Duarte Almeida
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duartealmeida.bsky.social
Duarte Almeida
@duartealmeida.bsky.social
52 followers 46 following 20 posts
PhD in Astronomy - open clusters ✨🔭
Lisbon, he/him
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Duarte Almeida
eso.org
Remember the first image of the black hole in the M87 galaxy taken by @ehtelescope.bsky.social ?

New analysis shows that some features of the ring around the black hole don't change over the years, but others do!

Why? Find out with #ChasingStarlight: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P04...

🔭🧪
September 16, 2025 at 10:31 AM
Reposted by Duarte Almeida
esa.int
📷 Our #WeekInImages for 28 July - 1 August 2025 👇
www.esa.int/About_Us/Wee... 🧪🔭
A top-down view of spiral galaxy NGC 1309, showing its brightly shining centre, its broad spiral arms and the faint halo around its disc, as well as distant galaxies and stars on a dark background. Large blue clouds of gas speckled with small stars and strands of dark dust swirl around the galaxy’s disc. A couple of the background galaxies are large enough that their own swirling spiral arms can be seen. NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope view of planetary nebula NGC 6072 in the near-infrared shows a complex scene of multiple outflows expanding out at different angles from a dying star at the centre of the scene. Red areas represent cool molecular gas, for example, molecular hydrogen. Mid-infrared view of planetary nebula NGC 6072 from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope shows expanding circular shells around the outflows from the dying central star, which astronomers suspect is that pinkish white dot at the centre of the image. Blue represents cool molecular gas seen in red in the image from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) due to colour mapping. This image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope revisits one of the most iconic regions of the sky, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. It shows an area of deep space with thousands of galaxies in various shapes and sizes on a black background. Most are circles or ovals, with a few spirals. More distant galaxies are smaller, down to being mere dots, while closer galaxies are larger and some appear to be glowing. Red and orange galaxies contain more dust or more stellar activity.
August 3, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Reposted by Duarte Almeida
esa.int
🎨🔭 A portrait of a galaxy cluster

A massive, spacetime-warping cluster of galaxies is the setting of today’s NASA/ESA #Hubble Space Telescope image.

The galaxy cluster in question is Abell 209 and shows more than a hundred galaxies, but there’s more to this cluster than the eye can see...
A cluster of distant, mainly elliptical galaxies. They appear as brightly shining points radiating golden light that each take the shape of a smooth, featureless oval. They crowd around one that is extremely large and bright. A few spiral galaxies of comparable size appear too, bluer in colour and with unique shapes. Of the other, more small and distant galaxies covering the scene, a few are warped into long lines.
July 7, 2025 at 8:17 AM
duartealmeida.bsky.social
Oh damn 🙃 now it got to the books. It's getting so much harder to find real information! We have to go through all the fake stuff first
July 1, 2025 at 4:07 PM
duartealmeida.bsky.social
If you are interested in open cluster radii, mass and dissolution, check out my paper and feel free to drop me a message 😊
#opencluster #galactic

ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2025A%26...
Open cluster dissolution rate and the initial cluster mass function in the solar neighbourhood: Modelling the age and mass distributions of clusters observed by Gaia
Context. The dissolution rate of open clusters (OCs) and the integration of their stars into the Milky Way's field population have been explored using their age distribution. With the advent of the Ga...
ui.adsabs.harvard.edu
June 28, 2025 at 7:32 AM
duartealmeida.bsky.social
It was a really cool experience to attend the EAS meeting for the first time! Seeing all the work that is being done got me super motivated to continue working on my own stuff! 😁
Also, congrats to the organisers and volunteers who made the experience much nicer
#EAS2025Cork
June 28, 2025 at 7:25 AM
Reposted by Duarte Almeida
stsci.edu
We’re here to sweep you away … with an intricate Hubble view of a star-forming region near the Tarantula Nebula. Stars form when clumps of gas become dense enough. The clumps are typically shrouded in dust, which appears dark brown here.

Credit: NASA, ESA. 🔭 🧪
Hubble Space Telescope image is awash in color and hundreds of stars. Dozens of bright blue stars are scattered across the field, some appearing larger than others, and most with four diffraction spikes. Many stars throughout appear bright red, also with diffraction spikes. The red stars are all smaller than the blue stars, and many are so tiny they appear only as pinpricks. Semi-transparent gas and dust are spread throughout, like gauzy layers of fabric. Light gray layers of gas and dust start at top left and drift down toward the bottom right, forming a rough upside-down V shape. From top middle to right middle, darker and thinner filaments of brown dust flow irregularly, with some portions denser and darker, like knots. The top right corner has lighter blue semi-transparent material. Toward the bottom left and up toward the center, there’s a slightly clearer area that has deeper blue semi-transparent material.
June 23, 2025 at 5:39 PM
duartealmeida.bsky.social
First day of #EAS2025Cork 😁
Excited to present my work later today on open cluster dissolution!
June 23, 2025 at 10:12 AM
duartealmeida.bsky.social
Made it to Cork!! 😁
June 22, 2025 at 6:24 PM
duartealmeida.bsky.social
Apparently all buses and trains in Dublin are completely full today. I managed to get one now but everything is super delayed. I hope I can make it to Cork at a decent hour 🥲
June 22, 2025 at 2:26 PM
duartealmeida.bsky.social
Made it to Dublin for #EAS2025Cork ! But now I still have a long journey until I get to Cork 😅
June 22, 2025 at 9:32 AM
Reposted by Duarte Almeida
bradleybusch.bsky.social
New research from MIT found that those who used ChatGPT can’t remember any of the content of their essays.

