Beautiful new direct imaging of the exoplanet Eps Ind Ab with the #JWST MIRI coronagraphs by Elisabeth Matthews of @mpi-astro.bsky.social et al - confirming previous detection of ammonia in its atmosphere, and suggesting the presence of water ice clouds. Great work! 🔭 arxiv.org/abs/2603.08780
Color photo of Vannevar Bush, in a gray suit with red tie, reclining in a leather office chair next to a mahogany desk in his office.
Vannevar Bush, an electrical engineer who built one of the first analog computers, was born #OTD in 1890. He headed the Office of Scientific Research and Development during WWII, proposed what became the National Science Foundation, and devised an early hypertext system. 🧪 ⚛️
did a snake write this
Me talking at Surrey world space week, wearing my pluto: never forget T-shirt
A selfie of me in my academic robes with my physics colleagues outside Guildford cathedral before graduation
Me, dressed in a Surrey bobble hat and Surrey hoodie, with a Surrey water bottle and Surrey t-shirt. Swag.
A selfie of me in my academic robes in front of our graduating class as they throw their hats into the air
Some professional news: I have been promoted to full Professor here in the physics department at the University of Surrey, after 10 years here. 👩🏻🏫👩🏻🎓🔭🧪 As has my excellent colleague and fellow astronomer Alessia Gualandris ❤️
Wow that's a great milestone! Congrats to you both 👏❤️🔭
MN Colibri delivers the Smile satellite and the Vega-C upper stage in Kourou, French Guiana.
Following the docking, the containers were carefully unloaded and taken by lorry to Europe's Spaceport, which lies just a few kilometres away from the town of Kourou. 📽️ 👇
🔭 🧪 ☀️
📣📣 FULL U.S. BOOK TOUR DATES ANNOUNCEMENT 📣📣
Starting April 4, I'm going to so many cities that the preview image is tiny font!!
Come see me in person and get your book(s) signed. We have lined up an extraordinary array of conversation partners, from novelists to poets and scientists. 📚💙🧪🔭⚛️
Sad to be at a conference on this date because this event looks super interesting, and I already know of some awesome people who plan to attend. 🔭
look at the data. understand the data. learn about the instrument/telescope that got you the data
Wow, that really sucks. I'm really sorry for all of you.
And what you miss out on! So many cheeky easter eggs in astronomical data.
Stunning 🔭🪐
Right?? Just take a peek, there might be some other cool stuff you can find!
The best way to find something is to look for it.
Still as true as ever in the era of enormous surveys.
Look at the data. Like, in my case: gedit.
Absolutely. Especially in these days of 🔭 data pipelines, but we could generalize it to all science. 🧪
The Baryonic Mass-Halo Mass Relation of Extragalactic Systems
arxiv.org/abs/2603.06479
Instant classic new paper from @dalcantonjd.bsky.social and friends. First sentence: "The Universe is a very odd place filled with strange and wonderful things." ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2026ApJS... 🔭
and this goes beyond the financial aspect - it would also remove the tedious time spent deciphering cryptic bills, reading opaque policy documents, finding "in network" providers, on hold with hospitals and insurance companies, etc.
Today on the #arXiv:
Chow et al. 2026, "Predictions of Imminent Earth Impactors Discovered by LSST" - arxiv.org/abs/2603.05587.
Detailing how @vrubinobs.bsky.social will double the discovery rate of very small asteroids before they make harmless fireballs.
Accidentally timely given Koblenz‑Güls.
I support this 1000x. I would say *especially* for spectroscopy. If you don't look at the data, you just trust that other people make the same decisions you would, and you assume they are looking at the data (reader, we are not, unless you highlight a specific problem).
Yes! It is a quick lesson to learn* once you've wasted several days going down 7 calibration rabbit holes only to find in the spectral images that your target was in the wrong place, or had a companion, or whatever.
*IMO, but apparently not for everyone
Strong cosign! This is policy on my team. I also put a statement to this effect in nearly every paper.
I have become the tedious bore who, every time there's a question about something weird in our data, opens with "did you LOOK at the data?".
Step 1: Open that FITS file in DS9/python/whatever.
Take it from there. 🔭
I'm going to expand this statement to say that astronomers should actually look at their data whatever the format. Yes pipelines and high level science products are great, but you learn a lot from just spending some time exploring the counts-on-pixels images, even for spectroscopy. 🔭
Because “looking at images, not catalogs” is a dying pastime, the paper includes a tutorial on -how- to interpret images of galaxies. Qualitative information alone can get you a surprisingly long way towards a reasonable model, if you’re thinking through the links between morphology and physics.
thank you
I can barely express how much I loathed that Hegseth Iran video, but I had a bash
There Have Been No Approvals for New Transit Projects in the First Year of the Current Trump Administration
For the 1st time in the 1st year of a presidential administration since at least 1993, under Trump 2, the Federal Transit Administration signed 0 new contracts for major transit projects, like subways or light rail.
The US is facing a crisis of rail transit investment: www.urban.org/urban-wire/r...
