Thomas Carpentier
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thocarp.bsky.social
Thomas Carpentier
@thocarp.bsky.social
7.4K followers 530 following 930 posts
PhD Researcher at the EUI in Firenze, studying the history of the European Space Agency.
Processing space telescopes data for fun

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thocarp.bsky.social
Thomas Carpentier @thocarp.bsky.social · Oct 11
Introduction post! I am Thomas Carpentier, I studied (and plan to continue) History of space in Toulouse, France. 🔭

My main contribution here is the data processing of space telescopes observations! Here are some examples and more on my Flickr page: www.flickr.com/people/19746...
Reposted by Thomas Carpentier
kosmi.bsky.social
One more shot of today's Etna eruption.

Multispectral image taken by Sentinel-2.
December 27, 2025 at 2:08 PM
thocarp.bsky.social
Here's to celebrate the end of my first term as a PhD Researcher! 🔭 🎉

This is the Pismis 24 star cluster as seen by the JWST, processed by me! It is located some 6,500 light years away, and it's part of the NGC-6357 nebula.

HD: flic.kr/p/2rMPcYg
A gas cloud seen in infrared light. Near the upper-centre part of the image, a pillar-like structure, just like a finger, can be seen, with a young star at the tip of it. The gas composing the cloud appears in red and orange colours. From top left to top right, a veil of gas can also be spotted, in beige and red colours. It is in the background of that cloud. Dozens of stars cna be spotted as well, with a big one on the centre-bottom part, carving around it the gas cloud thanks to its stellars winds.
December 20, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Reposted by Thomas Carpentier
eui-history.bsky.social
📣 Applications for our fully-funded #PhD programme are still open 📣

ℹ️ Check the programme's webpage 👉 loom.ly/pvk17dc

⏰ and apply by 15 January 2026!

🎓 #PhDlife #academicsky #history #skystorians
December 16, 2025 at 9:29 AM
Reposted by Thomas Carpentier
andrealuck.bsky.social
My version of the latest Saturn and Triton release by JWST

Full size & more info: flic.kr/p/2rLJqnZ 🔭🧪
Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/AndreaLuck

JWST/NIRCAM
F150W2-F164N, F212N
2024-11-29
Proposal PI: Macarena Garcia Marin
Proposal ID 9219
In this JWST image, Saturn appears as a pale gold/brownish sphere with horizontal bands, encircled by a bright whithish, thin oval ring system. The atmosphere is showing off a few circle whithish storm-like features. On the top left also its world Titan is visible as a gold glowing sphere.
December 14, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Reposted by Thomas Carpentier
eurospacehistory.bsky.social
BOOK GIVEAWAY: to mark the upcoming 10th anniversary of ESA astronaut Tim Peake’s #Prinicipia mission launch, we’ve got a couple of copies of Tim’s first book, ‘Hello, is this planet Earth?’, available for our followers. To be in with a chance to win, simply REPOST this post!
Cover of Tim Peake’s Hello is this planet Earth book
December 9, 2025 at 9:57 PM
Reposted by Thomas Carpentier
ryanjfrench.bsky.social
Physics in action: a truly mesmerising #SolarFlare on the Sun last night, from the same region that produced strong flares and triggered widespread aurora back in mid-November. The flare gives a hypnotic example of how plasma and magnetic fields interact in the Sun’s atmosphere.
December 1, 2025 at 6:54 PM
thocarp.bsky.social
Putting a spiral galaxy in your TL just for the sake of it! 🔭

This is the NGC-4569/M90 galaxy as seen by Hubble and processed by me. It is located some 60M light years away from us!

HD: flic.kr/p/2rJqjVV
A spiral galaxy seen in visible light. The centre is extremely bright, while the arms appear in red and orange. Inside the arms some blue areas can be spotted. These areas are clusters of stars! On the left part of the image, a part of one of the arms appears like going up.
December 1, 2025 at 3:59 PM
thocarp.bsky.social
Look what arrived today! 👀 🔭

This is the October 2025 issue of "Reflets de la Physique" with an image that I processed on its cover, and the book "Onbegrensd Universum" written by @govertschilling.nl with two images of mine inside! 😎
On the left handside: the issue October 2025 of the French journal "Reflets de la Physique" with a nebula picture on its cover. On the right handside: the "Onbegrensd Universum" book, written by Govert Schilling. Two images inside this book, processed by me 😎
November 26, 2025 at 3:38 PM
thocarp.bsky.social
A stellar nursery at its finest! 🔭

This is LHA120-N159 region in the LMC as seen by the JWST one year ago. It is home to MANY new born stars and many more to come!

