@astrowithankita.bsky.social
Caffeinated Introvert, who studies galactic archaeology ๐ PhD student at @swinburne!๐ซ (she/her)
A portrait of Einstein and Hawking with a binary black hole in between. It is rather dramatic, and shows cool light-bending effects.
"Ten years ago, scientists heard the universe rumble for the first time. That first discovery of gravitational waves began a new era of astronomy."
@simon-stevenson.bsky.social writes about gravitational-wave astronomy today
theconversation.com/10-years-ago...
#GW10Years ๐ญ๐งชโ๏ธ
๐ผ๏ธ: C Knox
Tips and resources for those who would be interested in pursuing an astro PhD outside this US and applying for programs this Fall, put together by Floor Broekgaarden, Ana Lam, Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, Deana Tanguay! ๐ญ docs.google.com/document/u/0...
15.08.2025 22:57 โ ๐ 77 ๐ 37 ๐ฌ 5 ๐ 2
An infographic titled "How BIG are the BLACK HOLES we find with GRAVITATIONAL WAVES?" by @astronerdika. The graphic displays a range of black hole masses detected via gravitational waves, categorized by their size in solar masses (mass of the Sun) and represented with playful cat-like black hole illustrations. The categories from left to right are: 1. "<5 times the mass of the Sun" - Labeled "smol" - Very small black hole illustration represented by a curled up black cat - Arrow pointing left: "THIS WAY TO NEUTRON STARS" - Example: "Big component of GW230529 (~3.6 times the mass of the Sun)" 2. "~10 times the mass of the Sun" - Labeled "basic" - Slightly larger black hole cat illustration - Caption: "LOTS OF BLACK HOLES" 3. "~35โ45 times the mass of the Sun" - Labeled "hefty" - Bigger black hole cat illustration - Continues the idea of a populated range 4. ">60 times the mass of the Sun" - Labeled "chonky" - Large black hole cat illustration - Caption: "FORBIDDEN TERRITORY? (can these even be made from the collapse of star cores?!)" - Example: "Components of GW190521 (~85 + ~66 times the mass of the Sun)" 5. ">100 times the mass of the Sun" - Labeled "oh lawd" - Very large, curled-up black hole cat illustration - Arrow pointing right: "THIS WAY TO INTERMEDIATE MASS BLACK HOLES" - Example: "Components of GW231123 (~137 + ~103 times the mass of the Sun)" Below the categories is a stylized black curve representing the inferred population of black holes detected by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA. It rises sharply in the "basic" range and falls off toward the "hefty" and "chonky" ranges, with a note reading: "this curve is an artistic representation of the black hole population inferred by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA." This infographic draws from the โChonky Catโ meme.
Heard the latest news from the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration? We detected the collision of the most massive pair of black holes so far: #GW231123 weighing in at ~137 + ~103 times the mass of the Sun!
So to celebrate, hereโs a handy chart โจ
Just how chonky are these black holes? ๐ค
An absolutely fantastic textbook on statistics and machine learning by Prof. Yuan-Sen Ting came out this week - and it's free! #astromethods โ๏ธ
I had a read and it's incredibly comprehensive and well-written - I expect this to become *the* foundation book on stats & ML basics in astro.
@bot.astronomy.blue signup
26.05.2025 13:08 โ ๐ 1 ๐ 0 ๐ฌ 1 ๐ 0
An astonishing headline reporting on new observations from a team led to Nikku Madhusudhan claims theyโve found โhints of lifeโ on a planet orbiting a dwarf star some 124 light years away. Whatโs going on? (1/n) www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... ๐ญ ๐งช
17.04.2025 03:24 โ ๐ 852 ๐ 340 ๐ฌ 26 ๐ 117Huge Congratulations! @emilyjogriffith.bsky.social ๐ค
01.04.2025 04:52 โ ๐ 1 ๐ 0 ๐ฌ 0 ๐ 0
Farewell, Gaia! Spacecraft Operations Manager Peter Collins confirms that Gaia has fallen silent, having been successfully passivated and switched off after more than a decade spent mapping the cosmos.
www.esa.int/Enabling_Sup...
From Pranav Satheesh: Are you new to Git and Github? Do you wish to use version control in your projects? Then this guide is just the right thing for you. #Astronomy
astrobites.org/2023/09/29/g...
