Richard J. Bartlett
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astronomywriter.bsky.social
Richard J. Bartlett
@astronomywriter.bsky.social
710 followers 1K following 770 posts
🌘Freelance writer, former columnist for Astronomy magazine and author of books for astronomers. 🌒Pro human, slightly sarcastic but mostly harmless 🌊

https://tinyurl.com/rjbamazon-us
https://tinyurl.com/rjb-hps
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astronomywriter.bsky.social
Captions, anyone? Just cos?
June 6, 2025 at 10:41 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
NASA's Chandra Diagnoses Cause of Fracture in Galactic "Bone"
chandra.si.edu/photo/2025/b...

#astronomy #space #science #news #NASA #astrophysics #cosmology
May 5, 2025 at 4:15 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
Finding Clues in Ruins of Ancient Dead Star With NASA's Chandra
chandra.si.edu/photo/2025/j...

#astronomy #space #science #news #NASA #astrophysics #cosmology
The artist's illustration features a star and a black hole in a system called GRO J1655-40. Here, the black hole is represented by a black sphere to our upper right of center. The star is represented by a bright yellow sphere to our lower left of center. In this illustration, the artist captures the immensely powerful supernova as a black hole is created from the collapse of a massive star, with an intense burst of blurred beams radiating from the black sphere. The blurred beams of red, orange, and yellow light show debris from the supernova streaking across the entire image in rippling waves. These beams rain debris on the bright yellow star. When astronomers used the Chandra X-ray Observatory to observe the system in 2005, they detected signatures of individual elements embedded in the X-ray light. Some of those elements are highlighted in the spectrum graph shown in the inset, positioned at our upper lefthand corner. The graph's vertical axis, on our left, indicates X-ray brightness from 0.0 up to 0.7 in intensity units. The horizontal axis, at the bottom of the graph, indicates Wavelength from 6 to 12 in units of Angstroms. On the graph, a tight zigzagging line begins near the top of the vertical axis, and slopes down toward the far end of the horizontal axis. The sharp dips show wavelengths where the light has been absorbed by different elements, decreasing the X-ray brightness. Some of the elements causing these dips have been labeled, including Silicon, Magnesium, Iron, Nickel, Neon, and Cobalt.
March 27, 2025 at 4:43 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
JWST Spies a Spiral Through a Cosmic Lens
www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed...

Follow: @esa.int

#astronomy #space #science #news #JWST #ESA #Webb #NASA #astrophysics #cosmology
This new NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month features a rare cosmic phenomenon called an Einstein ring. What at first appears to be a single, strangely shaped galaxy is actually two galaxies that are separated by a large distance. The closer foreground galaxy sits at the center of the image, while the more distant background galaxy appears to be wrapped around the closer galaxy, forming a ring.
March 27, 2025 at 4:41 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
@ngc1960.bsky.social Hi! I'm not a stalker, but I think you're very pretty and I've seen you many times. Almost always in the late autumn or winter, always at night and always from a afar - about 4,000 light-years to be precise! Anyway, here's a pic I sneakily took of you last November. Shine on!
March 19, 2025 at 3:40 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
And here's a time lapse spanning about 45 minutes... the Moon was totally obscured by cloud as totality started - hence the abrupt end to the video LOL
March 14, 2025 at 5:10 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
Yeah, it was a similar situation for me in SoCal... however, I did manage to get a couple of halfway decent shots. This is probably the best. I used a Seestar S50 and tweaked it with the Google Photos app on my phone LOL
March 14, 2025 at 5:09 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
And this was a time-lapse over 45 minutes. The Moon was obscured by cloud just as totality began - hence the abrupt ending LOL
March 14, 2025 at 3:58 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
This was just as the partial phase started
March 14, 2025 at 3:58 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
I quite like this one
March 14, 2025 at 3:58 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
Last night's total lunar eclipse from SoCal... partly cloudy so not the best images. (See below for more, plus a time-lapse)

Taken with a #ZWO #SeestarS50

#astronomy #space #science #news #stargazing #eclipse #lunareclipse #totallunareclipse
March 14, 2025 at 3:58 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
Runaway Stars Reveal Hidden Black Hole In Milky Way’s Nearest Neighbor
www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/runaway...

#astronomy #space #science #news #astrophysics #cosmology #blackholes #astrobiology #stargazing
Artist’s impression of a hypervelocity star ejected from the Large Magellanic Cloud (shown on right). When a binary star system ventures too close to a supermassive black hole, the intense gravitational forces tear the pair apart. One star is captured into a tight orbit around the black hole, while the other is flung outward at extreme velocities—often exceeding millions of miles per hour—becoming a hypervelocity star. The inset illustration depicts this process: the original binary’s orbital path is shown as interwoven lines, with one star being captured by the black hole (near center of inset) while the other is ejected into space (lower right). Credit: CfA/Melissa Weiss
March 11, 2025 at 2:59 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
March 5, 2025 at 9:16 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
Strategic Partnership Forged To Solve the Mystery of Planet Formation
news.asu.edu/20250227-sci...

