A murmuration of starlings above Sardinia, Italy. One of my favorite natural phenomena.
Tod Lauer
@todlauer.bsky.social
Extragalactic astronomer (black holes, galaxies, galaxy clusters, stellar pops) who also dabbles in planetary astronomy. Really, basically a pixel pusher.
Next up - demolition of the Kennedy Center. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/25/a...
Trump Lawyers Warn That Kennedy Center Might Need Demolition if Not Fixed (Gift Article)
In a court filing about honoring President Trump on the facade, the administration said that without a proper renovation the building might need to be “taken down.”
nytimes.com
The Roman Space Telescope is due to launch this coming Sunday. In this wonderful graphic, Chris Hirata has captured the complex and tortured 26 years of history that it took to get to this mission. My part was to PI the Dark Energy Space Telescope (Destiny) study, and to serve on random committees.
I discovered 24 objects in Rubin #SpaceSurveyors 🪨 - 2 ☄️ - 1 🌌 - 6 ⭐ - 12 💥 - 3 spacesurveyors.app
Space Surveyors
Space Surveyors game
spacesurveyors.app
Think you’ve got what it takes to survey the sky? Control NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory's telescope and try to detect the most objects with our interactive, 60s game: Space Surveyors! 🎮 How many can you catch before the sun rises? Drop your score below👇 spacesurveyors.app
Had a visit in our den tonight from a giant hairy desert scorpion.This one was about the size of my palm. Ironically its not that venomous, unlike the vastly smaller bark scorpion, but your brain doesn’t process it that way. We showed it the door.
So what would be on a second Bingo card? I might so with "Milky Way Supernova," or "Erupting Main Belt Asteroids," as a couple of candidates.
Tod Lauer@todlauer.bsky.social · last mo.This is so wonderful! The annual Rubin Community Workshop is going on this week, and so this has made a big splash.
This is so wonderful! The annual Rubin Community Workshop is going on this week, and so this has made a big splash.
Randall Munroe@xkcd.com · last mo.Vera Rubin Observatory xkcd.com/3278/
This is really, really bad. This is one of the complexes we use to communicate with spacecraft in deep space. The effects of climate change are extending out into the Solar System.
Andy Scollick@andyscollick.bsky.social · last mo.The Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex at Robledo de Chavela municipality in the Community of Madrid, Spain on fire. Burgohondo wildfire. 📷 via Infues Avila
Take a little time today to honor Plas Johnson, who just passed away at age 94. Don't know the name? But you've certainly heard him play the saxophone. If not listen to the attached video - that's him. www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyZi...
The Pink Panther Theme
YouTube video by Henry Mancini - Topic
youtube.com
A great day for signs around Tucson, starting with finally getting an answer to an old question:
NASA’s Dragonfly Clears Key Tests as Titan Rotorcraft Takes Shape Dragonfly is starting to look less like a collection of spacecraft parts and more like the rotorcraft that will fly across the surface of Titan, Saturn’s hazy moon. science.nasa.gov/blogs/dragon... #Dragonfly 🧪🔭
NASA’s Dragonfly Clears Key Tests as Titan Rotorcraft Takes Shape - NASA Science
NASA’s Dragonfly is starting to look less like a collection of spacecraft parts and more like the rotorcraft that will fly across the surface of Titan,
science.nasa.gov
Now on @sciam.bsky.social: A recent paper in the high-profile journal Nature claimed what would've been an epochal revision to our understanding of the cosmos. Instead, independent follow-up work suggests the claim is wrong via a subtle-but-basic mistake. www.scientificamerican.com/article/phys...
Physicist says splashy new cosmology study made ‘elemental’ mistake
A recent study in the journal Nature carries cosmos-quaking implications for our understanding of the universe—except a new preprint says that it’s wrong
scientificamerican.com
OK, it's one thing to see a science abstract that is far beyond my expertise, but not an abstract in astrophysics that doesn't even seem to be about any science. And who would read this abstract and say, "Oh, yeah! I'm really gonna have to drop what I'm doing and read this one!"
I haven't seen any video of the Rubin control during the full-power activation of the LSST, but I suspect that it was something like this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-cO...
Star Trek: The Motion Picture - 'Warp 7' scene (fan-edit with slightly unused score)
YouTube video by Donny P with a Y: That Power Rangers Guy⚡
youtube.com
Open our carport door to go get the paper and hear a loud rattle from this guy only five feet away.
‘Say yes and never do it’ Mel Brooks knew how to deal with the studios
![That’s probably the most famous scene in the movie, the campfire scene.
I know. He said, “You can’t punch a horse.” I said, “You’ll never see it again.” I kept saying, “You’re absolutely right. It’s out!” Then, when he left, I crumpled up all his notes, and I tossed it in the wastepaper basket. And John Calley, who was running [production at] Warner Bros. at the time, said, “Good filing.” That was the end of it. You say yes, and you never do it.
That’s great advice for life.
It is. Don’t fight them. Don’t waste your time struggling with them and trying to make sense to them. They’ll never understand.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:yvbszlkc7d75ixkid5g2zmw7/bafkreiar4z6n6pfk7wob2gznv6l6euw7ltxbetgto5drfd4wqzjalldp5m)
A great wonderful tribute to Mel Brooks: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
100 Reasons to Love Mel Brooks on His 100th Birthday (Gift Article)
Here are 100 reasons to love the comedy writer, director and star who’s celebrating a milestone on Sunday and who’s changed our culture in surprising ways.
nytimes.com
Mel Brooks turned 100 today! I can't think of a better tribute than this scene from Blazing Saddles. When I saw it in the mid-70s, part of my brain refused to believe it was seeing what it was seeing, while the other part was laughing so hard that I nearly blacked out www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPIP...
The Campfire - Blazing Saddles (5/10) Movie CLIP (1974) HD
YouTube video by Movieclips
youtube.com
Where does one even start with this?
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2mo agoJD Vance: "I think Nixon's historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, and deservedly so. I joked that if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12 hours news story. The idea that it took down a presidency is crazy."
Pretty thin night on arXiv just now, or at least the astro-ph part:
