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funfactscience.com
Fun Fact Science with Kovi
@funfactscience.com
3.8K followers 180 following 1.1K posts
Astrophysics PhD candidate studying stars that go snap, crackle, and pop - communicating scientist - meme aficionado.
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Nothing like taking in a beautiful sunset after presenting your research, especially when you're at a conference about stars 🌟🔭

📸 @astrolaura.com

#astronomy #space #sunset #stars
A man with a beard and glasses, wearing a light-colored button-up shirt, is giving a presentation in a conference room. He is standing to the right of a large screen displaying the text "ALTERNATIVE PROGENITORS" and beneath it "Isolated white dwarf (Rea et al., 2024)" next to an image of a bright, blueish-white star against a black background labeled "NASA, ESA and G. Bacon (STScI)". The screen also features a university logo in the bottom right corner. Several audience members are seated in dark chairs, viewed from the back, watching the presenter and the screen. The room has light wood paneling on the back wall and white ceiling tiles. A long-exposure photograph taken at dusk captures a coastal scene in Newcastle A dark blue and deep magenta sky over the beach and the ocean on the left. On the right, streetlights illuminate a road, a promenade, and the beach below, creating streaks of light from moving vehicles. Buildings are visible on the far right, and a headland with scattered lights extends into the distance.
November 17, 2025 at 9:55 AM
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a NEW PAPER led the incomparable Dr. Elizabeth Iles (accepted by PASA) quantifies how astronomers might be biased in how they judge galactic bars

Turns out that male astronomers are consistently more optimistic than their peers when it comes to measuring length

arxiv.org/abs/2511.09908

#astro
A stellar density map of a barred spiral galaxy viewed face-on. The image shows a dark background with a central bright, elongated feature (the bar) surrounded by fainter spiral arms. The color bar on the right indicates the log10 Stellar Density in units of solar mass per square parsec, ranging from 0 (black/dark) to 4 (white/bright). The x and y axes are labeled in kpc (kiloparsecs), spanning from -10 to 10. Overlaid on the image are several highlighted regions: a central white, bright feature is enclosed by a dashed cyan ellipse representing the full Bar region. A smaller, cyan dashed box labeled Inner-bar is located along the bar's major axis, excluding the ends. Two symmetrically placed, dashed teal boxes labeled Bar-ends are located near the extremities of the bar. This visualization highlights the key components of the galaxy's bar structure.
November 14, 2025 at 7:14 AM
funfactscience.com
spending Friday night waiting for a thunderstorm to pass so that I can start my telescope observations
mocking spongebob meme with the text "radio telescopes can observe in any weather"
November 7, 2025 at 10:08 AM
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~ Frank, Destination Wedding
There are seven billion people in the world. So when one of them behaves badly toward you, he's actually doing you a great favor because he's saving you time. He's telling you that he's not worth your while. He's freeing you to say, "Thank you for the information. I will now move on to the 6,999,999,999 other people, some of whom may have some value.
November 6, 2025 at 3:06 AM
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surely this is just a temporary bug, right? RIGHT!?
October 29, 2025 at 3:47 AM
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on to the next one I guess
a man in blue jeans, white sneakers, and a grey nasa tshirt throwing his paper into Nature
October 28, 2025 at 9:20 AM
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new correlator who dis?
grid of squares showing baseline pairs between the 6 dishes of the ATCA radio telescope. most of the squares display noisey red and white signals.
October 21, 2025 at 2:59 PM
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Yesterday I had the esteemed privilege of presenting my latest research in front of Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell at a @sydney.edu.au science symposium.

What an incredible honour to speak about my work on unknown radio objects in the presence of the person who discovered pulsars!

