Super excited for the @stormbasketball.bsky.social season!

Not problematic whatsoever, right?

So happy about the perfect landing & safe return of the Artemis II astronauts. They showed us so much beauty and wonder this week when we needed it most. Congratulations to everyone involved in this historic mission!

Another master class in offering a positive vision for public service

The other day, my 12-year-old daughter called something “hidiotic” meaning a combo of “hideous” and “idiotic”— thus creating the perfect word for our times.

Why Space Will Freak You Out by Kimberly Arcand, Megan Watzke | Waterstones Buy Why Space Will Freak You Out by Kimberly Arcand, Megan Watzke from Waterstones today! Click and Collect from your local Waterstones or get FREE UK delivery on orders over £25.

Astro book for kids (and adults): www.waterstones.com/book/why-spa...

A screenshot of the page that links to the SLJ review of the "Why Space Will Freak You Out: The Scariest, Strangest Parts of the Universe"

Thrilled to get such a positive review for "Why Space Will Freak You Out" from @slj.com!

“Informative and attention-grabbing…this book will delight and attract children who enjoy scary stories and outer space.”

@kimberlykowal.bsky.social & @sourcebooks.bsky.social

TIL Before her astronaut career, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, circa 2006, worked as an Electrical Engineer in SAO's Central Engineering Division developing X-ray detectors. SAO is part of the Center for Astrophysics -- the people that built Chandra.

With journalism struggling to survive, can someone explain why *any* resources need to go to a story like this?

OK, why would you need to do this even if independent journalism was thriving?

Science Communication Is Central to the Practice of Science Opinion | Explaining and defending knowledge is as essential to the scientific enterprise as publishing research.

“if we consider the notion that explanation is not separate from discovery, but one of its highest forms, then we might rebuild a culture in which science is not merely produced but understood. That’s not a decorative add-on to the scientific enterprise. It’s one of the ways the enterprise survives”

NASA’s Hubble Revisits Crab Nebula to Track 25 Years of Expansion - NASA Science Hubble takes a fresh look at the Crab Nebula revealing, in unparalleled detailed, the aftermath of a supernova and how it evolved over 25 years.

What's the value of having telescopes in space? Seeing change over human time scales. Plus the Crab Nebula is gorgeous. Latest from Hubble.
science.nasa.gov/missions/hub...

This collection of images from Chandra and other telescopes features regions where stars are forming, areas often nicknamed “stellar nurseries.” X-rays are energetic enough that they can penetrate the gas and dust of these regions, giving insight to the young stars and other high-energy phenomena that are happening within, including the effects of X-rays on any planets or planet-forming disks orbiting stars. In this new collection, the objects are NGC 7000 (aka, the Pelican Nebula), the Cat’s Paw Nebula, NGC 346, the Flame Nebula, Westerlund 2, and Cygnus OB3.

It's spring (in the Northern Hemisphere) so how about some nice images from space where stars are blooming? The cliche is to call these regions "stellar nurseries," which pretty much works.

I mean, I go for any distraction these days.

chandra.si.edu/photo/2026/s...

From Descartes to punk rock, the letter X has an extraordinary history The letter X can be a lot of things: rebellious, mysterious, religious. For this Word of the Week, we examine its origins and many uses.

Also, ICYMI, seems like we should be able to do something fun with this? ;) www.npr.org/2026/03/17/n...

I really want the message about the importance and excitement and relevancy of X-ray astronomy to get out there. The field (esp in the US) is at crossroads and I hope it can come together and find its path forward.

This artist's illustration depicts the likely discovery of a collision between two neutron stars, made by Chandra and other telescopes, in a tiny galaxy buried in a huge stream of gas. This is the first time that a neutron star collision has been spotted in such a setting. First picked up by Fermi in September 2023, the event was then observed by Swift to provide a more accurate position followed by observations with Chandra and Hubble. The Chandra data gave the researchers an even more accurate position for the GRB, showing it is likely located in a tiny galaxy seen in a Hubble image.

Astronomers found a collision between two neutron stars in a weird place. May help explain why we sometimes see gamma-ray bursts and elements like gold and platinum outside of galaxies. chandra.si.edu/press/26_rel...

