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Vacuum birefringence in the polarized X-ray emission of a radio magnetar. Rachael E. Stewart et. al. https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.19446

There are handheld calculators that can run Python now.

I’m an award-winning mathematician. Trump just cut my funding. The “Mozart of Math” tried to stay out of politics. Then it came for his research.

I wrote an op-ed on the world-class STEM research ecosystem in the United States, and how this ecosystem is now under attack on multiple fronts by the current administration: newsletter.ofthebrave.org/p/im-an-awar...

The question you must ask yourself is does it need to be on the moon and is it a cost effective way to do the science?

CHIME/FRB/Pulsar discovery of a nearby long period radio transient with a timing glitch We present the discovery of a 421 s long period radio transient (LPT) using the CHIME telescope, CHIME J0630+25. The source is localized to RA=06:30:38.4$\pm1'$ Dec=25:26:24$\pm1'$ using voltage data ...

👀🤯
arxiv.org/abs/2407.07480

now?

NSF and NIH suspend grants to UCLA Move follows Trump administration finding that school didn’t effectively combat antisemitism

The Trump administration is launching a new wave of attacks on universities, and UCLA is the latest target.

My reporting on how the university has been hit and how some of its scientists are responding:
www.science.org/content/arti...

🤦‍♂️

Tank you!

YouTube video by AAS AAS Journal Author Series: Kaustubh Rajwade on 2025ApJ...985L...3R

youtu.be/BLjJgZP4SkU
🔭
AAS Journal Author Series: Kaustubh Rajwade on 2025ApJ...985L...3R

Kaustubh Rajwade (University of Oxford) chats about his article on a radio burst from a neutron star in the Carina Nebula.

Nobel Prize Laureate Kip Thorne speaking yesterday at the Albert Einstein Institute in Postdam, Germany:
"Donald Trump is destroying America's capacity for [leading science]. We are counting on Europe to take over here and elsewhere." ⚛️ 🧪

Last week, NASA and NSF released their FY26 budget requests. We list the detailed impacts on the astronomical sciences in this blog post, and share how you can take action today.
aas.org/posts/news/2...

@policy.aas.org

Detection of X-ray emission from a bright long-period radio transient - Nature A long-period radio transient with coincident radio and X-ray emission and observational properties unlike any known Galactic object has been observed by the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder.

Nature research paper: Detection of X-ray emission from a bright long-period radio transient

https://go.nature.com/43xlKZS

Plot showing two tiles vertically stacked. Top tile shows the signal from this object as observed in radio. It presents as two narrow peaks. The bottom tile represents the signal in x-rays, and presents as more broader peaks that have extended features. The peaks for both radio and x-rays occur at the same phase

What makes ASKAP J1832-0911 stand out from the rest of the Long-Period Transients is that, for the first time, coincident X-ray emission, along with radio emissions, have also been detected from such an object, thanks to the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

📸 Ziteng (Andy) Wang / @icrar.bsky.social

imagine how much ink and paint has been saved over the decades by the clearly superior version

Looking up at the Capitol rotunda against a blue sky. An American flag in front of the rotunda is blowing in the wind.

The president's budget proposal cuts billions in funding from the DOE Office of Science, NIST, NASA, and the NSF — but there’s still time to change it. Tell your lawmakers why they should stand up for science using our letter-writing toolkit, targeted to your state: go.aps.org/3RP9EWF

The American Astronomical Society is gravely concerned by the deep cuts to NASA science funding reported to be in the draft President’s Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2026. Read more here: aas.org/press/aas-st... and take action now: aas.org/urge-nasa-su...

Inside arXiv—the Most Transformative Platform in All of Science Modern science wouldn’t exist without the online research repository known as arXiv. Three decades in, its creator still can’t let it go.

Modern science wouldn’t exist without the online research repository known as arXiv. Three decades in, its creator still can’t let it go.

