It seems a reasonable request

If I have to choose between a cockroach crawling in my ear while awake or while asleep I’m choosing asleep every time

Once again a post has triggered the ‘if I hafta know… so do y’all’ alarm:

Images of M stars and their surrounding environment. In one of the four panels, a candidate source is seen to the left of the main star.

Contrast curves for the M dwarf stars looked at, showing contrasts from 1e-3 down the majority of them at 1e-4.

Li+ on “A Search for Wide-orbit Planets Around M-dwarfs using Deep MIRI 15 micron Images” shows how the background sensitivity of JWST enables searches down to a few Jupiter masses for targets that are typically several gigayears old. #exoplanets #astrodon

Roman Space Telescope Science Platform Will Open New Frontiers in Space Science

My team and others at @stsci.edu are working to make this work for you. 🔭 #astrocode

Figure 1 from the paper 'Requiem for a belt'. Top-down view of the 800 pc (about 2,610 light-years) region around the Sun (yellow star). Left panel: density of young massive stars (blue) and dust (red), with the Radcliffe Wave and Split shaded, and the old Gould’s Belt model as orange ellipse. Right panel: young star clusters colored by family, with their future trajectories. Credit: Pantaleoni González et al. 2026 (arXiv:2604.13225)

🧵1/5
For 170 years we thought there was a large inclined ring of young stars around the Sun.🔭

A new study using Gaia data shows instead that it doesn’t exist: Gould’s Belt is just a temporary alignment of a few star clusters.🧪⚛️

No ring, just a 3D asterism.

arxiv.org/abs/2604.13225

#galactic

Back to work to save science funding! All you need to know about the FY2027 Budget Request 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...

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/

The Secret Language of Astrophysics Plots Ever been confused by a plot online or in a paper? This post decodes the secret language of astrophysics plots so you can finally read the universe like a pro.

From @jaydewst.bsky.social: Ever been confused by a plot online or in a paper? This post decodes the secret language of astrophysics plots so you can finally read the universe like a pro. ⚛️ 🔭 ☄️ 🧪
astrobites.org/2026/04/17/secrets-of-plots-in-astro/

I am once again reminded of the entire water fluoridation arc of Parks & Rec

Newest release of #Jupiter aurora from program 17408. Observation date 2025-10-17, but released a few days ago.
www.planetarylightshow.com/jupiter/prop...
Credit: Planetary Light Show

Join us for an inspiring week of discovery, collaboration & connection at #AAS248!

💻 Submit abstracts by 20 April
🐦 Register by 23 April (early rate)
🧳 Apply for Dependent Care & FAMOUS Travel Grants
🏨 Book hotel for best rates
🔭 Apply by 1 May to volunteer

aas.org/meetings/aas...

The VAST Extragalactic Survey footprint, showing the number of observations of each field. The sky map is plotted with J2000 equatorial coordinates in the Mollweide projection. The VAST Galactic survey is plotted in grey for reference. Typically, each field has been observed 10–11 times to date. Image from de Ruiter et al. (2026)

Excited to announce the first data release from our ASKAP Variables and Slow Transients survey is now available!

doi.org/10.1017/pasa...

This is a database of 6.4 million measurements of 0.5 million radio sources in our survey footprint.

(By @ozgrav.bsky.social Iris de Ruiter)

#RadioAstronomy

AAS and AAPT members gather near the US Capitol to advocate for STEM funding.

Members of the AAS & the American Association of Physics Teachers are on the Hill today to advocate for science and STEM education funding! Join them by requesting a meeting with your local congressional office: aas.org/posts/news/2... #WeekofAction #SaveScience 🔭

Plot showing GRFP awards by directorate shows a big dip last year and major increases for engineering and biology (though this only brings it back to parity with 2024).

The NSF GRFP is now out! There are 2,599 awardees, which is the most ever—and a big shift from last year which initially halved awardees (1,000 awardees + an additional 500).

I've thrown together a plot to break down the changes by field.

www.research.gov/grfp/Awardee...

