Danny Milisavljevic
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danmil.bsky.social
Danny Milisavljevic
@danmil.bsky.social
700 followers 830 following 100 posts
Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Purdue University. Excitable Explorer of the Universe.
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danmil.bsky.social
How did I not know this?!
dirac-institute.bsky.social DiRAC Institute @dirac-institute.bsky.social · 3d
Did you know?

In 2025, the U.S. quarter features Vera Rubin, honoring her landmark discovery of the existence of dark matter — a tribute that perfectly coincides with the first light of the Rubin Observatory(@vrubinobs.bsky.social), celebrating her enduring legacy in unveiling the unseen universe.
November 7, 2025 at 10:50 PM
Reposted by Danny Milisavljevic
cnn.com
Astronomers have spotted the largest and most distant flare ever observed from a supermassive black hole.

Nicknamed “Superman,” the flare originated 10 billion light-years from Earth, and at its peak, the light emitted shone with the brightness of 10 trillion suns. https://cnn.it/3WFwNNN
November 7, 2025 at 1:04 AM
danmil.bsky.social
Another title for this article could be: “Superman Outshines Scary Barbie”

www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/s...
November 7, 2025 at 1:22 AM
danmil.bsky.social
Excellent, exciting new paper by M. Graham et al. who find the newest record holder for most energetic flare from a supermassive black hole, nicknamed “Superman”. The previous record holder was “Scary Barbie,” first reported by our group at Purdue in Subrayan et al. 2023.

arxiv.org/abs/2511.02178
An Extremely Luminous Flare Recorded from a Supermassive Black Hole
Since their discovery more than 60 years ago, accreting supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei (AGN) were recognized as highly variable sources, requiring an extremely compact, dynamic env...
arxiv.org
November 7, 2025 at 1:08 AM
Reposted by Danny Milisavljevic
andrasgaspar.bsky.social
So, we are tracking well above Cycle 4. Figure by @mpudoka.bsky.social and Yongda Zhu. 🔭
Figure showing the proposal counts for Cycle 5, tracking above Cycle 4 by a few hundred.
October 15, 2025 at 8:16 PM
Reposted by Danny Milisavljevic
starxiv.bsky.social
Michelle's first paper discusses the Pearl in the Shell, a study of an ultra compact dwarf and a debris cloud around a nearby spiral galaxy. The study combines data from professional and amatCheck it out in our latest episode! arxiv.org/abs/2509.14038 🔭 ☄️
Amateur image of NGC 7531 (left). DESI Legacy Imaging Survey image of NGC 7531 (right). Sky-subtracted image of NGC 7531 as processed by Gnuastro’s NoiseChisel program was used as a basis for photometry measurements. Features are labelled: (a): main shell; (b): faint outer shell; c: counter plume.
September 29, 2025 at 8:36 AM
danmil.bsky.social
Happy Miniature Schnauzer Day!

I asked Google “What’s your favorite dog?” and it came back with Miniature Schnauzer—like our Wilbur.

A+ to whoever trained this LLM. 🧑‍💻🐾

Does your smart assistant agree?
September 25, 2025 at 1:03 PM
Reposted by Danny Milisavljevic
starlights.bsky.social
was v excited to see work by @danmil.bsky.social (+ many others!) featured at the @amnh.org today !!
Three canvas-like prints of star clusters and neabulae on a dark purple wall. A canvas print of Cas A on a dark purple wall. A placard for the Cas A canvas. Of importantance to this post, it shows credit to Danny Milisavljevic (of course, among others).
September 18, 2025 at 9:38 PM
Reposted by Danny Milisavljevic
coreyspowell.bsky.social
This new JWST image is one of the most spectacular yet from the space telescope.

Giant, newborn stars here are carving away surrounding gas & dust. The bright pair at center is two of the most massive stars known. The dark spire is 50 trillion kilometers tall! 🧪🔭

webbtelescope.org/contents/new...
JWST captured this sparkling scene of star birth in Pismis 24, a young star cluster about 5,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Scorpius. This region is one of the best places to explore the properties of hot young stars and how they evolve.
September 4, 2025 at 9:40 PM
danmil.bsky.social
Rai was a true scientist: curious, rigorous, and deeply committed to the pursuit of knowledge. He was also an incredible mentor who inspired those around him with his generosity, wisdom, and unwavering support. His impact on the world was enormous and he will be deeply missed.
Rai Weiss standing next to Dan Milisavljevic at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in 2017, only weeks before Weiss learned that he won the Nobel prize. Milisavljevic is holding a white cake with multi-colored frosting and “#GWA” written in the center.
August 27, 2025 at 10:50 AM
danmil.bsky.social
Very nice article by @kashapatel.bsky.social in WaPo about a paper just published in ApJ by Gagliano et al. on the unusual transient SN 2023zkd. The light curve and spectra are consistent with a massive star undergoing an instability-induced merger with a black hole companion. 💥🔭

wapo.st/47uRQcd
Why the death of this star is very, very strange
This particular supernova was unusual for several reasons.
wapo.st
August 13, 2025 at 9:09 PM
danmil.bsky.social
Lots of amazing light echo science coming out soon about supernova remnant Cassiopeia A

www.astronomy.com/science/jwst...
August 10, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Reposted by Danny Milisavljevic
richleveille.bsky.social
www.bbc.com/news/article...
Martian meteorite: Niger's anger that a piece of Mars ended up for auction
The West African country investigates how a space rock found there was put up for sale in New York.
www.bbc.com
August 10, 2025 at 10:07 AM
danmil.bsky.social
My attempt with Copilot.

