Rebecca Kyer (they/them)

Rebecca Kyer (they/them)

@astrobonk.bsky.social

astro phd candidate | binary millisecond pulsars | michigan state university | rkyer.github.io

117 Followers 52 Following 15 Posts Joined Nov 2024
Posts Following
5 days ago
Email from Chris Reynolds to the AXIS Team. Subject is disappointing AXIS news. Text of e-mail reads: Dear AXIS Friends, The AXIS team has received some very disappointing news – we have been informed by NASA HQ that AXIS is not eligible for selection and hence the Concept Study Report (CSR) will not be subjected to the full review process. AXIS represents the scientific aspirations of a large international community. As a member of one of the AXIS science working groups, you deserve a candid explanation from the PI of what happened and why. That is the purpose of this note. NASA’s decision was programmatic and not based on a review of the technology or science; the mission profile described in the submitted CSR was over the allowed budget and schedule. How was such a thing possible? In short, with NASA-GSFC as the AXIS managing center, the mission formulation process was critically compromised by the seismic shifts occurring in NASA and the Federal government. The AXIS study team was hit hard by three unprecedented challenges: NASA’s Deferred Resignation Program (DRP) and the pressure at GSFC to resign/retire created a rapid and uncontrolled loss of over 20 personnel with key expertise during a critical mission formulation period, including the main GSFC Project Manager (Jimmy Marsh) and the X-ray mirror lead (Will Zhang) and many discipline engineers. GSFC priorities rapidly realigned to the FY2026 President’s Budget Request (PBR) that eliminated the Probe program, further reducing the availability of GSFC engineering and mission formulation personnel (incl. cost analysts and schedulers) over the critical Summer and Fall months. Key work was halted for almost seven weeks when the core GSFC AXIS study team, dominated by NASA civil servants, was furloughed during the government shutdown. NASA HQ’s extension to the CSR submission deadline (from 18-Dec-2025 to 29-Jan-2026) was inadequate compensation for the disruption and lost time. Taken together, these factors disrupted the basic grass-roots costing process (which requires extensive “reach back” to the discipline engineers to assess labor requirements) as well as the cost-design iteration process that is central to the formulation of a cost-capped and schedule-constrained mission. While the mission design was finalized in April, our initial grass-roots costing (which was ~10% over budget) could only be completed in September due to the lack of assigned resources. With the subsequent government shutdown and then “pens down” in early-December forced by the GSFC Executive Review process, there was no opportunity to work through the set of cost/schedule savings that had already been identified by the AXIS team. Ultimately, the GSFC executive council gave AXIS leadership the choice of submitting a CSR with a non-compliant schedule and cost, or not submitting a CSR at all. We of course proceeded with the submission, including a narrative that we understood the path to a cost-compliant profile (that we would have discussed with the review panels during the Site Visit). NASA HQ has ruled this stance to be unacceptable. It is important to stress that NASA’s programmatic decision was before any technical review had been conducted. The decision was NOT due to any concerns about AXIS technology. Indeed, the AXIS Phase A work had major successes with furthering Indeed, the AXIS Phase A work had major successes with furthering the key technologies. GSFC’s Next Generation X-ray Optics (NGXO) team successfully demonstrated iridium-coated, stress-compensated mirror segments that meet AXIS baseline requirements (i.e. segment-level performance at sub-arcsecond level).  NGXO also built the first AXIS demonstrator mirror module, learning critical lessons about mirror alignment, mounting and bonding. On the detector side, MIT quickly moved to fabricate AXIS-like CCDs and, working with our colleagues at Stanford, recently demonstrated that they achieve the required readout rate and spectral resolution. Similarly, NASA’s decision was NOT a judgment of the importance of AXIS science. The AXIS science case was rated excellent in the Step 1 review, and it only became stronger during our Phase A study. The AXIS Community Science Book, which many of you contributed to, is an extremely powerful demonstration of the relevance and importance of high-resolution X-ray observations to all areas of astrophysics. The Science Book is one of the most important legacies of the AXIS Phase A study and, I believe, will help define future mission concepts for many years to come. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for all of your work on this. AXIS has been a long journey; we started under the leadership of Richard Mushotzky more than nine years ago. During that time, it’s been an enormous privilege to work with amazing people; the AXIS science team, the incredible/brilliant GSFC and Northrop Grumman engineers, and the wider astrophysics community. I am, quite frankly, livid that AXIS ultimately fell victim to the programmatic chaos of 2025. The astronomical community deserves better. I hope that NASA leadership, especially at GSFC and HQ, can have an honest discussion about how to better support and protect programs during extraordinary times. For now, as a community, we must look forward. There is still one excellent mission under consideration for the Probe program, PRIMA, and we wish them a smooth and speedy path to selection and flight. In X-ray astronomy, the SMEX and MidEX programs represent concrete pathways for focused, high-impact missions, and the scientific case we built for AXIS provides a strong foundation for those concepts. The technologies we advanced in Step 1 and Phase A, particularly the NGXO mirror work and the MIT/Stanford detector demonstrations, can anchor the next generation of proposals. Most importantly, the AXIS Community Science Book, representing more than 500 scientists across, is a living document and a powerful signal to NASA leadership that this community is organized, serious, and not going anywhere. I encourage everyone to use it actively, as a resource for future concept development, for Astro2030 engagement, and for building the next mission that will deliver high angular resolution X-ray imaging to address the fundamental questions about black hole growth, galaxy evolution, and the hot universe that motivated AXIS from the beginning. This community built something remarkable over nine years and that doesn't end here. Thank you again for your support of AXIS over these times. Best Chris and the AXIS leadership team