Key takeaway: the product doesn’t suffer, but the process does. And when it comes to essays, the process *is* how they learn.

arxiv.org/pdf/2506.088...
June 18, 2025 at 7:32 AM
duartealmeida.bsky.social
I'll be there!! So excited for my first big conference 🤩
eas-meeting.bsky.social EAS Annual Meeting @eas-meeting.bsky.social · Jun 5
🔭 The annual meeting of the European Astronomical Society will take place in Cork, Ireland, from 23-27 June 2025.

Over 2000 astronomers and space scientists will attend. Registration is still open: eas.unige.ch/EAS2025/regi...

You can find the program here: eas.unige.ch/EAS2025/prog...
June 5, 2025 at 9:38 PM
duartealmeida.bsky.social
I published my first article in the beginning of this year. Anyone with tips on how to promote it so people know about it?
May 30, 2025 at 5:48 PM
duartealmeida.bsky.social
A few weeks ago I attended a writing school in Sintra and saw a talk about how important it is to advertise our own work instead of waiting for people to find out about it. It made a lot of sense! I will try to be active here and hopefully I can connect with other people in my field ✨🔭
May 30, 2025 at 5:42 PM
duartealmeida.bsky.social
I usually do my weekly Arxiv paper "check" every friday, so having a podcast that is dedicated to that is really cool!
May 28, 2025 at 10:09 AM
duartealmeida.bsky.social
Just found out about @starxiv.bsky.social a few days ago and I'm really excited to listen to all of the episodes! I've started episode 1 and enjoying it so far! 💫
May 28, 2025 at 10:07 AM
Reposted by Duarte Almeida
stsci.edu
The blue star cluster shining in the center of the Tarantula Nebula—seen in this #NASAWebb image, was born within the ribbons of silk-like dust that surround it. In time, all of this dust will either be blown away by or absorbed into new stars and planets: bit.ly/4bI5Tv5 🔭 🧪
A star-forming nebula. The nebula is composed of tan-colored clouds with rust-colored highlights, surrounding a black central area containing a bright cluster of sparkling pale blue stars that scatter outward from a densely packed center. The clouds toward the center are brighter than those toward the edge. The bottom left and the top right of the nebula appear more clear of any clouds of dust and gas. One bright yellow star stands out in the central open area, showing off Webb’s eight-pronged diffraction pattern.
April 18, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Reposted by Duarte Almeida
esa.int
🆕 This new #Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 346 kicks off celebrations for the upcoming #Hubble35 anniversary – the first in a series revisiting previous Hubble targets, combining new processing techniques with the latest data 🧪🔭

esahubble.org/news/heic2502/ #50YearsOfESA
@science.esa.int
A star cluster within a nebula. The background is filled with thin, pale blue clouds. Parts are thicker and pinker in colour. The cluster is made up of bright blue stars that illuminate the nebula around them. Large arcs of dense dust curve around, before and behind the clustered stars, pressed together by the stars’ radiation. Behind the clouds of the nebula can be seen large numbers of orange stars.
April 4, 2025 at 8:05 AM
Reposted by Duarte Almeida
emily.space
Cool paper #1 of the day: Johan Knapen et al. wrote a great article with tips about how to write competitive proposals & applications ☄️

I like the ideas on figures they have (originally from Kuchner 2011) - have three: a 'beautiful' figure, a figure showing the state of the art, and a before/after
How to write competitive proposals and job applications
Writing proposals and job applications is arguably one of the most important tasks in the career of a scientist. The proposed ideas must be scientifically compelling, but how a proposal is planned, wr...
arxiv.org
April 3, 2025 at 7:56 AM
Reposted by Duarte Almeida
operations.esa.int
Farewell, Gaia! Spacecraft Operations Manager Peter Collins confirms that Gaia has fallen silent, having been successfully passivated and switched off after more than a decade spent mapping the cosmos.

www.esa.int/Enabling_Sup...
Farewell, Gaia! Spacecraft operations come to an end
The European Space Agency (ESA) has powered down its Gaia spacecraft after more than a decade spent gathering data that are now being used to unravel the secrets of our home galaxy.On 27 March 2025, G...
www.esa.int
March 27, 2025 at 10:08 AM
duartealmeida.bsky.social
Wow!
stsci.edu Space Telescope Science Institute @stsci.edu · Mar 25
#NASAWebb provides high-resolution details of Herbig-Haro 49/50—an outflow from a nearby still-forming star and background galaxies. Webb reveals the fuzzy object at the tip of the outflow in the Spitzer image is actually a distant spiral galaxy: webbtelescope.pub/4iGQg9K 🔭 🧪
March 26, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Reposted by Duarte Almeida
natastron.nature.com
Our March Editorial discusses both the power and the perils associated with Artificial Intelligence and its use in astronomy: https://bit.ly/4htzfPl #AI
Using large language models wisely - Nature Astronomy
Artificial intelligence has much to offer in the way of convenience and efficiency, but there may also be hidden costs that only become apparent with time. Astronomers should be aware of the drawbacks and potentially consider mitigating actions.
bit.ly
March 20, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Duarte Almeida
drjennings.bsky.social
When you read this it becomes apparent that Elon Musk is a showman, nothing more. He's not an engineer. The whole thing is an act.
Starship Was Doomed From The Beginning
The fatal flaw SpaceX can't overcome.
www.planetearthandbeyond.co
March 18, 2025 at 9:39 AM