Meme. Photograph of an American eel underwater, peeking out from some rocks. We'll call him Whumblorn. He looks skeptical about life in general, and about you specifically. His red eye is rimmed in blue, and he seems to be staring right through your chest, like he wants to read the funny thing on the back of your shirt by looking through you. Whumblorn's underneath is a beautiful silver color, and his top is a dull black. Don't judge, though. This seems natural for him, and he is perhaps wondering why your top and bottom are the same colors. You don't get to judge the eels, but they sure as biscuits will judge you. And hard. They didn't swim here from the deep Sargasso to just let you slide by. Whumblorn is here to make you a better person. And that starts with judgement. His eye isn't reading your shirt. It's reading your soul. And he's not at all sure that you're ready for what's coming next. Meme text reads: "Bro. Eels don't have feathers."

In January 1421 a small fleet of Dutch ships arrived in London. And did they bring the eels? Oh yeah.

One ship, belonging to Gerbrand Heykysson, unloaded 400 large eels, 2,700 medium eels, 23,00 small eels, & 6 barrels of salted eels.

Also a small sack of feathers.
🗃️🧪

Andy, I have no doubt you do not remember me at all (I interviewed you over zoom a year or two ago and you were lovely!) but I need you to know I have been snickering about this post for the past three minutes. Something about it really gets me. Cheers.

Confused, Scrooge stepped onto the ice. He looked around, wracking his brain but for nought. He turned to the spirit, who was idly twirling a broom.

"Sir, I have no memory of this place. Why have you brought me here?"

The phantom shrugged and replied "I just really like curling is all".

The Planetary Society held nothing back in our efforts to Save NASA Science this year. The results are extraordinary, and we will not slow down next year.

Read more in our 2025 Impact Report: planetary.org/about/our-im...

A rover mast with martian terrain and a hill behind it. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Kevin M. Gill

The Mars Perseverance Rover, taken using the WATSON camera on Sol 1711.

flic.kr/p/2rLZ12W

I know a few researchers follow me on here, so please check out the new research grant below which funds work with the Alpine Club collections 👇

29 People Died in One of the Worst Mountaineering Accidents in History. What Happened? The story of the deadly avalanche in October 2022 on India’s Draupadi Ka Danda II

The story of the deadly avalanche.

Screenshot for the many hidden worlds of quantum mechanics -- just the title and some evocative spheres floating around

"The Many Hidden Worlds of Quantum Mechanics," my lecture series for the Great Courses (24 half-hour lectures), is still available on Prime video for a few days! Tell your family that watching football on Thanksgiving is hopelessly uncool.

www.amazon.com/gp/video/det...

I am so happy that Walrus from Space is getting some media attention. It's the only citizen scientist project I've ever participated in as a classifier, and it gave me a real sense that I could help at a time of David Attemborough-induced walrus trauma on my part...

As quirky as the project title is, this is actually a super neat program! Walrus depend on beaches for their haul-outs, which allow them to rest and to breed. As sea ice retreats, they can only haul-out on land. Walrus from Space uses crowdsourced power to identify new haul-out locations!

Nation’s Parents Release Annual Ranking Of Top 50 ‘Perfectly Good’ State Schools The list includes dozens of totally fine schools where students can learn all the same things they’d learn at one of those expensive colleges on the East Coast.

When satire is actually pretty good advice. theonion.com/nation-s-par...

Interstellar comet ATLAS seen early this morning as a thin crescent moon passed immediately next to it. Still was able to capture three separate jets of ionic tail, and an anti tail? Or the dust tail? The comet was also passing by the galaxy NGC4691, which really gave the impression of the object being from another world.

Marvelous new image of interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS, taken by photographer Satoru Murata before dawn this morning.

On the right you can also see galaxy NGC 4691. There should be a lot more pictures coming in soon. 🧪🔭

www.facebook.com/groups/22700...

Modern spectrograms are awesome but there is just something so cool about older ones like this.... Liu (1985) the signal from the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mt St Helens in China!

Three sheep staring at you.

A soft brown cow peering over its friends.

A very old, wrinkled sheep.

