Happy birthday to two very special people today - Neil Armstrong, and my daughter Violet!
Jonathan O'Callaghan
@astrojonny.bsky.social
Freelance space journalist. British Science Journalist of the Year 2024. Words in The New York Times, Scientific American, New Scientist, BBC, WIRED, + more. Bangkok, Thailand jdaoca@gmail.com @astro_jonny on Twitter https://www.jonathanocallaghan.com/
Uh if anyone is at the Aerospace Media Awards tonight in London could they let me know if I win the two awards I’m up for. Thanks!
Can space data centres actually work? Maybe, but here are the barriers in their way. Story by me in Aerospace America aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/features/ins...
Inside the space data race
aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org
Before a night of discovery begins, there's this 🌅 NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory basks in the sunset glow in this NOIRLab #ImageOfTheWeek, captured in June 2025. Rubin's site in Chile was chosen because of its exceptional observing conditions, but it's also not a bad office view!
Japan and China just visited new asteroids. Add one more to the contact binary list!
Dr. JB Vincent@comet-toolbox.com · last mo.Great week-end for small bodies ! Hayabusa 2# flyby of asteroid Torifune (www.jaxa.jp/press/2026/0...) and Tianwen-2 images of asteroid Kamo'oalewa (www.xinhuanet.com/20260706/eb8...) ! #PlanetaryScience
Love reading well-reported stories like this. So good. www.technologyreview.com/2026/07/06/1...
South Korea’s hottest new bachelors are chip workers
As payouts from the AI boom soar, a job at SK Hynix can put you at the front of the matchmakers’ queue.
technologyreview.com
I hate that this — urgent pleas to save prestigious departments from drastic cuts — is becoming a regular occurrence. A program like this takes decades to build and a few strokes of a pen to destroy.
Save Sussex Physics
Save Sussex Physics - Open Letter
sussexphysics.github.io
Flying back to the UK for the first time in a year this week. Hope we can still get a good quality Freddo for 10p.
Keep forgetting there is a total solar eclipse in August. If you get the chance, do not miss the opportunity to see totality! Have seen two so far, and both were astounding. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/24/t...
An Eclipse Is About to Lift ‘Emptied Spain’ Out of the Shadows
nytimes.com
Whoa! Simultaneous papers announcing the discovery of a new directly imaged planet - beta Pictoris d!!! arxiv.org/pdf/2606.23801 arxiv.org/pdf/2606.23789 It's just so BIG. I can't believe it's just so ROUND, it's like OUT THERE. 🪐 (Courtesy of my kids who have just discovered Sir Mix-A-Lot)
Going back to UK for a few weeks in July, and weirdly quite concerned about the heat compared to Bangkok, which is very much designed to cope with regular 30-40C temperatures (AC everywhere, lots of cool indoor spaces and activities, etc).
Went to a cocktail bar in Bangkok named after Vesper from 2006’s Casino Royale last night. Bit random.
Very cool graphic showing how close Apophis will come to Earth in 2029 (from the Apophis T-3 meeting talk from Richard Binzel taking place right now).
This is a really cool - and slightly terrifying - interactive map of all 10,538 Starlink satellites currently orbiting Earth. sheets.works/data-viz/sta...
Every Starlink, orbiting now
A live, spinnable map of all 10,538 Starlink satellites in orbit right now, plotted from CelesTrak's public catalogue (GP data, tracked by the US Space Force) with SGP4. Tap any dot for the real satel...
sheets.works
I’m a year younger than Messi. Still hope for me yet.
Here’s what SpaceX’s IPO means for space, AI, and the Moon. Story by me in Scientific American www.scientificamerican.com/article/spac...
SpaceX’s historic IPO ignites the new space race
SpaceX’s IPO—the largest in history—has out-of-this-world implications for AI, space commerce and extraterrestrial exploration
scientificamerican.com
Also by me: Orbital data centers are coming. What does the future hold, and is there any hope for Earth orbit? Story by me in BBC Science Focus www.sciencefocus.com/future-techn...
Why Silicon Valley is betting big on data centres in space | BBC Science Focus Magazine
Space data centres could be a new frontier for humanity, but can the promise live up to the hype?
sciencefocus.com
There are now more than 450 known moons in the Solar System, including 128 new irregular moons found around Saturn last year. But what are these weird, hidden moons telling us? Find out in my latest feature for @newscientist.com Enjoy! www.newscientist.com/article/2527...
Hundreds of new moons are revealing our solar system's violent history
The outer solar system once seemed like a quiet backwater. But a glut of tiny, strange moons with unruly orbits are coming into view, revealing hints of a surprising past – and the origin of Saturn's ...
newscientist.com
Wow. I’m not much of a basketball fan but that was awesome.
Space people that are still awake, I'm looking for some comment in the next hour or two on the upcoming SpaceX IPO for a story I'm writing. If you're available, do get in touch. jdaoca[at]gmail[dot]com Thanks!
View from the balcony of our new apartment in Bangkok. Pretty surreal.
This is an amazingly well-reported story by @joshuasokol.bsky.social. And a wonderful use of "synecdoche". www.science.org/content/arti...
Amid a flood of AI advances, astrophysicists are questioning the soul of their field
Researchers see enormous power in new tools—but also the potential end of astrophysics as a human endeavor
science.org
I don’t know if other journalists are experiencing this but NASA is turning down more and more interview requests for me, which is a shame. Used to be straightforward to talk to people across the agency. Now I’m often told people just aren’t available. Which sucks. Transparency for the win.
A primordial black hole? In this economy? You better (maybe) believe it. Story by me in @sciam.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/did-...
A primordial black hole nicknamed ‘Phoebe’ may help solve the mystery of dark matter
A blip of light in the outer reaches of the Milky Way might be a bizarre black hole born at the beginning of time itself—and the long-sought solution to the mystery of dark matter. Astronomers are cal...
scientificamerican.com
As someone that has reported on SpaceX almost since its first launch, this whole situation is quite unreal. In 2012 they were a plucky startup docking with the ISS. Now they're this behemoth that has 23 banks working on its trillion-dollar listing. Wild. www.theguardian.com/science/2026...
SpaceX targets biggest ever stock market debut, putting Musk on course to be trillionaire
IPO could raise up to $75bn, giving SpaceX market value of $1.75tn as it sets up Musk for extraordinary wealth
theguardian.com