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

Photo from a watchtower on a hill overlooking grassy fields and a road under a rising Sun.

Photo of Masters Hall, a brick college building.

Here at Gettysburg College for the Central Pennsylvania Consortium Astronomers' Meeting! I'm excited to hear about cool science and give a talk on radio transients and the valuable work still being done with Arecibo data.

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/

Cover of report "Mission Aborted: how NASA illegally implemented the president's budget request without congressional approval. Minority staff report, prepared by members of the committee on science, space, and technology, us house of representatives, April 2026

This report came out today by minority staff of the House science committee on how three NASA missions were aborted due to NASA illegally following the FY26 president's budget request instead of congressionally approved budget. Very important reading. 🔭🧪 democrats-science.house.gov/staff-report...

Mamdani hasn't had time to really think about all that space he now has, because he spends most of his time at City Hall and around New York City. He tries to keep a semblance of his old life by getting around the city on foot, by bike or train. "If you spend every single day driving around in a tinted window security detail, you will have a very specific view of the city," he said. "You actually meet other New Yorkers and you break out of the bubble that so many have come to expect of politics, where politicians only seem to be spending time with other politicians or the people who donated to make them politicians."

I'd say that this applies to anyone traveling in a car in any city. Being in a car versus walking, riding, or taking transit fundamentally changes how you view a place and your relationship to it. I wish more leaders set this kind of example.

www.npr.org/2026/04/16/n...

Tell me why? A case for Human(e) Astrophysics Artemis, AI, Astronomy, and our place in it. The author asks why do astrophysics at all. To produce results faster, or to turn graduate students into inefficient stand-ins for software? Or because astronomy is one of the most human things we do. It gives us wonder, yes, but also responsibility: to remember the histories of colonialism and militarization tied to our instruments, to use new tools without surrendering judgment, and to insist that people remain the point of the enterprise. The universe is not only something to be computed. It is something to be encountered, interpreted, and loved.

beautiful @astrobites.bsky.social by @qwasistellar.bsky.social on AI in astronomy; strongly strongly recommend giving it a read!! 🔭🧪☄️

"We need humane astrophysics because astrophysics is one of the places where humanity rehearses what kind of species it wants to be."

astrobites.org/2026/04/10/t...

The AAS Policy team has published a detailed breakdown of the proposed FY27 budgets for NASA, NSF, and DOE. aas.org/posts/news/2...

Take action now by asking your Senators to sign letters in support of NSF and NASA Science:

1️⃣ aas.org/urge-your-se...
2️⃣ aas.org/urge-your-se...

@policy.aas.org 🔭

and it is still infinity times better to be the kind of person who loves monarch butterflies, and the mosaic tilework on an ancient mosque, and kids whose names you'll never know running around a field kicking a soccer ball, than the kind who views them with indifference, but it is also painful

These are the moments we live for in science 😍

Artemis II science officer Kelsey Young's reaction to the astronauts reporting that they saw at least FOUR impact flashes on the Moon during their observations.

2027 PBR just dropped. 🧪🔭🪐

NASA Science gets a 50% cut, again.
40 missions terminated.

I don't have anything else to say right now. I knew we'd have it again this year, but we *just* finished winning this fight for the 2026 budget.

www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...

Instagram Create an account or log in to Instagram - Share what you're into with the people who get you.

The White House just unveiled a budget with a 50% cut to NASA science (astrophysics, climate change, etc) and overall 23% cut to NASA

The goal: make NASA only for things like Artemis, which is explicitly a militarization and commercialization mission

🔭🧪

www.instagram.com/p/DWrEWbyFto...

I was once at a lab with a small particle accelerator and they hadn't upgraded some of the computers since the 90s because upgrades would have broken the entire system.

Also, the building had some round windows because, IIRC, the Navy funded the building and they really liked portholes.

In a world full of problems, I hate that this technology boils our engines of hope down to empty non-interaction. My school recently polled to see how the faculty feels about using AI for GRADING. At what point is it just robots talking to each other? Where is the humanity in these humanities?

Hey, at least it's not Teams.

We don’t actually need to send humans to space. One of the big reasons we do it is because of how it gets the public involved in the excitement of science and exploration. It’s not often we get to directly witness science in action. Now more then ever we need this kind of experience.

They’re going around the horn and the astronauts finish by saying ‘We are going for all humanity’.

Why is it a big deal that there’s more diversity in the Artemis II crew? Because this is what everyone who has gone to the moon up to this point looks like: 🔭🧪

NASA once touted the diversity of Artemis II's astronauts. Now? Not so much The Artemis II mission crew contains four people -- including one woman and one Black man, both of whom will be the first on a lunar mission. But NASA hasn't been talking about these milestones much.

The #ArtemisII crew includes the first person of color, the first woman, and the first non-American to (hopefully) fly beyond Earth orbit. You won't hear much on this from NASA, which has rolled back DEI initiatives over the past year.

www.npr.org/2026/03/31/n...

Among the firsts of Artemis II, it will be the first time a person of color and Black astronaut (Victor Glover), first woman astronaut (Christina Koch), and first Canadian and non-US citizen astronaut (Jeremy Hansen) travel beyond low Earth orbit and to the Moon. 🚀

Artemis II mission is about to fly humans to the Moon — here’s the science they’ll do Set to lift off this week, the NASA flight will take astronauts around the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years.

Need to catch up on #ArtemisII science ahead of today's launch attempt to the MOON? See our explainer at @nature.com 🧪🔭

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Jonathan Kemp and Treya Pember of Wellesley College collecting dark sky data at Rock Point Overlook, milepost 10.4 on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Jason Urroz, Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation; photo shows two figures in silhouette against city lights and a starry sky, with one person holding a photometer up to measure brightness.

Nice coverage of the Blue Ridge Rising Dark Skies Initiative, a collaboration of Appalachian colleges and non-profits collecting light pollution data this spring. 🔭
cardinalnews.org/2026/03/31/p...

Don't give them ideas... xkcd.com/3225/

Our Python client for streaming/sending data in real time is now updated! Lots more to do, but I think it's a nice start:

Headshot of Jackson Taylor with text Gravitational Waves and Cosmology in corner

“The long and great history of astronomy teaches us that discovery comes from looking where no one has looked before, and I see no reason to stop now.” Jackson Taylor leads the search for Pulsar-Bound Exotrojans. ✨🤩
gwac.wvu.edu/blog/2026/03...
@wvuphysastro.bsky.social @westvirginiau.bsky.social

I feel like it should be a function of mass. If you set it at, say, 1 billion years, a G dwarf might be near maturity, but that's unfair to all the 100-solar mass stars, which would be long dead.

. . . Not that an O star should ever get drunk, of course. That would be . . . bad.

WVU Day of Giving March 25, 2026

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Please help us continue the Center’s mission of cutting edge research, global collaboration and visionary academic training.
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dayofgiving.wvu.edu/giving-day/1...

WVU Day of Giving March 25, 2026

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If you are not impressed by the picture of a Black Hole, clearly you do not understand the gravity of the situation…

BREAKING: New Jersey Sues to Block ICE Detention Facility in Roxbury New Jersey and Roxbury Township are challenging a federal plan to convert a warehouse into a 1,500-person detention center on environmental grounds.

BREAKING: New Jersey has sued the Trump administration to block the conversion of a Roxbury warehouse into a 1,500-person ICE detention center, the latest legal challenge to the administration's nationwide detention expansion program.