The @axisprobe.bsky.social team learned that the phase A concept study report of AXIS (the Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite) will not be reviewed because the lost personnel at NASA Goddard and government shutdown impacted our schedule and budget. 🔭 Here is the PI's e-mail with the explanation.

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1 week ago
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2026 Flatiron Institute Center for Computational Astrophysics Pre-Doctoral Program How to Apply 2026 Flatiron Institute Center for Computational Astrophysics Pre-Doctoral Program How to Apply on Simons Foundation

Applications are open for our visiting grad student pre-doctoral program at the CCA @flatironinstitute.org !

More info here:
www.simonsfoundation.org/2023-flatiro...

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5 days ago
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The TESS All-Sky Rotation Survey: Periods for 944,056 Stars Within 500 pc Stellar rotation is a fundamental tracer of stellar magnetic evolution, age, and activity, with broad implications for Galactic archaeology and exoplanet characterization. The Transiting Exoplanet Sur...

I'm super excited to share a HUGE paper out from Young Worlds Lab team member Andy Boyle.

I present for you, ~900,000 rotation periods from TESS!

🤯🔭🧪⭐ #exoplanets #stellarrotation

arxiv.org/abs/2603.05586

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1 week ago
MICHIGAN STATE CAPITOL, EAST LAWN 1:00pm - 3:00pm STAND UP FOR SCIENCE NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION MARCH 7TH

LANSING! Join your local March 7th rally to take back our science! Learn more at standupforscience.net/march7

#March7
#rally
#standupforscience
#March7Lansing
#science

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2 weeks ago

I know this feels pointless but everyone has to call their congressional reps and say they oppose war with Iran and they oppose Trump illegally starting one without congressional approval — both

5 Calls can help you make the call:

5calls.org/issue/iran-i...

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2 weeks ago
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Astrobites is partnering with @blackinastro.bsky.social this year for Black Space Week! If you’d like to register to participate as a writer or interviewee you can fill out the Google Form below or in the QR code in the flyer! The deadline is Friday March 6th.
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

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2 months ago
hard-bound AXIS science book cover and stickers on a table me in front of our AXIS booth banner

we have a BOUND copy of our community science book and lots of stickers! Come say hi at the #AAS247 AXIS booth!

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2 months ago
me standing at a podium at the front of a room with my talk title slide me giving the peace sign in front of the AAS sign

two #AAS247 talks delivered!

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2 months ago

sooooooooo cool

🧪🔭

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2 years ago
A man sitting down on a chair wearing white pants and a plush coat made of fake fur. He is wearing glasses and looking at the camera.

2. Jeff Goldblum as the spider pulsar. Proximity, savage, irradiating.

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4 months ago

Eventually, NASA will go forward with one (or neither) of these missions. However it ends up, being part of an AXIS working group and collaborating with folks from all over the world has been a really cool experience 💫

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4 months ago
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PRIMA General Observer Science Book PRIMA (The PRobe for-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics) is a concept for a far-infrared (IR) observatory. PRIMA features a cryogenically cooled 1.8 m diameter telescope and is designed to carry two sc...

