Francesca Stucchi
LightNews LightNews
banner
francescastucchi.bsky.social
Francesca Stucchi
@francescastucchi.bsky.social
51 followers 100 following 1 posts
Astronomia- Astronautica - Libri - Cani - Cavalli - Scienza in generale
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
dogshistorian.bsky.social
Genetic and zooarchaeological studies confirm: the Slough is not a modern invention, but a lineage that stretches back through millennia. A bridge between myth and science, tradition and evidence. #DogGenetics #Archaeology #AncientDogs
November 22, 2025 at 10:40 AM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
drnereide.bsky.social
For those who may have missed it when it first came out.

This stunning infrared image from #JWST, released 11 July 2022, shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago.

It's the Webb’s First Deep Field...

➡️ web.wwtassets.org/specials/202...

🔭 🧪 #science #cosmology

1/3
Dark velvet sky packed with countless far-off galaxies—some look like smeared amber dots, others tiny rust-colored wisps, a few pulled into long glowing ribbons and perfect Einstein rings by the huge mass of SMACS 0723 sitting in the middle. A handful of sharp foreground stars flash their classic six-pointed glitter. All this wonder squeezed into a patch so small it would hide behind a single grain of sand if you raised it to the night sky.
November 22, 2025 at 12:29 AM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
apod.shinyakato.dev
🔭 Dione and Rhea Ring Transit

Image Credit & Copyright: Christopher Go

apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap25112...
Seen to the left of Saturn's banded planetary disk, small icy moons Dione and Rhea are caught passing in front of the gas giant's extensive ring system in this sharp telescopic snapshot. The remarkable image was recorded on November 20, when Saturn's rings were nearly edge-on when viewed from planet Earth. In fact, every 13 to 16 years the view from planet Earth aligns with Saturn's ring plane to produce a series of ring plane crossings. During a ring plane crossing, the interplanetary edge-on perspective makes the thin but otherwise bright rings seem to disappear. By November 23rd Saturn's rings will have reached a minimum angle for now, at their narrowest for viewing from planet Earth, but then start to widen again. Of course, Dione and Rhea orbit Saturn near the ring plane once every 2.7 and 4.5 days respectively, while the next series of Saturn ring plane crossings as seen from Earth will begin again in 2038.
November 22, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
drnereide.bsky.social
🧵
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2025 has just been awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, John M. Martinis

“for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.”

🧪 ⚛️ #science #NobelPrize2025 #physics
The image is an illustration of the three Nobel laureates in physics, from left to right: John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis.
October 7, 2025 at 11:25 AM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
eso.org
Take a closer look at dwarf star PDS 70, located 400 light-years away in the constellation of Centaurus.

The final shot shows an ALMA image of the system, where #exoplanet PDS 70b and a cloud of debris orbit the central star.

Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2311/ 🔭
October 8, 2025 at 12:03 PM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
apod.shinyakato.dev
🔭 New Comet SWAN25B over Mexico

Image Credit & Copyright: Daniel Korona dakoko_minera at live.com.ar)

apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap25091...
A starfield is seen above a horizon and an orange sunset. In the starfield, near the horizon, is a comet with a green head and long tail. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.
September 16, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
hourlycosmos.bsky.social
Mrk 573 HST+Chandra - From Judy Schmidt (geckzilla.bsky.social) - https://flic.kr/p/24vJJUc
A version featuring only Hubble data, along with a more complete description, is here: flic.kr/p/21KK76u Three pointings from the CHEERS survey in 2011 along with one other pointing from 2006 were used in summation to create the Chandra x-ray overlay. It's nice of the cosmos to be so still for us that 5 years makes little difference. The apparent shape of the x-ray formations does change quite a bit with the addition of the extra photons, though. I couldn't quite make any sense of what is supposed to be the same image pictured on this page: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2014/archives/more.html (one must scroll down to Mrk 573) Data from the following proposals were used to create this image: Active Galaxies and Quasars Extragalactic Diffuse Emission and Surveys Near Ultraviolet Imaging of Seyfert Galaxies: Understanding the Starburst-AGN Connection High-Spatial Resolution Imaging and Polarization of AGN Violet/Magenta overlay: Chandra ACIS .3-7 keV Red: WFPC2 / PC F675W Green: WFPC2 / PC F569W Blue: ACS / HRC F330W North is up.
September 18, 2025 at 9:00 AM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
evrard-ouicem.bsky.social
Le manteau martien est parsemé d'hétérogénéités anciennes

www.pourlascience.fr/sd/planetolo...
Insight révèle que le manteau martien est parsemé d’hétérogénéités anciennes
L’analyse des données du sismomètre Seis de la mission InSight a révélé que le manteau de la Planète rouge est parsemé d’hétérogénéités, vestiges d’anciens impacts.
www.pourlascience.fr
September 18, 2025 at 10:25 AM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
eso.org
The Flame Nebula steals the spotlight in this image 🔥, but it’s not the only gem on display!