I'm very sorry to hear this.

Hope you enjoy it! Look forward to seeing your new book soon!

These scam emails often sound super legit -- and tempting. Send me $ and I'll get your book in front of a zillion readers! It's tough out there for authors, but these offers of 'help' almost make it worse.

A single NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory image will reveal thousands of changing objects in the night sky, from supernovae and variable stars to active black holes and wandering asteroids. This infographic shows approximately how many of each type of object scientists expect to find in each Rubin image. Credit: NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA

The sheer volume of data coming from the new Rubin Observatory is staggering. In *one* night it issued 800,000 alerts, indicating something that changed in the sky: a moving asteroid, variable star, supernova, etc.

Rubin will be an astonishing discovery machine. 🔭🧪

noirlab.edu/public/news/...

Well played, ESA.

The boys’ club: How Epstein’s influence shaped the exclusion of women in STEM In one email, an AI researcher suggested it’s “hard to be brilliant if you are worrying if you look fat or why another woman hates you.”

There were so many of us, exactly when these emails were being written, expressly working to undo the harms of sexual harassment and sexual discrimination in science. And so many people refused to believe us that any of it was real. It was all real.

19thnews.org/2026/02/epst...

This graphic contains a composite image of the star HD 61005 in the inset (X-rays from Chandra in purple and white) that have been combined with infrared data (Hubble in blue and white). A view in optical light from a telescope in Chile shows the larger field that HD 61005 is located in. Astronomers recently used Chandra to discover an “astrosphere,” a wind-blown bubble, around HD 61005, the first seen around a star like the Sun. The artist’s illustration depicts this astrosphere in more detail, including a bow shock in blue – akin to a sonic boom in front of a supersonic plane – that is caused by the motion of the star and its astrosphere as it pushes against and flies through gas in interstellar space.

Latest news from Chandra: Astronomers captured a much younger version of our Sun blowing a protective bubble around itself.

chandra.si.edu/press/26_rel...

Cover of the new book, "Why Space Will Freak You Out: The Scariest, Strangest Parts of the Universe". Written by Kimberly K. Arcand and Megan Watzke with illustrations by Robert Ball.

Our new book, "Why Space Will Freak You Out: The Strangest, Scariest Parts of the Universe," goes on sale today (published by @sourcebooks.bsky.social). Learn more about it at www.arcandwatzke.com

Gladys Mae West obituary: mathematician who pioneered GPS technology She made key contributions to US cold-war science despite facing huge barriers as a Black woman.

No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition.

Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

A series of poster that show the concepts of rotation, speed, distance and acceleration in comparisons between examples in space and those from Olympic athletes.

The Winter Olympics start this week and you can step into Italy and out into space through our AstrOlympics project. Compare the amazing feats of the athletes with the spectacular phenomena across the cosmos.
chandra.si.edu/astrolympics...

Earth is having some issues, so let's enjoy the Webb telescope's new nebula image It's our closest look yet at the Helix Nebula's comet-like knots.

The headline says it all. And the image is pretty spectacular too.

www.engadget.com/science/spac...

It moves! We can watch as the Kepler supernova remnant changes over a quarter of century in X-rays from Chandra. #aas247
chandra.si.edu/photo/2026/k...

This.

Rick Steves buys ‘the most beautiful Christmas present’ for homeless neighbors Five years after the Lynnwood Hygiene Center opened, serving hundreds in poverty, the landlord planned to sell. Steves stepped in to buy it.

"The purchase was a gift, but also a way to protest the 'insatiable greed' behind the homelessness crisis in the U.S. Communities should not have to rely on the whims of wealthy people to have their essential needs met." -- Rick Steves.
www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

Left: A cluster of young stars, nicknamed the Christmas Tree Cluster, shines in X-rays and visible light. It is just a few million years old. Right: Collagen fibers and fat cells appear under a laser microscope. This technique helps researchers explore how tissues grow and repair.

I see your tree of cells and offer another -- plus a star cluster to boot!

More small/big comparisons at our new Chandra X-ray Observatory/Nikon project: chandra.si.edu/micro/pairs_...