Today is a good day to remember that Carl Sagan was as outspoken about the dangers of war and nuclear weapons as he was an advocate of space exploration.

during Spitzer’s IRAC camera’s thermal vac tests at Goddard, I remember seeing DSCOVR in a clean tent. At that time it was known informally as Goresat after its primary political champion - who wanted continous images of the illuminated Earth. I think it was another decade before it was launched.

so the “revocation” allows for drilling near the archeological sites?

it took me three tries and over a year on the 3rd try. It contains a clever discussion on the foundations of mathematics and computation, but the connections to intelligence and consciousness are not persuasive and are now dated.

#NoKings #Toledo #Ohio

As described this is my linocut print in blue in on white speckled washi paper of the segmented prehistoric animal Opabinia, with its claw-like proboscis and five eyes on stalks, each segment on a different colourful collaged paper.

This is one of a series of prints of Opabinia, 🧪🐡 an extinct prehistoric creatures which lived during the Cambrian geological time period, carved by hand in linoleum, printed onto lovely white paper with bark inclusions and collaged with Japanese papers in different colours and patterns, 🧵

Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, was discovered on March 25, 1655, by Christiaan Huygens. More than 350 years later, it remains a key target for exploration. Launching in 2028, NASA’s Dragonfly mission will investigate the complex chemistry of this ocean world. https://dragonfly.jhuapl.edu/Why-Titan

Heard on Interstate-10 near Lordsburg NM listening to two DJs on a local radio statio: “I bought a 7 course meal for my girlfriend on Valentines day.”, “really?”, “yep: a six pack and a hot dog.”

A screenshot from a color video of President Ronald Reagan speaking to the American public from behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office on this day in 1983.

Tonight in 1983 in the Oval Office, President Ronald Reagan called on “the scientific community in our country” to develop a defensive shield to render strategic nuclear ballistic missiles “impotent and obsolete.” More than $494 billion later (fiscal year 2026 dollars), his dream remains just that.

in space no one can hear you gasp.

and then come the jets:

4-panel comic. (1) [Glowing black dot surrounded by clouds.] DOT: I think I did a good job with this universe. Pressure waves dance through gas clouds. They clump together and then pressure pushes them apart. (2) [Some of the clouds are clumping together.] DOT: Oh weird, that big clump of clouds is staying together. Their gravity is overcoming the pressure and more gas is falling in. (3) [More clouds are sucked in.] DOT: It’s not stopping! The heat is rising but the collapse is only accelerating! I messed up. I messed up *bad*. (4) [The clump has become a shining star.] DOT: NOOOOOOOO!!! My beautiful clouds! Ruined! It’s all ruined!

Star Formation

xkcd.com/3222/

The University of Toledo on Instagram: "Hey, @theonion, we like a good joke and it only works because everyone knows the real truth: UToledo is an amazing university!" 1,158 likes, 30 comments - uoftoledo on March 20, 2026: "Hey, @theonion, we like a good joke and it only works because everyone knows the real truth: UToledo is an amazing university!".

www.instagram.com/reel/DWHukvD...

Map of the United States with geologic and geomorphic processes highlighted. For instance, the central US landscape was caused by farming, while the Appalachian mountains were caused by continents colliding, while Florida was caused by ongoing disputes between limestone and water, and the southwest was caused by water and time

Xkcd does it again!

m.xkcd.com/3221/

if you find out, a bunch of us would like that information.

A Table showing the number of positions posted at AAS job-registed for various categories.

Looking at the AAS jobregister lately, it seemed to me that there are less positions available in all categories than in previous years. Wanting to quantify, I used the wayback machine to check on the number of postings in the January-March window and it is quite depressing.

Absurd claim: "Elon Musk says physics has stagnated and AI could overtake scientific research. He says progress has relied on expensive hardware like colliders and telescopes, that slows discovery."

I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.

Do people really imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real? 🧪

I talked to a lead NSF program officer (PO) who’s considering quitting because everything’s terrible. This is part of the apocalypse. POs don’t just give out money. They keep up with their scientific field and everyone in it to ensure that there’s balance in who and what’s funded. It’s bad news.

White Sands Missile Range (the old V2 launching pad was memorable) and the county jail (scaring us into a law abiding life).

which was followed by SNLs The Pepsi Syndrome. I once ran into someone who was bragging about being an engineer at Davis Bessie, and when i asked him if he had ever spilled pepsi on the keyboard, i got the strangest look.

Chief Executive Officer - New York City, New York (US) job with arXiv | 37961678 arXiv seeks its first CEO to champion open, free scientific discovery and guide the platform’s next chapter as an independent nonprofit.

mmm #arXiv is leaving Cornell university, becoming independent, and hiring a CEO. Should we worry? I'm already worried.

The world would be a better place if journalists and lawmakers can distinguish an ebike from an electric motorcycle.

