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galastronomer.bsky.social
Dr. Karen K.
@galastronomer.bsky.social
510 followers 1.1K following 150 posts
she/her. Galaxy collisions expert who happens to be a girl. Astro faculty, EPO pro, bellydancer, & fire spinner. Opinions are my own.
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
solarisbooks.bsky.social
Grab the fourth instalment in @maryrobinettekowal.com‬ 's Hugo and Nebula award-winning #ladyastronaut series - THE MARTIAN CONTINGENCY!

"A deeply personal novel about whether the human race will survive and, if it does, what it will be" - Bookpage

Buy now: geni.us/lamarcon
Against a blue background, dotted with crystal stars, planets and moons, the first four LADY ASTRONAUT books by Mary Robinette Kowal arrayed in a cross. From the top, clockwise, THE MARTIAN CONTINGENCY, THE CALCULATING STARS, THE FATED SKY and THE RELENTLESS MOON. The white Solaris logo is in the bottom left corner.
May 29, 2025 at 10:01 AM
galastronomer.bsky.social
David Tennant played Eddington in the movie about this!!
astroroyalscot.bsky.social Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans @astroroyalscot.bsky.social · May 29
#OTD 29May1919 there was a perfect Sun-Moon-Earth alignment in front of the 625Myo Hyades star cluster. The Hyades backdrop of 13 stars made it possible for astronomers of the era to map the distortion of spacetime & confirm Einstein's theory of General Relativity.
❤️ when the Universe plays ball.🔭🧪⚛️
A Photographic plate from the 1919 expedition showing a total eclipse in inverted colours. The dark blocked out Sun is a white circle, and the dark sky is also white. There is lots of fuzz around the Sun (the corona) and if you zoom in, you'll find black dots which are the bright stars from the Hyades cluster. From Dyson et al 1920: https://www.jstor.org/stable/91137 Instruments used to observe the 1919 total solar eclipse, Sobral, Brazil. In the background, mountains. In the foreground a shed with lots of long tubes poking out of it (they are telescopes) Photograph: Science & Society Picture Library/SSPL via Getty Images A sketch of where the solar eclipse should be relative to the stars in the Hyades cluster, predicted by Sir Frank Dyson in 1917 https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1917MNRAS..77..445D
May 29, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
joshlukedavis.com
you could say that the two historians are crossing swords 👀
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...
Historians dispute Bayeux tapestry penis tally after lengthy debate
Two Bayeux scholars at loggerheads over whether dangling shape depicts dagger or the embroidery’s 94th phallus
www.theguardian.com
April 25, 2025 at 7:54 AM
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
sculptedreef.com
#InverteFest 🥳 Sale is LIVE 🐙 24 - 30 April 🪸

Come meet the whole Octopus family here: SculptedReef.com

Find a Desk Buddy 🖥️ or Bookshelf Guardian 📚💙for yourself or a loved one!

🐙 Handmade from clay and lovingly painted 🎨 💕

#ArtYear #Sculpture #Art #OOAK #BSNM #Octopus #Handmade #ArtSale 🦑🐡🦈
Intricate clay octopus, sculpted and painted by hand. It depicts the species Caribbean Reef Octopus scientifically known as Octopus Briareus. It's a bluish teal color with crimson patterns all over its mantle and arm crown.
April 24, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
merz.bsky.social
Hi, everyone! My name is Alex. I'm a microbiologist/cell biologist/biochemist, and I'm sharing some of my career biography today for #YoungScientistNetworking.
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April 24, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
mcnees.bsky.social
Happy birthday to the Hubble Space Telescope, launched from the Kennedy Space Center #OTD in 1990. Here's to a remarkable 35 years of imaging the Cosmos. 🧪 🔭 ⚛️

Leave your favorite Hubble images in the replies!
False color image of the Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635) in Cassiopeia.A ghostly blue bubble sits among golden orange clouds of gas, punctuated by sharp violet pinpricks – young stars. Spiral galaxies NGC 4038 and NGC 4039 –– the Antennae Galaxies. White, blue, and red swirls of stars from two disrupted spiral galaxies captured mid-collision, with messy lanes of dark gas and dust stretching between their bright yellow cores. The globular cluster NGC 1866 in the Large Magellanic Cloud. A jewel box of tightly clustered white, blue, and red stars. False color image of the Lagoon Nebula captured by Hubble for its 28th anniversary in 2018. Red, purple, blue, green, yellow, and orange clouds surround a region of active star formation, with our view obscured by dark molecular clouds.
April 24, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
psygeek.bsky.social
I have made the most gloriously ridiculous pendant with @nora.zone glass blob. Behold the biblically accurate trans angel pendant
a white palm cups a large glass pendant. The center is a series of pink blue and white circles that resemble bullseyes. Around the edges attached with silver wire are iridescent purple pink and blue wings.
April 21, 2025 at 11:48 PM
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
hillarymonahan.bsky.social
Wrecked my hands for my craft but she real pretty.
A 5 strand rosary style rainbow collar neck.
April 25, 2025 at 5:26 AM
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
rutemple.bsky.social
Of course! It's The Fabric of Civilization: How textiles
made the world by Virginia Postrel.
Enjoy!
Book cover of Virginia Postrel's book, The fabric of Civilization, How textiles made the world
April 25, 2025 at 2:30 AM
galastronomer.bsky.social
Oh no! I visited there in 1999 with the NASA Academy.
eroston.bsky.social Eric Roston @eroston.bsky.social · Apr 25
NASA is canceling the lease of its NYC climate center, made famous when its first-floor diner, Tom's, appeared o̶n̶ ̶"̶S̶e̶i̶n̶f̶e̶l̶d̶"̶ in a Suzanne Vega song.