Inside Trump and Musk’s Takeover of NASA So far, NASA has been spared the sweeping cuts that DOGE has unleashed on other federal agencies. Is that about to change?

It’s unclear whether Elon Musk’s enthusiasm for space exploration, and his influence with President Trump, could help shield NASA from sweeping cuts—or encourage Musk to remake it in his image.

Joint Radiative and Kinematic Modelling of X-ray Binary Ejecta: Energy Estimate and Reverse Shock Detection Black hole X-ray binaries in outburst launch discrete, large-scale jet ejections which can propagate to parsec scales. The kinematics of these ejecta appear to be well described by relativistic blast ...

Alex Cooper's paper resurrecting GRB models for X-ray binary jets - after a nearly 25 year hiatus.
Here, we use a modified jetsimpy model to include reverse shock emission for both energy and kinematics for X-ray binary MAXI J1535-571
#astronomy #highenergyastro

arxiv.org/abs/2503.10804

new preprint! 🥳

Mission accomplished for Integral, ESA’s gamma-ray telescope

Mission accomplished for #Integral 🕹️🛰️✅

After 2886 orbits & 22 years in space, our gamma-ray telescope ends its observations 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl...

Integral uncovered the nature of gamma-ray bursts & the origin of gravitational wave events, among others 💥✨ 1/3

🔭🧪 #highenergyastro

Observation of a Rapidly Pulsating Radio Source by A. HEWISH S. J. BELL J. D. H. PILKINGTON P. F. SCOTT R. A. COLLINS Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge Unusual signals from pulsating radio sources have been recorded at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory. The radiation seems to come from local objects within the gala‹y, and may be associated with oscillations of white dwarf or neutron stars. In July 1967, a large radio telescope operating at a frequency of 81-5 MHz was brought into use at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory. This instrument was designed to investigate the angular structure of compact radio sources by observing the scintillation caused by the irregular structure of the interplanetary medium'. The initial survey includes the whole sky in the declination range - 08° < 8<44° and this area is scanned once a week. A large fraction of the sky is thus under regular surveillance. Soon after the instrument was brought into operation it was noticed that signals which appeared at first to be weak sporadic interference were repeatedly observed at a fixed declination and right ascension; this result showed that the source could not be terrestrial in origin.

Jocelyn Bell and Anthony Hewish announced their discovery of a “rapidly pulsating radio source” — what we now refer to as a pulsar — with a paper in @nature.com #OTD in 1968. 🧪 🔭 ⚛️
www.nature.com/articles/217...

Language-like efficiency in whale communication Whale vocalizations follow efficiency rules seen in human language, revealing striking similarities in communication systems.

Do whales optimize their vocalizations for efficiency, just like human language? 🐋🎶 My latest study in
Science Advances (@science.org) suggests they do—following linguistic laws seen in human speech. 🧵 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

An example of a galaxy hosting a fast radio burst identified by the CRACO system using the ASKAP radio telescope. The central image shows a galaxy (white on a black background). The inset plot shows the signal from a fast radio burst named FRB 240615. Image credit: Yuanming Wang, the CRAFT Collaboration.

A new result led by my former student Ziteng (Andy) Wang and colleagues:

"20 mysterious radio bursts" found using our new Commensal Realtime ASKAP Fast Transient COherent (CRACO) system.

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01...

(With commentary by @astrolaura.com)

#RadioAstronomy

Astronaut Nick Hague takes a high-flying "space-selfie" iss072e487911 (Jan. 16, 2025) --- The NICER X-ray telescope is reflected on NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 Flight Engineer Nick Hague's spacesuit helmet visor in this high-flying "space-selfie." Als...

Nick Hague takes a selfie showing #NICER on #ISS www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2...

🥳❤️

Bend was awesome in the 90s, but now it's overcrowded

A highly magnetized long-period radio transient exhibiting unusual emission features A long-period radio transient exhibits unusual emission features that could potentially reveal its physical nature.

👀
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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