Alejandro S. Borlaff
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asborlaff.bsky.social
Alejandro S. Borlaff
@asborlaff.bsky.social
200 followers 210 following 37 posts
Investigador en @NASA. Astrofísico. Desarrollando telescopios espaciales en @NASAAmes. Galaxies and rocket science. @ESA @unicomplutense @IAC_astrofisica.
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Alejandro S. Borlaff
mjibrown.bsky.social
Myself and @asborlaff.bsky.social feature on the Nature Podcast chatting about this paper on planned satellite constellations and their impact on astronomical research.

We are also very concerned about satellites impacting star gazing for everyone and losing the shared wilderness of the night sky.
December 4, 2025 at 12:43 AM
Reposted by Alejandro S. Borlaff
nebulousnikki.bsky.social
The roughly 15,000 satellites in space are already a nuisance to astronomy research. It could get a LOT worse.

www.cbc.ca/news/science...
Launching hundreds of thousands of satellites will threaten space research, scientists warn | CBC News
We've all come to appreciate the beautiful images space telescopes provide us of galaxies, nebulas and more, but they also provide astronomers with important scientific information about our universe....
www.cbc.ca
December 3, 2025 at 9:24 PM
asborlaff.bsky.social
Las megaconstelaciones de satélites de internet contaminarán el 40% de las imágenes del telescopio espacial Hubble y más del 96% de las observaciones de los telescopios SPHEREx, Xuntian, y ARRAKIHS.

Link a nuestro nuevo artículo en la revista Nature 👇:
nature.com/articles/s4158…
December 3, 2025 at 6:55 PM
asborlaff.bsky.social
By 2040, ~40% of the images from Hubble Space Telescope, and more than 96% from new and future space telescopes like SPHEREx, ARRAKIHS, and Xuntian will be contaminated by internet satellite constellations.

Read our new NASA article in Nature:
nature.com/articles/s4158…
December 3, 2025 at 6:55 PM
Reposted by Alejandro S. Borlaff
iacastrofisica.bsky.social
3/4. En esta imagen se muestra el mismo campo estelar del Cometa C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) sin limpiar.

En solo 15 minutos de adquisición, contamos 1659 trazas de satélites (unos 400 individuales).

Sobran las palabras para describir la contaminación del espacio cercano.
November 28, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Reposted by Alejandro S. Borlaff
pematson.bsky.social
Google has started automatically opting you in to let it read your stuff to train AI. You need to turn this off in SEVERAL places in your settings (not just for Gmail), if you want to maintain privacy and confidentiality.
www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/20...
Gmail can read your emails and attachments to train its AI, unless you opt out
A new Gmail update may allow Google to use your private messages and attachments for AI training. Here's how to turn it off.
www.malwarebytes.com
November 21, 2025 at 4:54 PM
Reposted by Alejandro S. Borlaff
derek.bike
here’s a version where the POV is blacked out whenever the driver takes their eyes off the road
August 31, 2025 at 12:07 AM
Reposted by Alejandro S. Borlaff
joshuasokol.bsky.social
“The amazing astronomical abilities of this little creature,” Warrant told me, “are uniquely tied to an entire alpine world.”

I wrote in Science about a new study on bogong moths, which have neurons in their brains that seem to recognize the Milky Way and infer due south from its orientation.
This moth makes its epic migration navigating by starlight
Bogong moths fly 1000 kilometers orienting to stars and the Milky Way, an ability never seen before in invertebrates
www.science.org
June 18, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Reposted by Alejandro S. Borlaff
kellylepo.bsky.social
The Space Telescope Science Institute's MAST archive contains 300 million astronomical observations from over 23 different missions.

Here is an animation showing how the archive has built up over time.

