Joachim Kopp

Two neutron stars may have formed the first known 'superkilonova' The historic explosion was 1.3 billion light-years away from Earth.

Two neutron stars may have formed the first known ‘superkilonova’ www.popsci.com/science/firs...

Three plots from the LZ paper showing the new results.

Exciting new results from the LZ experiment: new constraints on DM–nucleus scattering, a 4.5σ detection of the solar neutrino flux, and a measurement of the weak mixing angle. lz.lbl.gov

A brief tribute to Bill Bardeen.

RIP Bill Bardeen, superb theorist and exemplary colleague.

This one looks exciting!

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

Image: three figures in protective suits watch from behind a screen as a child approaches a door-like mechanical structure in which stands a man. Between them is an amorphous glowing shape. Caption: Scientists at the institute of halloween studies have succeeded in creating "The treak": a quantum state that is simultaneously trick and treat. It is stable for a millionth of a second before decaying into a half-hearted prank and a mediocre candy bar.

A halloween cartoon for @newscientist.com

Next Friday we are celebrating the inauguration of the Marietta Blau Institute for Particly Physics! 🤩 🥳

🖍️ Haven’t signed up yet? Now’s the time!
➡️ www.oeaw.ac.at/mbi/veransta...

CEPC matures, but approval is on hold – CERN Courier The Circular Electron–Positron Collider (CEPC), a 100-km electron–positron “Higgs factory” proposed in China, has reached the technical-design stage but will not be included for approval or constructi...

CepC proposal will not be included in China’s next 5-year plan

cerncourier.com/cepc-matures...

Image of the mechanical ladder outside the Louvre Text below says WENN'S MAL WIEDER SCHNELL GEHEN MUSS (When you need to move fast) Underneath is more German text which translates as "The Böcker Agilo transports your treasures weighing up to 400kg at 42m/min - quiet as a whisper."

The German company that makes the mechanical ladder used in the Louvre heist has used the image to advertise, with the text 'When you need to move fast'

10/10 response, no notes

Procrastination takes may forms. Tonight as a service to the astronomical community I offer help with your JWST proposal titles.
#JWST 🧪🔭✨

Dan Carney explaining a slide on squeezed quantum states at CERN

Fantastic colloquium at @cern.bsky.social today by @fourform.bsky.social on "The end of measurement and the last lab", part of the ongoing workshop on Quantum Simulation & Computation in HEP (indico.cern.ch/event/1488240).
Bonus: autocorrect mishap leading to the invention of the "axion horoscope".

Wissenschaft als Beruf besteht zu 20% aus Wissenschaft & zu 80% daraus, die immer gleichen Informationen (wie viele Drittmittel/Publikationen/Preise/Arbeitsverträge/...) in stets zusätzliche Arbeit provozierenden leichten Variationen in sehr viele unterschiedliche Formulare einzutragen. #IchBinHanna

China turns on giant neutrino detector : 700 meters under a mountain, a 20,000-tonne detector and a giant sphere await elusive particles

JUNO neutrino detector switches on
www.theregister.com/2025/08/29/c...

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

Verrückter Fakt des Tages: #vfdt
Bis zu 400.000 Menschen arbeiteten in den USA am Apollo-Programm, um Astronauten zum Mond zu bringen. Der politische und wirtschaftliche Aufwand war aus heutiger Sicht kaum vorstellbar. Technische Großprojekte heute (wie CERN oder ITER) sind vergleichsweise winzig.

Squintern: The *slowest* meteorite travels at 25,000 miles per hour!
Me: No, *all* meteorites travel at 0 miles per hour.

We've *gotta* revive this as a pet name for future colliders

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perhaps...

Lessons from LEP – CERN Courier The Large Electron Positron collider changed particle physics forever. As the field eyes up the next major collider, former CERN Director-General Herwig Schopper describes what it took to make LEP…

RIP Herwig Schopper, CERN director general from 1973 to 1976. He made LEP possible, and thus also the LHC. Not so long ago I worked with him on a book about the scientific discoveries at CERN.

Read the interview in the CERN courier about the lessons from LEP cerncourier.com/a/lessons-fr...

How sad to hear that Tom Lehrer has left us. I vividly remember my first big scientific conference – Neutrino 2006 in Santa Fe. At an evening event, members of the Santa Fe Opera sang The Elements Song for us. A brilliant performance. I've been hooked ever since.

This is absurd.

The red supergiant Betelgeuse is the bright feature in this image.

But that darker blue splotch is a *companion star* that's just been discovered—and it orbits so close to Betelgeuse that it's inside the larger star's outer atmosphere.

Let me guess:
2007 – $0
2012 – $100 (to the intern who designed it)
2013 – $1,000
2015 – $10,000
2017 – $100,000
2024 – $1,000,000
2026 – $25 (for a ChatGPT subscription)

Theorists' take on Quantum 👩🏻‍🏫👨‍🏫

We recently invited our community #AtCERN to describe quantum. Now, it's the turn of the physicists to share their insights.

Hear from Miguel, Wilke, and Irene as they share their perspective on what #quantum is.

"𝘉𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘓𝘢𝘣𝘴 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳’𝘴 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘦. 𝘖𝘶𝘳 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘧𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘣𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘺, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘶𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦."

-- Steven Chu, Nobel Lecture 1997

Changes to the 2026 and 2027 Work Programmes With the launch of the competitions for grants under ERC Work Programme 2026 in July of this year, several changes to the submission of applications and the evaluation of proposals will apply. The mai...

Planning to apply for #research #funding from the ERC?

From the next application rounds, expect changes to the:

• proposal structure
• evaluation process
• extra funding you can request
• eligibility for Starting & Consolidator #Grants (from 2027)

More 👇 europa.eu/!RPHWvv

and publicly funded geologists predicted the disaster, preventing massive loss of life.

Goldau seen from the mountain that collapsed.

The loss of their village is a tragedy for the inhabitants of #Blatten. But they are alive because geologists saw it coming. It was their worst case scenario. The village was evacuated. Unlike Goldau in 1806. 457 died. Thanks Geology.

Don’t worry guys, BlueSky can be perfect so long as we all get along. First things first, we just need to agree whether vim or emacs is the better editor.

Der #Exzellenzcluster PRISMA an der JGU Mainz geht in die dritte Runde!

One of my responses was that processes are too complicated :-)
On the other hand, I envy you for not having the EU id app because it means you haven't had to apply for European funding (one of the processes that are too complicated) in recent years :-)