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harryjpbaker.bsky.social
Harry Baker
@harryjpbaker.bsky.social
730 followers 560 following 22 posts
Science journalist | Senior staff writer at @livescience.com | Sometimes found on @space.com | 2024 Aerospace Media Award winner | 2023 NCTJ Awards finalist | #earthfromspace series | https://linktr.ee/harryjpbaker
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harryjpbaker.bsky.social
Harry Baker @harryjpbaker.bsky.social · Nov 17
Hello Bluesky! I am a science journalist at ‘Live Science’ that covers a wide range of topics including astronomy, space exploration, planetary science, comets, climate change, volcanos, marine biology, new tech, animals, evolution, math, fossils & anyhting else I find interesting
#scisky
#scicomm
Reposted by Harry Baker
ryanjfrench.bsky.social
A big day for space weather, with the BBC reporting that a Mexico-to-USA flight in October experienced a 'sudden drop in altitude', likely caused by *solar energetic particles* from the Sun. Here is an explanation and some thoughts as a solar astrophysicist (a thread): 1/8
November 28, 2025 at 9:44 PM
Reposted by Harry Baker
adammc.space
What's left after a large galaxy tears apart a small one? And how can that help in the search for dark matter? three-alpha.space/p/when-a-gal... 🔭🧪
When a galaxy is pulled apart
Studying what's left can tell us about dark matter.
three-alpha.space
November 29, 2025 at 12:29 PM
harryjpbaker.bsky.social
The stranded Chinese astronaut saga has finally come to an end! 👨🏽‍🚀🚀

I’ve been covering this story all month and while I am glad that the Shenzhou-21 crew has a new return capsule, I still find it crazy that they were seemingly left without a safe way home for over a week
November 29, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Reposted by Harry Baker
livescience.com
A second "new star" has unexpectedly appeared in the night sky, less than two weeks after a near-identical point of light first burst into view without warning.
www.livescience.com/space/astron...
2 'new stars' have exploded into the night sky in recent weeks — and both are visible to the naked eye
Astronomers have spotted another never-before-seen "nova" blaze to life in the night sky. This may be the first time that simultaneous stellar explosions have been visible to the naked eye in recorded...
www.livescience.com
July 1, 2025 at 9:12 PM
Reposted by Harry Baker
jeromeollier.bsky.social
Quadruple volcanoes on secret Soviet military base linked to climate-altering eruption 200 years ago - @harryjpbaker.bsky.social @livescience.com

www.livescience.com/planet-earth...
Quadruple volcanoes on secret Soviet military base linked to climate-altering eruption 200 years ago — Earth from space
A 2024 satellite photo shows four end-to-end volcanoes perfectly spaced out along the Russian island of Simushir. One of these peaks was the site of a surprise eruption that temporarily cooled the Nor...
www.livescience.com
May 28, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Reposted by Harry Baker
theplanetaryguy.bsky.social
Inspired by @jtuttlekeane.bsky.social and @ohdearz.bsky.social, here's what the White House proposed budget cuts to NASA would do to the entirety of the agency's Science Mission Directorate.

Bloodbath is right.
May 31, 2025 at 3:00 AM
Reposted by Harry Baker
martiandiaries.bsky.social
Survival on Mars - a promising new study has revealed that lichens can withstand the intense ionizing radiation that hits the planet's surface buff.ly/Hs0Dfgb

An interesting report @harryjpbaker.bsky.social @livescience.com
#Mars #Space #SpaceExploration #Science
These strange, hybrid Earth lifeforms could survive on Mars, new study hints
Researchers bombarded these hybrid lifeforms with a year's worth of Martian radiation in just 5 hours — and they survived, hinting that they could potentially live on the Red Planet.
buff.ly
April 10, 2025 at 5:25 AM
Reposted by Harry Baker
xkcd.com
Water Balloons xkcd.com/3061
March 11, 2025 at 4:01 AM
Reposted by Harry Baker
coreyspowell.bsky.social
This is the device (the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer on the Very Large Telescope) used to discover a 3-million-light-year long filament linking two distant galaxies.