You can also see the Horsehead Nebula (lower right), and the bright, bluish star to the right, which is one of the trio forming Orion's Belt. 🔭
A nebula glowing in shades of orange and white. To the right, a bright bluish star shines prominently. The entire scene is rich with glowing gas, wispy interstellar dust, and scattered stars of various colours and brightness.
September 18, 2025 at 12:02 PM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
drnereide.bsky.social
🧵
A truly epic discovery!

It is about the super-Jupiter Wispit 2b, the first planet to be clearly identified while it is forming within a multi-ringed protoplanetary disk.

➡️ astronomie.nl/nieuws/en/di...

Image credit: ESO/R. F. van Capelleveen et al.
(eso.org/public/unite...)

🔭 🧪 #planetsci
The image shows a protoplanetary disk around the star WISPIT 2, with concentric rings of gas and dust. At the center, a dark void, about 59 astronomical units wide, is created by the protoplanet WISPIT 2b, which is about 5-7 times the mass of Jupiter and visible as a faint point. The central star is hidden by a coronagraph on the SPHERE instrument on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, which blocks its light to reveal the disk and the planet. The rings, visible as bright circles separated by dark regions, indicate the planet's gravitational pull, which is "eating" material from the disk as it grows. The system, tilted at approximately 44°, appears as a dusty ellipse against a black background of space. Hα observations from the Magellan telescope (MagAO-X) confirm that WISPIT 2b is accreting hydrogen gas. The image is a snapshot of a newborn planet in its stellar "nest."
September 16, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
physiciandemocracy.medsky.social
Please sign and share our petition to remove RFK Jr.

www.change.org/p/rfk-jr-mus...
August 7, 2025 at 10:14 AM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
drnereide.bsky.social
🧵
Captivating!

Picture a forming planet sculpting spiral arms in the disk of gas and dust around its star!

Using ESO’s VLT, a research team led by Francesco Maio, a doctoral researcher at the University of Florence, has identified a candidate protoplanet, HD 135344B b, shaping the⤵️

🔭 🧪 #planetsci
The image is formed by two panels featuring the protoplanetary disk of the star HD 135344B, located some 440 light-years away. The left panel (VLT/ERIS) with monochrome image in shades of yellow, shows a disk of gas & dust presenting clear spiral arms winding around a dark center. This central black circle is the coronagraph, which obscures the starlight to reveal faint details. A white circle highlights the location of a candidate protoplanet at the base of a spiral arm. The right panel (SPHERE/ALMA) presents a multicolored image that combines data from SPHERE (in red) and ALMAin orange and blue). The spiral arms are more evident, with the center of the disk in blue and the outer regions in red. It does not show the protoplanet, but highlights the spiral structure of the disk. Both images highlight the intricate structures of the disk, with the left panel revealing the protoplanet candidate for the first time.
July 29, 2025 at 9:32 AM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
stsci.edu
This #NASAWebb image of the Serpens Nebula, shows a unique tapestry of color. The blue gas and dust are brought about by the reflected light of protostars. Areas where there is dust in front of that reflected light appear orange: bit.ly/43DaD2P 🔭 🧪
A young star-forming region is filled with wispy orange, red, and blue layers of gas and dust. The upper left corner is filled with mostly orange dust, and within that orange dust, there are several small red plumes of gas that extend from the top left to the bottom right, at the same angle. The center is filled with mostly blue gas. At the center, there is one particularly bright star, that has an hourglass shadow above and below it. To the right of that is what looks a vertical eye-shaped crevice with a bright star at the center. The gas to the right of the crevice is a darker orange. Small points of light are sprinkled across the field, and the brightest sources in the field have extensive eight-pointed diffraction spikes that are characteristic of the Webb Telescope.
July 29, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
setiinstitute.bsky.social
#PPOD: This image, taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), shows the supernova remnant SNR 0509-67.5. These are the expanding remains of a star that exploded hundreds of years ago in a double-detonation. Credit: ESO/P. Das et al. Background stars (Hubble): K. Noll et al.
A starry Hubble picture provides the background for two concentric bubbles -- an outer golden one and a blue inner one -- which are the remains of a double-detonation supernova.
July 14, 2025 at 3:02 PM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
eso.org
We have images of a new interstellar visitor! ☄️ 👀

Comet 3I/ATLAS is only the third object ever spotted coming from beyond our Solar System.

