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zaidmir.bsky.social
Zaid Mir
@zaidmir.bsky.social
830 followers 72 following 200 posts
Looking at the sky in search of answers.🌌🔭
Posts Replies Media Videos
zaidmir.bsky.social
Hi everyone.
November 15, 2025 at 1:23 PM
zaidmir.bsky.social
The Milky Way Beyond Earth's Horizon.🔭

International Space Station
This celestial image captured by NASA astronaut Don Pettit using a camera with low light and long duration settings pointed out a window on the SpaceX Dragon crew spacecraft shows the Milky Way beyond Earth's horizon crowned by an atmospheric glow. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are also distinguishable as the International Space Station orbited 257 miles above the Pacific Ocean.
February 22, 2025 at 2:41 AM
Reposted by Zaid Mir
newscientist.com
Researchers at Microsoft say they have created so-called topological qubits, which would be exceptionally resistant to errors, but their claim has been met with scepticism.
Microsoft has a new quantum computer - but does it actually work?
Researchers at Microsoft say they have created so-called topological qubits, which would be exceptionally resistant to errors, but their claim has been met with scepticism
www.newscientist.com
February 21, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Reposted by Zaid Mir
philplait.bsky.social
Yay! The asteroid 2024 YR4 appears to be even more unlikely to hit us. The y-axis is the time of closest approach, and x is when an estimate of its TCA was made. As of 2/20, the asteroid should pass us at 09:00 ±2ish hours, missing Earth (it has to pass us at 14:00 to hit).
mapping3k.bsky.social Ned Wright @mapping3k.bsky.social · Feb 20
Update 2/20/25: the uncertainty has dropped by a factor of 3.7 and the estimated time of closest approach has bounced around but stayed away from the yellow zone, so it is now ~2.5 standard deviations away from impact. The probability of impact should drop significantly.
time of closest approach on the y-axis vs date of estimate on the x-axis. If the time of closest approach ends up in the yellow zone there will be an impact.
February 20, 2025 at 4:38 PM
Reposted by Zaid Mir
nature.com
A two-and-a-half-year-old girl shows no signs of a rare genetic disorder, after becoming the first person to be treated for the motor-neuron condition while in the womb.

https://go.nature.com/41a7Zzj
Rare genetic disorder treated in womb for the first time
The child, who is now almost three years old, shows no signs of the often fatal motor neuron disease.
go.nature.com
February 20, 2025 at 11:17 AM
Reposted by Zaid Mir
davidbflower.bsky.social
First pharaoh's tomb found in Egypt since Tutankhamun's. 🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Thutmose II: First pharaoh's tomb found in Egypt since Tutankhamun's
It is the first royal tomb to be found since King Tutankhaman's over a century ago.
www.bbc.co.uk
February 19, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Reposted by Zaid Mir
esa.int
🌍🛰️ Almost 40% of glaciers in Central Europe were lost between 2000 and 2023.

A new study, using data from various satellite observations -including our CryoSat mission- reveals alarming insights about the declining rate of glaciers.

Read the full study🔗 esa.int/Applications...
Glaciers in the Chugach Mountains of Alaska. This image, captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission on 6 October 2017, shows the melting Scott (left), Sheridan (middle) and Childs (right) glaciers feeding lakes and rivers in their forefields.
February 20, 2025 at 1:05 PM
zaidmir.bsky.social
🌌
coreyspowell.bsky.social Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · Feb 20
The advances in astronomy during my lifetime have been spectacular.

Left: Image of galaxy pair Arp 107 taken the year I was born, using the Palomar 200" (the world's most powerful telescope at the time).

Right: Image of Arp 107 taken last year by JWST. 🧪🔭

ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Arp/A...
Halton Arp's image of Arp 107, a pair of interacting galaxies, taken in 1966 using the 200" telescope on Mt Palomar. Image of Arp 107, a pair of interacting galaxies, taken in 2024 using JWST. The infrared image shows details that are completely invisible in Halton Arp's photograph.
February 20, 2025 at 7:54 AM
zaidmir.bsky.social
The Manicouagan Crater from Space.🔭

The Manicouagan Crater Quebec, Canada.

International Space Station
An UltraFex solar array, one of two cymbal-shaped solar arrays on the Northrop Grumman Cygnus space freighter, is pictured in the foreground as the International Space Station orbited 261 miles above the 214 million-year-old Manicouagan crater in Quebec, Canada.
February 19, 2025 at 2:21 AM
Reposted by Zaid Mir
neildegrassetyson.com
At the moment, mansion-sized Asteroid 2024-YR4 has a one-in-fifty chance of hitting Earth in the next eight years.

Now might be a bad time to reduce spending on Science. Just sayin’.
February 15, 2025 at 3:27 AM
Reposted by Zaid Mir
davidbflower.bsky.social
Next month will see two eclipses:

14th March- Partial Lunar Eclipse.
29th March- Partial Solar Eclipse.

Visible from the UK and the rest of Europe.
🔭 🧪 #astrophotography
February 15, 2025 at 9:08 AM
zaidmir.bsky.social
Happy Pale Blue Dot Day.🔭
Picture of the Earth taken from a large distance.
February 14, 2025 at 4:17 PM
zaidmir.bsky.social
New composite image of the Tarantula Nebula from Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-Ray Observatory and ALMA Radio Telescope.🔭
Picture of the Tarantula Nebula.
February 12, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Reposted by Zaid Mir
stsci.edu
#NASARoman: NASA has successfully joined the sunshade to the Roman observatory’s ‘exoskeleton.’