Exploring the hidden universe ain't easy! 🧪🔭

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) is a second generation instrument in development for the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO). It is a panoramic integral-field spectrograph operating in the visible wavelength range. It combines a wide field of view with the improved spatial resolution provided by adaptive optics and covers a large simultaneous spectral range.
March 9, 2025 at 5:48 PM
harryjpbaker.bsky.social
My incredibly talented colleague @nicolanese.bsky.social has just published this outstanding feature on the differences (+similarities) between the male & female brain. It is expertly written, well sourced, insightful, extremely timely & well worth a read 🧪🧠✍️

@livescience.com

Check it out!! ⬇️
March 9, 2025 at 10:45 PM
Reposted by Harry Baker
luckytran.com
This is not a good combination of trending topics 😬
Trending BETA What people are posting about. CDC Layoffs Texas Outbreak
February 14, 2025 at 10:57 PM
Reposted by Harry Baker
livescience.com
An amateur photographer on Earth has captured an extremely rare photo of "stranded" NASA astronaut Suni Williams floating outside the International Space Station (ISS) as it passed overhead.
www.livescience.com/space/space-...
'Stranded' NASA astronaut Suni Williams photographed from Earth during record-breaking spacewalk. Can you spot her?
A photographer on Earth has captured an incredible telescope image of NASA astronaut Suni Williams outside of the International Space Station, as it passed by roughly 250 miles overhead.
www.livescience.com
February 5, 2025 at 6:16 PM
Reposted by Harry Baker
laurageggel.bsky.social
Hats off to @harryjpbaker.bsky.social for this alliterative headline that's also a tongue twister.
Parisian photographer produces phenomenal, perfectly-proportioned 'planetary parade' portrait
A French astrophotographer recently snapped shots of the moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in a single evening, and rearranged them to create a striking composite image. Each "pla...
www.livescience.com
February 12, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Reposted by Harry Baker
theguardian.com
The risks of ‘space junk’ are clear: what goes up, might well come back down on top of you | Patrick Schröder
The risks of ‘space junk’ are clear: what goes up, might well come back down on top of you | Patrick Schröder
As commercial space activity ramps up, detritus from launches poses a risk to active satellites and those of us down on Earth Last month, people in a small village in Kenya looked to the sky and saw a red glowing ring slowly descending. The half-tonne…
www.theguardian.com
January 13, 2025 at 10:06 AM
Reposted by Harry Baker
pomarede.bsky.social
Data collected by NASA's InSight lander suggest that ancient internal processes are responsible for the "Martian dichotomy" that splits the Red Planet into two distinct halves. #Mars #PlanetaryScience 🧪

by @harryjpbaker.bsky.social for @livescience.com
'Marsquakes' may solve 50-year-old mystery about the Red Planet
Data collected by NASA's InSight lander suggest that ancient internal processes are responsible for the "Martian dichotomy" that splits the Red Planet into two distinct halves.
www.livescience.com
January 21, 2025 at 6:26 PM
harryjpbaker.bsky.social
There was a (modern) record number of X-class solar flares in 2024! While solar max is largely to blame, researchers told me we may also be getting better at spotting these supercharged outbursts. Experts also predict the number could rise further in 2025 ☀️💥📈

www.livescience.com/space/the-su...
X-class solar flares hit a new record in 2024 and could spike further this year — but the sun isn't entirely to blame, experts say
There were significantly more X-class solar flares in 2024 than any other year for at least three decades. The arrival of solar maximum was a key reason for the spike, but other factors were also at p...
www.livescience.com
January 16, 2025 at 10:10 AM
Reposted by Harry Baker
livescience.com
We, uh, may have had a different angle 🍆
www.livescience.com/animals/hump...
December 13, 2024 at 12:06 PM
Reposted by Harry Baker
pandoradewan.bsky.social
My first weekly roundup for @livescience.com is live 🤩🧪
December 14, 2024 at 1:34 PM
Reposted by Harry Baker
mcnees.bsky.social
The last moonwalk began #OTD in 1972.

