Dr Laura Driessen

Awesome! I heard it was pretty good in Brissy!

An hour until the partial lunar eclipse starts! Then the total lunar eclipse at 10:04pm AEDT. I'm in cloudy Canberra, but I've heard that Brisbane and Perth have lovely clear skies! 🌚🔭

Space Name Registry A unique gift for your loved one

And if you'd like to support making my star-naming website (where you can't buy stars but can find out why and symbolically name a star for free) more visible on Google, you can check it out at SpaceNameRegistry.com

For $40, you can name a star for your Valentine. But it won’t mean much So what names do astronomers use for stars and how are official star names selected?

If you'd prefer to read about it, I wrote a @aunz.theconversation.com article last week: theconversation.com/for-40-you-c...

Lab Notes: Why buying a star name is nonsense - ABC listen A quick online search reveals multiple paid services for naming stars as commemorative gifts. You'll be provided with a certificate and a map for finding your star in the sky. But these names are not ...

Selling stars is big business. If you missed my written rant about it last week, you can listen to me rant about it on the ABC instead 😆
www.abc.net.au/listen/progr... 🔭🧪

Thanks Rami! Someone told me a really good idea: they asked a local astrophotographer to take a photo of the night sky on their daughter's bday and gave that as a gift. Supports a local astrophotographer, is lovely and meaningful, and not a rip off!

That must be so frustrating! At least stars aren't physical land somewhere

Space Name Registry A unique gift for your loved one

So much frustration, in fact, that I made a whole website that looks like a star-selling website, but if you click "buy now" you can actually symbolically name a star for free

spacenameregistry.com

You can't actually buy stars on my website of course. It instead explains why you can't

🔭🧪

For $40, you can name a star for your Valentine. But it won’t mean much So what names do astronomers use for stars and how are official star names selected?

Today's Conversation article brought to you by extreme frustration 😖

theconversation.com/for-40-you-c...

🧪🔭

Astronomers being close to travel bloggers makes sense 😅 it's fun that we're near the @galaxyzoo.org account!

Wow! Fabulous!

🤣🤣🤣 gotta mention our little bro who gets to see way more auroras and I'm totally not jealous of 😅

Hahahe one of the only people who doesn't want to see it 🤣 as a radio astronomer, solar activity also heckin screws up our stuff 😅

You say that, but it's been overcast all day in Sydney 😅 I'm not counting on seeing it up here anyway. Today I reckon I'd prefer freezing with auroras over warm with no auroras!

If you're going to give it a shot, head as far south and away from light pollution as possible. A long exposure on your phone camera will pick it up better than your eyes. Happy aurora hunting!

Auroras are pretty fickle beasts, but fingers crossed the geomagnetic storm will continue into the Australian night so some of us can see it! 🔭

The further south you are the better, Tasmania is best 😆 bottom of the south island of NZ even better 🤣

❤️ thank you for your fab art!

A white dog sits facing forwards on a round, dark blue dog bed. He's wearing a red collar and purple lead. He has brown spots and a brown patch over one eye. He has dark brown ears. He's a whippet, so he's pretty skinny and has a pointy face

Astro, for reference 🐶

A cute drawing of a dog's face looking up at a little star above his head. He has a white face with a brown patch over one eye and brown ears

Literally a few hours ago I commissioned @bsky.rennatelier.art to draw my dog Astro and she already finished it for me! How cute is this?! I love it! vgen.co/rennatelier ❤️

If you didn't get to see the aurora, there are loads of stunning pics of it on here to enjoy! I got a faint pink glow in a 4 second phone camera exposure, nothing by eye 🤷‍♀️

Grateful for Earth's global magnetic field today. Protecting us from cosmic radiation and putting on a light show?! Mars could never 💅

Aurora are notoriously difficult to predict, but I'm crossing my fingers and toes that it'll be visible tonight from Sydney and Perth as well as the southern parts of Australia. With how strong these flares are, there's a chance!

Lots of gorgeous pics of the aurora from the US already, hopefully we'll be just as in Australia and NZ lucky tonight!

Aurora likely tonight as string of solar flares heads for Earth Four big outbursts from the Sun mean skies may light up much further from the poles than usual.

Want to see the aurora? Tonight might be the night!

There have been a bunch of coronal mass ejections (big flares of plasma) from the Sun that are all arriving at Earth today and tonight.

theconversation.com/aurora-likel...

Glad you enjoyed the article! It is frustrating to see headlines like that when the science is already cool

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!

Is it aliens? Why that’s the least important question about interstellar objects The alien question, while fun, generates misinformation and distracts from the science.

I've been thinking a bit about how talking about aliens affects how we share new astronomy discoveries, so I wrote an article about it 👽🔭🧪 theconversation.com/is-it-aliens...

Apply to Write for Astrobites 2025! Love astronomy, astrophysics, and science communication? Come join the Astrobites team! Applications due November 26th.

Are you a grad student interested in writing for Astrobites, or do you know one? We're recruiting! Apply by November 26 :)

astrobites.org/2025/10/31/a...

Screenshot of tweet from the ARC saying they will announce DP26 outcomes on Tuesday 28th Oct, and LP25r1 outcomes on Wednesday 29th.

ARC says Discovery Projects outcomes will be tomorrow (Tuesday). Linkage Projects (2025, round 1) on Wed. Over past ~year, it's often been at about 11am (Canberra).

My bot will pick up the change to RMS & post immediately.

ARC should email outcomes to lead CIs, but might take an 1hr or so for DPs

Hand holding a blob of ice. The blob is more than 2 fingers wide

Hailstone from the balcony in Brisbane, this storm is intense!

Even after melting a bit it's bigger than a 50 cent piece!