Ashley Balzer Vigil
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ashleybvigil.bsky.social
Ashley Balzer Vigil
@ashleybvigil.bsky.social
110 followers 100 following 31 posts
NASA science writer, freelance environmental writer, mom of three 💙💙🩷
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ashleybvigil.bsky.social
Ashley Balzer Vigil @ashleybvigil.bsky.social · May 29
From stargazer to storyteller ✨
www.nasa.gov/people/ashle...
A smiling woman with fair skin and dark blonde wavy hair sits at a desk with a pen and notebook. The wall behind her features a framed painting of an astronaut sitting in a field of wildflowers. Bookcases line the wall on either side of it. Photo credit: Moments by Mango A smiling woman with dark blonde wavy hair pulled half up sits at a desk and holds a spacey book up toward an open laptop. Photo credit: Moments by Mango A collage of four photos from a 2012 internship at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Top left: a young Ashley stands beside then-center director Mike Coats; a large model rocket is in the background. Top right: Ashley and Veronica Seyl float in microgravity on the Vomit Comet. Bottom left: Ashley holds a paper up toward an off-screen camera as part of the Weightless Wonders program. Bottom right: Ashley and Veronica pose for a photo together, each in their flight suits. Ashley stands alongside a man who is looking through a camera on a tripod. On the other side of the camera, a man speaks to Ashley animatedly as part of an interview. Photo credit: Patrizia Madiona
ashleybvigil.bsky.social
Meet six new species of itty-bitty bats! They’re only about the size of a walnut and as light as a AAA battery, and their leaf-like wings help them blend right in with the trees. Researchers found them lurking in the shadowy forests of the Philippines.
A photo of a bat with outstretched wings that are so thin that they’re almost transparent. They look greenish with pink leaf-like veins. Text below the image says: scientists discover six new itty-bitty bat species.
November 6, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Reposted by Ashley Balzer Vigil
sciam.bsky.social
An orca pod has been spotted for the first time repeatedly targeting and flipping young great white sharks onto their backs to paralyze and dismember them
First-Ever Footage Shows Killer Whales Attacking Great White Shark Nursery
An orca pod has been spotted for the first time repeatedly targeting and flipping young great white sharks onto their backs to paralyze and dismember them
www.scientificamerican.com
November 3, 2025 at 2:48 PM
ashleybvigil.bsky.social
For the first time, astronomers have confirmed a tidal disruption event, dubbed AT2024tvd, located outside its galaxy’s core. Now, astronomers are trying to understand what the black hole is doing 2,600 light-years from where they expected it to be. www.astronomy.com/science/blac...
Black hole caught snacking on star far from host galaxy’s center
Astronomers are wondering why a recently discovered supermassive black hole is some 2,600 light-years from where it’s supposed to be.
www.astronomy.com
October 27, 2025 at 1:41 PM
ashleybvigil.bsky.social
Check out the toads that transform from chocolate pudding brown to lemon meringue yellow, not to attract females but deter other males: www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...
Scientists reveal the secret of toads that can turn neon yellow
The color change, driven by hormones, seems aimed at preventing males from accidentally mating with each other.
www.nationalgeographic.com
October 27, 2025 at 1:12 PM
ashleybvigil.bsky.social
@leebillings.bsky.social’s book Five Billion Years of Solitude has ruined science writing for me, because how is anything I write ever supposed to compare to this line? 🤩
A photo of the first page of a book with one line starred and underlined: “One by one, the giant stars popped off like firecrackers, ejecting heavy elements that sizzled with radioactivity as they rode shock waves through the murk like so much scattered confetti.” The full paragraph for context is: “This story properly begins 4.6 billion years ago, with the birth of our solar system from a cloud of cold hydrogen and dust several light-years wide. The cloud was but a wisp from a much larger mass of primordial gas, a stellar nursery manufacturing massive stars destined to explode as supernovae. One by one, the giant stars popped off like firecrackers, ejecting heavy elements that sizzled with radioactivity as they rode shock waves through the murk like so much scattered confetti. One of those enriching shock waves may have compressed the cloud, our cloud, in its passage. The cloud became dense enough for gravity to seize control, and it collapsed in on itself. Most of its material fell to its…”
October 13, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Reposted by Ashley Balzer Vigil
dmain.bsky.social
new gecko just dropped

via @ashleybvigil.bsky.social @andreatweather.bsky.social

www.scientificamerican.com/article/six-...
Mildly Menacing Mating Calls Lead to Discovery of New Gecko Species
Scientists found new gecko species hidden in plain sight in pristine deserts of southern Africa, thanks to their loud, barking mating calls
www.scientificamerican.com
September 30, 2025 at 8:24 PM
ashleybvigil.bsky.social
Used to pronounce both Os in Oort ☁️
swordsjew.bsky.social Tal B. Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · Aug 31
former kids who read too many books and didnt know how to pronounce the words you learned gang say hey
August 31, 2025 at 4:30 PM
ashleybvigil.bsky.social
#askethan Would you consider pop II and I stars to be enriched or contaminated by metals?
August 3, 2025 at 12:39 AM
Reposted by Ashley Balzer Vigil
vrubinobs.bsky.social
Happy birthday, Vera Rubin! 🥳✨

What better way to celebrate than with NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory's view of galaxies SHE studied?