A sheep and her lamb.

So fortunate to embark into the wilds of Northumbria and photograph rarely-seen, exotic British wildlife.

I've been walking the Hadrian's Wall Path this week and a few days ago I passed by the stump of the Sycamore Gap Tree. There are saplings sprouting up from the roots all around it in a race to become the next big tree.

Not exactly what you're describing but the YouTube Sarah Z just posted a video about the cheating epidemic in chess. I don't know anything about chess but I enjoyed it!

My instinct is it's no less useful in those contexts! But I see why you don't.

Totally agree that it's not an accurate descriptor of how any kind of telescope works, LIGO or otherwise! Just that I think "listening" as a verb is useful because it communicates more to the layperson than "searching" or something like that. Ymmv on whether such simplifications are worthwhile.

I see where you're coming from but I think "listening" is a helpful simplification for a lot of kinds of observation! It's more intuitive than "looking for" or things like that and it invokes the need for careful attention, the idea of noise, all kinds of helpful analogies from lived experience.

Photograph of a red sprite. It has three vertical columns that branch out towards the top and and in the middle. The thing looks a bit like someone's crude attempts to paint lines with a can of spray paint. The color is a very vibrant red against a blueish nightsky with many stars.

I was speechless when I saw this appear on my camera's LCD screen last night - this is only the second time I photographed #RedSprites.

"Serves that cocktail like places can" ??? My god

Comic. The Three Types of Unsolved Physics Problem (First panel) Vague. PERSON [next to curved diagram] What is the nature of time in quantum gravity? Is it a background parameter, a dynamic aspect of spacetime, or an emergent phenomenon? (Second panel) Precise. PERSON 2 with short hair [device with equation below: 71Ga + νe → 71Ge + e- .] Why does the *S.A.G.E.* Gallium Neutrino Capture Experiment produce only 75% as much germanium as predicted? (Third panel) Cursed. PERSON 3 with white hat [rectangular block with hairs growing out of it labeled Zinc Whiskers] Why does some metal randomly grow hairs? It keeps causing short circuits and we have no idea what’s going on. OFF-PANEL: Is this a joke? PERSON 3: No! Please help!

Unsolved Physics Problems

xkcd.com/3115/

Breaking Boundaries: Naila Kiani is Changing Mountaineering in Pakistan » Explorersweb Naila Kiani is on her way to becoming the first Pakistani woman to complete the 14x8,000'ers, but her impact goes beyond summits.

After the horror stories of recent years regarding the treatment of porters and other high altitude workers in Pakistan, it was heartening to read about an 8,000m climber who's been willing to speak out on their behalf and put money into improving their material conditions.

Rubin's thousands of newly-discovered asteroids....now in your web browser!

Introducing NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory's 3D Orbitviewer ☄️🪐

Follow along as Rubin discovers millions more asteroids in our Solar System in the coming years at orbitviewer.app 🔭🧪

They're both gorgeous! But the black and white one has a particular charm, in my opinion. It also enhances the contrast between the snow, the climbers, and the rock.

Several black cattle grazing in a field with Very Large Array radio telescopes in the background under a clear blue sky.

Happy National Cow Appreciation Day! 🐄

📍 Very Large Array (VLA), New Mexico
📸 Credit: Kurt Liestenfeltz, 2025 VLA Star Party

Information Statement on Mt. Rainier from the U.S. Geological Survey Cascades Volcano Observatory.

Short version: A lot of earthquakes, but no current signs that it is leading to an eruption. See the official statement here for details: t.co/S28x4ijMkf

Every living NASA science chief unites in opposition to unprecedented… The entire past leadership of NASA’s science activities have released a joint statement condemning the proposed 47% cuts proposed to the agency’s science…

Today, *every* living prior leader of NASA's science directorate have released a joint letter condemning the proposed cuts to NASA science. These individuals every administration from Reagan to Biden, and all believe these cuts are insanely destructive: www.planetary.org/press-releas...

The GBT is unparalleled in a lot of obscure astronomy subfields like astrochemistry and pulsars! If you want to support the nerds even nerds think are niche, help save the GBT!!!