Amruta

The Virtual Astronomy Software Talk series is looking for new organizers to join us. The link for application is: https://tinyurl.com/VASTorgs. The Virtual Astronomy Software Talks seminar series puts software in the spotlight! Each month developers share their libraries and projects with the global astronomy community, followed by an open discussion. We are looking for resaearchers who are passionate about software development to join us as organisers. Apply at the link above. You can follow us at: https://vast-seminars.github.io/

The Virtual Astronomy Software Talk series welcomes new organizers. You can learn more about VAST on our website: vast-seminars.github.io.

Please apply by Oct 15 : tinyurl.com/VASTorgs

#astronomy #software

💯

Massive stars in our Milky Way Galaxy live spectacular lives. Collapsing from vast cosmic clouds, their nuclear furnaces ignite and create heavy elements in their cores. After only a few million years for the most massive stars, the enriched material is blasted back into interstellar space where star formation can begin anew. The expanding debris cloud known as Cassiopeia A is an example of this final phase of the stellar life cycle. Light from the supernova explosion that created this remnant would have been first seen in planet Earth's sky about 350 years ago, although it took that light 11,000 years to reach us. This sharp NIRCam image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows the still hot filaments and knots in the supernova remnant. The whitish, smoke-like outer shell of the expanding blast wave is about 20 light-years across. A series of light echoes from the massive star's cataclysmic explosion are also identified in Webb's detailed images of the surrounding interstellar medium.

🔭 Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; D. Milisavljevic (Purdue University), T. Temim (Princeton University), I. De Looze (University of Gent)

apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap25011...

Artist's impression of the Gaia space telescope in front of the Milky Way. Gaia looks kind of like a sunhat. I've added a little halo above it. The Milky Way has a glowy centre and you can see the dusk tracks in the disk. You can also see the bright blobs of the Magellanic Clouds below the Milky Way

The amazing @esa.int Gaia telescope is taking its last measurements today

Gaia has had a tremendous impact on astronomy. Without the easy to access (and use) data releases, a lot of the work I do would be impossible

Thank you, Gaia and team! Can't wait for the future data releases! 🔭🧪

But with escalating climate events we will have limited resources for mutual aid. What then? What happens next? How do we protect the Earth and those we love?

Meanwhile ordinary people are losing everything and are being left to their own devices. The only thing which gives me hope is mutual aid, people helping people which is getting them through right now. The kindness of strangers.

The capitalistic hell-scape is beyond belief, insurance companies cancelling fire insurances weeks before this tragedy, city budgets draining fire departments to fund more ****, oil and gas companies still asking for unfettered drilling, and apathetic administration about to take office.

It feels like a hollow day to wake up to, to realize yes we are safe for now but climate breakdown is coming for all of us. No one is insulated and yet there is no political will, at least not proportional to the scale of disasters we are witnessing in real time.

Local Mexican place we always visited after hikes - gone, parks where we walked our dog - gone, nature conservation center in Eaton canyon - probably gone, animals and the beautiful chaparral in the foothills - gone, everything people built with love and sweat - gone!

But the pace of climate catastrophe is staggering. It is coming at us so much more rapidly! #Eatonfire really brings home how rapidly things are breaking down for me. Many of our friends and colleagues in Altadena have lost their homes.

The Pasadena street we lived on till just a few months ago is under evacuation. Our neighbors have left with pets. This was unfathomable a few years ago. We thought being 5 mi from foothills meant it has to be an insane wildfire far in the future of climate change for our area to evac.

#Eatonfire

Haven't had the opportunity to image the sky for a while due to cloud and the festive period. I'm getting withdrawal symptoms!

This image of the Tadpoles Nebula is from the end of last year. It's processed using a false Hubble style palette.

#astrophotography 🔭

The new season of Queer Eye is so heartwarming and healing especially after an year of go-go-go

A color image of M.C. Escher's drawing "Circle Limit III." It is a map of the Lobachevsky upper half plane to a disk. The semi-circle geodesics are now arcs between points on the edge of the circle. A number of colored fish are drawn along these arcs; all the fish along an arc have the same color. They are longer near the center of the disk and shorter near its edge.

The geometry of this "Poincaré disk" inspired M.C. Escher's "Circle Limit" series of drawings. In this case the rulers are the fish-lengths. See how they get small as you approach the edge? (21/n)

Image: M.C. Escher, "Circle Limit III"

Pulsar discovery note.

Pulsar signals stacked, as used for the Joy Division album cover

57 years ago today, Jocelyn Bell detected a series of strange, repeating radio signals. Her finding led to the discovery of pulsars...and inspired the iconic cover of Joy Division's first album. 🧪
www.cam.ac.uk/stories/jour...

Next week over 250 astronomers gather in Boston to celebrate 25 years of NASA's flagship X-ray mission Chandra.

Planning this event over the last year as the SOC and LOC lead has been such a tremendous learning opportunity and a privilege. Fingers crossed it all goes well 🤞

#chandra #nasamission

A mosaic of the GitHub Avatars for a large fraction of the Astropy collaboration

The American Astronomical Society is delighted to announce that the Astropy Project, and all contributors to it, will receive the 2025 Berkeley Prize for Meritorious Work in Astronomy. Astropy will deliver the honorary closing Plenary of #AAS245.

PRESS RELEASE: aas.org/press/astrop...

🥲

For the second time this year, NASA’s JPL center cuts its workforce “If we hold strong together, we will come through this.”…

Sending virtual hugs and strength to JPL colleagues experiencing a very difficult day today.

arstechnica.com/space/2024/1...

#NASA

a group of cartoon characters with their hands in the air and the words we 're back baby ALT: a group of cartoon characters with their hands in the air and the words we 're back baby

Opening BlueSky today to all the familiar names from the other place and a beautifully normal feed ❤️

#welcome

We are back!!

48 hrs left to submit your abstracts for the 25 years of Science with Chandra Symposium.

cxc.cfa.harvard.edu/cdo/symposiu...

#astronomy #X-rays #ChandraX-ray #25yrsChandra

The abstract submission deadline for the 25 years of Science with Chandra Symposium is coming up on Sep 5th! Come join us at the meeting.

cxc.cfa.harvard.edu/cdo/symposiu...

A gorgeous painting depicting Chandra + JWST observations of Crab nebula.

Mini 4x4” painting on easel sitting next to plant

Crab Nebula 🦀
A supernova remnant with a pulsar (rapidly rotating neutron star) formed by the collapsed core of a dying massive star.

JWST (infrared) 🤝 Chandra (x-ray)

📸: NASA/CXC/SAO/JPMajor

This is such a wonderful news for the X-ray community!

From Athena's social:

"ESA's Programme Committee endorsed a rescoped version of the Athena mission. The SPC has recognized that NewAthena will transform our knowledge in almost every corner of modern astrophysics"

bit.ly/3srANG1

If you are an astronomer who is interested in Alert Brokers, please join us for a VAST session next week.

Graduate Fellowships | Institute for Advanced Computational Science Graduate Fellowship Opportunities

interested in computational science for grad school? Apply for one of the Stony Brook Institute for Advanced Science graduate fellowships:

iacs.stonybrook.edu/opportunitie...

I'm happy to chat with anyone interested in computational astrophysics

#astro

A note from Chris Lintott For more than a decade, I've been ending talks by looking forward to the rich data that will soon begin flowing from the Vera Rubin Observatory. The observatory's magnificent new telescope, nearing it...

Some, as they say, personal news. Relevant for astronomers 🔭 and anyone who does citizen science with Zooniverse. 🧪