Burr Ito
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ututuy.org
Burr Ito
@ututuy.org
I'm a scientist studying fluid dynamics in the cores of rotating planets and stars. I mostly post pics of clouds and timelapses. All media by me. He/him.
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Burr Ito @ututuy.org · Nov 20
The #core of the #Earth spins around a slightly different axis compared to the #mantle. In this animation we start in a space frame and switch gradually to the frame spinning with the mantle. In that frame the core appears to wobble. The mantle precesses and the core, being fluid, lags a bit. 🧪 🔭
Cheesy sunset today. But the nacreous clouds did not return.
December 22, 2025 at 5:08 AM
Reposted by Burr Ito
These pics show some clouds very similar to nacreous clouds (above the dark cloud band). This is about 20 minutes after sunset. Normally #nacreous #clouds form at high latitudes, but this is from Cartagena, Colombia, at only 10.4º latitude North. Any expert around knows if this is possible? 🧪 ⚛️
December 21, 2025 at 5:12 AM
These pics show some clouds very similar to nacreous clouds (above the dark cloud band). This is about 20 minutes after sunset. Normally #nacreous #clouds form at high latitudes, but this is from Cartagena, Colombia, at only 10.4º latitude North. Any expert around knows if this is possible? 🧪 ⚛️
December 21, 2025 at 5:12 AM
Reposted by Burr Ito
"This promise of an AI future, is really just a collective anxiety that wealthy people have about how well they're gonna be able to control us in the future."

- @tressiemcphd.bsky.social with an absolute mic drop moment about AI bullshit.

Incredible words.
Listen to all of it!
December 19, 2025 at 12:24 PM
There was a nice atmospheric inversion layer when my flight took off early in the morning from Paris. Here you see dense fog on the ground that doesn't even reach the top of the wind turbines. The ripples are gravity waves created by the wind turbine towers as the wind blows. 🧪 🌬️
December 21, 2025 at 3:51 AM
Reposted by Burr Ito
Models are great. Simulations are awesome. Synthetic data is useful.

But all of them can also be awful and used to generate bad science. We need to know exactly why we're using any of them, what assumptions we're making when using them, and what those assumptions mean for our inferences.
December 16, 2025 at 10:20 PM
Reposted by Burr Ito
Take a journey through time down a new NSF COLDEX ice core borehole just completed by the team in #Antarctica!

If you’re at #AGU25 stop by the COLDEX booth in the Exhibit Hall to talk to COLDEX team members from across the 15-institution center funded by NSF! @agu.org Follow us on IG @ coldex_stc
December 14, 2025 at 11:59 PM
Reposted by Burr Ito
This is fucking grim. Somebody invented a white guy, an "IT professional" named Edward Crabtree, who stopped the Bondi shooting and spread it all over the internet, which was picked up by AI agents and slop aggregation sites.

The real hero is a fruit stand owner named Ahmed el Ahmed.
December 14, 2025 at 8:02 PM
Reposted by Burr Ito
I’ll be with a small booth at Lichter der Neustadt in Bremen.

December 4th and 8th from 15-22 Uhr
And December 14th from 14-20 Uhr

I’ll bring a bunch of new prints, stickers, postcards, and a sweet enamel pin
December 2, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Reposted by Burr Ito
If you live in #Belgium, and you want to know what will happen in the sky for 2026, you want to get the mighty Hemelkalender (Sky Calendar) from the Vereniging Voor Sterrenkunde VZW (note: in Dutch). Presented here by #StijnMeuris from #Noordkaap for us!
#astronomy
youtube.com/shorts/5kQ7I...
De VVS Hemelkalender 2026
YouTube video by Dominique Dierick
youtube.com
December 12, 2025 at 10:47 PM
Reposted by Burr Ito
All missions should have cartoon versions of their spacecraft, and these cartoons should be on all slides. These are the rules, as shown here by JAXA’s Go Murakami talking about BepiColombo.
December 12, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Reposted by Burr Ito
Worked on this yesterday with my new found free time with the kid starting school.