Large or bright satellite constellations: Effects on observations, including on the background sky brightness This study evaluates the effect of proposed constellations -- ranging from current deployments to mega-constellations and very bright reflector concepts -- on direct trail losses, diffuse background, ...

Nice new (peer-reviewed) analysis of the impact of satellite constellations on ground-based astronomical observations. By Olivier Hainault from @eso.org 🔭https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.09427

The victory of the opposition in Hungary yesterday, like the Polish election in 2023, is a victory for democracy, not just in Europe but around the world.

First Proba-3 science: surprisingly speedy solar wind Since July 2025, the European Space Agency’s pair of Proba-3 satellites has already created 57 artificial solar eclipses. So far, the mission has collected more than 250&...

The first Proba-3 science results are in!

☀️🏃‍♀️‍➡️🏃‍♀️‍➡️🏃‍♀️‍➡️ Close to the Sun, it spotted solar wind moving 3–4 times faster than expected

Curious? 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl...

@orb-ksb.bsky.social @technology.esa.int

FIRST robotics field showing robots and the competition field including yellow foam balls, fuel intakes and various obstacles

FIRST Chesapeake District Championships! The #Park School of Baltimore team competes this weekend and my daughter is part of it!

We are adding unpleasant damp smells to our newest version of APT

GRFP subreddit has posts titled 'Dear little baby Jesus' and 'Is the GRFP even real'

The National Science Foundation's flagship fellowship program, the GRFP, is unusually late this year and the anxiously awaiting students are... a little stressed. Some posts from the past day:

'Dear little baby Jesus'
'Is the GRFP even real'
'I beg you NSF...'
'so....nothing tonight????'

In the past few days this image has impressed me more and more - as a professional astronomer who images planets around other stars, this really brought home to me the challenges in taking photos of rocky planets around the closest stars. It's tough!

This is my processed version of a Nikon photograph made during the Artemis II mission as the Sun was behind the Moon. The image was a 2 second exposure at F/2.0 using a setting of ISO 1600. Obviously care went into obtaining this image, whose only minor cabin interior reflection I have retouched out. I have adjusted the contrast to bring out the brightness contours of the wide elongated softly defined glow of the inner Zodiacal Light. To the lower right of the Moon are the bright planets, left to right. Saturn, Mars and Mercury. A cool gray 'Earthlight' illuminates the Earth facing hemisphere of the Moon, showing hints of topography and the dark lava plains. I add my name to the chain of attribution when my processing reaches a threshold that differentiates it sufficiently from the original to warrant acknowledgement of being a departure from the original image file as released. It is not a claim of copyright, that is explicitly done only in the rare instances of my artistic contribution significantly altering the original past a threshold of uniqueness. Attribution would be nice if any of these more 'casually' processed images appear elsewhere.

This view perhaps best shows the elongated diffuse glow of the Zodiacal Light extending from beyond the Moon. I have adjusted the original image to optimize its visibility here. In past posts I dwell at length on the Zodiacal Light, which can be readily seen at the right seasons from Joshua Tree.

#astrosci

A cute dog with flurry rabbit ears looks up to the camera

Happy Easter!

One week to go to apply for our postdoc on radial velocities at Macquarie University in Sydney!

aas.org/jobregister/...

Any local nature centers? State game commission? Definitely wash hands thoroughly due to bird flu/other bird related illnesses.

Average U.S. gas prices per gallon on April 3, per AAA:

• Regular: $4.09 (⬆️ $0.01 from yesterday, ⬆️ $0.98 from one month ago)

• Premium: $4.97 (⬆️ $0.01 from yesterday, ⬆️ $0.99 from one month ago)

• Diesel: $5.53 (⬆️ $0.02 from yesterday, ⬆️ $1.64 from one month ago)

Got to get to that 1.5 Tril somehow!

I mean..maybe they can use that crazy gatling gun to take out drones?

The glow on the lower right is sunlight reflecting off of dust from comets and asteroids in our solar system--our version of a debris disk. @nasaromantelescope.bsky.social will have a camera on board that might find the same dust around nearby stars also in their habitable zone. 🔭🧪