As a kid I read “our friend the atom, watched the moon landings,
and later attended lectures by Manhattan Project scientists on star wars, and it was impossible to ignore the danger of the bomb. I became aware of the precariousness and unity of life on earth, all because of an education in science.

A 2011 “close reading” of John Updike’s poem about neutrinos. Worth reviving for anyone who don’t know the poem, or had forgotten it. #sciart

www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/febr...

Strait to Hell?

Isotopic Evidence for a Cold and Distant Origin of the Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS Martin Cordiner, Nathan X. Roth, Marco Micheli, Geronimo Villanueva, Davide Farnocchia, Steven Charnley, Nicolas Biver, Dominique Bockelee-Morvan, Dennis Bodewits, Colin Orion Chandler, Jacques Crovisier, Maria N. Drozdovskaya, Kenji Furuya, Michael S. P. Kelley, Stefanie Milam, John W. Noonan, Cyrielle Opitom, Megan E. Schwamb, Cristina A. Thomas Comments: In Review at Nature; March 6th 2026 Interstellar objects provide the only directly observable samples of icy planetesimals formed around other stars, and can therefore provide insight into the diversity of physical and chemical conditions occurring during exoplanet formation. Here we report isotopic measurements of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, which reveal an elemental composition unlike any Solar System body. The water in 3I/ATLAS is enriched in deuterium, at a level of D/H = (0.95 +- 0.06)%, which is more than an order of magnitude higher than in known comets, while its range of 12C/13C ratios (141-191 for CO2 and 123-172 for CO) exceeds typical values found in the Solar System, as well as nearby interstellar clouds and protoplanetary disks. Such extreme isotopic signatures indicate formation at temperatures ≲30 K in a relatively metal-poor environment, early in the history of the Galaxy. When interpreted with respect to models for Galactic chemical evolution, the carbon isotopic composition implies that 3I/ATLAS accreted roughly 10-12 billion years ago, following an early period of intense star formation. 3I/ATLAS thus represents a preserved fragment of an ancient planetary system, and provides direct evidence for active ice chemistry and volatile-rich planetesimal formation in the young Milky Way.

Isotopic ratios observed in the coma of 3I/ATLAS compared with Galactic and Solar System observations for D/H.

Isotopic Evidence for a Cold and Distant Origin of the Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS by @drcordiner.bsky.social et al. (feat. @javacitrus.bsky.social @megschwamb.bsky.social and @cathomas.bsky.social)

JWST measurements of deuterium! Lots of deuterium!

Email from Chris Reynolds to the AXIS Team. Subject is disappointing AXIS news. Text of e-mail reads: Dear AXIS Friends, The AXIS team has received some very disappointing news – we have been informed by NASA HQ that AXIS is not eligible for selection and hence the Concept Study Report (CSR) will not be subjected to the full review process. AXIS represents the scientific aspirations of a large international community. As a member of one of the AXIS science working groups, you deserve a candid explanation from the PI of what happened and why. That is the purpose of this note. NASA’s decision was programmatic and not based on a review of the technology or science; the mission profile described in the submitted CSR was over the allowed budget and schedule. How was such a thing possible? In short, with NASA-GSFC as the AXIS managing center, the mission formulation process was critically compromised by the seismic shifts occurring in NASA and the Federal government. The AXIS study team was hit hard by three unprecedented challenges: NASA’s Deferred Resignation Program (DRP) and the pressure at GSFC to resign/retire created a rapid and uncontrolled loss of over 20 personnel with key expertise during a critical mission formulation period, including the main GSFC Project Manager (Jimmy Marsh) and the X-ray mirror lead (Will Zhang) and many discipline engineers.

GSFC priorities rapidly realigned to the FY2026 President’s Budget Request (PBR) that eliminated the Probe program, further reducing the availability of GSFC engineering and mission formulation personnel (incl. cost analysts and schedulers) over the critical Summer and Fall months. Key work was halted for almost seven weeks when the core GSFC AXIS study team, dominated by NASA civil servants, was furloughed during the government shutdown. NASA HQ’s extension to the CSR submission deadline (from 18-Dec-2025 to 29-Jan-2026) was inadequate compensation for the disruption and lost time. Taken together, these factors disrupted the basic grass-roots costing process (which requires extensive “reach back” to the discipline engineers to assess labor requirements) as well as the cost-design iteration process that is central to the formulation of a cost-capped and schedule-constrained mission. While the mission design was finalized in April, our initial grass-roots costing (which was ~10% over budget) could only be completed in September due to the lack of assigned resources. With the subsequent government shutdown and then “pens down” in early-December forced by the GSFC Executive Review process, there was no opportunity to work through the set of cost/schedule savings that had already been identified by the AXIS team. Ultimately, the GSFC executive council gave AXIS leadership the choice of submitting a CSR with a non-compliant schedule and cost, or not submitting a CSR at all. We of course proceeded with the submission, including a narrative that we understood the path to a cost-compliant profile (that we would have discussed with the review panels during the Site Visit). NASA HQ has ruled this stance to be unacceptable. It is important to stress that NASA’s programmatic decision was before any technical review had been conducted. The decision was NOT due to any concerns about AXIS technology. Indeed, the AXIS Phase A work had major successes with furthering

