Proud 🔭 advisor day: @andyastro.bsky.social has a wonderful press release about his latest paper, finding one of the most interesting planet-collision candidates yet!
www.washington.edu/news/2026/03...
Many things are awful in the world right now, but there are many other things at the other end of the scale to help us deal, and this remains one of them.
Once again this morning looking at a paper on arXiv that fails to cite directly and incredibly relevant work led by 2 female postdocs in my group. Paper is accepted, so the referee didn't pull the authors up on this either. This is how women get excluded from science. #everydaysexism #womeninstem
From the Smile mission launch and new data sets from Euclid, to Plato getting ready for launch, a total solar eclipse and BepiColombo's arrival at Mercury, 2026 is set to be a packed year for Science!
Bronze plaque saying "A Letter to the Future. Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it. August 2019. 415ppm CO2"
TIL about a memorial ceremony in Iceland in 2019 to mark the end of a glacier, changing the place name from Okjökull to Ok (jökull = glacier). Uncompromising wording on the bronze plaque:
"This is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it".
What do you mean I saw PLATO with my own eyes today?? 🫢🫨 #ESAopenday #exoplanet
Oooh the Nobel Prize is out today, so it's time for my yearly round of ignoring that news and reading about many of the women who were snubbed of the prize in the past and who the Nobel Prize committee refuses to apologise for. 🧪🔭
Congratulations Dr. Linn!! 🥳🎉❤️❤️ love the thesis cover!
In early 2025, beaver activity in the Brdy Protected Landscape Area, Czech Republic, contributed to the restoration of a wetland ecosystem. A family of beavers constructed a series of dams that coincidentally accomplished environmental goals of the Czech government, which had delayed its proposed project since 2018 for bureaucratic and financial reasons. The beaver-built dams saved the Czech government approximately US$1.2 million,
imagine if a family of beavers randomly showed up right now and finished whatever thing you've been putting off
A large cargo ship named VAARWEL, painted in blue and white, is sailing through a canal. The ship has a flag at its front and is passing under an open drawbridge in the background. The canal is lined with trees on both sides, and the sky above is bright blue with scattered white clouds. A few people are visible on the bridge and near the water’s edge. In the foreground, at the bottom right, a small boat with a single person inside floats near the ship.
A large green truck from Kübler Spedition is transporting a massive container wrapped in a protective tarp. The container displays several logos and text, including the logo of the European Space Agency (ESA), indicating it is part of a specialised transport operation. In the background, there is an industrial building with large metal silos under a blue sky.
In a cleanroom environment, two individuals wearing blue lab coats and hairnets are working around a large spacecraft. The spacecraft is covered in protective plastic sheeting and mounted on a white transport platform labelled with technical instructions.
In a cleanroom environment, a group of engineers wearing protective coats, gloves, and face masks are working on a large spacecraft component. The component is mounted on a white wheeled platform. The top of the spacecraft carries 26 cylindrical cameras. The workspace is surrounded by structural supports and white fabric walls, creating a clean and controlled environment.
Welcome, Plato! 🤗
On 1 September, the spacecraft arrived in the Netherlands by boat from Germany via the Rhine River.
In the coming weeks, engineers will add the sunshield & solar arrays and carry out tests to confirm Plato is ready for launch 🚀
www.esa.int/Science_Expl...
🔭 #Exoplanets
Farewell, Gaia! 🥹 👏
This is what Firefly's Blue Ghost lander saw as the Sun set on Sunday.
The Sun is the bright lightsource at the horizon.
At top is Earth (you can't quite tell it's gibbous).
And that bright star between the two is Venus. I have never seen a photo of Venus from the surface of the Moon before.
At the equinox of 20 March 2025, our planet is neither tilted towards nor away from the Sun, creating nearly equal day/night. This stunning Meteosat-12 image taken earlier this morning showcases the boundary between day and night running straight through the poles.
🌍 Happy #Equinox! On 20 March 2025 at 09:01 GMT/10:01 CET, just a few moments ago, the Sun appeared directly above Earth's equator - with our planet neither tilting towards nor away from the Sun!
(pic: @eumetsat.int, processed by ESA/S. Proud)
See flic.kr/p/2qT1ZUu
Pure passion for the topic, fuelled by the experience of knowing what living with endometriosis feels like. Meet our endo research team – first up: Rachel Hosking, PhD candidate at IMAGENDO. #EndometriosisAwarenessMonth
Continuing on with our #EndometriosisAwarenessMonth campaign, we asked three of our researchers to explain their research in 15 words or less.