NGC 4343, 4526, 4535, and 4378 are just a few gems from our Cosmic Treasure Chest. Explore them and more at skyviewer.app 🔭🧪
Edge-on spiral galaxy angled pointing lower left to upper right. It's glowing with a bright core that's cut with the dark veins of dust clouds. The background is peppered with a myriad of colorful stars and distant galaxies in black space. A smooth, cigar-shaped galaxy angled pointing lower left to upper right glowing with a bright core. Two bright stars beam just to the upper left and lower right of the galaxy. The background is peppered with a myriad of colorful stars and distant galaxies in black space. A face-on spiral with a bright core and sweeping arms knotted with blue clusters of star-forming regions. The background is peppered with a myriad of colorful stars and distant galaxies in black space. A face-on spiral with a bright core and a single thin arm wrapping all the way around, almost looking like a ring. Two bright blue stars beam above and to the lower left of the galaxy, with a third yellow star to the lower right. The background is peppered with a myriad of colorful stars and distant galaxies in black space.
July 23, 2025 at 9:14 PM
Reposted by Ashley Balzer Vigil
sciam.bsky.social
The park’s newest hydrothermal feature has an otherworldly milky texture from dissolved silica
New Thermal Hole Opens at Yellowstone National Park
The park's newest hydrothermal feature has an otherworldly milky texture from dissolved silica
spklr.io
July 20, 2025 at 3:56 PM
ashleybvigil.bsky.social
If some men feel like they’ve been “reduced to ‘walking wallets’ in romantic relationships,” perhaps they should consider bringing something more to the table.
Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/b...
‘Who Killed Love?’ A Video Game Plays to Male Resentment in China.
www.nytimes.com
July 18, 2025 at 12:39 AM
Reposted by Ashley Balzer Vigil
coreyspowell.bsky.social
NASA's Parker Solar Probe made the closest-ever studies of the Sun -- and got this unprecedented look at multiple solar eruptions piling up on top of each other. 🧪🔭

science.nasa.gov/science-rese...
July 11, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Reposted by Ashley Balzer Vigil
startswithabang.bsky.social
American science to soon face its largest brain drain in history

The largest brain drain in history was when thousands of scientists left Nazi Germany; it became known as "Hitler's gift."

America's current assault on science is set to surpass that.
bigthink.com/starts-with-...
#space #science
American science to soon face its largest brain drain in history
Over the first half of 2025, the USA has cut science as never before. This disaster for American science is a gift to the rest of the world.
bigthink.com
July 2, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Reposted by Ashley Balzer Vigil
philplait.bsky.social
Something lost a bit in the amazing images released earlier: Vera Rubin Observatory is a steely-eyed asteroid hunter! It's already found thousands of new ones in just a few nights, and is predicted to find *3.7 MILLION* more.

THREE POINT SEVEN MILLION

badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/vera-rubin...

🔭🧪
Vera Rubin Observatory will find millions of asteroids. Millions.
That’s a lot of space rocks.
badastronomy.beehiiv.com
June 26, 2025 at 2:46 PM
ashleybvigil.bsky.social
Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/o...
A screenshot from the article that says: Mothers have less money in personal retirement accounts, and they also receive less money from Social Security because they're more likely to have gaps in their employment history, and their caregiving isn't valued by society in the way that it should be. Which is to say, caregiving is neither paid nor truly respected.
June 25, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Reposted by Ashley Balzer Vigil
jwuphysics.bsky.social
My mind is absolutely blown by these stellar halos nearby NGC 4364!

Left: DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys (DR10)
Right: Newly released @vrubinobs.bsky.social imaging!!!

#AstroSci 🧪🔭
June 23, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Reposted by Ashley Balzer Vigil
jradavenport.com
Attn 🔭 fans: the Vera Rubin US Quarter is now available!!
www.usmint.gov/american-wom...
American Women Quarters 2025 Rolls and Bags - Dr. Vera Rubin | US Mint
Check out our American Women Quarters 2025 Rolls and Bags - Dr. Vera Rubin and more from US Mint!
www.usmint.gov
June 3, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Reposted by Ashley Balzer Vigil
astroroyalscot.bsky.social
"For every $100 the US government spent, it put 40¢ in the bucket for NASA. And what do we get for that?
✨The Universe ✨"