Indeed, the AXIS Phase A work had major successes with furthering the key technologies. GSFC’s Next Generation X-ray Optics (NGXO) team successfully demonstrated iridium-coated, stress-compensated mirror segments that meet AXIS baseline requirements (i.e. segment-level performance at sub-arcsecond level).  NGXO also built the first AXIS demonstrator mirror module, learning critical lessons about mirror alignment, mounting and bonding. On the detector side, MIT quickly moved to fabricate AXIS-like CCDs and, working with our colleagues at Stanford, recently demonstrated that they achieve the required readout rate and spectral resolution. Similarly, NASA’s decision was NOT a judgment of the importance of AXIS science. The AXIS science case was rated excellent in the Step 1 review, and it only became stronger during our Phase A study. The AXIS Community Science Book, which many of you contributed to, is an extremely powerful demonstration of the relevance and importance of high-resolution X-ray observations to all areas of astrophysics. The Science Book is one of the most important legacies of the AXIS Phase A study and, I believe, will help define future mission concepts for many years to come. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for all of your work on this. AXIS has been a long journey; we started under the leadership of Richard Mushotzky more than nine years ago. During that time, it’s been an enormous privilege to work with amazing people; the AXIS science team, the incredible/brilliant GSFC and Northrop Grumman engineers, and the wider astrophysics community. I am, quite frankly, livid that AXIS ultimately fell victim to the programmatic chaos of 2025. The astronomical community deserves better. I hope that NASA leadership, especially at GSFC and HQ, can have an honest discussion about how to better support and protect programs during extraordinary times.

For now, as a community, we must look forward. There is still one excellent mission under consideration for the Probe program, PRIMA, and we wish them a smooth and speedy path to selection and flight. In X-ray astronomy, the SMEX and MidEX programs represent concrete pathways for focused, high-impact missions, and the scientific case we built for AXIS provides a strong foundation for those concepts. The technologies we advanced in Step 1 and Phase A, particularly the NGXO mirror work and the MIT/Stanford detector demonstrations, can anchor the next generation of proposals. Most importantly, the AXIS Community Science Book, representing more than 500 scientists across, is a living document and a powerful signal to NASA leadership that this community is organized, serious, and not going anywhere. I encourage everyone to use it actively, as a resource for future concept development, for Astro2030 engagement, and for building the next mission that will deliver high angular resolution X-ray imaging to address the fundamental questions about black hole growth, galaxy evolution, and the hot universe that motivated AXIS from the beginning. This community built something remarkable over nine years and that doesn't end here. Thank you again for your support of AXIS over these times. Best Chris and the AXIS leadership team

The @axisprobe.bsky.social team learned that the phase A concept study report of AXIS (the Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite) will not be reviewed because the lost personnel at NASA Goddard and government shutdown impacted our schedule and budget. 🔭 Here is the PI's e-mail with the explanation.

Deutschland: Meteorit verursacht Schäden in Rheinland-Pfalz In Koblenz ist ein Meteorit in ein Hausdach eingeschlagen, auch im Hunsrück und in der Eifel hat der ehemalige Himmelskörper Schäden angerichtet. Augenzeugen berichten von einem hellen Flugkörper – verletzt wurde niemand.

In Koblenz ist ein Meteorit in ein Hausdach eingeschlagen, auch im Hunsrück und in der Eifel hat der ehemalige Himmelskörper Schäden angerichtet. Augenzeugen berichten von einem hellen Flugkörper – verletzt wurde niemand.

The Milky Way arcs over and behind this view looking up at Rubin's shiny silver dome toward a starry night sky.

Alerts from NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory have been flowing for about a week...how many have there been?? 🚨

So far, Rubin has generated....drumroll please🥁

~1.7 million world-public alerts!

That's ~1.7 MILLION objects that changed in brightness or position in just seven nights 🤯

🔭🧪

A black and white still photo of a dozen or so of the main characters and others in the episode standing in a group on a sidewalk or driveway looking pensively straight ahead at something offscreen. The men are wearing casual shirts and pants, the women casual dresses. A dark colored station wagon is partially visible in the background at left.

Tonight in 1959, “The Twilight Zone” episode “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street” (season 1, episode 22)—Rod Serling’s taut and unforgettable Cold War parable depicting the societal consequences of irrational fear and paranoia of communist infiltration—was broadcast for the first time on CBS.