Credit: Julie Imig, STScI
August 1, 2025 at 1:16 AM
asborlaff.bsky.social
This is why current AI is not going to make breakthrough science at any point in the near future. Humans will.
astrokatie.com Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · Jun 19
Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.
June 19, 2025 at 7:45 PM
asborlaff.bsky.social
@NASA/Hubble is currently getting ready to perform one of our calibration experiments with the Advance Camera for Surveys (STRAYCOR) that will help us to improve the quality of the telescope's images and even make Roman Space Telescope even more sensitive to the darkest regions of the Universe.
June 13, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Reposted by Alejandro S. Borlaff
jtuttlekeane.bsky.social
The NASA planetary science fleet chart if the president’s budget is enacted.
The NASA planetary science fleet chart. It shows two spirals with missions to Moon/Mars and the Solar System. I’ve crossed off all of the missions that will be cancelled in the president’s budget… and there are a lot of them.
May 30, 2025 at 9:57 PM
Reposted by Alejandro S. Borlaff
ohdearz.bsky.social
Here's NASA astrophysics, if I read the president's proposed budget correctly. 🔭
May 30, 2025 at 11:01 PM
Reposted by Alejandro S. Borlaff
planetdr.bsky.social
The Presidents Budget Request for NASA is out. It’s a bloodbath

Canceled are DAVINCI, VERITAS, Juno, OSIRIS-APEX, US participation in ExoMars and EnVision…

Huge cut to R&A. No funding to begin development of the Uranus Orbiter.

If you’ve ever cared about NASA, time to contact congress.
May 30, 2025 at 8:30 PM
Reposted by Alejandro S. Borlaff
planet4589.bsky.social
Planned reentry of the CRS-32 Dragon cargo ship at about 0545 UTC May 25. The large white area is where the jettisoned
trunk will burn up; the small area just off San Diego is where the capsule will splash down. Orange line is approx trajectory assuming several orbit lowering burns to match target
May 24, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Reposted by Alejandro S. Borlaff
stsci.edu
NEW: Saturn’s moon Titan has weather similar to Earth’s, but driven by methane evaporation and condensation. Astronomers have found evidence for clouds bubbling up over Titan’s northern hemisphere for the first time, using #NASAWebb and Keck observatory: webbtelescope.pub/3GofvQ1 🔭 🧪
Two rows of three images. Top row is labeled Webb 11 July 2023 and the bottom row Keck 14 July 2023). The first column, labeled atmosphere and surface, shows two full-color images of Titan, appearing in mottled shades of yellow and brown with a blue haze around the edges. A bright spot near the top of Titan in each has an arrow pointing to it. The second column, labeled troposphere, shows two images in shades of orange. Each image is relatively featureless except for a bright spot near the top with an arrow. The third column, labeled stratosphere, also shows two images in shades of orange. The top image, taken July 11, is featureless and has no arrow. The bottom image, taken July 14, has a bright spot near the top with an arrow.
May 14, 2025 at 12:02 PM
Reposted by Alejandro S. Borlaff
richvn.bsky.social
Trump proposes unprecedented budget cuts for US science in next fiscal year
NASA cut by 24%
NIH cut by 40%
EPA cut by 55%
NSF cut by 56%
Analysis from @maxkozlov.bsky.social @dangaristo.bsky.social @alexwitze.bsky.social and @nature.com team
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Trump proposes unprecedented budget cuts to US science
Huge reductions, if enacted, could have ‘catastrophic’ effects on US competitiveness and the scientific pipeline, critics say.
www.nature.com
May 2, 2025 at 9:21 PM
asborlaff.bsky.social
NASA Administrator Janet Petro has announced the following changes in the budget president request:

- End the International Space Station in 2030 to replace it with a private space station.

- End Orion, SLS, and the Artemis program.

- A 47% cut in NASA Science Program.
May 2, 2025 at 6:12 PM
Reposted by Alejandro S. Borlaff
science.esa.int
Happy anniversary, Hubble! 🎂

Celebrate 35 years since this NASA/ESA space telescope was launched into orbit with four anniversary images! They roam from the planet Mars to dramatic images of stellar birth and death to a neighbouring galaxy.

Read more 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl...