"One of these bills represents, to scale, the federal budget & the other with NASA’s total budget trimmed off the edges. Can you tell the difference?" @philplait.bsky.social
Two 1 dollar bills looking identical. The caption reads One of these bills represents, to scale, the federal budget, and the other with NASA’s total budget trimmed off the edges. Can you tell the difference? Credit: Phil Plait
June 2, 2025 at 2:41 PM
ashleybvigil.bsky.social
From stargazer to storyteller ✨
www.nasa.gov/people/ashle...
A smiling woman with fair skin and dark blonde wavy hair sits at a desk with a pen and notebook. The wall behind her features a framed painting of an astronaut sitting in a field of wildflowers. Bookcases line the wall on either side of it. Photo credit: Moments by Mango A smiling woman with dark blonde wavy hair pulled half up sits at a desk and holds a spacey book up toward an open laptop. Photo credit: Moments by Mango A collage of four photos from a 2012 internship at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Top left: a young Ashley stands beside then-center director Mike Coats; a large model rocket is in the background. Top right: Ashley and Veronica Seyl float in microgravity on the Vomit Comet. Bottom left: Ashley holds a paper up toward an off-screen camera as part of the Weightless Wonders program. Bottom right: Ashley and Veronica pose for a photo together, each in their flight suits. Ashley stands alongside a man who is looking through a camera on a tripod. On the other side of the camera, a man speaks to Ashley animatedly as part of an interview. Photo credit: Patrizia Madiona
May 29, 2025 at 11:45 PM
Reposted by Ashley Balzer Vigil
science.esa.int
Totalling around 120 hours of observing time, this is the longest the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has ever focused on a single target.

The deep field aims to probe the Cosmic Dawn, when the Universe was only a few million years old.

Read more 👉 www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed...
🔭 🧪 ☄️
A field of galaxies in space, dominated by an enormous, bright-white elliptical galaxy that is the core of a massive galaxy cluster. Many other elliptical galaxies can be seen around it. Also around it are short, curved, glowing red lines, which are images of distant background galaxies magnified and warped by gravitational lensing. A couple of foreground stars appear large and bright with long spikes around them.
May 27, 2025 at 8:01 AM
Reposted by Ashley Balzer Vigil
theplanetaryguy.bsky.social
Saturn's icy moons Dione, against a backdrop of the giant planet itself, its rings, and tiny Enceladus at upper right.

Goodnight, friends!
May 22, 2025 at 4:50 AM
ashleybvigil.bsky.social
Late to the party, but astronomers might have (but probably haven’t) found Planet Nine out in the Kuiper Belt 🪨
Have Astronomers Found Planet Nine?
Old data may hint at a new world beyond Neptune — but not the one astronomers expected.
www.astronomy.com
May 14, 2025 at 7:05 PM
ashleybvigil.bsky.social
Exciting news! Roman is moving right along, with one half fresh out of a successful thermal vacuum test. We’ll have a complete observatory before the end of the year! www.nasa.gov/missions/rom...
This picture looks down into a massive black cylindrical chamber that encloses a large piece of centrally-located space hardware. The core of the space hardware is a gray cylinder, covered in crinkly metallic blanketing and thin strips of copper colored tape. The base of the core, covered in copper metallic blanketing, juts out towards the bottom, becoming more rectangular. The central core is hollow, and in the center several rods form a cone held together at the point by a flat copper blanketed disk. A dark gray visor extends upwards from the back half of the central core, its base arcing around the central circular opening. The visor extends far, stretching across the top half of the image. Symmetrical copper panels stretch outward from either side behind the visor, appearing about halfway down. They continue down the body of the central core and approach the bottom of the chamber. Six people stand to the left and right of the space hardware, divided so that three people stand on each side. One person stands in front of the space hardware. All seven people wear in white head-to-toe clean room suits with blue gloves. Various cables and pieces of hardware adorn the floor and walls of the chamber. A photo inside NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. At center, a large copper colored panel is suspended high in the air, on its way toward a large piece of hardware at the right of the frame (part of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, consisting here of the outer barrel assembly, deployable aperture cover in stowed position, and test solar panels). At the left, several technicians supervise the activity and in the background we see the other major component of the Roman observatory, consisting of the telescope, instruments, and spacecraft bus. The wall in the background at left is covered in a grid of pale pink squares (filters). An infographic of Roman’s two major subsystems — SCIPA, the spacecraft integrated payload assembly (at left) and the OSD, which consists of the outer barrel assembly, solar array sun shield, and deployable aperture cover. SCIPA will slot into the hollow OSD like a pen into its cap.
May 7, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Reposted by Ashley Balzer Vigil
stsci.edu
Experience the Cosmic Cliffs like never before! #NASAWebb’s iconic image of dusty “mountains” and “valleys” is featured in a new 3D visualization from NASA’s Universe of Learning: webbtelescope.pub/4jRHIh9 🔭 🧪
May 7, 2025 at 6:02 PM
ashleybvigil.bsky.social
A new study shows the Yellowstone supervolcano is bubbling, but not about to blow. Scientists mapped a “pressure relief valve” beneath Yellowstone that may be keeping the volcano calm www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵
A 2023 photo of a geyser at Yellowstone National Park. A close ish view of a plume of thick, white steam billowing high into the sky. Rocky, mineral-stained ground is in the foreground, and a forest of sparse trees stands in the background at right.
April 26, 2025 at 6:39 PM