Ian J. O'Neill's Avatar

Ian J. O'Neill

@astroengine.bsky.social

NASA JPL news media specialist. Topics include (not limited to): β˜„οΈπŸ›°οΈπŸ“‘πŸͺπŸŒ•βš›οΈ Solar physics PhD. Science communicator, writer. Opinions are mine. he/him

490 Followers  |  49 Following  |  44 Posts  |  Joined: 04.08.2023  |  1.8839

Latest posts by astroengine.bsky.social on Bluesky

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Opinion | I'm a Minneapolis sociologist who studies violence. Here's how ICE observers are helping. Research into how violence occurs shows that disapproval from the people around you can help reduce it.

For @msnownews.bsky.social, I wrote an article about how ICE Watch is grounded in sociological theories of violence prevention.

The reality is that most men will only commit public violence in extremely specific scenarios and ICE Watch disrupts the conditions necessary for escalation.

16.01.2026 18:55 β€” πŸ‘ 7946    πŸ” 3346    πŸ’¬ 95    πŸ“Œ 280

Just watched The Rip and my review is: Any movie under 2 hours is ok in my books. Also, seeing Ben and Matt on screen together is never a bad thing. 5 out of 10. Totally predictable, then it's not, and then... oh yeah, I knew he was the bad guy. Silly fun with a lot of shooting in the dark.

17.01.2026 06:38 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Just watched "Weapons" and it turns out that my review for the movie is exactly the same as my review for 2025: Gross, tragic, dumb, too long, and poorly executed.

01.01.2026 07:22 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Titan might not have an ocean after all A reanalysis of data from NASA’s Cassini mission suggests Saturn’s icy moon may lack the subsurface ocean presumed for a decade

Saturn's largest moon, Titan, has been a member of the deep-sea club for almost 2 decades. New research might revoke its water world card. πŸͺ 🌊

My 2nd #AGU2025 story of the week for @science.org : www.science.org/content/arti... #space #titan #nasa

17.12.2025 20:46 β€” πŸ‘ 55    πŸ” 15    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 1
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NASA Study Suggests Saturn’s Moon Titan May Not Have Global Ocean - NASA A key discovery from NASA’s Cassini mission in 2008 was that Saturn’s largest moon Titan may have a vast water ocean below its hydrocarbon-rich surface. But

I wanted to do a quick thread about this paper led by a great postdoc here at JPL, Flavio Petricca, which suggests that Titan may not have a global ocean after all. www.nasa.gov/solar-system...

18.12.2025 16:36 β€” πŸ‘ 43    πŸ” 17    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 4
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Saturn's moon Titan may not have a buried ocean as long suspected, new study suggests Saturn's giant moon Titan may not have a vast underground ocean after all. New research suggests Titan instead may hold deep layers of ice and slush more akin to Earth's polar seas instead of a buried ocean as long suspected.

Saturn's giant moon Titan may not have a vast underground ocean after all.

18.12.2025 15:01 β€” πŸ‘ 70    πŸ” 14    πŸ’¬ 5    πŸ“Œ 12
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NASA Study Suggests Saturn’s Moon Titan May Not Have Global Ocean Reanalysis of data from NASA’s Cassini mission has revealed Saturn’s moon may instead have layers of slush with isolated pockets of liquid water.

Cassini, Saturn, and Titan, what's not to love? πŸ›°πŸŒ•πŸ“‘

A new Nature study, led by JPL scientists, has taken a new look at archived gravity data from NASA's Cassini mission to reveal that, perhaps, Saturn's largest moon Titan does not have a subsurface ocean: www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-st...

19.12.2025 00:06 β€” πŸ‘ 9    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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A Beacon to Space - NASA In this infrared photograph taken on June 2, 2025, the Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Table Mountain

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Text: @astroengine.bsky.social

DSOC successfully demonstrated that data encoded in laser photons could be reliably transmitted, received, and then decoded after traveling millions of miles from Earth out to Mars distances.

Learn more: buff.ly/NkOiLkL

22.10.2025 15:03 β€” πŸ‘ 11    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Interstellar object candidate #A11pl3Z from Deep Random Survey, Chile (obs code X09). No obvious tail, will have to do a stack to see if there's anything...

Date is 2025 Jul 2 00:52:39 UTC.

02.07.2025 01:30 β€” πŸ‘ 246    πŸ” 55    πŸ’¬ 14    πŸ“Œ 27
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Trump pulls Isaacman nomination for space. Source: β€œNASA is f***ed” β€œNASA’s budget request is just a going-out-of-business mode” without Isaacman.

Well, shit.

"NASA's budget request is just a going-out-of-business mode"

arstechnica.com/space/2025/0...

01.06.2025 00:22 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Dozens of active and planned NASA spacecraft killed in Trump budget request Proposal would end nearly all new major science missions

This budget request would cripple NASA's space science efforts. Active and planned science missions scrapped. $ billions of wasted taxpayer money.

This is sick.

www.science.org/content/arti...

31.05.2025 19:23 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
An erupting volcano.

An erupting volcano.

