Dr. Heloise Stevance
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sydonahi.bsky.social
Dr. Heloise Stevance
@sydonahi.bsky.social
Astrophysicist - Schmidt A.I. in Science Fellow - Oxford Uni - she/they

Sky surveys
Exploding stars
Hungry black holes
AI Literacy

Beatrice Tinsley Lecturer 2021
Caroline Herschel Prize 2024
hfstevance.com
Pinned
Tonight I'm speaking at the Cambridge Astronomical society delivering my Caroline Herschel Prize Talk "How can AI help us find explosive stars and hungry black holes?".

You can watch it online for free as it was recorded by the University of Bath in November!

🔭
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtCj...
Caroline Herschel Prize Lecture - How can AI help us find exploding stars and hungry black holes?
YouTube video by University of Bath
www.youtube.com
Reposted by Dr. Heloise Stevance
One Rubin image = up to ~10,000 alerts! 🌌🔭

From supernovae to asteroids, comets, and more, Rubin will capture the Universe in action every night. ☄️✨

See what kinds of events Rubin will alert us to: https://rubinobservatory.org/explore/how-rubin-works/alerts
December 18, 2025 at 11:20 PM
This week my work on the Virtual Research Assistant that helps our teams find extra galactic transients appeared in a very big French news Magazine (glossy paper and all).

Now I'm making my VRAs for LSST 👀. Watch this space in 2026 for more coll science #astrosci

www.instagram.com/p/DR6k7owDnt...
Le Point on Instagram: "🔭Chaque nuit, les télescopes du réseau ATLAS scrutent le ciel à la recherche d'astéroïdes menaçants, d'explosions d'étoiles et d'autres événements cosmiques éphémères. ⏰Chaqu...
47 likes, 0 comments - lepointfr on December 6, 2025: "🔭Chaque nuit, les télescopes du réseau ATLAS scrutent le ciel à la recherche d'astéroïdes menaçants, d'explosions d'étoiles et d'autres événement...
www.instagram.com
December 6, 2025 at 10:11 AM
Reposted by Dr. Heloise Stevance
The interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS ☄️ cruising through our Solar System is no alien spaceship and won't hit Earth.

Still, the buzz around it is far from unfounded 🤩

Discover why with #ChasingStarlight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtiqLxfSiVI

🔭 🧪
December 5, 2025 at 10:03 AM
Reposted by Dr. Heloise Stevance
We've just released a massive update to Astro-COLIBRI! 🔭☄️🧪⚛️
Version 2.25.0 features a completely redesigned mobile experience (yes, you can finally swipe between screens!) and adds powerful new data sources like the RAPAS network and LAST Observatory.

More details in our forum: tinyurl.com/ACv2-25
Release Notes v2.25.0: Major Mobile UX Update, RAPAS Photometry & LAST Integration
Dear Astro-COLIBRI community, We are excited to announce the release of version 2.25.0! This update brings a significant overhaul to the mobile user interface to make navigation smoother during your ...
forum.astro-colibri.science
December 2, 2025 at 9:19 AM
Reposted by Dr. Heloise Stevance
A giant impact between proto-Earth and a planet called Theia produced the Moon. Hopp et al. use isotopic measurements of lunar samples and cosmochemical modelling to show that Theia formed in the inner Solar System, probably closer to the Sun than Earth. ☄️ #planetsci
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
The Moon-forming impactor Theia originated from the inner Solar System
The Moon formed from a giant impact of a planetary body, called Theia, with proto-Earth. It is unknown whether Theia formed in the inner or outer Solar System. We measured iron isotopes in lunar sampl...
www.science.org
November 20, 2025 at 8:52 PM
Last week I had the honour to speak at the 5th Innovation Forum for Intelligent Computing at Zheijang Lab, and share my voice on a panel with experts with a lot more seniority.

Here are some tips for early career researchers for when you're the youngest in the room and feeling small

🧪🔭
November 24, 2025 at 1:54 PM
Reposted by Dr. Heloise Stevance
This person is paying OpenAI two hundred dollars a month to have a chatbot gaslight them about making an excel spreadsheet
October 20, 2025 at 2:08 AM
Reposted by Dr. Heloise Stevance
We are pleased to announce that the Astrophysics Centre for Multimessenger Studies in Europe (ACME) EU-funded project has officially launched its online platform for virtual access to multi-messenger expertise. 🔭🧪⚛️☄️

support.acme-astro.eu

Details in the thread below and on: www.acme-astro.eu
ACME VA platform
support.acme-astro.eu
October 10, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Reposted by Dr. Heloise Stevance
Today is the release day of Gazan physics student Wasim Said's memoir of life under the genocide. 🧪

