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Kelly Lepo

@kellylepo.bsky.social

Astronomer | Science communicator | Adult Lisa Simpson Freelance writer and editor. Former Education and Outreach Scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute (@stsci.edu) supporting JWST. Also on Mastodon: @KellyLepo@scicomm.xyz

1241 Posts3501 Follower354 Folgt
ESA Space Science@science.esa.int · 11h ago

A happy goodbye is still a goodbye 🥹 Mission accomplished, MTM! 🫡 Thank you for the ride! Thanks to its solar-powered electric thrusters, MTM carried ESA's Bepi and JAXA's Mio to Mercury on the power equivalent of 250 ants! 🐜🐜🐜 🔭 🧪 #planetsci 1/3

ESA Operations@operations.esa.int · 12h ago

ACQUISITION OF SIGNAL CONFIRMED! 🎉🛰️ #BepiColombo telemetry shows the Mercury Transfer Module has successfully separated from the spacecraft stack! ✅ First step of Mercury arrival phase - complete! 👏 Next stop: Mercury orbit insertion for MPO and Mio in November! @esa.int #JAXA #Mercury

First signal after seperation from BepiColombo
Phil Plait@philplait.bsky.social · 11h ago

This is good news! BepiColombo is a cool mission to orbit Mercury and will be there in less than three months. It flew there as two connected spacecraft, and they just separated successfully! www.science.esa.int/bepicolombo

European Space Agency@esa.int · 11h ago

Mercury Transfer Module separation confirmed! 📡 ✅ Signal acquired via our Cebreros deep-space antenna confirms the spacecraft is healthy and operating as expected. The MPO and Mio spacecrafts are now on their way to Mercury orbit insertion on 21 November. Farewell, MTM. Mercury awaits. ☀️🛰️

Celeste Labedz@celestelabedz.bsky.social · last wk.

Lots of things suck lately, but also there's a partial lunar eclipse tonight! Go look! Partial begins at 10:34 PM eastern time, when it'll look like the Moon has a little bite out of it. The peak is 12:13 AM; it's 96%, so it should look reddish! www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/luna...

Partial Lunar Eclipse on August 27–28, 2026 – Where and When to See

Partial lunar eclipse on August 27–28, 2026: Where and when is the Moon eclipse visible and what will it look like? Visibility map, animation, and local times.

timeanddate.com

Jason Perry@volcanopele.bsky.social · last wk.

Ontario Lacus is a hydrocarbon lake near the south pole of Saturn’s moon Titan. Measuring 235 kilometers long by 75 kilometers across, Ontario Lacus is slightly smaller than its terrestrial counterpart, Lake Ontario. Lakes on Titan are named after lakes on Earth that are roughly the same size.

RADAR SAR image of Ontario Lacus. Ontario is a dark, footprint-shaped feature in the middle of the frame. Hills surround Ontario Lacus to the north, marked by bright, rough terrain in this SAR image.
Astrobites@astrobites.bsky.social · last wk.

From @anaviuppal.bsky.social: In 2019, CHIME detected a very unusual fast radio burst (FRB) signal that excited the astronomical community. However, it turns out that the signal wasn’t from an FRB after all… ⚛️ 🔭 ☄️ 🧪 astrobites.org/2026/08/21/chime-misclassification/

Everything Going Wrong, All at Once: Pulsar Misclassified as a Fast Radio Burst

In 2019, CHIME detected a very unusual fast radio burst (FRB) signal that excited the astronomical community. However, it turns out that the signal wasn’t from an FRB after all…

astrobites.org

ESO@eso.org · 2w ago

Over the past days, unusually severe weather has affected northern Chile, where our observatories are located. This brought snow to Paranal and to the ELT construction site. It left stunning images, while causing severe flooding and damage to several cities within the Antofagasta Region. 🔭 1/2

Snow-covered view of ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope construction site at Cerro Armazones. The telescope dome and cranes rising through low clouds as the Sun shines brightly near the horizon.Aerial view of a vast snow-covered mountainous landscape in Chile’s Atacama Desert, with ESO facilities and access roads visible in the foreground beneath a clear blue sky.Wide view of ESO’s Paranal Observatory after snowfall, with the Very Large Telescope’s four Unit Telescopes visible atop the snow-covered Cerro Paranal under a blue-grey sky.Snow-covered landscape at ESO’s Paranal Observatory, with the Residencia building stretching along the right and the Very Large Telescope’s Unit Telescopes visible atop Cerro Paranal in the distance under a clear blue sky.
Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans@astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 3w ago

This is a pleasing factoid: the Nancy Grace Roman space telescope is the same size and weight as a T-Rex! Countdown: 15 days to launch! 🚀 AUG 30, 2026 11:26 UTC ℹ️: science.nasa.gov/mission/roma...

