Dr. Alysa Orbits (Obertas)

I haven't been challenged in quite some time, but it happened quite often when I was a kid. Like, literally as a child I would have grown adults trying to debate and argue with me???

Oof this has been my experience (veggie for over 20 years), too. I don't want to debate my choice with people (& I'm not trying to stop people from eating meat), so my answer to "Why?" (for many years) is, "I'm vegetarian because I want to be vegetarian."

This is actually quite brilliant, up to and including the final sentence 🔥

As an aside, the only thing I can think of is reed/deer. I'm too lazy to look up the answer, though!

Screen shot of the Planetary Research landing page.

🎉 Planetary Resarch, our diamond open access journal for #PlanetaryScience, will open for submissions on January 1, 2026 (or earlier for beta testers)! 🎉

planetary-research.org

Once again I have been compelled to draw an Absolute Unit.

"Years and years ago, there was a production of The Tempest, out of doors, at an Oxford college on a lawn, which was the stage, and the lawn went back towards the lake in the grounds of the college, and the play began in natural light. But as it developed, and as it became time for Ariel to say his farewell to the world of The Tempest, the evening had started to close in and there was some artificial lighting coming on. And as Ariel uttered his last speech, he turned and he ran across the grass, and he got to the edge of the lake and he just kept running across the top of the water — the producer having thoughtfully provided a kind of walkway an inch beneath the water. And you could see and you could hear the plish, plash as he ran away from you across the top of the lake, until the gloom enveloped him and he disappeared from your view. And as he did so, from the further shore, a firework rocket was ignited, and it went whoosh into the air, and high up there it burst into lots of sparks, and all the sparks went out, and he had gone. "When you look up the stage directions, it says, 'Exit Ariel.”

Eleven years ago, I wrote to Tom Stoppard to ask about this coup de théâtre from 1949. It took me down an unexpected rabbit hole - in memory of Stoppard, here's what I found.

Haha I'm not sure it's in a state to share 😅

Give it a go! It's been a while since I looked, but I think they have some examples for how to make them!

Gaia: Rewriting the story of the Milky Way

For over a decade, #ESAGaia mapped our galaxy with stunning precision, rewriting the story of the Milky Way 👉 www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed...

While Gaia no longer collects new data, its scientific mission is far from over! Upcoming are the Gaia Data Release 4 and the final legacy catalogue. 🔭

How to Measure the Earth’s Radius With Legos With just a friend, a phone, and a few Lego bricks, you can accurately measure the size of our planet.

With just a friend, a phone, and a few Lego bricks, you can accurately measure the size of our planet. www.wired.com/story/how-to...

Scientific Reports has a ⬆️ Impact Inflation: a very high IF given their citation network (self-citing, citation cartels, etc).

They'll even typeset & publish AI slop for a fee!

Strain: bit.ly/StrainQSS
Strain explorer β: pagoba.shinyapps.io/strain_explo...

#SciPub #ResearchIntegrity #AcademicSky

A clever person would use matplotlib's built-in features to make an animation, but for whatever reason when I originally made the RV one (in 2019) I couldn't get it to work. So I made a series of frames and stitched them together with ffmpeg in the command line 😅

I hope they help your students!

I made them with python. I'd have to take a peek at the code, but I likely made use of rebound, matplotlib, and numpy.

Dark mode of my transit method gif is now on wikimedia commons! :)

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ex...

Transit (dark):

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ex...

LIBRARIES MAKE BOOKS ACCESSIBLE TO EVERYONE, she shouts, apparently inaudibly

WHY DO THESE "YOU'RE A CLASS TRAITOR" PEOPLE KEEP PRETENDING LIBRARIES DON'T EXIST?

ARE THEY CLASS TRAITORS WHO DON'T BELIEVE IN LIBRARIES?

Thanks! I wanted to release it as CC so that anyone could use it freely without worrying about license stuff. I never expected that so many people would end up using it, though!

Happy to hear that - thank you! And you're welcome for making it ;) I shared it so that others would be able to use it, after all!

Aw thank you :) There are some other great gifs that others have made, but I will take the compliment ;)

I'm happy to hear that! There are some really great gifs out there other than mine :)

As a newly elected department chair… why am I thinking of this AO3 entry today? No reason, I’m sure…

(It is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and a student needs a snake for her defense.)

bsky.app/profile/astr...

Transit (light):

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ex...

Doppler/radial velocity (dark):

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ex...

Doppler/radial velocity (light):

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ra...

A reminder that this gif and a similar one for the transit method are on Wikimedia Commons for anyone to use.

I'm actually putting together a teaching dossier at the moment and I'd love to hear from people if you've used any of my gifs for teaching, outreach, or science stuff!

Links to gifs below:

Haha that's actually something I put on the original file. But the gif (light and dark mode) is on Wikimedia Commons for anyone to use :)

PBS Space Time Space Time explores the outer reaches of space, the craziness of astrophysics, the possibilities of sci-fi, and anything else you can think of beyond Planet Earth with our astrophysicist host: Matthew...

It's a really awesome astrophysics show for the public that's produced by PBS. You can watch it on youtube or on PBS (I can watch it via the app on my TV, but it looks like it's about a month behind youtube).

www.youtube.com/@pbsspacetime