I was in awe with how beautiful this region is while I was processing these data earlier this morning!

HD: flic.kr/p/2rGG32u
A large portion of a gas cloud seen in infrared light. Most of the cloud appears in red, orange and yellow colours. Some sort of cavities can be seen in the cloud, being brighter and in blue: this is where large stars being born have pushed away the gas around them. Hundreds of small dots can be spotted everywhere, being stars in the LMC galaxy around and in the observed region.
November 21, 2025 at 2:51 PM
thocarp.bsky.social
A few days before ESA's Ministerial, this is really huge! 🔭

In 2023, Canada's budget for ESA was €34M for instance.

www.canada.ca/en/space-age...
November 18, 2025 - Longueuil Quebec Today, at the SpaceBound 2025 Conference, the Honourable Mélanie Joly Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, made he historic announcement that Canada will increase its investment to Europear Space Agency (ESA) programs by $528.5 million. This investment represents a tenfold increase compared to previous contributions and is set ta advance research and development of Canadian-made space technologies for poth civilian and defence purposes. It wil help build an industrial base that is ready and capable of supporting Canada's tommercial, defence and security needs.
November 18, 2025 at 11:59 PM
Reposted by Thomas Carpentier
eui-history.bsky.social
🎓 📚 What could you do with us?

Check our faculty areas of supervision 👉 loom.ly/3GVxVSU
and apply for our #PhD programme by 15 January 2026!

🤔 Want to know more? Meet us at our:
🌐 Virtual Open Day - 2 Dec 2025 👉 loom.ly/sp5lOKM

📣 #skystorians #academicsky
November 18, 2025 at 9:32 AM
Reposted by Thomas Carpentier
rami.spaceaustralia.com
Well, here's some very exciting news!

I've been wanting to share this for a few months, but had to wait for the pre-print to drop.

A NEW GLITCH ON A MILLISECOND PULSAR HAS BEEN OBSERVED!

These events are extremely rare - only two others since MSPs discovered.

🔭🧪📡
spaceaustralia.com SpaceAustralia.com @spaceaustralia.com · Nov 17
For only the third time ever, a glitch event has been observed on a millisecond #pulsar.

@rami.spaceaustralia.com chats with lead author and PhD candidate Bhavnesh Bhat about the significance of this important, yet rare, event.

www.spaceaustralia.com/news/new-gli...

#SpaceAustralia

📸 NASA SVS
November 17, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Reposted by Thomas Carpentier
stsci.edu
The brightest point in this Hubble image of FS Tau is a binary system, consisting of two stars orbiting each other, that have cleared much of its surrounding dust and gas away.

Credit: NASA, ESA, K. Stapelfeldt (NASA JPL), G. Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America). 🔭 🧪
A nebula that contains stars and protostars. To the right of center, there is a bright white point made up of two orbiting stars with a four-pronged diffraction pattern. At 2 o’clock from this star, there is another, smaller bright light, a protostar, surrounded by a dark, edge-on disk of matter, which appears as a vertical line. In the center of the image is a cavity where the clouds are thinner and background stars shine through. The stars and protostar are on the edges of this cavity and are surrounded by dark clouds that appear like thick smoke in the light. A thin, short blue jet of material extends roughly horizontally, emerging from both sides of the disk. The jet is interrupted by the cavity and then continues to the left, cutting through the center of the frame.
November 14, 2025 at 2:59 PM
Reposted by Thomas Carpentier
eurospacehistory.bsky.social
#OTD: 12 November 2014, @esa.int's Rosetta Philae lander made history by touching down on the surface of a comet, the first spacecraft ever to do so. The landing was confirmed at 16:03 GMT/17:03 CET 🧪🔭

www.esa.int/Science_Expl...

@cnes.fr @dlr-de.bsky.social @operations.esa.int @science.esa.int
Rosetta’s lander Philae is safely on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, as these first two CIVA images confirm. One of the lander’s three feet can be seen in the foreground. The image is a two-image mosaic (pic: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA)
November 12, 2025 at 11:19 AM
Reposted by Thomas Carpentier
ec-euclid.bsky.social
We are releasing seven new science publications today, based on our Q1 data release earlier this year. All revolve around galaxies, from dust to interactions to active centers.These are accompanied by two new image collages drawn from the same release.

1/

🔭 #astronomy #space #ESA
November 5, 2025 at 9:15 AM
thocarp.bsky.social
Recently I started to learn how to obtain and process data from Herschel, a former ESA space telescope (2009-13). Here's an image from one observation of that telescope! 🔭

This is the Eagle Nebula seen in infrared, and if you zoom in: the Pillars of Creation are there!