From HST Proposal 17067,
The diversity of protoplanetary disks: Imaging a complete sample of edge-on disks in four nearby star-forming regions

Principal Investigator: Gaspard Duchene

flic.kr/p/2rnisMm
August 13, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Reposted by Burr Ito
As I say here, this is not about saving the planet. The planet will be orbiting the sun long after we’re gone.

The question is, will there be a healthy, thriving human society on that planet? The answer to that question is very much up for grabs at this point.
World must jointly tackle issues of climate change, pollution, UN says
The United Nations says the world needs a new way of thinking about environmental crises threatening the health of people and the planet
abcnews.go.com
December 9, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by Burr Ito
New Publication: "Cosmic Rays Masquerading as Cool Cores: An Inverse-Compton Origin for Cool Core Cluster Emission" by

Philip F. Hopkins (Caltech), Eliot Quataert (Princeton), Emily M. Silich, Jack Sayers, Sam B. Ponnada & Isabel S. Sands (Caltech)

doi.org/10.33232/001...
Cosmic Rays Masquerading as Cool Cores: An Inverse-Compton Origin for Cool Core Cluster Emission | Published in The Open Journal of Astrophysics
By Philip F. Hopkins, Eliot Quataert & 4 more. An argument that cosmic-ray inverse-compton emission could contribute significantly to the X-ray surface brightness (SB) in cool-corre clusters, implying...
doi.org
December 9, 2025 at 7:23 AM
Reposted by Burr Ito
Tech bros shocked that normal human beings enjoy thinking
December 5, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Reposted by Burr Ito
As a professional astronomer, I absolutely would not want my children going into this. I hope they have been clear witnesses to my ceaseless anxiety and job insecurity. Yes, funding is much worse now than a year ago, but academia has been a disaster for a LONG time
My teen, who had dreamt of being an astrophysicist, just told me he wants to go to law school because, “Science isn’t going to be a priority in the US in the future…I don’t want a job where I’ll be constantly worried my funding will be taken away.”

Gutting. How many future scientists have we lost?
December 7, 2025 at 8:21 PM
Reposted by Burr Ito
I mean we are absolutely in a place now where the only solution to this information disorder is for everyone to constantly evaluate the source of information. Never trust a chatbot, but also don't believe a video unless you know and trust where it comes from.

Unfortunately... that's a lot of work.
December 5, 2025 at 11:18 PM
Reposted by Burr Ito
David Lynch on iPhones - Full Clip
YouTube video by Sir Mix-A-Lot Rare Music
youtu.be
December 6, 2025 at 11:44 PM
Reposted by Burr Ito
How does global warming cause colder winter storms? whowhatwhy.org/2019/11/23/t...
The Paradox of Global Warming and Colder Winters - WhoWhatWhy
If the cold weather makes it harder for you to argue with climate change deniers about the existence of global warming, this story is for you.
whowhatwhy.org
December 5, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Reposted by Burr Ito
just get in, I ain't got time for all that explainin shit
(donuts)
December 5, 2025 at 11:37 PM
Reposted by Burr Ito
Wait is this really what it looks like. Why does it look like someone weeping
Like hands above the ocean tides holding onto to a shipwreck.
December 5, 2025 at 11:30 PM
Reposted by Burr Ito
New project documenting A.I. slop graphics in academic journals

neurodojo.blogspot.com/2025/12/new-...
New project documenting A.I. slop graphics in academic journals
The last month saw a couple of relatively high profile examples of generative A.I. slop appearing in academic journals. From my collection o...
neurodojo.blogspot.com
December 4, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Reposted by Burr Ito
3 days evolution of sunspot groups AR4294 & AR4296

#astronomy #astrophotography #sunspot
December 2, 2025 at 5:05 AM
The vibrations of an hypothetical planet.
December 2, 2025 at 5:27 PM
a HUGE sunspot group just made its appearance: 🧪🔭

www.sidc.be/index.php/ar...
Gargantuan | SIDC
A giant sunspot region has rounded the southeast solar limb and has been the source of several M-class flares. The X-class event early on 1 December was produced by a smaller region near the northeast...
www.sidc.be
December 1, 2025 at 8:40 PM