OMG, you aren't kidding.

His "four words" were "Kaela - We are looking into this."

"Administrators don't control science"

"Dwarf planets are planets"

Goodnight Earth. Amazing.

I'll confess, I sing this song all the time.

But only while watching water birds and adjusting the lyrics to "egrets, I've seen a few..." while enjoying eye rolls from my family.

There are probably a trillion planets in our galaxy. BUT

planets are ~1/100,000th the mass of the universe
they're a tiny, tiny fraction of the cosmic volume
oceans & oxygen atmospheres may be rare; we simply do not know

The vision does include science, at least, although only in two sentences, and in a broad, global style.

Just by being on the surface of a planet, we live in a highly extreme part of the universe. A planet with oceans and an oxygen atmosphere? Truly remarkable (and we still don't really know just how remarkable).

Don't take Earth for granted. 🧪

"Fifteen minutes from now, I will wreak a terrible vengeance on this city. No one will be spared! NO ONE!" --Mr Burns, The Simpsons

This illustration summarises the almost 14-billion-year long history of our Universe. It shows the main events that occurred between the initial phase of the cosmos, where its properties were almost uniform and punctuated only by tiny fluctuations, to the rich variety of cosmic structure that we observe today: stars and galaxies. The series of panels on the right side of the illustration zooms into the cosmic large-scale structure to reveal first a cluster of galaxies, then a spiral galaxy similar to our own Milky Way Galaxy, and finally, the Solar System.

Thought for the day:

Earth is 10^30 times as dense as an averaged-out sample of the universe. That is, gravity has amplified the density of our planet by a factor of thousand billion billion billion. Without that amplification, we would not be here. 🧪🔭

Now that's the way ro start a day

It's quite the beast, right?

That's a cast in my photo, but the fossil (and the creature that it used to be) is real. Lived at the very end of the Cretaceous.

A lot of dinosaur species have nerd-humor names.

Dracorex hogwartsia, one hell of a dinosaur

I recently learned that Pachycephalosaurus also had a spectacular close relative (maybe even a juvenile of the same species) called, um, Dracorex hogwartsia.

Come on, the best dinosaur is Pachycephalosaurus. Lived 68 million years ago but was perfect for the modern world, with an 8-inch-thick skull.

We're heading toward Mother Focker, aren't we?

Put Parasaurolophus in a bracket with Pachycephalosaurus, I'm begging ya

Pterodactyl is on the list of favorite dinosaurs? Why don't you just add Dimetrodon and Plesiosaurus to the list, you monsters.

The only meaningful way to talk about cosmic events is in terms of when their information connects with us. That's fundamentally all we can observe, and all that we can know.

If you try imagining a universal cosmic "now," you end up with a trillion trillion trillion uncalibrated cosmic clocks.

Keep @ligo.org running and fund Cosmic Explorer!

A cosmic population of binary supermassive black holes generates a background of gravitational waves. Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars and are the most precise clocks in the Universe. When a gravitational wave passes the Pulsar Timing Array, the arrival time of the pulses on Earth is affected by a tiny amount of less than 100 nanoseconds. The largest telescopes on Earth are used to precisely monitor the rotating ticks of these pulsars over decades to reveal the faint echoes of distant black holes.

It is the first time anyone has found such a close pair of supermassive black holes. Collisions between such extreme objects shake the whole universe with gravitational waves.

Researchers recently detected evidence of that "gravitational wave background." 🔭🧪

www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/pressrelease...

The graphical depiction shows the central region of the galaxy Mrk 501 at a frequency of 43 gigahertz on three different days. The contours indicate the intensity of the emission, while the grey circles mark bright regions within the jet, identified through model calculations. One can track the movement of the jets by following the movement of these regions. The previously known jet (Jet 1, orange guide line) pointing towards Earth is clearly visible. The newly discovered second jet (Jet 2, blue) changed its appearance within a few weeks. Both particle streams originate close to each other in the core of the galaxy. The position of the black hole (BH) associated with Jet 1 is marked with an arrow.

Astronomers have discovered two supermassive black holes that seem headed for an imminent collision.

These two black holes are so close that they could merge in just 100 years. And their radiation & jets changed dramatically over the course of a few days. 🧪🔭

www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/pressrelease...

So you can have your cake and...

Oh never mind

Tech heritage for the SR-1 mission, using a closed-cycle Brayton power conversion engine to turn nuclear heat into electricity.

It looks like Space Reactor-1 would use a "closed-cycle Brayton power conversion engine." The reactor would heat molten potassium, which would spin a turbine & run a generator to produce 20kW.

But this is just inference based on previous technologies [PDF link]

ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citation...

Interesting update on NASA's proposal to send a nuclear-powered rocket to Mars.

I'd sure love to see NASA release some information about the planned design of Space Reactor-1, along with the prospects for incorporating science into what is basically a planned technology demonstrator. 🧪

PanSTARRS Comet Its twisted tail is beautiful Looking forward to its future growth 2026/4/13 Nagano Prefecture, Hiratani Village

Another great shot of Comet R3 PanSTARRS in the constellation Pegasus. This one is by zoe0718 in Japan (I don't know the English name). 🧪🔭

www.instagram.com/zoe_zoe0718

Comet R3 is brightening rapidly -- will it survive? C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) has been slowly brightening and extending an ion tail since its discovery last year. This shedding mountain of dirty ice puts on its best sky show this month, though, because it passes its closest to both the Sun (April 19) and the Earth (April 25). The featured image, showing R3 already sporting a tail extending over 10 degrees, was taken two nights ago from Sion, Switzerland with the big mountain Bietschhorn on the left. Comet R3 will be visible during mid-April before sunrise. Although the future brightness of any comet is hard to predict, the brightness of R3 makes it already a good camera comet and it may become visible to the unaided eye in the next week. Comet R3's physical future is also unknown because, like Comet A1 (MAPS) earlier this month, it may disintegrate when it passes its closest to the Sun. Or it may live to leave the Solar System.

Comet R3 PanSTARRS is brightening in the morning sky & putting on quite a nice view. Still requires good binoculars and a very clear horizon...or you can enjoy the marvelous photos from those who are tracking the comet. (In this case, José Rodrigues) 🧪🔭

apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap26041...

Somebody should put one of those wide-angle mirrors behind the Moon.

In case you're wondering, there's a strong selection effect that makes it difficult to observe meteorite strikes near the lunar poles.

Map of lunar impacts observed by the NELIOTA program.

Meanwhile, the European NELIOTA program is monitoring lunar impacts from Earth, and has already logged 207 confirmed strikes. 🧪🔭

neliota.astro.noa.gr