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Reposted by Anna Kapinska

National Radio Astronomy Observatory - NSF NRAO @thenrao.bsky.social · 19d

NEW: NRAO to Outfit the VLBA with New Ultra Wideband Receivers

A major upgrade is coming to the NSF Very Long Baseline Array (NSF VLBA) – state-of-the-art ultra wideband receivers capable of operating across the frequency range of 8 - 40 gigahertz (GHz).

#RadioAstronomy #Astronomy #NRAO #VLBA

National Radio Astronomy Observatory to Outfit the VLBA with New Ultra Wideband Receivers - National Radio Astronomy Observatory

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is upgrading the NSF Very Long Baseline Array with new ultra wideband receivers spanning 8–40 GHz, expanding its scientific reach and enabling Ka-band observat...

public.nrao.edu

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Anna Kapinska @drannadana.bsky.social · 21d

From stars to deepest depths of oceans... fascinating!! 😮

Rebecca R Helm @rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 21d

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA

10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

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LIGO Scientific Collaboration @ligo.org · Sep 13

The latest issue of @ligomagazine.bsky.social is out now and free to read

🎉 Celebrate 10 years of gravitational-wave astronomy with us 🎉

ligo.org/wp-content/u...

🔭🧪⚛️ #GW10Years

Front cover of issue 27 of the LIGO Magazine

10 years of graviational wave astronomy

GW150914 to GW231123: a signal that changed to world (p 6)

GW231123: the most massive black hole merger yet! (p 24)

GWTC-4.0 cataglgue paper (p 20)

GW observatories of the future (p 34)

Climate change conversations: Fossil-free supercomputing (p 40)

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Sandy Roberts @kaleidoscopesci.bsky.social · Aug 29

Got kids? Inspire them with this story about the Parker Space Probe, then get them building with the @scifri.bsky.social educational activity "Use Engineering To Design A Solar Space Probe" at www.sciencefriday.com/educational-...

Science Friday @scifri.bsky.social · Aug 27

How does solar wind fly fast enough to escape the sun’s gravity? ☀️

Scientists hope that the images captured by NASA’s Parker Solar Probe on its closest-ever approach to the sun in December will help them solve this and other solar mysteries.

buff.ly/awqvp3R

For the first time in history, we are not just observing the Sun. We are flying through its atmosphere.

—Dr. Nour Rawafi

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Anna Kapinska @drannadana.bsky.social · Aug 29

This brings me to my childhood, and all the awe and excitement watching and learning about the celestial phenomena. I'm still remembering the feeling of pure fascination. Good to get reminded why we do what we do even though a lot of my work is administration, teaching or management nowadays 😌

Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.bsky.social · Aug 29

This is a five-frame video of one of the giant eruptions on Io, Jupiter's volcanic moon.

Taken in 2007 by the New Horizons probe on its way to Pluto, the images span about eight minutes.

The motion of erupted ash and debris is from a volcano called Tvashtar, and rises 330 km into space.

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Anna Kapinska @drannadana.bsky.social · Aug 22

Oh my god!! Too funny!! 😂😂😂

Anna Kapinska @drannadana.bsky.social · Aug 22

And sadly many more are just being let go, perhapsnow more than ever in the last decade. Sometimes the senior ones take it upon themselves claiming (very) early retirement to give a fighting chance to junior colleagues. But really, how bad can it get? I worry too 😟

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Anna Kapinska @drannadana.bsky.social · Aug 22

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Anna Kapinska @drannadana.bsky.social · Aug 22

And a full press release on these observations is here, from 20 yrs ago:
www.nrao.edu/pr/2004/ss433/

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Anna Kapinska @drannadana.bsky.social · Aug 22

This is a classic. And such a fascinating one!! Here is a movie based on real radio waves emitted from the system's relativistic jets of matter and energy launched from the vicinity of the central compact object (likely stellar black hole) over a period of 1.5 months:
www.nrao.edu/pr/2004/ss43...

