Dr. Scott W. Fleming

Yes this, unlike other more common industries with much larger applicant pools, astrophysics (and things like software engineers applying their craft to a specialized field like this) is not something than can be restocked quickly en masse, and many who left won’t just come back from their new jobs.

MAST background in "standard" sky projection, in hues of blue. Lighter blue areas mark lots of observations, while darker areas are less. Numerous patterns are visible, like the continuous viewing zones as ovals in the lower-left and upper right, patterns from overlapping TESS FFIs, or the Kepler footprint shapes stamped along the ecliptic and in the original Kepler field in the upper-right.

A grid of 16 images, 4x4, showing the sky background only for specific missions to get a sense of where in the sky and how much of it each mission observed to at least some depth.

Ever wondered what the "MAST Sky" looks like, from our ~6 PB of data spanning 3 decades...check this out! spacetelescope.github.io/mast-blog/ma...

Really fun project led by the very talented Julie Imig at MAST, showing mission coverage sky-projected! They make VERY good video backgrounds, btw. 🔭

NASA's new PUNCH mission is a constellation of 4 small satellites that collectively provide an unprecedented view of giant eruptions breaking free from the Sun.

This first-release video compresses about 6 days of observations. 🧪🔭

science.nasa.gov/blogs/punch/...

A section of the Cat’s Paw Nebula, a local star-forming region composed of gas, dust, and young stars. Four roughly circular areas are toward the center of the frame: a small oval toward the top left, a large circle in the top center, and two ovals at bottom left and right. Each circular area has a luminous blue glow, with the top center and bottom left areas the brightest. Brown-orange filaments of dust, which vary in density, surround these four bluish patches and stretch toward the frame’s edges. Small zones, such as to the left and right of the top-center blue circular area, appear darker and seemingly vacant of stars. Toward the center are small, fiery red clumps scattered among the brown dust. Many small, yellow-white stars are spread across the scene, some with eight-pointed diffraction spikes that are characteristic of Webb. A few larger blue-white stars with diffraction spikes are scattered throughout, mostly toward the top left and bottom right.

Hooray for three years of paw-sitively amazing #NASAWebb science! To celebrate, the telescope examined a singular “toe bean” of the Cat’s Paw Nebula, a massive star-forming region. Webb reveals gas, dust, and massive young stars: webbtelescope.pub/4khJK9T 🔭

Reply with an image of your pet’s paws! 🐾

This is what we are doing after Roman. But only if NASA science funding is kept at the levels we need. It takes decades to plan and build these missions, and it’s only possible through steady public support AND stable federal funding throughout the years.

The work our talented team does to ensure the public learns about discoveries made with NASA telescopes, and our place in the Universe, risks being lost without at least keeping NASA’s funding flat. The current budget plan removes almost all of it. If this matters to you, make sure your reps know.

Links to register to all our events!

www.blackinastro.com/black-space-...

I present the #astrocode Pyriod for interactive or scripted pre-whitening frequency analysis of astronomical time series data. See the demo of #stellarastro #TESS data analysis of a pulsating white dwarf star. Check it out at github.com/keatonb/Pyriod/.

Excited for #BlackSpaceWeek 2025! #BlackInAstro

A code block labeled "A Common Bug (in compiled extension modules)." The code shows an attempt to exit a calculation of a large array of random numbers, and then indicates that a Ctrl+C interrupt takes 3.5 seconds to return, rather than returning immediately as is probably the desired and expected behavior.

Have you ever started a Python process, realized that you made a mistake, immediately hit Ctrl+C to interrupt it and then waited a surprisingly long time to get the command line back?

This delay is caused by a bug in the compiled #Python extension.

:thread:

Professional astronomers: Follow this official account that will keep researchers up to date on preparing for and participating in Roman research!

Learn how to use our powerful cloud platforms at the AAS meeting in Alaska! We need more interested attendees! 🔭

NEW: Those undulations aren’t clouds—they’re Jupiter’s aurora as seen by #NASAWebb. Webb observed light from a particular molecule, represented in orange, and found that the planet’s aurora fluctuates on timescales of minutes or seconds: webbtelescope.pub/4kbsB20 🔭 🧪

Experience the Cosmic Cliffs like never before! #NASAWebb’s iconic image of dusty “mountains” and “valleys” is featured in a new 3D visualization from NASA’s Universe of Learning: webbtelescope.pub/4jRHIh9 🔭 🧪

We are working on resolving this.

For those attending the AAS in the summer, consider signing up to take our data workshop where you'll learn how to effectively use our cloud platforms to query for data, access catalogs, and create image cutouts! Very relevant for TESS and Roman astronomers in particular, but all are welcome!

YouTube video by Space Telescope Science Institute Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope: Mapping the Universe

Astronomers will use #NASARoman to improve our understanding of the universe. See the bigger picture with Roman. Credit: NASA, STScI, Caltech/IPAC. 🔭 🧪

Three astronomical objects, each represented as a cutout image separated by diagonal lines. The left cutout shows a colorful field of dust and gases. One ridge of dust and gas is outlined with a dotted green line. Slightly below the outline, a bright red light is circled with a dotted green line. Three dotted green arrows point from the circled red light toward the outlined ridge. The central cutout shows one arm of a spiral galaxy. The spiral arm, a thick filament of dust and gas, begins near a bright yellow core and swirls outward, clockwise. There are pockets of pink, which are star-forming regions. All other details within the region are covered with a darkened overlay. The right cutout shows two jets of hot gas shooting out from central stars.  There is a white dashed line outlining a thick line of soft brown dust and gas, which is the edge of the nebula. This edge and its outline stretch from the bottom left of the cutout to the bottom-center before curving upward and ending at the top-right.