Such an amazing view right now. www.youtube.com/live/BqmpkUd...

26.05.2025 04:53 β€” πŸ‘ 10    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Which news outlet is actually informing its readers about what happened?

25.05.2025 13:59 β€” πŸ‘ 4445    πŸ” 1065    πŸ’¬ 151    πŸ“Œ 33
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This movie shows the bubbling surface of a distant star, as captured with unprecedented clarity by the ALMA observatory.

R Doradus is a huge star. Each of these bubbles is 50-75 times the diameter of our entire Sun! πŸ§ͺπŸ”­

www.almaobservatory.org/en/press-rel...

24.05.2025 23:50 β€” πŸ‘ 851    πŸ” 144    πŸ’¬ 23    πŸ“Œ 12
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Trump’s β€œGolden Dome” Won’t Workβ€”but It’ll Make Elon Musk Richer For 40 years, missile defense has never been about keeping America safe. It’s all about the contracts.

National missile defense is the longest-running scam in the history of the Department of Defense. Musk didn’t invent it, but he’s about to get a whole lot richer by perpetuating it.

https://trib.al/Qpb9WJE

25.05.2025 13:01 β€” πŸ‘ 230    πŸ” 113    πŸ’¬ 22    πŸ“Œ 6
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The Coyotes of San Francisco

The Coyotes of San Francisco www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/u...

25.05.2025 17:33 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

"This isn’t just dubious legislation. It’s antidemocratic decadence. These are the governing priorities of a ruling class that faces no democratic accountability."

24.05.2025 17:11 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Trump’s Week: Rob From the Poor, Give to the Rich, Steal Like Crazy Nothing sums up the descent into authoritarian corruption of the once-republican USA like the events of May 22, 2025.

Rob From the Poor, Give to the Rich, Steal Like Crazy newrepublic.com/post/195695/... via @newrepublic.com

24.05.2025 17:11 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Cheers from LA, fella 🍸

23.05.2025 05:39 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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JPL to Transition to Fully Onsite Work In an email to employees, the director’s office announced that a transition to fully onsite work will occur this year.

Not entirely surprising, though sudden and... sad. Thinking, especially, about my remote telework colleagues today, who will need to make some very hard decisions πŸ˜” www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/jpl-to-...

23.05.2025 00:02 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

The very same! Amazing guy. LOVE working with him

14.05.2025 22:48 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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NASA’s Magellan Mission Reveals Possible Tectonic Activity on Venus Using archival data from the mission, launched in 1989, researchers have uncovered new evidence that tectonic activity may be deforming the planet’s surface.

Not one but TWO science features today πŸ™Œ In this one, NASA's Magellan is a mission that just keeps on giving. By combining topography and gravity data from the spacecraft, VERITAS scientists have detected tectonic processes shaping the planet's coronae. More: www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-m...

14.05.2025 22:43 β€” πŸ‘ 14    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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NASA Studies Reveal Hidden Secrets About Interiors of Moon, Vesta Analyzing gravity data collected by spacecraft orbiting other worlds reveals groundbreaking insights about planetary structures without having to land on the surface.

I got to work on a neat feature about the Moon. It posted today. The cover art was too good not to share. Basically, using high-resolution gravity data, scientists at JPL could measure the very tiny flexing of the Moon as it orbits Earth. More: www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-st...

14.05.2025 22:38 β€” πŸ‘ 50    πŸ” 10    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 0
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NASA Streams Historic Video from Deep Space NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the leading center for robotic exploration of the solar system.

Here's all you need to know about the video, technology demonstration, and the star of the show, Taters: www.jpl.nasa.gov/nasa-streams...

01.04.2025 22:47 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Vote for the best of the internet I just voted in The Webby People's Voice Awards and checked my voter registration.

NASA JPL's Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) tech demo flying with NASA's Psyche mission streamed the now famous (and historic) UHD video of Taters the cat over 19 million miles to Earth in late 2023. Today, the orange tabby up for a Webby. Vote! vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting...

01.04.2025 22:46 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Twins Study - NASA NASA's year-long Twins Study compared identical twins – Scott and Mark Kelly – while Scott was in space and Mark was on Earth.

Hey mate, I was able to find these, if of any use: www.nasa.gov/humans-in-sp...
www.nasa.gov/humans-in-sp...

The NASA search isn't so great, so I usually use Google to find old articles. We had a big web redesign about a year ago, so some URLs may still be broken.

10.03.2025 18:18 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

This is a bigger issue than people realize. Not just jobs lost. But their families losing benefits. Landlords losing tenants. Cities and towns losing revenue. This is how recessions start

Ready Fire Aim is no way to govern.

02.03.2025 14:14 β€” πŸ‘ 56877    πŸ” 12819    πŸ’¬ 3333    πŸ“Œ 646

"The Lunar Trailblazer team has been working around the clock to re-establish communications with the spacecraft ... if anyone can bring Lunar Trailblazer back, it is them." - Nicky Fox, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate, NASA HQ

05.03.2025 22:08 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

@astroengine is following 20 prominent accounts