📸 @cosmicrami.com
man in beige shirt and pants standing in front of crowd sitting in auditorium. screen shows image of a blueish star pulling material from a larger redder star. the title on the screen is "periodic radio and x-ray emission from an accreting white dwarf binary. - demystifying long period transients" man in beige shirt and pants standing in front of crowd sitting in auditorium. screen shows image of kermit the frog with the word "phenomena" above his head. the title on the screen is "what are long period transients" and the text on the screen reads "phenomenon != class" man in beige shirt and pants standing in front of crowd sitting in auditorium. screen shows still of magnetic field lines from interacting stellar binary system. the title on the screen is "emission mechanism" and the text on the screen reads "electron cyclotron maser, magnetospheric interaction, energetic electron flow"
October 21, 2025 at 2:35 AM
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I'm sure I don't know what you mean...
Text 1: reading for pleasure implies the existence of reading for pain Text 2: they're calling it a PhD
October 17, 2025 at 12:03 AM
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posted without context to the #astro feed
screenshot of the MESA documentation FAQ page where the first question is "how do you say MESA?" and the answer is "Say 'MAY-sa`" Jar jar binks looking disappointed
October 15, 2025 at 11:43 AM
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Hmm I guess they'll have to update this book
Photo of a blue book with the white text title "does it fart?" with farting yellow fish on the cover. In the background is a white fluffy husky dog and wooden floors
October 15, 2025 at 7:50 AM
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scariest 15 minutes of my life
October 3, 2025 at 12:28 PM
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any other #astro folks having issues with VizieR?
🔭☄️
October 3, 2025 at 12:15 PM
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When a surprise trip to the pet dentist derails your paper-writing plans, but at least you have the bravest dog in the southern hemisphere
White fluffy Spitz/husky dog sitting on wooden floors with a white background. Next to him a hand is holding a certificate of bravery for "showing great courage and being the best boy"
September 30, 2025 at 8:16 AM
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I might be a smidge biased but I am especially thrilled to see so much great work from Australian astronomers in this review / at the conference, including the awesome new radio stars catalogue compiled by @astrolaura.com - which more than doubled the number of known radio-bright stellar systems!
astronomical HR diagram with grey dots in the background for optical gaia stars and colourful markers showing the radio stars - colour scaled by radio luminosity from yellow (lower) to purpler (higher)
September 29, 2025 at 10:59 AM
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the studies in question:
September 24, 2025 at 1:36 AM
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can we have (data)class outside?!

thankful to have such a peaceful work environment to write/code today
laptop screen with code next to latte out of focus in foreground. background is courtyard of cafe with tables and chairs along the brick walls. plants hand from the wooden rafters.
September 24, 2025 at 12:36 AM
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your annual reminder that @astropy.org let's you define your own silly little units
from astropy import units as u smoot = u.def_unit('smoot', 1.7018 * u.m)
September 23, 2025 at 10:16 PM
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Just returned from the 6th (and sadly final) data science workshop of my LSST fellowship. I'll eventually write a longer piece describing the program, and its importance in the era of big-data astronomy. But suffice to say that the experience has had a profound impact on the trajectory of my career
Skyscrapers around the Chicago river at night. With reflections of lights from the buildings on the water
September 23, 2025 at 8:49 PM
funfactscience.com
Made it back from the US just in time to see @raynerexplainer.bsky.social's show at Sydney Fringe: Atomically Correct.

Opening night was hilariously nerdy! If you like science and puns I'd highly recommend getting tickets for the remaining shows: sydneyfringe.com/events/rache...
Autographed (squiggled) tickets from the show. In black and white (which makes everything better). Shows a person sitting in a hula hoop.
September 23, 2025 at 1:36 PM
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get to enjoy this view every day this week
View of the Chicago skyline from the museum campus - foreground is the lake
September 15, 2025 at 8:51 PM
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The clouds cleared just enough for me to see a low-res eclipse
Partial lunar eclipse
September 7, 2025 at 5:36 PM
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"this is fine" meme but for academia
this is fine meme of cartoon dog in room on fire, but with added additional arms holding papers and coffees and laptops
September 3, 2025 at 1:35 AM
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August 29, 2025 at 1:56 AM
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This is Newton. He is a good boy.
white dog on path in front of blue water with cable-stayed bridge in the background
August 25, 2025 at 3:38 AM