In this timelapse, our VLT observes the comet move across the sky — just two days after its discovery!

https://www.eso.org/public/videos/potw2527a/ 🔭 🧪
July 8, 2025 at 7:02 AM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
emily.space
How many open clusters could be hiding at the edge of our galaxy? 🔭☄️🧪 #galactic

Our new paper out today (A&A, accepted) pioneers a new way to test the completeness of cluster catalogues built with @esa.int's Gaia mission!
The fraction of simulated clusters we recover (upper panel) compared against a dust map (lower panel.) Dust is clearly a major hindrance to seeing open clusters with Gaia. The detectability of young clusters (upper panel) and old clusters (lower panel) in the anticentre of our galaxy. Grey points show real clusters. It's clear that there's a huge void where we're not sensitive enough to say if there are more old clusters. The detectability of old clusters, shown a different way. The two most distant catalogued clusters in the anticentre (Saurer 1 & Berkeley 29) appear to simply be lucky detections, as they sit in a small (not so reddened) part of the anticentre. General trends in cluster detectability in the region as a function of various parameters. Mass, age, extinction, and distance are the biggest culprits.
June 24, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
mariolivio.bsky.social
A beautiful ESO image of the galaxy NGC 1350, which is about 87 million light-years away.
June 23, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
stsci.edu
#NASAWebb has transformed our view of galaxy evolution. On June 26, Dr. Kevin Hainline (University of Arizona) explores Webb's discovery of 'little red dots'—compact, distant sources scattered across the sky that continue to defy easy explanation: youtube.com/live/hQWt3P4... 🔭 🧪
Slide from a presentation titled 'Deep Space Dialogues' with a space background showing numerous stars. The topic is 'JWST’s Tiny Red Sources and the Big Questions They Raise' presented by Kevin Hainline.
June 20, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
pomarede.bsky.social
Trifid and Lagoon Nebulae, captured by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in just over seven hours of observing time

Credit: NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory
rubinobservatory.org/gallery/coll... #RubinFirstLook 🧪🔭
June 23, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
nasawatch.bsky.social
And then this happened at the Rubin Observatory image unveiling today when Željko Ivezić flashed a Vulcan greeting. FYI in #StarTrek Discovery the crew visited the Vera Rubin Nebula. Just sayin' #LLAP #astronomy #NSF #Energy #NASA
June 23, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
pomarede.bsky.social
A Swarm of New Asteroids, discovered by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in about 10 hours of observations

rubinobservatory.org/gallery/coll... #RubinFirstLook 🧪🔭
A Swarm of New Asteroids (Video-EN)
In about 10 hours of observations, NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory discovered 2104 never-before-seen asteroids in our Solar System, including seven near-Earth asteroids (which pose no danger). Annua...
rubinobservatory.org
June 23, 2025 at 4:44 PM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
hourlycosmos.bsky.social
The Relativistic Jet of Quasar 3C 273 - From Rolf Wahl Olsen - https://flic.kr/p/2neFEQV
The bright quasar 3C 273 has a large jet that is visible in optical light, extending some 200,000 light years from the quasar itself. At 3C 273's great distance of over 2 billion light years the jet appears only 23 arc-seconds long in the sky, extending towards the SW. To the left is a comparison with an image form the Hubble Space Telescope, showing the jet in high resolution and revealing its detailed structure. Click here to see the spectrum of 3C 273 captured with a simple diffraction grating, and its red-shift and distance calculated using the Hydrogen emission lines. Image details: Date: 10th April 2022 Exposure: Luminance 24x300s, 2 hours @ -25C Telescope: Homebuilt 12.5" f/4 Serrurier Truss Newtonian Camera: QSI 683wsg with Lodestar guider Filters: Astrodon LRGB E-Series Gen 2 Taken from my observatory in Auckland, New Zealand
June 23, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
tanyaofmars.bsky.social
"To associate Mars exploration with the devastation of American space science...to tie it to the alienation of our allies and partners, is to doom the effort to failure. Mars deserves better." - @caseydreier.bsky.social

Humans deserve better too.

spacenews.com/the-administ...
The administration’s anti-consensus Mars plan will fail
The administration’s anti-consensus Mars plan will fail
spacenews.com
June 19, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
philplait.bsky.social
When did the Universe first get wet?

Turns out, water has been around a very long time indeed.

badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/when-did-t...

🔭 🧪
When did the Universe first get wet?
Water is simple, but it took time for the cosmos to brew the ingredients.
badastronomy.beehiiv.com
June 17, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Reposted by Francesca Stucchi
aljazeera.com
Authorities recorded the volcano unleashing 10,000 metres (32,800 feet) of thick grey clouds.
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki volcano erupts, alert at highest level
Authorities recorded the volcano unleashing 10,000 metres (32,800 feet) of thick grey clouds.
bit.ly
June 17, 2025 at 3:30 PM