Science nerds! My six year old has a question and Google is completely useless and keeps telling us the answer is silica aerogel- What is the lightest solid found in nature?

Stitched together and processed mosaic of two individual images sent back by the Mars rover Perseverance

...meanwhile, on Mars, a nuclear-powered robot scientist is exploring this beautiful landscape and sending back glorious views like this... Perseverance Images Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/S Atkinson

Vermont is constructing a diverging diamond interchange and I'm honestly excited about it

www.exit16ddi.vtransprojects.vermont.gov

Antofagasta crater (Mars) - 3D model by Dr. Gwénaël Caravaca (@GCC_mars) This is a mid-resolution Digital Outcrop Model of a small (~10m-wide) impact crater informally named Antofagasta. This small crater has been observed along the traverse of the Curiosity rover during i...

Earlier this week the Curiosity rover encountered a very exciting small impact crater. We came closer to investigate and I made a Digital Outcrop Model to assess its dimensions 😁
You too can have a look at this geomorphic feature set in a polygons-ladden bedrock!
skfb.ly/pIG6H

Sometimes if I eat too fast I feel extremely uncomfortable and almost like I can't breathe until I'm finally able to let out a huge burp. I had no idea there are people who simply can't burp. That sounds awful. I'm glad they figured out how to treat it.

A thread about the farthest apart two humans have ever been

The Whirlpool Galaxy, which is a grand-design spiral galaxy. It has a bright center with spiral arms around it, and another bright area at the end of the outermost spiral arm.

First light with my new Seestar S30 Pro. M51 the Whirlpool Galaxy. Space joy. #astrophotography

I just ordered it. I'm very set in my ways (I eat a lot of "samefood") and not sure how much I will actually make from the cookbook, but even just having a copy and reading it will be validating.

"Planet Earth: You. Are. A. Crew."

Artemis II mission specialist Christina Koch reflects on what it means to be a "crew."

I'm a WNBA player. Don't use athletes like me to exclude trans women. IOC's policy invites unequal scrutiny. We cannot choose our genes or chromosomes, but we can choose whether we protect the dignity of every athlete.

WNBA star Brianna Turner has written an article denouncing the new invasive sex testing requirements of the IOC.

www.usatoday.com/story/opinio...

The alphabet and numerals 0-9 in the Artemis mission typeface

Just so you know what kind of dork I am: I was looking at the Artemis II mission stuff and said to @kaylahornbrook.bsky.social, “The cutaway in those letters in the bottom left corner definitely means something super specific…”

I wonder if they get a little seasick with the capsule bobbing around like that in the water.

If you were wondering what those bright flames were seen in this infrared view - those are RCS puffs to bring the capsule in an optimal landing orientation to reduce impact loading during splashdown #Artemis

Enterprise - Season 1 Intro YouTube video by Rui Cruz

youtu.be/5J-FOalYVCk...

I'm moonscrolling

Science is good. We should fund it.

Splashdown confirmed!

#Artemis websites I am watching today:
Main commentated broadcast:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3kR...
Uncommentated feed:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rwf...
Flickr photostream:
www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2...
Telemetry feed:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mtZ...
Amateur-produced live timeline:
x37b.nl/artemis/

I saw that! Just fantastic!

You must watch until booster separation at 2:24. Wow.

The bob. I hated the bun, and don't care for the ponytail either.

I learned about egg creams in the lead-up to the April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse. Apparently it's traditional to drink an egg cream after witnessing a total solar eclipse! They are easy to make at home.

Scatter plot of date the crocuses are up and open from 2002 through 2026, with regression line. Just for the fun of it I used flowers for the markers on the scatter plot. The regression line shows a negative slope. The overall trend is for the crocuses to open earlier in more recent years.

One of my brothers requested a trend line, so I did a linear regression.

Chart recording the date I first saw the crocuses fully opened over the years. The dates are as follows. April 13, 2002 April 16, 2003 April 18, 2004 April 2, 2006 April 21, 2007 April 4, 2010 April 10, 2011 April 14, 2013 April 22, 2014 April 19, 2015 April 2, 2016 April 13, 2017 April 21, 2018 April 13, 2019 April 4, 2020 March 25, 2021 March 24, 2022 April 1, 2023 March 29, 2024 April 6, 2025 April 9, 2026

Scatter plot illustrating the date the crocuses are up and open dating back to 2001. It's a little random but the overall trend seems to be to come up earlier in recent years.

Here's how the date compares with previous years. The date that I record is when they are up with flowers fully open.

A patch of purple crocuses surrounded by dry grass and dead leaves. They are cheerful happy flowers.

A smaller patch of purple crocuses surrounded by twigs, acorns, and dried leaves.

Crocuses are up! They were up but not open on Monday, got snowed on on Tuesday, and now that the snow has melted they are officially up and open. There are two little patches of them and I really should plant more this fall. My Dad helped me plant them in 2001. He and my Mom both died last year.

I have tried to teach through laryngitis and it's rough. This semester I managed to get laryngitis during spring break week, which I guess is better?

C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) is a hyperbolic Oort cloud comet and it is unknown if it will survive perihelion passage on 19 April 2026 when it passes 0.499 AU (75 million km) from the Sun. Around perihelion may reach a naked eye visibility of around apparent magnitude +3.

Comet! C/2025 R3 (panSTARRS) Maybe my last clear morning for a while. Had to be creative to find a small window of visibility with trees and my house in the way but 10 mins x 15 secs exposures & there it is, cropped/processed.
#astronomy #astrophotography @stormhour.com @photohour.bsky.social

With this settlement the US is worse off in every way than it was before the war; Iran is strengthened by the huge new tolls in the Straits of Hormuz, paid by the whole world. (1/14)

A bit of a different take on the amazing Artemis II launch footage.

Here I stitched clips from the four Solar Array Wing Cameras to make this panoramic video.

This is during the later part of the Core Stage burn until MECO and stage separation, sped up to 10x. 🔭🧪 #Artemis

Listen: Artemis II and ISS astronauts call each other through space YouTube video by CBS News

Artemis II astronauts and ISS astronauts talking to each other is the best thing ever.

youtu.be/Ph34kbX01UM?...