As some know, I'm doing a mid-career PhD. Until now, my research was largely focused on systems related to the ocean, energy, food, climate, etc. Now I've ventured into the social sciences to study people & how we make decisions about science & policy.

Today I took the final exam for my last class. Evolution. It might just be my last class ever.

Or maybe I'll go back in another 20 years to learn something new again.

Now all that's left is to complete & defend the dissertation this Fall.

Our sun is big. It’s 864,000 miles or 1,392,000 km in diameter. Or 109x wider than Earth. But it’s also an average sized star.

Some stars are much bigger.

Betelgeuse, in the constellation Orion, is a red supergiant star ~700x the size of the sun.

If we replaced our sun with Betelgeuse, it would stretch past Jupiter's orbit. https://universe.nasa.gov/news/237/what-is-betelgeuse-inside-the-strange-volatile-star/ #space #science