HD: flic.kr/p/2rD4JDu
An infrared observation of a dense gas cloud region, the Eagle Nebula. The whole image is covered by the gas, mostly appearing orange and blue. On the right hand side of the image lie the Pillars of Creation: three finger-like gas formations, looking like a claw. Some bright dots can be spotted as well: stars being born in that region! A focus on the Pillars of Creation
November 2, 2025 at 5:49 PM
Reposted by Thomas Carpentier
eui-eu.bsky.social
🚨 Applications Now Open for the EUI PhD Programmes 2026-2027!

📊 Economics |⚖️ Law |📘 History | 🏛 Political and Social Sciences

Join the EUI's 50th PhD cohort!

Apply by 15 January 2026 (14:00 CET) for the academic journey of a lifetime! 👉: eui.eu/phd

#EUIPhD #PhDOpportunity
November 1, 2025 at 8:15 AM
thocarp.bsky.social
A JWST wonder, once again! 🔭

This is the image of the NGC-2440 planetary nebula as seen by the JWST one year ago, that I processed last night! Look how wonderful that thing is 😍
And if you zoom on the centre, you can see a little dot which is suspect is the white dwarf!

HD: flic.kr/p/2rCzjR1
The NGC-2440 planetary nebula seen in infrared light. The outer part looks like a bubble that is expanding in every directions, appearing mostly in grey and violet colours. In the middle of that bubble lie the outer layers, appearing in orange, of the dead star being pushed away, mostly towards the right and left side of the bubble. In the very centre of that lies a little white dot, which I suspect is the remnant of the dead star: the white dwarf. Several stars and far away galaxies can be spotted in the background.
October 31, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Reposted by Thomas Carpentier
colourfulcosmos.bsky.social
Today in PASA we published a new image of our Milky Way at low radio frequencies, in unprecedented colour and detail. Here's just a tiny piece of it -- the whole thing is ten times bigger!

We're seeing high energy electrons whirl around cosmic magnetic fields from exploded stars, and more!
October 29, 2025 at 3:24 AM
thocarp.bsky.social
Achievement of the day: one of my images on the cover of a French journal, "Les Reflets de la Physique" 😎 🔭

A big thank you to @oliberne.bsky.social who made it possible!
October 22, 2025 at 12:21 PM
thocarp.bsky.social
The violent beauty of stars being born in full display thanks to the JWST! 🔭

This is the region around the HOPS-108 protostar in the Orion Nebula. There are so many beautiful jets produced by baby stars tantrum 🤩

HD: flic.kr/p/2rAgnuW
A gas region seen in infrared light. At the centre of the image lies a protostar creating jets. Other jets can be spotted in the image. The gas appears brown and blue where there is no star; orange, red and violet where stars are.
October 19, 2025 at 3:38 PM
thocarp.bsky.social
Welcome to Westerhout 3 (or W3) as seen by the JWST! 🔭

This is just a small part of the giant molecular cloud, which is itself located 6,000 light years away from us. It is actively producing new massive stars at a high rate!

HD: flic.kr/p/2rz8d85
Observation of a gas cloud in infrared light. The gas can be seen in the whole image in different colours: some blue parts, which are hotter, beige, orange and violet. A orange/red little cloud can be spotted on the left handside of the image, in front of the giant cloud. Dozens of stars can be seen as well. A nice detail: a faint bubble-like cloud can be seen on the right handside!
October 13, 2025 at 4:02 PM
thocarp.bsky.social
Last night, the JWST observed Uranus for calibration. Even like that the result is awesome, so here you go with my processed image of that observation! 🔭

HD: flic.kr/p/2ry78y3
Observation of Uranus by the JWST. The planet itself appears mostly blue, but the pole, a big patch, is white. Some storms can also be spotted near the pole. The rings of the planet can be spotted in infrared light, so they appear in that image (in orange color).
October 8, 2025 at 2:23 PM
thocarp.bsky.social
The best part of processing space telescopes' data is to discover new regions that I didn't even know existed in the first place! 🔭

This is G054.093+01.748, a star forming region in our galaxy, as seen by the JWST recently, located in the Outer Scutum–Centaurus spiral arm.

HD: flic.kr/p/2rxLQyT
A big gas cloud where new stars are being born seen in infrared light. The gas cloud itself appears in red, orange, and violet colours, occupying almost the entire image. Hundreds of dots are spread across the picture, as they are stars in our own galaxy.
October 7, 2025 at 4:47 PM