A sketch of a T-Rex dinosaur (big feet, tiny hands) next to a sketch of the Roman telescope.
Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans@astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Space projects running ahead of schedule? This is rare! Huge celebratory high-5's all round to the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team, due for early launch this August 🥳 This beast will discover >100,000 planets orbiting distant stars and so so much more 🤩🧪🔭🛰️ ℹ️: science.nasa.gov/blogs/roman/...

Two tiny people in clean-room gear (top to toe in white) look up at a huge piece of kit with solar panels on the side. This is the Nancy Grace Roman telescope.
Don Davis@ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 3w ago

During the recent Total Solar Eclipse the South Korean Danuri spacecraft obtained a nice view of Earth from Lunar orbit with the Moons shadow just visible on Earth. Here is their image, with attribution added, my colorized version and the nearly simultaneous EPIC-DSCOVR image used for the color.

This is a reduced version of the photo released today by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute. Earth is seen from Lunar orbit during the recent Total Solar eclipse. The Moon is barely showing shadows behind the sunlit surfaces, and the shadow of the Moon itself is just at the horizon, or perhaps 'Limb' better suits an orbital view. One very wide shadow shows a fuzzy edge on a distant rise. I added the attribution. This is my version of the Danuri Lunar orbiter photo, with color added. I combined their Earth photo with a color EPIC-DSCOVR image made at about the same time, rotated a little in 3D to better match the Danuri viewing angle for compositing. The sharpness of the B&W original is preserved with the DSCOVR full Earth photo mostly used for the color values. I also prefer this orientation with the foreground Moon at the bottom.This is the EPIC (Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera) image from the DSCOVR satellite made at close to the same time as the Danuri image, shown in reduced form but otherwise as released. The exposure is naturally for the sunlit Earth and clouds. The Moon shadow's wide peripheral zone of gradual darkening, the 'penumbra' is where the illumination decreases as more of the Sun is eclipsed. At this time the outermost shadow area was near the Great Lakes, from this perspective a circular zone of that radius thus surrounds the progressively underexposed zone around the Moon shadow. If the exposure were adjusted to define the actual umbra, or zone of totality, the resulting small black dot in the image , about 30 percent the size of the underexposed portion seen here, would be surrounded by the greatly overexposed fully sunlit rest of the world.
EUMETSAT@eumetsat.int · 3w ago

Where were you when the #eclipse hit today? 🌖✨ While millions watched from the ground across Europe, we had a view from space. 🛰️ Did you catch the total or partial eclipse where you are? Let us know in the comments - and check back tomorrow for more imagery and information! 💬

Canadian History Ehx@cdnhistoryehx.bsky.social · last mo.

On this day in 1905, Helen Sawyer Hogg was born. As an astronomer, she pioneered research into globular clusters and variable stars. She also inspired many to pursue science through her Toronto Star column With the Stars, that ran from 1951 to 1981. 📸 University of Toronto

Helen Sawyer Hogg standing beside a large telescope inside an observatory. She is holding papers and looking upward with a slight smile. The black-and-white photograph emphasizes the scale of the telescope above and behind her, with the observatory interior visible in the background.
Mike Brown@plutokiller.com · last mo.

This is a super cool paper (and last chapter of her PhD thesis) from my now-graduated student @import-astrory.bsky.social I would explain more but, really, the headline kind of does the job.

Neptune's Inner Moons May Be Shattered Remains of Ancient Icy Worlds

New findings from Caltech researchers suggest Neptune's smallest satellites formed from the shattered remains of an original moon system that was destroyed when Triton was captured by Neptune's gravit...

caltech.edu

Phil Plait@philplait.bsky.social · last mo.

This oxygen emission line can only occur in very rarefied gas: if atoms collide enough it deexcites the electron and you don't get the line. It took a long time to figure that out (it's very hard to get such low density oxygen in the lab), and the ubiquity of this line baffled them for many years.

Michael Merrifield@astromikemerri.bsky.social · last mo.

I love old astronomy books. Here they are in 1902 struggling with the identification of my favourite emission line, the 500.7nm emission from oxygen. It is a forbidden transition, so not seen in normal lab spectra; here it is speculated to be from an unknown element, “nebulum.” 🧪🔭

Kelly Lepo@kellylepo.bsky.social · last mo.

Stopped by the Smithonian Air and Space museum this weekend to say hi to the Hubble model. I also got to see the backup mirror (that was not ground to the wrong curvature) and the actual Hubble WFPC2 instrument that astronauts returned from space.

A wide angle video of me standing in front of a full scale model of the Hubble Telescope. Hubble appears as a large (school-bus) sized metal tube. I'm raising my eyebrows, making a face, and pointing like I'm in a YouTube thumbnail.Me standing in front of Hubble's spare mirror. I'm smiling and making the Vulcan salute with my hand. The mirror is a large white disk with a waffle pattern, covered in clear material, with a circular hole in the center. Behind it is the base of the Hubble model.Snapshot of the Hubble WFPC2 instrument behind glass. There is a metal plate on front with small holes drilled in it. Behind it is the instrument, which is roughly wedge shaped and made of black and silver metal.