Andrew Cortese

The preliminary report is that #JWSTCycle5 was another record-breaker! Well done everyone 👏🔭 Can't wait to see our slate of new #MIRI programs for the new cycle (though we will have to wait until 2026 for that).

The death of Jane Goodall hit me harder than I expected it would.

R.I.P. George F. Smoot (1945-2025) We will no doubt read many official obituaries in days to come, but all I can say is that he was a character, a very original thinker, a fine scientist, and a very nice man. Along with many others,…

My favourite quote from George came when I suggested that some methods used for studying the cosmic microwave background could be applied to the distribution of galaxies. His response was "Galaxies are shit"...

telescoper.blog/2025/09/26/r...

YouTube video by NASA Goddard NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory Will Search for Life

Keeping us busy.

youtu.be/XJwDlLiQpS4?...

As of July 2025, @mast-news.bsky.social contains nearly 300 million astronomical observations!

These new wallpaper images depict MAST’s View of the Sky. Download yours now: https://spacetelescope.github.io/mast-blog/mast-heatmap.html 🔭 🧪

Rest in Peace, Jim. 😭

July 16th - on this day in 1969: "Thirty seconds and counting. Astronauts report it feels good. T-25 seconds. Twenty seconds and counting.

Carl Sagan on why books are human’s greatest invention:

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

Folks in the US: fight harder than you have ever fought for science - and then some. 🔭☄️

Anything less than that will be the beginning of the end of science in America.

See e.g. @planetarysociety.bsky.social's resources for combating NASA cuts:

NASA’s Voyager 1 Revives Backup Thrusters Before Command Pause The mission team wanted to fix the thrusters, deemed unusable decades ago, before the radio antenna that sends commands to the probe went offline for upgrades.

How cool is this. Voyager 1 is coasting in interstellar space, more than 48 years & 25 billion miles from Earth. Its back-up manoeuvring thrusters failed more than 2 decades ago. But @NASAJPL have GOT THEM WORKING AGAIN!!!! www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-v...

… Rational Rose.

**shudder**

A huge subsystem of the Roman observatory in a thermal vacuum chamber. Seven technicians stand of the side of the observatory, as the bottom of the chamber.

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 🔭 🧪

NASA’s Roman Mission Shares Detailed Plans to Scour Skies - NASA NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team shared Thursday the designs for the three core surveys the mission will conduct after launch. These observation

The 5 year mission plan for @nasaromantelescope.bsky.social summarized in an easy to read press release with some snazzy graphics. Which part are you most excited about? #NASARoman #LongLiveRoman

www.nasa.gov/missions/rom...

Astronomers will keep pointing out to folks that the Roman telescope is *already built* and is being prepped for launch *next year* and I know we live in a stupid timeline but cancelling Roman at this point would be SO STUPID.

Took a little walk over to the giant #nasa Goddard cleanroom yesterday where the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is looking great 😎 It’s assembled and going through testing before its scheduled launch late next year! It will study dark energy, dark matter (ahem @pearljam.com), exoplanets & more!

Screenshot of All The President’s Men, of “Deep Throat” (Hal Holbrook) smoking a cigarette in a dark parking lot with the subtitles “The truth is, these aren't very bright guys, and things got out of hand."

Forever timeless

With each passing day, I expect to wake up tomorrow morning and find myself at the beginning of Interstellar.

Will it end like Interstellar.

A pod of dolphins welcomes Dragon Freedom home! 🐬🚀

Blue Ghost lander on the Moon, sending and image of its own long shadow, with Earth hanging in the sky.

Blue Ghost is on the Moon!
Images are coming in now from what appears to be the first fully successful commercial lunar lander.

Over the next 2 weeks, it will drill, study lunar dust, and observe an eclipse of the Sun...by the Earth. 🧪🔭

fireflyspace.com/news/firefly...

The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way appears to be having a party, complete with a disco ball-style light show. Using #NASAWebb, astrophysicists have gained the longest, most detailed glimpse yet of the “void” that lurks in the middle of our galaxy. (1/6) 🔭 🧪

Roy Scheider as Heywood Floyd in 1984's 2010: The Year We Make Contact

"We're supposed to be scientists, not politicians [..]"

Workers at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center are surrounding a covered spacecraft on a platform in a clean room environment.

#NASARoman: NASA has successfully joined the sunshade to the Roman observatory’s ‘exoskeleton.’

The visor-like sunshade will help prevent unwanted light from entering the telescope: go.nasa.gov/4hQItFR

LIFTOFF 🚀 Congratulations, Blue Origin! It was a stunning launch!

Reporting for Supercluster

NASA Joins Telescope, Instruments to Roman Spacecraft - NASA Technicians have successfully integrated NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s payload – the telescope, instrument carrier, and two instruments – to the

Technicians have successfully integrated NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s payload—the telescope, instrument carrier, and two instruments—to the spacecraft that will deliver the observatory to its place in space and enable it to function while there. 🔭 🧪

President Jimmy Carter's greeting to the cosmos, launched in 1977, is still heading boldly into interstellar space aboard NASA's Voyager spacecraft, humanity's first emissary to the stars.

It’s become painfully obvious in recent days that most people don’t seem to have ever really looked up into the sky. Incredibly sad. Heartbreaking, even.