Find out more about their research on the EXPPECT website: www.exppectedinburgh.co.uk/
Open this image up fully.
Look to the top right.
That's Phobos, one of the moons of Mars.
And that bright point of light?
Earth.
False colour JWST NIRCam image of a nearby star forming region in front of a deep back ground of colorful galaxies. NASA, ESA, CSA, K. McQuinn (STScI), J. DePasquale (STScI)
Oh come ON now. This new JWST image is just ASTOUNDING.
I feel like I’m falling looking into it, and that I would fall forever, and that I would enjoy it.
NASA, ESA, CSA, K. McQuinn (STScI), J. DePasquale (STScI)
An image from the goes east satellite showing most of the americas in darkness and the terminator crossing the Atlantic
Look at that terminator!
We have passed the winter solstice (9:21 UTC) for the northern hemisphere, gang!
A year in sunsets, from April 2023 to March 2024, track along the western horizon in these stacked panoramic views. The well-planed sequence is constructed of images recorded near the 21st day of the indicated month from the same location overlooking Cairo, Egypt. But for any location on planet Earth the yearly extreme northern (picture right) and southern limits of the setting Sun mark the solstice days. The word solstice is from Latin for "Sun" and "stand still". On the solstice date the seasonal drift of the Sun's daily path through the sky appears to pause and reverse direction in its annual celestial journey. Of course the Sun reaches a stand still on today's date. The 21 December 2024 solstice at 09:21 UTC is the moment of the Sun's southernmost declination, the start of astronomical winter in the north and summer in the south.
🔭 A Year in Sunsets
Image Credit & Copyright: Wael Omar
apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap24122...
"Reliable Detections of Atmospheres on Rocky Exoplanets with Photometric JWST Phase Curves" by Hammond et al., incl. @xoplanets.bsky.social @nichollsh.bsky.social @astrochloe.bsky.social @tgmeier.bsky.social @astrojake.bsky.social @astrolisadang.bsky.social @johannateske.bsky.social today on arXiv!
WTF is it with so many movies and TV shows showing people smoking? They could just *not* do that.
For a talk I just made this transition plot of exoplanets with age, to show how little we know about planets in the early times. Starting with all exoplanets in the database... (1/5)
Applications are open for MPIA summer internships! this is a fully funded opportunity, open to bachelor's and master's students anywhere in the world: www.mpia.de/en/careers/i...
Cannot even do plane rides without being in pain. Looks like I’ll have to carry my own meals next trip 🥲 #endometriosis
I got to write in Scientific American about one of my all-time favorite cosmic objects: Barnard 68! It's like a hole in space, except… it isn't.
www.scientificamerican.com/article/what...
🧪🔭
A sign showing a map of the Dirleton Solar Walk, with information describing its scale (1:3.6 billon) and instructions on how to access its augmented reality features for each planet.
Myself next to the marker for the planet Jupiter, which consists of a fence post with a sign on top showing an artistic representation of Jupiter and a metallic ball representing its relative size according to the scale. There is also a QR code linking to information about the planet and an AR representation.
The marker for the planet Saturn, with a view of the countryside around Dirleton.
Myself and my colleague Gergely Friss attempting to demonstrate the augmented reality visualisation of the planet Neptune. I am trying to hold the planet but my hands are in totally the wrong place.
Very excited to be at the opening of the Dirleton Solar Walk today - a scale model of our Solar System in the East Lothian countryside, placed over 1.2km of the John Muir Way walking route! 🪐🔭 This was a really fun project to support and I highly recommend it for those local, esp. for kids/families!
I love when it's cold and I have to wear a full load of laundry to leave the house
X-ray images of 29 supernova remnants observed with the Chandra X-ray Observatory in the first two years of the mission, 1999-2001. Images are mostly adapted from https://chandra.harvard.edu/press/ and https://hea-www.harvard.edu/ChandraSNR/gallery_gal.html
Making my slides for the "25 Years of Science with Chandra" conference, and here's the supernova remnants imaged with Chandra in the first two years of the mission in the order they were observed! 🔭🧪 #SaveChandra
Time-lapse of altocumulus undulatus clouds at 30x speed. I happened to catch the formation's edge as it passed by.
The “Tiger Stripes” of southern Enceladus are deep ravines and connect to the subsurface ocean below. These contain the cryovolcanoes producing the water ice plumes.