Now imagine doing this with sensitive data. Or making critical decisions.
Copilot attempt to make map of US showing states that contain an R. It’s wrong and terrible. The coloring doesn’t make any sense and several states have made up names; e.g., Nee Mexico is written as New Caroto.
August 8, 2025 at 2:29 AM
Reposted by Danny Milisavljevic
science.esa.int
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has captured a dying star’s display in new mesmerising details 🤩

Thanks to Webb astronomers can learn more about the life cycle of stars ⭐️

Read more 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl...
🔭🧪
Colourful mostly red image of near-infrared light from a glowing cloud with a distorted, asymmetrical shape, illuminated from within by a bright central star. The asymmetrical shape resembles paint splattered on the ground. In the centre of this image, a light blue glow casts over areas of dark pockets that appear dark blue and are traced with orange material. It has a clumpy appearance. The shells become a deeper red with distance from the centre. The shells appear as lobes that push gas toward the equatorial plane, forming a disc. The background of the image is black and speckled with tiny bright stars and distant galaxies.
July 30, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Reposted by Danny Milisavljevic
asuarezmascareno.com
Nature article about the Spanish offer 🔭

www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Spain bids €400 million to host mega telescope at risk in US budget cuts
New Canary Islands home could save controversial Thirty Meter Telescope first proposed for Hawaii.
www.nature.com
July 25, 2025 at 11:39 AM
danmil.bsky.social
I still feel triumphant and rebellious when I get around the “Duplicate” default in MacOS menus and expertly reveal the needlessly hidden “Save As” by holding down the option key!
mirastella.bsky.social Holly @mirastella.bsky.social · Jul 22
Feels like every upgrade from Apple has whittled away all the things that made me switch to Mac in the first place. I haven't wanted to buy another one in many years. But I'm not prepared to go full linux.
July 22, 2025 at 8:16 PM
danmil.bsky.social
Why take this away when it was already there? WHY?!?

I thought I’d finally be responsible and upgrade my OS, only to have this rude awakening.

Any suggestions on how to *elegantly* handle ps and eps files with MacOS post Sequoia?
grumpykelson.myatproto.social Grumpy D. Kelson @grumpykelson.myatproto.social · Jul 22
(The sad thing is that macos no longer has pstopdf to convert your pgplot PostScript output to something sensible…. so you have to use other things that don’t work so well.)
July 22, 2025 at 7:14 PM
danmil.bsky.social
Betel-Buddy has been found!
July 22, 2025 at 12:53 AM
Reposted by Danny Milisavljevic
fraknoi.bsky.social
Beautiful image from Gemini Observatory: the dome of their telescope on Maunkea peak, Hawaii. In this time exposure, see the stars circle the north pole of the sky as our planet rotates. Laser beams that probe atmospheric distortion add interest. #astronomy #astroedu #astrophotos #spacephotos #sky
This long time-exposure of the Gemini North Telescope dome on the 14,000 foot peak of Maunakea in Hawaii show the stars making circular trails around the north pole of the sky and the Pole Star Polaris. Some of the guide-star laser beams that help astronomers keep track of dancing of the Earth's atmosphere are also seen coming from the dome.
July 16, 2025 at 12:41 AM
Reposted by Danny Milisavljevic
mbkplus.bsky.social
The House markup is looking to cut NSF's budget by ~23% (& would constitute all of the cuts to science as defined by NIST+NOAA+NASA+NSF). I read elsewhere that even though NASA's proposed budget is flat here, the science budget at NASA is down by 18% in the markup. Will try to find this number. 🧪
Title III - Science Provides a discretionary total of $31.848 billion for Science, which is $2.06 billion (6%) below the FY25 enacted level. • Office of Science and Technology Policy: Provides $7.965 million for the Office of Science and Technology Policy, which is equal to the FY25 enacted level. • Nagual Sine 23 cat Provide 51. 965 milion for the ational Space Council, which • National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Provides $24.838 billion for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which is equal to the FY25 enacted level. • National Science Foundation: Provides $7 billion for the National Science Foundation, which is $2.06 billion (23%) below the FY25 enacted level.
July 14, 2025 at 7:14 PM
danmil.bsky.social
“That belongs in a museum!”
Scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It’s raining. Indiana Jones says the memorable line “That belongs in a museum.”
July 14, 2025 at 9:19 PM
danmil.bsky.social
“… the meteorite is believed to have been blown off the surface of Mars by a massive asteroid strike … [it] is about 70% larger than the next largest piece of Mars found on Earth and represents nearly 7% of all the Martian material currently on this planet …

phys.org/news/2025-07...
The biggest piece of Mars on Earth is going up for auction in New York
For sale: A 54-pound (25-kilogram) rock. Estimated auction price: $2 million to $4 million. Why so expensive? It's the largest piece of Mars ever found on Earth.
phys.org
July 14, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Reposted by Danny Milisavljevic
metr.org
We ran a randomized controlled trial to see how much AI coding tools speed up experienced open-source developers.

The results surprised us: Developers thought they were 20% faster with AI tools, but they were actually 19% slower when they had access to AI than when they didn't.
July 10, 2025 at 7:47 PM
Reposted by Danny Milisavljevic
paleophile.bsky.social
Thank you to @baldwin.senate.gov for submitting an amendment to the Senate Appropriations CJS bill for FY26 to restore #NSF grant funding that has been recently cancelled. @senateapprops.bsky.social better all support this!! #CJS
July 10, 2025 at 3:20 PM