AXIS is competing with another proposed probe called PRIMA, a far-infrared observatory. They also have a science book out: arxiv.org/abs/2310.20572

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4 months ago
Simulated X-ray light curve showing orbital modulation as a function of orbital phase.

When tMSPs do not host an accretion disk, they are indistinguishable from other "spider" millisecond pulsar binaries. I contributed to another science case in this AXIS white paper that is all about how the proposed probe could enhance our understanding of those systems too.

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4 months ago
Plot of X-ray count rate as a function of time, showing a bimodal emission pattern with most of the time in a high mode and short drops into a low mode which last tens of seconds.

We simulated the light curve that AXIS would detect for a moding tMSP at the flux level of 4FGL J0639.1-8009, a candidate tMSP that I published in my first PhD paper. This source was observed by XMM-Newton and was too faint to bin finely enough to see these modes. AXIS would totally detect moding!

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4 months ago

Some candidate tMSPs in the Galactic field that we already know about are too faint for current X-ray facilities to detect really short timescale variability. Unfortunately, this signature is the "smoking gun" of tMSPs: switches between a high and low X-ray mode that occur within seconds.

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4 months ago
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The Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite Community Science Book The AXIS Community Science Book represents the collective effort of more than 500 scientists worldwide to define the transformative science enabled by the Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite (AXIS), a ne...

The Community Science Book for the proposed Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite (AXIS) is out! I was the lead author for a science case showing how AXIS could observe transitional millisecond pulsars (tMSPs) when they have accretion disks arxiv.org/abs/2511.00253

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4 months ago
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Open Sesame!

The ELT doors have moved for the first time. This was no small feat, as each door will weigh 650 tonnes once completed.

The ELT dome & its doors will guard the telescope from the harsh conditions of the Atacama Desert.

https://www.eso.org/public/videos/potw2544a/

🔭 🧪
📹 ESO/ACe

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4 months ago
Event graphic for a workshop titled "Building Coalitions for Radical Change." The text announces it is hosted by Black in Astro and Movement Consulting, taking place online on Friday, November 7th from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM ET. The words "SEE YOU THERE!" are at the bottom.

Join us this Friday for a special workshop from Movement Consulting: "Building Coalitions for Radical Change," presented by founder Dra. Nicole Cabrera-Salazar. For more information about the event, or to register, make sure to check out our website!

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4 months ago
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The countdown is ON. ⏳

We’re one year from launch — and kicking off the Ready, Set, Roman! Training Series!

First up: Tools for Exploring Roman’s Core Community Surveys Nov 4 (Tomorrow!) • 1 PM EST

Get hands-on with the data that will shape a decade of discovery.
bit.ly/4oP3c06

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5 months ago
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#AAS247 We're looking for volunteers to fill important positions at the winter meeting. We love getting help from undergrads, grads, postdocs, and local amateur astronomers to help with sessions, registration, special events, and various other essential roles. www.cognitoforms.com/AAS5/AAS247V... 🔭

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5 months ago
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200,000+ Deep Learning Inferred Periods of Stellar Variability from The All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae Stars exhibit a range of variability periods that depend on their mass, age, and evolutionary stage. For space-based photometric data, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have demonstrated success in...

arxiv.org/abs/2509.14423

⭐️paper day!⭐️

hey now, we found thousands of stellar variability periods, including ~26k very high likelihood new ASAS-SN rotation periods from cool dwarfs!

(also I have missed abt 5 typos in this version already, but it’s only been submitted to ApJS so it’ll get fixed!)..

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6 months ago
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Join us on tonight from 8:30-10:30pm for public night at the MSU Observatory!
Visit our website for FAQs: web.pa.msu.edu/astro/observ...
Address: MSU Observatory, 4299 Pavilion Dr, Lansing, MI 48910

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6 months ago
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Goddard and Wallops Union Letters this is the letter sent by NASA GSFC Associate Center Director to the local Union President

This is the letter sent by NASA GSFC Associate Center Director to the local Union President regarding cessation of union activities at GSFC. NASA Wallops employees got an identical letter. The wording matches a letter that was sent by the JSC Center Director. More: nasawatch.com/personnel-ne...

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6 months ago
New masses in the stellar graveyard plot, showing astronomical observations of black holes and neutron stars. The number of gravitational-wave observations of black holes is overwhelming. The plot is arranged to look nice, the horizontal axis has no meaning, but the vertical one shows masses. We have a significant range of masses from about 1 solar mass to over 200 solar masses for our largest merger remnant. New out today is a neutron star black hole binary GW230518_125908, as well as a lot of binary black holes.