#Hubble35 🔭 🧪
Two views of planet Mars on a black background of space observed by the Hubble Space Telescope. At left, text: December 28, 2024 20:00 UT. At right, text: December 29, 2024 13:18 UT. In both images, its atmosphere is clear and the surface appears detailed. Most of the planet is shades of orange. At left, the brightest orange area appears in the left half. At right, the brightest orange area is centered and takes on the rough shape of a sleeping mask. In both views, darker surface features are noticeable on the lower half of the planet. These have a mix of orange, blue, and gray hues. At the top and bottom, white regions mark the planet’s polar caps. The entire limb of the planet, its visible edge, has a blue hue. The blue doesn’t form an even circle at the edges, and appears thinner toward the left and right, and thicker in some areas. The planetary nebula NGC 2899 is shaped like a single macaroni noodle, with its edges pointed up, but its edge-on central torus is semi-transparent in the middle. The top and bottom edges are thick and orange. The center is semi-transparent blue and green. The wider central region looks roughly like a moth, also filled with semi-transparent blue and green. There are two pinpoint-like white stars with diffraction spikes toward the center. Immediately below them, slightly toward the right, is a smaller blue orb, a central star. The next layer of gas and dust is whiter, with some thicker pillars that look like they are rising up at bottom center. The colour fades into reds and purples, and then to orange. A tiny portion of the Rosette Nebula. Very dark gray material shaped like a V extends from just below top left all the way down to the lower right corner and back up toward the top right. It looks like thick smoke that has billowed out irregularly, thicker along the line from top left to bottom right, and looser on the piece that goes toward the top right. Behind the dark gray on the left side, from the bottom left to top center, there is dust that looks like arced claw marks that appears in light orange and yellow. The background at top left is hazier and some blues are covered in semi-transparent orange wisps, which makes sections take on green hues. In the bottom right, the background is bluer. There are a few bright red and purple stars scattered along the right half, most toward the bottom. The largest star is at right-center, just at the edge. It is red and has four diffraction spikes. Barred spiral galaxy NGC 5335 observed by the Hubble Space Telescope takes up the majority of the view. At its center is a milky yellow, flattened oval that extends bottom left to top. Within the oval is a bright central region that looks circular, with the very center the brightest. In the bright central region is what looks like a bar, extending from top left to bottom right. Around this is a thick swath of blue stars speckled with white regions. Multiple arms wrap up and around in a counterclockwise direction, becoming fainter the farther out they are. Both the white core and the spiral arms are intertwined with dark streaks of dust. The background of space is black. Thousands of distant galaxies in an array of colors are speckled throughout.
April 23, 2025 at 2:05 PM
asborlaff.bsky.social
A good indicator of a housing crisis is when your wife considers the apartments at City 17 "actually pretty nice."
April 22, 2025 at 10:04 PM
Reposted by Alejandro S. Borlaff
moffetthangar1.bsky.social
On this day in 1942 Moffett Field was recommissioned as a Navy airfield (from temporarily being an Army training base) under Commander Mackey.
B&W aerial photo of KNUQ airfield, with Shenandoah plaza, hangar 1, the airstrip, and hangars 2 and 3 in the background.
April 17, 2025 at 2:41 AM
Reposted by Alejandro S. Borlaff
fernadovalladares.bsky.social
Extremos climáticos y contrastes. Calor inusual en centroeuropa, frio inusual en la Peninsula Ibérica. Eso es cambio climático. Eso aun no lo entendemos bien. Eso no parece que nos lo acabemos de creer.

#cambioclimatico #fernandovalladares
April 15, 2025 at 11:30 AM
asborlaff.bsky.social
The White House shares their proposal for NASA's next budget:

- A 50% cut in Science Programs.
- Close Goddard Space Flight Center.
- Ending Roman Space Telescope a year before launch.

If this is applied, this is effectively the end of NASA leadership.
Trump White House budget proposal eviscerates science funding at NASA
“This would decimate American leadership in space.”…
arstechnica.com
April 11, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by Alejandro S. Borlaff
planet4589.bsky.social
Massive (68%) cut to NASA astrophysics proposed in WH budget. If this stands, it's the end of American pre-eminence in space science. arstechnica.com/space/2025/0...
Trump White House budget proposal eviscerates science funding at NASA
“This would decimate American leadership in space.”…
arstechnica.com
April 11, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Reposted by Alejandro S. Borlaff
aussiastronomer.bsky.social
First the rumour was a 20% budget cut. Then, 50%. Now the president's NASA budget is out and it's a 68% cut to astrophysics ($1.5B to $487M).

Even if this gets reversed in four years, we will *never* recover the missions, partners, people who will be gone.

www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...
Massive cuts to NASA science proposed in early White House budget plan
The preliminary version of President Donald Trump’s budget proposal to Congress, known as a “passback,” would cut the agency’s science budget funding nearly in half.
www.washingtonpost.com
April 11, 2025 at 2:54 PM