot and the Prot of the star 👀 arxiv.org/abs/2603.15414
🔭 #astronomy 🌟 #stellarastro

Two orange cats. The left cat is sitting in a scrabble box. The right cat is sitting on top of a folded backgammon board

end of week cat cleanser

Some day we'll all regret this & we'll hold hearings & rend garments & pledge "never again" & we'll be just as full of shit as we were last time.

Read more: bbc.in/4tF8P4x

a chocolate chip cookie is surrounded by a circle of fingers pointing to it . ALT: a chocolate chip cookie is surrounded by a circle of fingers pointing to it .

Cookie Clicker is still alive and thriving. that is all

This is the aftermath of an ICE kidnapping a few blocks from my home in St. Paul—an hour ago. A quiet street full of broken glass and at least three wrecked cars. The target of the kidnapping was taken away by ambulance. He was on a stretcher and covered by a sheet, though a cop said he was alive.

A picture of the international space station overlaid on a football field. The end zones if the football field say "NASA". the size of the international space station is roughly the size of the football field

Happy "did you know the International Space Station is roughly the size of a football field?" Day to those who celebrate

Two CBP Agents Identified in Alex Pretti Shooting The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raym...

NEW: This isn't about "training." The two agents who murdered Alex Pretti - Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez - have been with Border Patrol for 8 and 12 years respectively. You can't reform CBP. Abolish ICE/CBP. www.propublica.org/article/alex...

A screenshot of a medium blog by Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb titled "Imagining 'The Alien'" which features a picture of a clay alien that looks like a Cornish pixie from Harry Potter, featuring two additional tentacles

Additional images of the clay alien sculpture. The top image is the same face down view of the sculpture, featuring an alien that looks like a Cornish pixie from Harry potter with two tentacles. The second photo shows the underside of the alien is bedazzles

starting the week off with a good laugh as Harvard astrophysicist shares his depiction of the aliens "aboard" the certified comet 3I/ATLAS: three-eyed Cornish pixies

Yesterday, five-year-old Liam and his dad Adrian were released from Dilley detention center. I picked them up last night and escorted them back to Minnesota this morning.

Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack.

Never mind the jobs you had, tell me five classes you took on college.

- Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville
- Sports and Entertainment in Greece and Rome (yes, we were entertained)
- Hitchcock: Cinema, Gender, Ideology
- Underworlds
- Advanced experimental physics

Seems like a good video for his trial

I’m glad there is an apology for posting Jew-hate on Holocaust Remembrance Day, but this is notably not an apology for the Jew-hate itself, just the timing of it. The article itself, which perpetuates ancient antisemitism, remains unchanged.

New job opportunity at @stsci.edu: Senior Astronomical Data Scientist for data analysis tools, working closely with my team and me.

This role is very similar to mine. If you have questions, I'm happy to answer them. 🧪🔭

Reminder that, as of the latest reports, Liam Ramos is still in prison in Texas - now for 5 days.

His parents are legal asylum seekers with no criminal record.

@andertoon.bsky.social