Staff are expected to work remotely until a new space is found.
🎁🔗 with @lorengrush.bsky.social :
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
NASA Cancels Columbia University Lease for Climate Science Unit
NASA is canceling the lease of its New York City climate science unit that has occupied the same Columbia University-owned building since the 1960s.
www.bloomberg.com
April 25, 2025 at 6:02 AM
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
pomarede.bsky.social
NASA’s Dragonfly Passes Critical Design Review

The mission to Saturn’s icy moon Titan will investigate prebiotic chemical processes and complex organic compounds that, on Earth, are the building blocks of life.
science.nasa.gov/blogs/dragon... 🧪🔭 #Dragonfly
Artist’s concept of Dragonfly soaring over the dunes of Saturn’s moon Titan. NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben
April 25, 2025 at 5:43 AM
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
davidimiller.bsky.social
🚨 Practical URGENT tip for NSF grantees:

Out of an abundance of caution, I would right now go into Research.gov and…

1. Download your NSF award letters.

2. Print PDF your annual reports.

3. Screenshot the status table for annual reports.

NSF is planning maintenance tomorrow to Research.gov
Due to maintenance, Research.gov (including access to NSF-PAR, GRFP, PES, and ETAP) will be unavailable from Fri., 4/25 at 10:00 PM ET to Sat., 4/26 at 1:00 PM ET. NSF apologizes for any inconvenience.
April 24, 2025 at 9:32 PM
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
apod.shinyakato.dev
🔭 Thor's Helmet

Image Credit & Copyright: Brian Hopkins (East Coast Astronomer)

apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap25031...
The image shows a starfield with an oval shaped red and light-blue tinged nebula in the center Please see the explanation for more detailed information.
March 17, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
coreyspowell.bsky.social
It's been an exciting couple weeks for the exploration of planets around other stars.

First up: *Direct* images of planets orbiting two young, nearby stars. HR 8799 (left) has four super-Jupiters. 51 Eridani (right) has a planet 4 times the mass of Jupiter. 🧪🔭

webbtelescope.org/contents/new...
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has provided the clearest look in the infrared yet at the iconic multi-planet system HR 8799. The closest planet to the star, HR 8799 e, orbits 1.5 billion miles from its star, which in our solar system would be located between the orbit of Saturn and Neptune. The furthest, HR 8799 b, orbits around 6.3 billion miles from the star, more than twice Neptune’s orbital distance. Colors are applied to filters from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera), revealing their intrinsic differences. A star symbol marks the location of the host star HR 8799, whose light has been blocked by the coronagraph. In this image, the color blue is assigned to 4.1 micron light, green to 4.3 micron light, and red to the 4.6 micron light. Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) captured this image of 51 Eridani b (also referred to as 51 Eri b), a cool, young exoplanet that orbits 890 million miles from its star, similar to Saturn’s orbit in our solar system. The 51 Eridani system is 97 light-years from Earth. This image includes filters representing 4.1-micron light as red. The background red in this image is not light from other planets, but a result of light subtraction during image processing.
March 20, 2025 at 7:58 PM
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
knapprew.bsky.social
Our pun made it into New Scientist!
March 20, 2025 at 11:16 AM
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
maryrobinettekowal.com
I just checked in at the Atlanta airport and the kiosk wanted me to show a "passport or permanent residence card."

The airline rep who was helping me said "I don't know why it's doing this it's been doing it all morning."
March 20, 2025 at 9:02 AM
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
apod.shinyakato.dev
🔭 The Solar Eclipse Analemma Project

Image Credit & Copyright: Hunter Wells

apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap25032...
Recorded from 2024 March 10, to 2025 March 1, this composited series of images reveals a pattern in the seasonal drift of the Sun's daily motion through planet Earth's sky. Known to some as an analemma, the figure-eight curve was captured in exposures taken on the indicated dates only at 18:38 UTC from the exact same location south of Stephenville, Texas. The Sun's position on the 2024 solstice dates of June 20 and December 21 would be at the top and bottom of the curve and correspond to the astronomical beginning of summer and winter in the north. Points that lie along the curve half-way between the solstices would mark the equinoxes. The 2024 equinox on September 22, and in 2025 the equinox on March 20 (today) are the start of northern fall and spring. And since one of the exposures was made on 2024 April 8 from the Stephenville location at 18:38:40 UTC, this analemma project also reveals the solar corona in planet Earth's sky during a total solar eclipse.
March 20, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
astrafoxen.bsky.social
I spent almost 2 hours painstakingly copying the orbits of all 128 Saturnian moons from the announcement MPEC and reformatting them for visualization...

