A model image of what our home galaxy, the Milky Way, might look like face-on: as viewed from above the disc of the galaxy, with its spiral arms and bulge in full view. The Milky Way bar, different arms and the location of the Sun are indicated.

#ESAGaia has delivered on its primary goal of building the largest, most precise map of the Milky Way, showing us our home galaxy like no other mission has done before.

Discover more about #ourGalaxy with this slider tool 👉 www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed...

🔭 🧪

The thick band of the Milky Way reaches up to the top of this image from the horizon, passing through rainbow-colored gravity waves in Earth's airglow. At the bottom of the picture, the nighttime lights of a nearby island light up the surrounding water and lower cloud cover.

#PPOD: The sky can glow like a giant rainbow due to airglow, which is usually hard to see. Disturbances like storms cause gravity waves, making airglow visible. This image was captured on Mount Pico in the Azores, Portugal, with Faial Island's lights in view. Credit: Miguel Claro | Dark Sky® Alqueva

From last night: here's 67 minutes worth of asteroid (8) Flora passing in front of galaxy NGC 3628. 🔭

The filaments are cool to see!

"What does NASA do for us?"

You might think NASA only benefits Americans in Florida or Texas. You'd be wrong. 🔭🧪

www.nasa.gov/fy-2023-econ...

A non-exhaustive compilation of dust devils from the last 35 sols.

#NASA's #Mars #Perseverance rover

Left Navigation Camera (Navcam)
Sol 1436 - 1471

NASA/JPL-Caltech/j. Roger

🔭

Extreme magnetic fields near our galaxy's black hole are preventing stars from being born, JWST discovers "It was a completely serendipitous discovery."

A region near the galactic centre doesn’t form as many stars as it should. New observations from JWST have found evidence that this is due to extremely strong magnetic fields 🔭🧪 www.space.com/space-explor...

Forcing people to pay $130 for a passport in order to vote is just a Jim Crow poll tax by another name.

It is blatantly unconstitutional.

To the world:
We are fighting back. Our movement has been silenced by the media here—but we are not backing down. This is what our streets looked like across multiple cities. Tomorrow, there will be more of us! Raise a glass to freedom.

—With love,
Your American allies.

I asked the one high ranking policeman I saw on 5th Ave why there were so few police. He said “We did not expect anything like this. Don’t tell anyone but I’ve only got 44 officers out here — and it’s a great crowd, great event, no incidents.”

WHAT AN AMAZING VIEW OF THE #MilkyWay CENTER by #MeerKAT & #ESAWebb & #NASA
The supermassive #BlackHole blazes bright at the middle, while filamentary structures and the bubble-like remnants of recent supernovae reveal their presence. Gorgeous image!
www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed...
#science #astronomy

"This is not a left or right moment. It is a right or wrong moment."

-- Senator Cory Booker, today

The front cover of a scientific journal titled Ornithologist, dated 1 April 2025. The main headline reads: “BIRDS: DECODED - Groundbreaking New Science.” Below that, a subheading says: “What are the UK’s birds really saying? Pioneering new research provides the answers.”

WORLD-FIRST: Ground-breaking research published today in the Ornithologist Journal has, for the first time, translated common UK bird vocalisations into equivalent phrases in the human language.

The results tell us a lot!

Extracts below... 🧵

Farewell, Gaia! Spacecraft operations come to an end The European Space Agency (ESA) has powered down its Gaia spacecraft after more than a decade spent gathering data that are now being used to unravel the secrets of our home galaxy.On 27 March 2025, G...

“We will never forget Gaia, and Gaia will never forget us.” - Gaia Mission Manager, Uwe Lammers

Interesting conversation with a friend in the non-profit space yesterday. A lot of human service from local non-profits is paid for, in part, with Federal money. They have had to go through and revise language in line with recent executive orders. Why does this matter? How can you help?

Update 🧵: So we finally got official guidance on the whole “needing to prove identity in person” thing today. No, we do not need everybody that receives benefits to come to the office en masse. So let’s talk about who will have to come in person to the local office. 1/?

Using SIGNAL to avoid oversight and discovery.

How to delete genetic data from 23andMe • Log into your 23andMe account. • Go to your Profile, then tap Settings. • Scroll to the "23andMe Data" section at the bottom of the page and click View. • If you want to download your data, select what you want. • Scroll to the "Delete Data" section and click Permanently Delete Data. • Confirm your request: You'll receive an email from 23andMe, and click the link in the email to confirm.

23andMe declared bankruptcy and the company is gonna be sold off for parts. That includes your DNA information and the only amount of control you have is to delete your info immediately. It’s very simple to do.

Gift link: wapo.st/4kUsBEF

JetBlue flight (confirmed via FlightRadar) passing in front of the Sun today during a livestream of the Sun.

The exhaust of the plane from the previous image.

A JetBlue flight passed in front of the Sun while I was livestreaming the Sun today. This is a screencap of it. Not the best image, but woo-hoo! I've always wanted to capture an #AVgeek #Astrophotography image! Plane and its exhaust, a second later, for your viewing pleasure!

It continues to amaze me that all it took to overthrow the most powerful government in history was some techbro showing up and telling everyone he's in charge now, and a judiciary afraid to tell him to leave because it might cause a standoff.

My local Costco is now carrying my kid’s favorite rainbow popsicles. Win!

I just checked in at the Atlanta airport and the kiosk wanted me to show a "passport or permanent residence card."

The airline rep who was helping me said "I don't know why it's doing this it's been doing it all morning."

This is alarming. If the purpose here is truly to justify military ops in Mexico and Canada, things could go badly very quickly.

The other concern, mentioned in the article, is that this EO could be used to round up and prosecute unhoused people, and to deport non-citizens who use the drug.

Explore the sky! Galaxies and nebulae available in an interactive sky map. I found the horsehead quickly in Orion!

sky.esa.int/esasky/?target=85.29933515424644%20-2.133539868416529&hips=DSS2+color&fov=1.231934429417302&projection=TAN&cooframe=J2000&sci=false&lang=en&layout=esasky

'Dark universe detective' telescope releases first data Europe's Euclid space telescope, which is on a mission to shed light on the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy, has released its first data with a little help from volunteers and artificial inte...

RTÉ on #Euclid...

www.rte.ie/news/newslen...

I remember it being unpleasant & a lot less fudge-y.

Trump administration guts board of US Institute of Peace. Group says DOGE arrives The Trump administration has fired most of the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace and sent its new leader into the Washington headquarters of the independent organization.

What is the #USInstituteofPeace and why should EVERYONE care what happened there yesterday? It's an independent nonprofit organization that exists literally to STOP WARS. DOGE raided it yesterday and shut it down. 1/🧵
apnews.com/article/doge...

The Trump administration plans to eliminate the EPA’s scientific research arm and lay off more than 1,000 chemists, biologists, and other scientists.

Musk’s staffers have entered an independent government agency by force. Employees from DOGE are now inside the Washington offices of the United States Institute of Peace. This comes just days after agency representatives were unable to gain access to the building on Friday being blocked by lawyers.

Unauthorized Disposition of Federal Records Federal agencies are required to "notify the Archivist of any actual, impending, or threatened unlawful removal, defacing, alteration, corruption, deletion, erasure, or other destruction of records in...

Fellow feds - if you’re being directed to destroy records, report it to the National Archives Office of Records Management Oversight and Reporting. www.archives.gov/records-mgmt...