Results from the first part of our fourth LIGO @egovirgo.bsky.social KAGRA observing run are out today!

We're pleased to share the largest catalog of gravitational-wave observations with more discoveries of black holes and neutron stars

📰 arxiv.org/abs/2508.18082

🔭🧪⚛️☄️ #GWTC4

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6 months ago
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The Top Ten Differential Equations in Astronomy, Ranked! Interested in the definitive, absolutely objective ranking of the best differential equations in astronomy and astrophysics?? Read on!!

From Chloe Klare: Interested in the definitive, absolutely objective ranking of the best differential equations in astronomy and astrophysics?? Read on!! 🔭✨☄️ astrobites.org/2025/08/18/t...

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7 months ago

👀👀👀

#SN1987A pre-print 🔭

New #JWST results (epoch 13500 days post-explosion).

The spectra are *unreal*.

A new iron signature could be interesting.

Q: So, is there (finally) a pulsar?
A: Astronomers are still looking, but there is some indirect evidence for it so far!

arxiv.org/abs/2508.03395

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7 months ago
An Astronomy on Tap - Lansing poster for 8/13 at the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy. The speakers are Laura Chomiuk and Huei Sears.

so excited to be presenting at @astronomyontap.bsky.social - Lansing on 8/13 with Laura Chomiuk !!!! hope to see you there : )

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7 months ago
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Join this month's Roman Virtual Lecture Series to learn about observing accreting neutron stars and black holes with Roman. 🌟

Subscribe to tinyurl.com/RVLSsubscr for call-in details!

📅 Thurs July 31

🕐 4-4:30 PM EDT

🔗 bit.ly/4m7MkjY

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7 months ago
An infographic titled "How BIG are the BLACK HOLES we find with GRAVITATIONAL WAVES?" by @astronerdika. The graphic displays a range of black hole masses detected via gravitational waves, categorized by their size in solar masses (mass of the Sun) and represented with playful cat-like black hole illustrations. The categories from left to right are: 1. "<5 times the mass of the Sun" - Labeled "smol" - Very small black hole illustration represented by a curled up black cat - Arrow pointing left: "THIS WAY TO NEUTRON STARS" - Example: "Big component of GW230529 (~3.6 times the mass of the Sun)" 2. "~10 times the mass of the Sun" - Labeled "basic" - Slightly larger black hole cat illustration - Caption: "LOTS OF BLACK HOLES" 3. "~35–45 times the mass of the Sun" - Labeled "hefty" - Bigger black hole cat illustration - Continues the idea of a populated range 4. ">60 times the mass of the Sun" - Labeled "chonky" - Large black hole cat illustration - Caption: "FORBIDDEN TERRITORY? (can these even be made from the collapse of star cores?!)" - Example: "Components of GW190521 (~85 + ~66 times the mass of the Sun)" 5. ">100 times the mass of the Sun" - Labeled "oh lawd" - Very large, curled-up black hole cat illustration - Arrow pointing right: "THIS WAY TO INTERMEDIATE MASS BLACK HOLES" - Example: "Components of GW231123 (~137 + ~103 times the mass of the Sun)" Below the categories is a stylized black curve representing the inferred population of black holes detected by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA. It rises sharply in the "basic" range and falls off toward the "hefty" and "chonky" ranges, with a note reading: "this curve is an artistic representation of the black hole population inferred by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA." This infographic draws from the “Chonky Cat” meme.

Heard the latest news from the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration? We detected the collision of the most massive pair of black holes so far: #GW231123 weighing in at ~137 + ~103 times the mass of the Sun!

So to celebrate, here’s a handy chart ✨

Just how chonky are these black holes? 🤔

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7 months ago
A faux newspaper front page with a space shuttle launching into a blue sky. A burnt paper overlay reads “THE VOYAGER DECLARATION HAS LAUNCHED!” Below, bold text says “NASA JOINS THE RESISTANCE,” and a subhead reads: “NASA scientists join a growing rebellion against Trump’s science cuts.” At the bottom are the words: DISSENT, BRAVERY, RESISTANCE.

🚨BREAKING NEWS! 🚨

🚀 the Voyager Declaration has LAUNCHED.

NASA employees join a growing rebellion against Trump’s anti-science, anti-American agenda.

🧵(1/4)

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