Behold, here are the orbits of ALL 128 MOONS OF SATURN. This isn't just a moon system—it's a literal asteroid belt around Saturn! 🧪🔭☄️
Saturn's outer moon system viewed from the north pole of Saturn. Moons orbiting in clockwise (retrograde) orbits have red-colored orbits while moons orbiting counterclockwise (prograde; in the direction of Saturn's spin) are colored blue. With so many irregular moons occupying the same region and intersecting each other, the irregular moon system looks like a donut-shaped vortex surrounding Saturn. Each of the 128 new moons is highlighted in the diagram with a white point representing their location, and a brighter-colored orbit. Previously-known moons of Saturn are included in the diagram, but are colored darker. The regular moons of Saturn are colored turquoise and the outermost regular moons (Titan, Hyperion, and Iapetus) labeled with their name. At the lower left corner are scale indicators to help visualize the scale of Saturn's irregular moon system. A small gray circle at the left left corner is shown to represent the diameter of the Earth-Moon orbital distance. A linear scale bar is labeled "10 million km" (6.2 million mi) to give a standard distance. View of Saturn's irregular moon system, tilted at an angle to show the toroidal belt-like shape of the system. Each moon is labeled with their names in turquioise. Red orbits = retrograde direction, and blue orbits = prograde direction. Turquoise curves closer to the center are orbits of Saturn's regular moons. Side view of Saturn's irregular moon system, tilted at an angle to show the toroidal belt-like shape of the system. Red orbits = retrograde direction, and blue orbits = prograde direction. Turquoise curves closer to the center are orbits of Saturn's regular moons. The irregular moons of Neptune (dark green) are also visible in the background to the right of Saturn. The horizontal red line protruding right of Saturn is the orbit path of Saturn.
March 12, 2025 at 12:05 AM
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
vrubinobs.bsky.social
Lights, camera, action!

The world's largest digital camera has been installed at NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory! 🤩

The LSST Camera was the final major component of the observatory. With it in place, Rubin officially enters its final phase of testing!🔭

🔗: rubinobservatory.org/news/lsst-camera-installed
March 12, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
jacasiegel.bsky.social
I was sitting on the couch with my cat, and I started singing to myself. This cat put her WHOLE paw in my mouth 😂. She really said “I’ve heard enough. We’ll call you.”
March 16, 2025 at 1:09 AM
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
infinitescream.bsky.social
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH
March 16, 2025 at 1:10 AM
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
sciencesocks.bsky.social
Speaking of #eclipses... Please check out my eclipse collection with socks and jewelry featuring this 'diamond ring' effect 🔭🧪

sciencesocks.co/collections/...
Zoomed in photo of eclipse socks featuing the phrases of a solar eclipse Gold solar eclipse pendant necklace depicting totality with a diamond set to illustrate the diamond ring effect
March 15, 2025 at 4:34 PM
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
celestelabedz.bsky.social
Ended up back on the Wikipedia page for the 1899 Yakutat Bay Earthquakes and now once again can't stop thinking about the knivesmograph.
Screencap of wikipedia page with map showing a red bullseye shape on Yakutat Bay AK, with text reading "Eyewitness Accounts: The most dramatic accounts came from a group of prospectors whose camp was close to a glacial stream about a mile SE of the ice cliff of Hubbard Glacier. After the initial shock on the morning of September 10, they rigged up a seismograph using dangling knives, and counted 52 shocks before the most powerful shock occurred at noon. This was strong enough that the men could not stand, and some of them avoided being thrown about by holding on to the tent pole."
March 15, 2025 at 10:41 PM
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
daryllmarie.bsky.social
A lil kitty cat 🦊
A clouded leopard lays on a branch
March 8, 2025 at 6:22 AM
Reposted by Dr. Karen K.
restingdinoface.bsky.social
“Essential”

“Brilliant”

“Vivid”

“Another triumph from Black”

When the Earth Was Green: Plants, Animals, and Evolution’s Greatest Romance, blooming on bookshelves February 25th. 🌱

us.macmillan.com/books/978125...
The cover for Riley Black’s book When the Earth Was Green, showing dinosaurs, prehistoric mammals, and insects among ancient plants
February 17, 2025 at 2:56 PM