You should grab a copy. #BookSky

1804books.com/products/wit...
Witness to the Hellfire of Genocide
I didn’t write this to make you cry.Not for you to tell me: “Poor you.”I write this so I can hang these words around your neck—to make you bear the responsibility of my perspective,the responsibility ...
1804books.com
October 1, 2025 at 8:03 PM
Reposted by Dr. Heloise Stevance
"no evidence supporting a statistically significant trend of [O star] multiplicity properties with metallicity" still high (~70%) in the SMC - interesting! 🔭🧪 #AstroSci #extragalactic
A high fraction of close massive binary stars at low metallicity - Nature Astronomy
The analysis of radial velocity variations of O-type stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud reveals a large fraction of close binaries, suggesting that binary physics also plays a prominent role in the l...
www.nature.com
September 8, 2025 at 7:30 PM
How long do we give the techno-bros to start weaponising DEI by saying their fave AI is conscious and has feelings and saying otherwise is "dehumanizing" and cruel?
September 25, 2025 at 5:20 AM
Reposted by Dr. Heloise Stevance
That’s a much better title yeah
My preferred title "Bot does Astronomers' Cosmic Laundry"

But I guess it didn't sound serious enough.

Fun fact the tool still works even though we added a whole new telescope in the stream this summer and without retraining 🤣🫶

www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-09...
AI tool developed at Oxford helps astronomers find supernovae in a
A new AI-powered tool has reduced astronomers’ workload by 85% - filtering through thousands of data alerts to identify the few genuine signals caused by supernovae (powerful explosions from dying
www.ox.ac.uk
September 11, 2025 at 11:42 AM
My preferred title "Bot does Astronomers' Cosmic Laundry"

But I guess it didn't sound serious enough.

Fun fact the tool still works even though we added a whole new telescope in the stream this summer and without retraining 🤣🫶

www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-09...
AI tool developed at Oxford helps astronomers find supernovae in a
A new AI-powered tool has reduced astronomers’ workload by 85% - filtering through thousands of data alerts to identify the few genuine signals caused by supernovae (powerful explosions from dying
www.ox.ac.uk
September 11, 2025 at 10:25 AM
"AI-powered" is obviously a marketing term.

My models use a nifty little trick called Histogram Based Gradient Boosted Decision trees.

TL;DR it approximates complex probability distributions by adding loads of small functions (here trees).

Why is it smart if it's so simple?

1/2 #AstroSci
September 11, 2025 at 6:14 AM
Reminder that you can take your science seriously without taking yourself too seriously.

#AstroSci 🧪
September 10, 2025 at 9:13 AM
Reposted by Dr. Heloise Stevance
For the last two years, I've been paying for the Astronomy feeds hosting myself.

It has been a privilege to grow our community here, but I also shouldn't keep doing it for free 😅

That's why I'm delighted to announce that we now have a donations page on Open Collective! 🔭☄️ #astrophotography
The Astrosky Ecosystem - Open Collective
We're building an open-source ecosystem of social media tools for the space science & astronomy communities.
opencollective.com
September 8, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Reposted by Dr. Heloise Stevance
New from Wynn Jacobson-Galán ! it’s so cool to see such an expansive spectral energy distribution (SED) of such an extraordinary event.

arxiv.org/abs/2508.11747

🧪🔭☄️
August 19, 2025 at 7:07 AM
Reposted by Dr. Heloise Stevance
Well... the discussion around 3I/ATLAS continues to... evolve. This object is super exciting, fascinating, worthy of a LOT of study and press! ALSO so far as I have seen, & from every solar system expert I've talked to (and I know a lot of 'em!), it looks like a comet, not a spaceship.
🔭🧪☄️
August 15, 2025 at 1:16 AM
Guess which matplotlib colour map this was inspired by.

🧪🔭 #AstroSci
August 11, 2025 at 8:59 AM
Reposted by Dr. Heloise Stevance
PS if you’re a member of the press: I and my colleagues will happily talk about 3I/ATLAS until the (interstellar) cows come home. But my only comment on whether it’s an alien spacecraft is: Avi is talking nonsense on stilts, and doesn’t understand comets.
August 8, 2025 at 6:09 AM
Reposted by Dr. Heloise Stevance
I see the first articles in the UK press giving space to the claim that 3I/ATLAS is an alien spacecraft. Briefly:

It’s a comet that formed billions of years ago, passing through our Solar System.

It’s behaving like a comet.

There is no evidence it’s artificial.
August 8, 2025 at 6:00 AM
Hey bluesky! Please help me reach the right scientists 🧪

The moon **sidereal** period is ~27 days and menstruation is ~27 to 28 days on average.

I am wondering if it is due to an evolutionary advantage in early humans with calendars being able to predict period and do family planning

1/
August 10, 2025 at 8:20 AM
Reposted by Dr. Heloise Stevance
The University of Warwick has paid a lot of money, I'm guessing, for their internet banner ads on the Guardian and elsewhere.

But they can't spell "curiosity". This isn't a US-UK variant. They just, genuinely, have a massive spelling error in their banner ads.
August 8, 2025 at 8:22 AM
Reposted by Dr. Heloise Stevance
I did the thing that took 20 minutes and I've been putting off for 6 years!
August 9, 2025 at 10:02 AM