Jessica Lu
@jluastro.bsky.social
Astrophysicist, Associate Professor @UCBerkeley. Interested in black holes, stars, galactic centers, astronomy instrumentation, adaptive optics.
The Last Mile with USAID@thelastmilewithusaid.substack.com · last yr.You don’t get seven former NASA science heads in a room unless something’s seriously wrong. They’ve all said the same thing: these cuts will kill missions, stall discovery, and erase decades of work. www.planetary.org/press-releas...
NASA Goddard is pushing through a 48% staff reduction!!! This could impact the upcoming Roman Space Telescope and many other future Astro missions. News coverage seems not sensational enough. Are we really going to let NASA (as we know it) die quietly? www.space.com/space-explor...
NASA begins push to slash workforce with more staff buyouts, early retirements as budget cuts loom
NASA employees have until July 25 to decide if they'll stay or go.
space.com
Many others are posting abt this too but this graphic viscerally shows how dire the presidential budget is for NASA 🔭🧪and worldwide astronomy. I can’t express how sad this makes me, as an American scientist. And it’s mostly already paid for projects, so also no logic in terms of saving money.
Presidential budget is out. Here's NSF. Biggest cut, by amount, is $1 billion, or 66.8%, from MPS (Physics & Math directorate). nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/00-NSF...
TO BE PERFECTLY CLEAR, THE PROPOSED NSF BUDGET CUTS NEARLY A QUARTER OF A MILLION PEOPLE FROM NSF ACTIVITIES. FOR INSTANCE, JOBS.
A key portion of #NASARoman has cleared a thermal vacuum test. Tt was subjected to the hot and cold temperatures it will experience in space: go.nasa.gov/43cwDQL 🔭 🧪
My heart goes out to the good people who had to endure this at the NSF today www.wired.com/story/nation... 🧪
National Science Foundation Fires 168 Workers as Federal Purge Continues
Firings at the NSF included permanent employees who had already completed their one-year probationary period, as well as at-will workers.
wired.com
The Democrats on the House Science Committee have set up a website to collect stories from fired federal employees, anonymously if desired democrats-science.house.gov/sciencefirings
Were you fired by President Trump? | House Committee on Science, Space and Technology
The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology
democrats-science.house.gov
For you foodies out there, I highly recommend this conference tradition. Great food and meet new people!
Ori Fox@orifox.bsky.social · 2y agoWhat a night. The third annual #FoodieDinner was an awesome time. We had an undergrad, director of the Chicago Astro Society, @jluastro.bsky.social, Nathan Smith, Dan Castro, and Pierce Prize Winner Maria Drout. Most important, amazing food from #VermillionVA. #AAS245
Interested in black holes or the Galactic Center check out Thursday sessions at #AAS243 by MovingUniverse Lab grads, Natasha Abrams (440.05) and Anna Pusack (420.05). Lots of new results!
Update on the gravitational lensing black hole, OB110462. It is definitely a black hole and our revised photometric and astrometric analysis gives a mass of 6 +/- 1 Sun. https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.03302
ESA’s Euclid mission has reached L2 where JWST and Gaia are waiting 💕 https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Euclid/Follow_Euclid_s_first_months_in_space
AstroTechers working on grating design principles and inclusive teamwork skills today at #AstroTech!
Hello BlueSky! I'm an astronomy professor at UC Berkeley working on black holes, star clusters, the Galactic center, and the instruments and telescopes needed to study them. As a further introduction, I'll post a brief thread on my research group's latest published paper.
