Mastodawn

Natalie Batalha May 9, 2023

Andras Gaspar May 8, 2023

Finally! We've been waiting since November of last year to share these amazing results and beautiful images with everyone. Our Cycle 1 JWST/MIRI images of the Fomalhaut Debris Disk reveals never before seen details of the inner regions of this complex exoplanetary system!

Natalie Batalha Mar 28, 2023

Soror_Peregrina Mar 28, 2023

Holy moly!! Lightning caught mid-strike as it hits a tree. ⚡ 🌳 😲

I hope the photographer was using an extremely long-range telephoto lens, as lightning will travel along root systems, which can extend some distance away depending upon the type of tree.

Vertical photograph; click to see the full strike and whole tree (or what's left of it).

Photographer — Debbie Parker of West Virginia.

#Photography #Tree #LightningStrike #AmazingNature

Natalie Batalha Mar 28, 2023

Maria Popova Mar 28, 2023

A stunning animated poem about our bond with nature and each other, made into song by Toshi Reagon https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/03/04/singularity-marissa-davis-toshi-reagon/

Singularity: An Animated Ode to Our Primeval Bond with Nature and Each Other (Toshi Reagon Sings Marissa Davis)

A song of praise for life and “the smallest possible once before once.”

The Marginalian

Natalie Batalha Mar 27, 2023

It’s that time of year to remove the dead wood from the grape vines and select the cane from last year that will be pruned to to yield this year’s fruit. The cane is artfully selected with architecture and nutrient flow in mind. One might spend 30+ minutes sculpting a single vine. It’s a labor of love. #vineyard

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Natalie Batalha Mar 23, 2023

Artem also found this gem. Completely counter-intuitive but makes sense!

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Natalie Batalha Mar 23, 2023

My colleague Artem Aguichine did a simplified calculation to estimate the warming time of a meteor on an eccentric orbit from the asteroid belt headed toward Earth. He estimates it would take only 0.5 days for a 1kg meteor to come into thermal equilibrium with the Sun at 1AU. So even a meteor that comes from the asteroid belt is expected to be a toasty warm -18 C inside. Still very cold, but not -200 C.

Natalie Batalha Mar 23, 2023

Say a fireball streaks across the sky & lands nearby. You rush over & see broken meteorite fragments. You want to pick one up, but you’re worried they might still be hot. Fun fact from meteor scientist Richard Pugh: you’re more likely to get frostbite than a heat burn. The 5/6 seconds it takes to pass through the atmosphere isn't enough for heat to conduct to center of the meteor. The inside will still be the temp of deep space - as cold as -200 C, says Pugh, though we say -20 C more likely.

Natalie Batalha Mar 20, 2023

Not a lot of blooms yet — we’re still in winter mode over here in Santa Cruz — but enough for a bouquet on this, the Spring Equinox.

Natalie Batalha Mar 13, 2023

If I'm going to burn CO2 to attend a meeting, it should be a) rare and b) exceptionally worthwhile. Hybrid meetings are less worthwhile to me because face-to-face interactions are extremely valuable & fewer colleagues are present. Therefore, I'm starting to think meetings should be fully in-person or fully virtual. However, the hybrid option allows broader participation by parents of small children, immunocompromised, etc. thereby increasing equity. It's a conundrum. Thoughts? #astrodon

Natalie Batalha Mar 6, 2023

Mark McCaughrean Mar 2, 2023

New paper day:

Just published in @NatureAstronomy, a study by @sandorkruk et al. on the increasing impact of satellite trails on Hubble & other low-Earth orbit space observatories.

We found a doubling in the number of trails per image from 2002–2021, with a significant rise of ~50% in 2021 alone, as the "megaconstellations" started to appear.

#Astrodon #Astronomy #LightPollution

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-023-01903-3

The impact of satellite trails on Hubble Space Telescope observations - Nature Astronomy

Harnessing the power of citizen science and machine learning, this study takes in 20 years of Hubble Space Telescope images, of which 2.7% show satellite streaks, and predicts that this fraction will increase by up to an order of magnitude in the next decade.

Nature