A project I worked on got its official release today.

ViewSpace Interactive Image Tours offer a guided exploration of astronomical images.

Designed to be used on touch screens in museums and science centers, they are also fun to explore on your own 🔭🧪🎢

www.universe-of-learning.org/contents/new...

New high level science product at MAST used paid citizen scientists to help train an image similarity algorithm. Could be used in the future to enable searches like "find me all the MAST images that look like this one". Neat stuff. 🔭

An infographic about astroquery.mast, a Python module for accessing astronomical data from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST). The poster has a dark space-themed background with stars and an orange Astropy logo at the top. Illustrations of a telescope, the MAST logo, and a rocket ship are included for visual appeal. White text explains that Astroquery is a Python library that allows users to access online astronomical data archives and services programmatically. Astroquery.mast is a submodule of Astroquery that provides access to the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST), which contains data from over 20 missions. Astroquery.mast users can search for observation datasets and query for telescope data by object, coordinates, and other criteria. Users can retrieve and access data products, including raw and processed images, spectra, and light curves. Users can also query astronomical catalogs such as the Hubble Source Catalog, Gaia, Pan-STARRS, and more. Astroquery.mast also allows users to make cutouts from image products by extracting smaller regions from large astronomical images.

An infographic about astroquery.mast, a Python module for accessing astronomical data from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST). The poster has a dark space-themed background with stars and an orange Astropy logo at the top. Illustrations of a telescope, the MAST logo, and a rocket ship are included for visual appeal. White text explains that Astroquery is a Python library that allows users to access online astronomical data archives and services programmatically. Astroquery.mast is a submodule of Astroquery that provides access to the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST), which contains data from over 20 missions. Astroquery.mast users can search for observation datasets and query for telescope data by object, coordinates, and other criteria. Users can retrieve and access data products, including raw and processed images, spectra, and light curves. Users can also query astronomical catalogs such as the Hubble Source Catalog, Gaia, Pan-STARRS, and more. Astroquery.mast also allows users to make cutouts from image products by extracting smaller regions from large astronomical images.

Have you head of astroquery, the Python package that let's you search and access astrophysical data? You can do a lot with the MAST submodule within astroquery! We also have tutorials to get you started! Here's our latest tutorial 🔭: spacetelescope.github.io/mast_noteboo...

The UV Legacy Library of Young Stars as Essential Standards (ULLYSES) Large Director's Discretionary Program with Hubble. I. Goals, Design, and Initial Results Specifically selected to leverage the unique ultraviolet capabilities of the Hubble Space Telescope, the Hubble Ultraviolet Legacy Library of Young Stars as Essential Standards (ULLYSES) is a Director...

Excited that the primary paper for ULLYSES, a large director's discretionary program on Hubble to observe a set of UV stellar spectra is out and on arXiv. A lot of work completed by a lot of people to create and curate this legacy dataset: arxiv.org/abs/2504.05446 🔭

YouTube video by Audio Universe Hearing black hole winds

Next paper I want to highlight: the paper for STRAUSS by @trayford.bsky.social et al. came out! ☄️ #astrocode

STRAUSS is a tool for sonifying scientific data, meaning you can enhance the presentation & accessibility of your data.

Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2504.01660

Here's a great example:

Took longer than I would have liked (my fault entirely) but the HLSP I worked on and got published back in 2023(!) is now announced. Almost 2,000 GALEX light curves at 30-second resolution, from the hard work of Chase Million running gPhoton2 on cloud and filtering out loads of false positives! 🔭

We do not need disruption in space science. You want NASA to be even more amazing than it currentlyis? Give it stable, predictable funding on the timescales of the projects it is building(decades) (And more of it, too)

Let's debunk this whole "space is hard" mantra.

Looking at all NASA-led missions launched since 2000, only 4 out of ~60 missions experienced total failures.

Two of these were due to issues with the commercial launch vehicle, & two were spacecraft issues.

That is a *93% success rate.* (1/n)

YouTube video by NASA Goddard NASA's Roman Space Telescope Hardware Highlights: Summer/Fall 2024

Montage video showing Roman Space Telescope assembly over 2024! www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ_k... 🔭

Tired of wondering which atomic lines are in your spectra? You need:

*whose line is it anyway?* An interactive tool for identifying atomic spectral lines. 🧪🔭 #stars

install:
pip install whoseline

source:
github.com/bmorris3/who...

JOBS: Calling all cloud, software and network engineers!

Take a look at the variety of jobs available at @spacetelescope.bsky.social: recruiting2.ultipro.com/SPA1004AURA/...

So many people are hoping that if they comply a little bit now, they will be in a position to resist big later, but that's not how it works

You comply a little bit now and they move the goal posts and you comply a little bit more and they move the goal posts and eventually 10+ million people die

Happy Black History Month. Listen to, support, fund, and uplift Black people. #BHM #BlackHistoryMonth

Black journos: go.bsky.app/QvS5FNb

Black scientists: go.bsky.app/Ao3Qt9a

Black academics: go.bsky.app/RyKSzcb

Black democracy experts: go.bsky.app/6WTBzhX

Black in tech: go.bsky.app/2RAbS3g