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Anna Kapinska @drannadana.bsky.social · Aug 22

Trees are a lifeline, but I agree that it should go hand in hand with technological advances to support each other.. wishful thinking? 2/2

Anna Kapinska @drannadana.bsky.social · Aug 22

I now live in New Mexico, where tall trees are scarce unless one is near a river or at 9000ft or higher, and I have never fought for trees more than now. Shade is almost a luxury here... Funny how things can get into the right perspective unexpectedly. 1/2

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Reposted by Anna Kapinska

Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia @pasajournal.bsky.social · Aug 20

Recently published in PASA: "EMUSE: Evolutionary Map of the Universe Search Engine", Gupta, N. et al. This is Figure 1. The paper is open access, free to read at doi.org/10.1017/pasa... 🔭🧪

Caption for Figure 1: Overview of EMUSE (Evolutionary Map of the Universe Search Engine). Starting with the open-source OpenCLIP model, which is pre-trained on approximately 2.3 billion image-text pairs from the LAION dataset, we further fine-tuned it using an image-text dataset of extended radio sources in the EMU-PS1 survey. The fine-tuned model is then used to generate image embeddings of EMU sources based on PNG images from the EMU and AllWISE surveys at the positions of extended radio sources identified in the RG-CAT catalogue. The fine-tuned model, along with the generated image embeddings and catalogue metadata is integrated into the EMUSE application framework to retrieve similar sources. EMUSE facilitates the search of the embedding database and outputs a table of EMU survey radio sources that are similar to a given image or text prompt. The search engine is accessible at https://askap-emuse.streamlit.app/

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Anna Kapinska @drannadana.bsky.social · Aug 22

Things are progressively getting out of hand... on too many fronts, though this one is astronomy and perhaps ultimatelyimpeding sci fi predictions (just wait for it) focused. Sigh..

Dr. Jessie Christiansen @aussiastronomer.bsky.social · Aug 21

Well I, an astronomer, can obviously think of no downsides to a company promising to launch a constellation of reflective mirrors into low-Earth orbit to increase daylight for folks on the ground.

A screenshot of the landing page for Reflect Orbital, promising "Sunlight on demand" in large, friendly orange letters.

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Nereide @drnereide.bsky.social · Aug 18

🧵
Here is SS 433, the first identified microquasar.

It is about one of the most exotic star systems known, a binary star microquasar consisting of a stellar-mass black hole and its companion, a giant star.

The star is about 30 solar masses, ...

➡️ www.desy.de/news/news_se...

🔭 🧪 #cosmology

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Benne W. Holwerda @benneholwerda.bsky.social · Aug 9

See also how they all “almost studied physics”.

Dr. Johnathan Flowers, Blade Wielding Bisexual (Lordean arc) @shengokai.blacksky.app · Aug 9

Something that I have been thinking about with attribution of "PhD level intelligence" or "PhD level expertise" to a machine is that it reflects an increasing trend among these AI bros and their sycophants to want the products of highly skilled training without actually doing any of the work.

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Reposted by Anna Kapinska

AAS Press Office @press.aas.org · Jul 14

SKA Observatory: Prof. Jessica Dempsey to Be Next SKA Observatory Director-General www.skao.int/en/news/654/...

Prof. Jessica Dempsey to be next SKA Observatory Director-General | SKAO

The SKA Observatory is delighted to announce that Prof. Jessica Dempsey will be its next Director-General, taking up the post in June 2026 for a five-year term.

www.skao.int

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Reposted by Anna Kapinska

Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia @pasajournal.bsky.social · Jul 10

Recently published in PASA: "Discovery of Odd Radio Circles and Other Peculiars in the First Year of the EMU Survey using Object Detection", Gupta, N. et al. This is Figure 4. The paper is open access, free to read at doi.org/10.1017/pasa...

ORC candidates with unconfirmed host galaxies. The corresponding optical images are sourced from the DECaPS2 survey due to the absence of DESI LS DR10 coverage. In the top panel, white arrows indicate one central galaxy and two additional galaxies at the locations of radio emission peaks, making it challenging to conclusively identify the origin of the circular emission with the current data. In the bottom panel, the high density of sources in the optical image complicates the confirmation of a host galaxy. Full caption in the paper.

