Merideth Rue
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stellarplexus.bsky.social
Merideth Rue
@stellarplexus.bsky.social
250 followers 250 following 320 posts
Give me Space! Astronomy nerd, friend of animals, sketcher of things, recovering research librarian, writer, reader of books, night owl, tree-hugging island hopper
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stellarplexus.bsky.social
Best thing I’ll see today, I’m sure.
Arm wrestler Venn diagram meme. One arm is “Rick Astley,” the other is “Lake Superior.” Bring them together and you get “Never Gonna Give You Up.” YES.
November 11, 2025 at 3:50 AM
stellarplexus.bsky.social
Came across this model of a ring of mesovortices in another thread a few days ago and it’s quite something to be able to see it in real life, just like that. Too cool.
A drawn diagram of the circular eyewall of a hurricane, lined within all the way around by a ring of small filled-in, eye-like ovals that represent mesovortices, small scale rotational features churning inside a larger storm.
October 31, 2025 at 5:59 PM
stellarplexus.bsky.social
Amazing and completely gorgeous new shot of the silhouette of the ISS as it transits the sun, taken in the Arizona desert last Sunday by the brilliant @ajamesmccarthy.bsky.social. 🔭
The tiny black silhouette of the International Space Station stands out against the fiery orange and gold sea of the surface of the sun.
June 20, 2025 at 7:20 AM
stellarplexus.bsky.social
“Under the 'has cleared its orbital neighborhood' and 'fuses hydrogen into helium' definitions, thanks to human activities Earth technically no longer qualifies as a planet but DOES count as a star."

Love this one, @xkcd.com. 💕
xkcd comic with a table entitled Planet Definitions, with highlighted diagrams corresponding to the following philosophical approaches: Traditionalist: Pluto is a planet Modern: Pluto is not a planet Expansive: Dwarf planets are planets Ultratraditionalist: Only the classical planets are planets Condescending: Only giant planets are planets; the rest are big asteroids Simplistic: Anything gravitationally round is a planet Grounded: Only objects a spaceship has landed on are planets Regolithic: Anything covered in dirt and ice and stuff is a planet Lunar: You can’t be a planet if you don’t have a moon Solipsistic: Earth is the only planet Judgmental: Only the prettiest ones are planets Empiricist: Only worlds that I, author of this table, have seen are planets Marine Biologist: Only objects with oceans are planets Maritime: Only objects with *surface* oceans are planets Universalist: They’re all planets Existentialist: What if space *itself* is a planet? Spiteful: *Only* Pluto is a planet
March 14, 2025 at 10:23 PM
stellarplexus.bsky.social
A terrible (old iPhone) photo of a smoky sky, but a lovely red moon.
March 14, 2025 at 7:46 AM
stellarplexus.bsky.social
I always feel drawn to the Waterman Butterfly. Runner-up: the Pierce Quincuncial. Also the Winkel Tripel when the lines of longitude aren’t too compressed, and the Natural Earth. <3
An illustration of the Waterman “butterfly” map projection, which arranges Earth’s continents in four distinct, equal lobes joined together along the top halves, in a clustered shape resembling the wings of a butterfly.
January 8, 2025 at 8:14 PM
stellarplexus.bsky.social
Venus and the moon, in this evening’s violet twilight.
Phone photo of the moon and Venus close together, low in the sky over some silhouetted palm trees. Taken just after sunset.
January 4, 2025 at 2:06 AM
stellarplexus.bsky.social
Love Sonnet XVII, always.
One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII by Pablo Neruda I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz, or arrow of carnations that propagate fire: I love you as one loves certain obscure things, secretly, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself, and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose from the earth lives dimly in my body. I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where, I love you directly without problems or pride: I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love, except in this form in which I am not nor are you, so close that your hand upon my chest is mine, so close that your eyes close with my dreams.
December 14, 2024 at 5:01 AM