#astronomy #space #science #news #exoplanets #astrophysics #cosmology #astrobiology #stars #planets
An artist’s conception of the exoplanet K2-33b, a 10 Myr Jupiter-sized planet, transiting in front of its active host star. This system is comparable to those that will be observed by the KRONOS collaboration. Illustration courtesy of NASA/JPL-CalTech
March 5, 2025 at 5:06 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
X-ray Signal Points to Destroyed Planet, Chandra Finds
chandra.si.edu/press/25_rel...

#astronomy #space #science #news #astrophysics #cosmolody #astrobiology #exoplanets
The artist's digital rendering shows a possible cause of the large white dot with the pink outer ring. A brilliant white circle near our upper right shows a white dwarf, the ember of a dying star. At our lower left, in the relative foreground of the rendering, is what remains of a planet. Here, the planet resembles a giant boulder shedding thousands of smaller rocks. These rocks flow off the planet's surface, pulled back toward the white dwarf in a long, swooping tail. Glowing orange fault lines mar the surface of the crumbling planet. In our upper left and lower right, inside the hazy blue clouds which blanket the rendering, are two other, more distant planets. After the rocks from the planet start striking the surface of the white dwarf, X-rays should be produced.
March 5, 2025 at 4:52 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
March 1, 2025 at 7:02 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
Love this... personally, I also like the quick, gotta-do-it-before-the-stormtroopers-catch-you approach
February 21, 2025 at 7:37 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
I had a similar thought...
February 20, 2025 at 5:47 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
I see your Gulf, and I raise you a limp dick (a contradiction of terms, I understand, but all the same...)
February 19, 2025 at 5:17 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
February 19, 2025 at 4:40 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
New Insights into the Mysterious Yellow Hypergiant Stars Outbursts
www.astro.oma.be/en/new-insig...

#astronomy #pace #science #news #stargazing
Artist’s impression of the Yellow Hypergiant star Rho Cassiopeiae around which gas shells form due to recurring outbursts observed in the last 130 years. Credit: Alex Lobel. Source: https://brass.heliohost.org/alobel/rhocas/RhoCasArt2025.png
February 18, 2025 at 3:37 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
Hypocrisy at its finest
February 14, 2025 at 9:44 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
NASA Telescopes Deliver Stellar Bouquet in Time for Valentine's Day
chandra.cfa.harvard.edu/photo/2025/3...

#astronomy #space #science #news #stargazing #NASA
This release features a highly detailed composite image of a star-forming region of space known as 30 Doradus, shaped like a bouquet, or a maple leaf. 30 Doradus is a powerful stellar nursery. In 23 days of observation, the Chandra X-ray telescope revealed thousands of distinct star systems. Chandra data also revealed a diffuse X-ray glow from winds blowing off giant stars, and X-ray gas expelled by exploding stars, or supernovas. In this image, the X-ray wind and gas takes the shape of a massive purple and pink bouquet with an extended central flower, or perhaps a leaf from a maple tree. The hazy, mottled shape occupies much of the image, positioned just to our left of center, tilted slightly to our left. Inside the purple and pink gas and wind cloud are red and orange veins, and pockets of bright white light. The pockets of white light represent clusters of young stars. One cluster at the heart of 30 Doradus houses the most massive stars astronomers have ever found. The hazy purple and pink bouquet is surrounded by glowing dots of green, white, orange, and red. A second mottled purple cloud shape, which resembles a ring of smoke, sits in our lower righthand corner.
February 12, 2025 at 5:08 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
Researchers Reveal Secrets of Explosion Mechanisms of Metamorphic Supernova
english.cas.cn/newsroom/res...

#astronomy #space #science #news #stargazing #nightsky
Left: A schematic diagram of SN 2014C and its outer CSM, showing the gradual interaction between the SN ejecta (blue-white circle in the middle) and the outer CSM after the explosion. Top-right: Spectral evolution from a hydrogen-poor SN Ib to a hydrogen-rich SN IIn. Bottom-right: Bolometric luminosity and its model fitting, revealing the additional energy provided by the SN-CSM interaction present from the early stages. The colored arrows indicate the corresponding light curve epochs for the spectral evolution shown above. (Image by ZHAI Qian).
February 11, 2025 at 5:53 PM
astronomywriter.bsky.social
Alien Ocean Could Hide Signs of Life From Spacecraft
www.reading.ac.uk/news/2025/Re...

#astronomy #space #science #news #exobiology #stargazing #Enceladus #Saturn
A close-up image of plumes erupting from the icey surface on Enceladus. Image via NASA.
February 7, 2025 at 5:04 PM