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Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia @pasajournal.bsky.social · May 21

PASA is now accepting Letters, for the publication of high impact and timely astronomical research that requires a quick turnaround. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

PASA Letters

Welcome to Cambridge Core

www.cambridge.org

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Anna Kapinska @drannadana.bsky.social · Jun 28

Go EMU!! Go ! 🙃

Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia @pasajournal.bsky.social · Jun 3

Recently published in PASA: "The Evolutionary Map of the Universe: A new radio atlas for the southern hemisphere sky
", Hopkins, A. et al. This is Figure 1. To read the paper visit doi.org/10.1017/pasa...

The EMU sky coverage to be delivered in 2028. The background image is the “Mellinger coloured” image. Each blue outline represents the footprint of a single ASKAP tile, and there are 853 such footprints comprising the full EMU survey. There is a small overlap between each adjacent tile. For the full caption please see the paper.

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Reposted by Anna Kapinska

Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia @pasajournal.bsky.social · Jun 27

Recently published in PASA: "NuSTAR Observations of the Galaxy Cluster Abell 3667", Mirakhor., M. et al. This is Figure 1. To read the paper visit doi.org/10.1017/pasa...

Left: Background-subtracted and exposure-corrected NuSTAR mosaic image of the galaxy cluster Abell 3667 in the 4–24 keV energy band, combining data from both telescopes. The image was smoothed using a Gaussian kernel with a σ = 17.2 arcsec (7 pixels) to match NuSTAR’s PSF of ∼ 18 arcsec FWHM. The solid green circle (4.5 arcmin radius) indicates the region from which the source spectra were extracted, while the dashed green circles mark the regions used to extract the background spectra. The overlapping areas are excluded from the background regions. Right: Mosaicked Chandra image of Abell 3667, showing the locations of the point sources. The cyan box outlines the extent of our NuSTAR observations.

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Reposted by Anna Kapinska

Damian Marley @asteroidproject.bsky.social · Jun 21

Dark Emu in full flight, winter solstice night. The dark Coal Sack nebula under the Southern Cross forms the emu's head. The glowing area at the emu's feet (near the tree) marks the centre of the Milky Way galaxy. A beautiful treasure in our sky. June 21st 2025 #astrophotography

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Reposted by Anna Kapinska

Astronomy 🔭 @astronomy.bsky.social · Jun 20

Astronomers used ESO’s Very Large Telescope and MUSE instrument to create a thousand-color view of the Sculptor Galaxy (NGC 253), revealing its stars, gas, and dust in incredible detail. This 50-hour observation helps decode the galaxy’s complex internal structure.

Credit: ESO/E. Congiu et al.

MUSE view of the Sculptor Galaxy, detail.

This image shows a detailed, thousand-color image of the Sculptor Galaxy captured with the MUSE instrument at ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). Regions of pink light are spread throughout this whole galactic snapshot, which come from ionised hydrogen in star-forming regions. These areas have been overlaid on a map of already formed stars in Sculptor to create the mix of pinks and blues seen here.

This image shows the Sculptor Galaxy in a new light. This false-color composition shows specific wavelengths of light released by hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur, and oxygen. These elements exist in gas form all over the galaxy, but the mechanisms causing this gas to glow can vary throughout the galaxy. The pink light represents gas excited by the radiation of newborn stars, while the cone of whiter light at the center is caused by an outflow of gas from the black hole at the galaxy’s core.

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Anna Kapinska @drannadana.bsky.social · Jun 7

Both documents, NSF and NASA budgets in response to WH administration request, are very long, each well over 200pp. The AAS post isn't short but it does summarise the documents well.

American Astronomical Society (AAS) @aas.org · Jun 6

Last week, NASA and NSF released their FY26 budget requests. We list the detailed impacts on the astronomical sciences in this blog post, and share how you can take action today.
aas.org/posts/news/2...

@policy.aas.org

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National Radio Astronomy Observatory - NSF NRAO @thenrao.bsky.social · May 22

NEW: NSF NRAO Achieves First Successful Observations with New NSF VLBA Digital Architecture

The NSF NRAO has successfully completed initial observations with its newly upgraded Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) digital systems, marking a major milestone.

#Astronomy #RadioAstronomy #VLBA

NSF NRAO Achieves First Successful Observations with New NSF VLBA Digital Architecture - National Radio Astronomy Observatory

The new NSF VLBA New Digital Architecture (VNDA) produced its first fringes and subsequent images in January 2025, demonstrating the successful implementation of next-generation technology that will e...

public.nrao.edu

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