The visor-like sunshade will help prevent unwanted light from entering the telescope: go.nasa.gov/4hQItFR
Workers at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center are surrounding a covered spacecraft on a platform in a clean room environment.
February 12, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Reposted by Zaid Mir
science.esa.int
Continuing our #ICYMI series on @bsky.app, we bring you the largest photomosaic ever assembled from NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observations.

It is a panoramic view of our neighbouring #Andromeda galaxy, located 2.5 million light-years away.

Access full res 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl...

🔭🧪
The Andromeda galaxy, a spiral galaxy, spreads across the image. It is tilted nearly edge-on to our line of sight so that it appears very oval. The borders of the galaxy are jagged because the image is a mosaic of smaller, square images against a black background. The outer edges of the galaxy are blue, while the inner two-thirds is yellowish with a bright, central core. Dark, dusty filamentary clouds wrap around the outer half of the galaxy’s disk. At 10 o’clock, a smaller dwarf elliptical galaxy forms a fuzzy, yellow blob. Hubble’s sharp vision distinguishes about 200 million stars within the image.
February 12, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Reposted by Zaid Mir
setiinstitute.bsky.social
#PPOD: This ESA/Webb picture features the gravitational lensing of the quasar known as RX J1131-1231, located roughly 6 billion light-years from Earth in the constellation Crater. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Nierenberg 🧪 🔭
A small image of a galaxy distorted by gravitational lensing into a dim ring. At the top of the ring are three very bright spots with diffraction spikes coming off them, right next to each other: these are copies of a single quasar in the lensed galaxy, duplicated by the gravitational lens. In the centre of the ring, the elliptical galaxy doing the lensing appears as a small blue dot. The background is black and empty.
February 11, 2025 at 9:32 PM
Reposted by Zaid Mir
astronomisty.bsky.social
New processing of M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, our nearest large galaxy neighbor. Just under 4 hours with my Seestar S50 🔭🧪

I've been waiting for a few software improvements, and I'm pleased with the results from this beta test!
Software: Siril 1.3.6-dev, GraXpert, GIMP
A large spiral galaxy is oriented diagonally from bottom left to top right across a black background that is dotted with stars. Two small fuzzy companion galaxies are visible nearby. The spiral galaxy has prominent dust lanes blocking out background starlight.
February 10, 2025 at 2:04 AM
zaidmir.bsky.social
Wow, just look at this perfect Einstein ring captured by the Euclid Telescope. It is almost a perfect circle.🔭
The ring of light surrounding the center of the galaxy NGC 6505, captured by ESA’s Euclid telescope, is an example of an Einstein ring. NGC 6505 is acting as a gravitational lens, bending light from a galaxy far behind it. A close-up view of the center of the NGC 6505 galaxy, with the bright Einstein ring aligned with it, captured by ESA’s Euclid space telescope.
February 11, 2025 at 2:24 PM
Reposted by Zaid Mir
newscientist.com
Astronomers have spotted the closest ever Einstein ring, which Albert Einstein himself thought would be impossible to observe. www.newscientist.com/article/2467...
Stunning image shows the closest ever Einstein ring
Albert Einstein himself thought that the eponymous Einstein ring would be impossible to observe, but the Euclid telescope has picked one up just 600 million light years from Earth
www.newscientist.com
February 10, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Reposted by Zaid Mir
sjbastro.bsky.social
Astronomers discover Quipu, the largest known structure in the universe. Quipu, a massive cosmic structure spanning 1.3 billion light-years, is now the largest known formation in the universe, reshaping our understanding of space. #Astronomy #Space www.thebrighterside.news/post/astrono...
Astronomers discover Quipu, the largest known structure in the universe
Quipu, a massive cosmic structure spanning 1.3 billion light-years, is now the largest known formation in the universe.
www.thebrighterside.news
February 11, 2025 at 10:10 AM
Reposted by Zaid Mir
operations.esa.int
Astronomers will turn the James Webb Space Telescope towards asteroid 2024 YR4 next month. The most powerful telescope ever launched into space will provide a more accurate estimate of the size of the asteroid, which has a very small chance of impacting Earth in 2032.
blogs.esa.int/rocketscienc...
Artist's impression of the James Webb Space Telescope in space
February 10, 2025 at 11:22 AM
Reposted by Zaid Mir
science.esa.int
Our dark Universe detective 🕵️ Euclid has discovered a stunning Einstein ring! 💍

It surrounds galaxy NGC 6505, which is acting as a gravitational lens, bending light from a distant galaxy behind it.

Why is this rare phenomenon so useful for scientists? 👉
www.esa.int/Science_Expl...

🔭🧪
#cosmology
A sea of colourful stars and galaxies appear to swim in the vast blackness of space around a hazy halo at centre stage. In the middle of the image, the fuzzy-looking bulb of light in a warm shade of yellow extends around a small bright spot, nestled within a thin light circle that appears to be drawn closely around it. As we follow the central halo’s rim outwards, its brightness dims and blends smoothly into its surroundings. Here, extended discs of shades ranging from a warm purple to golden yellow, and piercing dots of light with sharp diffraction spikes are spread evenly across the image.
February 10, 2025 at 8:31 AM
Reposted by Zaid Mir
universal-sci.bsky.social
Believe it or not, this long, luminous streak, speckled with bright blisters and pockets of material, is a spiral galaxy like our Milky Way.

It is oriented directly edge-on to us

(Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Filippenko, R. Jansen)
February 7, 2025 at 6:17 PM