No one has set foot on the Moon since Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt, 52 years ago today. 🧪 🔭 🧑‍🚀

Images: NASA
An astronaut standing on the surface of the moon. An American flag is placed behind him on the left side of the photo, and an antenna dish attached to the lunar rover is visible to his right. The astronaut's reflective visor is down; it is a golden-copper color. The suit is white and has an attached pack on the astronaut's back. A small series of gray hills are visible in the background. The surface is gray, as well, and dusty. A color photo of the Apollo 17 lunar rover driving near the edge of a crater. The surface is gray, as are the hills in the distance. A photo of the lunar lander, one of the astronauts, and the lunar rover, taken from a distance, The sun is behind the astronaut taking the picture; their shadow is visible near the bottom of the photo. One of the Apollo 17 astronauts driving the lunar rover. It is very spare to reduce the weight that needed to be transported.
December 13, 2024 at 3:43 PM
harryjpbaker.bsky.social
I got taken to the planetarium for my birthday last week (by ‘taken,’ I mean I dragged my wife along)

It was a lot of fun & confirmed for the 1,000th time that I am definitely in the write job 🔭✨🪐

This was the only photo either of us took & I love how janky it is!
A blurry photo of a man wearing 3D glasses in a planetarium
December 13, 2024 at 11:50 AM
Reposted by Harry Baker
vicky.science
Whatttt
the-episiarch.bsky.social Veeloxxy Bites @the-episiarch.bsky.social · Dec 13
Most people associate brood parasitism with cuckoos, but this new paper presents evidence for brood parasitism in sea anemones.

Some anemones use their tentacles to stick their larvae directly into the mouth hole of other brooding anemones.
#Invertebrate 🧪
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Sea anemone Aulactinia stella sticking one of its tentacles directly into the mouth of a fellow anemone. Insert photo shows a juvenile anemone being held at the tip of a tentacle
December 13, 2024 at 3:34 AM
Reposted by Harry Baker
nicolanese.bsky.social
We recently launched a new series on @livescience.com highlighting interesting case reports!

If you ever see/write a report you think we should cover, drop me a line

(email in pinned post)
🧪💉🩺💊
laminda.bsky.social Mindy Weisberger @laminda.bsky.social · Dec 11
Did you know that too much wasabi can break your heart? 💔

A woman who ate a spoonful of wasabi at a wedding (she thought it was avocado) went to the ER with chest pain. Her diagnosis: takotsubo cardiomyopathy, aka "broken heart syndrome," with symptoms mimicking those of a heart attack 🧪
Diagnostic dilemma: A woman got 'broken heart syndrome' after eating too much wasabi
The patient was diagnosed with takotsubo cardiomyopathy, also known as "broken heart syndrome," which had an unusual cause.
www.livescience.com
December 12, 2024 at 10:33 PM
harryjpbaker.bsky.social
Had a lot of fun writing this one (& choosing the picture hehe)
December 5, 2024 at 3:44 PM
Reposted by Harry Baker
engineers.bsky.social
If you divide 1 by 998,001 you get all three-digit numbers from 000 to 999 in order, except for 998.
December 4, 2024 at 6:24 PM
harryjpbaker.bsky.social
Can’t stop looking at this awesome photo I wrote about yesterday — a ‘letter E-shaped’ aurora in Alaska created by rare black ‘anti-auroras’ that shoot electrons out of the atmosphere 🤯

📸 Todd Salat/aurorahunter.com

www.livescience.com/space/the-su...
A display of green auroras with a large luminous letter E (circled)
December 5, 2024 at 3:32 PM