Dr Robin George Andrews

Sonic Booms and Seismic Waves Can Reveal Where Space Junk Crash-Lands

NEW: Space junk is falling from the sky more frequently than ever—and it can dump toxic, flammable or radioactive waste on the ground.

Fortunately, scientists can now quickly locate that toxic debris using the 'quakes' it leaves upon impact!

Me @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/s...

Inside NASA’s plan to defeat moon dust. (And why it matters more than you think.) Moon dust is sharp, corrosive, and potentially fatal. NASA’s new electric force field shield is designed to blast it away.

NEW: America’s returning to the Moon—but there’s a problem. Lunar dust is sharp, corrosive, and potentially fatal. Fortunately, NASA has a solution straight out of sci-fi: a new electric force field designed to blast it away.

Me for NatGeo www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...

the *worst*

Venus shows an alternate timeline that Earth could have gone down, explains volcanologist @SquigglyVolcano.bsky.social. “I like to say that Earth is paradise and Venus is paradise lost”. More on how volcanoes play a role in making our paradise possible: bigpicturescience.org/episodes/lif...

👀

The audacious plan to make rocket fuel on the moon Using lunar ice to make rocket fuel could help future lunar settlements sustain themselves and provide a launch pad for astronauts to reach Mars.

NEW: So China and the U.S. are racing to land on, then develop bases at, the lunar south pole. Why? Because a lot of water's there—and it can be turned into rocket fuel, making the Moon a low-gravity launching pad to send humans to Mars.

Me for NatGeo: www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...

You’re like a meme version of Alexander the Great

et al!?

this is farce, sir

I mean…

2024: wins award

2025: ABSW decides to not run the award in that category again for mysterious circumstances

also 2025: Jonny moves (flees) to another country on the other side of the world

2026: ABSW still reeling

You stole my joke you utter weirdo

Evidence of Life on Mars Could Emerge from Labs on Earth New laboratory studies could shed light on a rock containing potential signs of alien life that’s stranded on Mars

NEW: Remember that weird Mars rock with spots and seeds? They are the best evidence yet for alien life—and scientists are going to cook up those spots and seeds in high-tech labs back home to see if aliens might have been responsible.

Me @sciam.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/scie...

Evidence of Life on Mars Could Emerge from Labs on Earth New laboratory studies could shed light on a rock containing potential signs of alien life that’s stranded on Mars

NEW: Remember that weird Mars rock with spots and seeds? They are the best evidence yet for alien life—and scientists are going to cook up those spots and seeds in high-tech labs back home to see if aliens might have been responsible.

Me @sciam.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/scie...

NASA telescope will hunt down ‘city killer’ asteroids With an infrared eye, NEO Surveyor will target dangerous space rocks glowing in the dark

NEW: When she worked at NASA’s JPL, Amy Mainzer used to rack up high scores on the 1979 Atari game ASTEROIDS. Very apt, now she’s in charge of a space mission that will save the world from killer asteroids.

Planet Protector, my new feature for @science.org, is live. www.science.org/content/arti...

🫡

NASA telescope will hunt down ‘city killer’ asteroids With an infrared eye, NEO Surveyor will target dangerous space rocks glowing in the dark

NEW: When she worked at NASA’s JPL, Amy Mainzer used to rack up high scores on the 1979 Atari game ASTEROIDS. Very apt, now she’s in charge of a space mission that will save the world from killer asteroids.

Planet Protector, my new feature for @science.org, is live. www.science.org/content/arti...

Turkey’s Largest City Is Threatened by a Lurking Seismic Catastrophe

NEW: In 2023, twin earthquakes devastated parts of southern Turkey and Syria. All eyes are now on Istanbul, which has its own worrying fault system—one that will, inevitably, produce a large and tremendously devastating earthquake.

Me @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2025/12/11/s...

Webb image shows hundreds of galaxies of all shapes and sizes against the black background of space. Toward the center-left is a large white spiral galaxy that is almost face-on. To the right of this is a large box, which zooms in on an area at top right. Within the box is a faint red dot at the center, with the label GRB 250314A.

Webb breaks its own record by identifying the earliest supernova to date, a star that exploded when the Universe was only 730 million years old.

To astronomers' surprise, this early supernova looks exactly like modern supernovae based on data gathered so far 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl...

🔭🧪

Map showing tsunami warnings and measured wave heights for the 2025-12-09 M7.6 earthquake offshore Japan.

Here is the latest tsunami information for the M7.6 earthquake that just struck offshore northern Japan. The warnings are for waves up to 3 m, but the highest waves measured so far are <0.5 m. It is still possible for larger waves to arrive.

1/2

www.jma.go.jp/bosai/map.ht...

⚒️ 🧪

Grainy space image, with white dots on a dark background. At the centre of the image is a larger, bright white blob with a faint white line stretching towards the top of the frame.

Grainy space image, with white dots on a dark background. At the centre of the image is a larger, bright white blob with a faint white line stretching towards the top of the frame. Key elements of the image are labelled: coma, plasma tail, potential dust tail. An inset shows the location of the Sun, Juice and comet 3I/ATLAS during the observation.

☄️ Our #ESAJuice team couldn't wait until February, when they will receive data on #3IATLAS from the mission's science instruments.

So they downloaded just a quarter of an image from its navigation camera to get a surprise sneak preview.

More info and annotations 👉 www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed...
🔭 🧪

Fun fact: in the 1950s, the U.S. briefly considered detonating a nuclear bomb on the Moon as both a display of technological might viewable from Earth and a way to do some very dramatic geological research.

They reconsidered, deciding that a lunar landing would be a bit less bonkers.

This one’s my favourite!

Nope, the Moon is Theia and Earth’s debris

Praise be to @michaelroston.bsky.social, King of Goofy Headlines

…you’ve become self-aware. Eek.

The Moon Was an Inside Job

NEW: Not long after Earth formed, it received a giant sucker punch when an object named Theia crashed into it, unleashing debris that made the Moon. But where did Theia come from—the outer solar system?

Nope. The Moon-making impact was an inside job.

Me @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2025/11/20/s...

NASA caught a view of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS from Mars NASA released new images of 3I/ATLAS as it plunged towards the sun, captured by a host of the agency’s robots and probes.

NEW: NASA may not have been able to speak about 3I/ATLAS during the government shutdown, but now that's over, they got to showcase a bunch of fantastic new shots of it.

Spoiler alert: it's still a comet. But it's also very cool, and robots on Mars saw it.

www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...

I would have said to frame Chris’s comment and put it in the Louvre, but on second thought it’d probably just get stolen.

What Were Those 2 Spooky Flashes That Lit Up the Moon?

NEW: Around Halloween, a Japanese astronomer caught two strange bright flashes on the Moon, one after the other. What were these spooky lights? Aliens having a rave?

Nope. They were asteroid impacts: a reminder that the Moon is a constant battleground.

@nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2025/11/05/s...

:D

An inside look into NASA's next generation moon rovers A retro-futuristic space truck. A nimble crustacean on wheels. A space-age dune buggy. One will win a multibillion-dollar prize to deploy on a future NASA Artemis mission. But first, we took a ride on...

NEW: Intuitive Machines, Astrolab, and Lunar Outpost have all built seriously cool, super-futuristic moon rovers. They’re competing to become the official mode of transportation for NASA’s Artemis astronauts.

And for NatGeo, I test drove all three. www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...