David Rodriguez

thank you bad bunny for highlighting the importance of critical power distribution infrastructure bsky.app/profile/cost...

Benito is a threat b/c he makes art so alluring and enjoyable you want to understand everything about it and then you end up learning about sugar and slavery and colonialism and the Taínos and Hawaii and then you probably have some thoughts of your own, and that's why art is powerful and dangerous

Wow! That's like 10x the amount of books I read in January 😆

Book Review: Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey Random thoughts from a book-loving Puerto Rican astronomer/data scientist in Baltimore.

New Blog Post: A book review for Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey.
This is the 4th book of The Expanse and the universe has opened up bring new opportunities and new threats. An enjoyable, if sometimes tense, read.
#Books 💙📚 #booksky
strakul.blogspot.com/2026/01/book...

At this rate, Sunday will just be January 32nd.

Full week of admin/liberal leave at work due to weather (aka work from home). And it makes sense- I tried to move my car and nope, too snowy and icy for me. Good thing I had stocked up enough so I don't really need to go anywhere.

NASA’s TESS Reobserves Comet 3I/ATLAS - NASA Science NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) observed the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS during a special observation run from Jan. 15 to 22. Scientists

Have you seen this video of the Comet 3I/ATLAS of observations from TESS? science.nasa.gov/blogs/3iatla... Data available at MAST.

Logo of the Space Telescope Science Institute, STScI, over a backdrop of a colorful space nebula, with text 'Expanding the Frontiers of Space Astronomy'.

OPPORTUNITY: The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD, is searching for a Senior Astronomical Data Scientist, to help advance our data analysis tools for our NASA flagship missions primarily in areas of data visualization: https://bit.ly/3YQDM7y

The Roman Space Telescope in a clean room. At the center is the observatory on a raised platform. We see an array of black solar panels which block the main view of the telescope and its instruments. At the bottom a black antenna peaks through. Elsewhere in the room are various scaffolding and other pieces of equipment. On the wall is a sign that reads Goddard Space Flight Center.

Got a chance to visit the Goddard Space Flight Center and see the Roman Space Telescope today in the clean room. Very exciting to see the real thing before it launches up to space!

MUST READ thread before Monday night's forecasted G4 / SEVERE geomagnetic storm. Auroras could be seen as far south as the U.S.-Mexico border at times. Widespread mid-latitude displays are possible. Here's what you need to know to have a successful aurora chase tonight! 🧵

#heliophysics #aurora

An opossum walking in white snow towards some brown trees.

Close up of the opossum digging at something in white snow.

First time I see an opossum here in these parts. It's usually birds, squirrels, deer, and the occasional rabbit or fox.

Screenshot showing the title, authors, and abstract. Title is "The Impact of the MAST Data Archive". The abstract is "The Barbara A. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) hosts science-ready data products from over twenty NASA missions, plus community-contributed data collections, and other select surveys. The data support forefront research in the ultraviolet, optical, and near-infrared wavelength bands. We have constructed bibliographies for each mission from publications in nearly 40 professional journals, and have identified more than 37,000 refereed articles where investigators made a science usage of data hosted in MAST. The publication rate over the last 50 years shows that most MAST missions have had very high productivity during their in-service lifetimes, and have remained so for years or decades afterward. Annual citations to these publications, a measure of impact on research, are robust for most missions, with citations that grow over more than a decade. Most of the citations come from about 10% of articles within each mission. We examined the bibliographies of the active missions HST and JWST in greater detail. For HST the rate of archival publications exceeded those authored by the original observing teams within a decade of launch, and is now more than 3 times higher. Early indications hint that JWST archival articles could dominate the publication rate even sooner. The production of articles resulting from any given observing program can extend for decades. Programs with small and very large allocations of observing time tend to be particularly productive per unit of observing time. For HST in general, a first publication appears within 1.5 yr for 50% of observing programs, and within 3.8 yr for 80% of programs. We discuss various external factors that affect publication metrics, their strengths and limitations for measuring scientific impact, and the challenges of making meaningful comparisons of publication metrics across missions."

Really proud to advertise our accepted peer-reviewed paper analyzing the impact of MAST through analysis of 37,000 papers published in 40 journals over the last 50 years. It's a capstone to decades of work by dozens of MAST staff. Check out the preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2512.18101 (1/3) 🔭

🚀 The Roman Research Nexus is now LIVE! 🚀

A new cloud-based platform built to help the community prepare for—and fully exploit—data taken with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

A thread 🧵
1/5

#AAS247 #RomanResearchNexus #Nexus #NexusLaunch
🔭☄️

A panel of statistics for the book Abaddon's Gate. Based on community reviews, it has a review of 4.17 stars with predominant moods of adventurous, tense, mysterious, and dark. It has a medium pace, a mic of plot/character driven, strong character development and loveable characters.

Here are some community stats from The StoryGraph and a direct link to the book there for more info: app.thestorygraph.com/books/d9b7f7...

Book Review: Abaddon's Gate by James S.A. Corey Random thoughts from a book-loving Puerto Rican astronomer/data scientist in Baltimore.

New Blog Post: A book review for Abaddon's Gate by James S.A. Corey (the 3rd book in The Expanse series).
strakul.blogspot.com/2026/01/book...
I think I enjoyed the TV series version of this one a bit more, mainly due to the more focused cast of characters.
#Books #booksky 💙📚

🚀Kicking off #AAS247 in style!

@SpaceTelescope hosted a workshop on the #NASARoman #Nexus—a powerful cloud-based platform for exploring its petabyte-scale data. Attendees dove into new workflows, cutting-edge data analysis, and real-time collaboration.

How will you use Nexus?

It’s not about drugs. If it was, Trump wouldn’t have pardoned one of the largest narco traffickers in the world last month.

It’s about oil and regime change.

And they need a trial now to pretend that it isn’t. Especially to distract from his sinking under Epstein and skyrocketing healthcare costs.

Mass Cancellations Hit Caribbean Routes After U.S. Strike On Venezuela Mass cancellations are rippling across Caribbean routes today as U.S. airlines and several European carriers scramble to respond to rapidly changing airspace restrictions following the U.S. strike on Venezuela. Mass Airline Cancellations Hit Caribbean After FAA Restrictions And Venezuela Escalation What began overnight as an FAA ban on U.S. overflights of Venezuelan airspace has now […]

Mass Cancellations Hit Caribbean Routes After U.S. Strike On Venezuela

Well 2026 got to being 2026 in a big damn hurry didn't it

I have family in PR so I'm set for the next few days (I got a return flight booked later in the week). No US flights are landing at all, just have to wait things out. Fortunately, I hadn't made it far enough to drop of my bag so I was able to leave the airport without issue.

Sounds like all #PR airports are closed for the rest of the day due to the attack on #Venezuela.
My flight is officially cancelled and I can't reach my airline due to call volume. I suspect it will take a while to rebook.

Stuck in airport trying to rebook my flight since nothing is leaving today 😡

A bar chart of book moods across all my read books as reported by The StoryGraph. The largest categories are adventurous, mysterious, dark, and emotional.

Recently discovered The StoryGraph, a book-tracking app independent of Goodreads/Amazon that allows for a lot more detail when reviewing books. I imported my Goodreads reviews and have been cleaning them up all day 😜
#Books 💙�
app.thestorygraph.com/stats/straku...

A blue and yellow macaw bird on a wooden branch

A pair of Scarlet Macaw birds on a steel handrail

A green military macaw bird on a steel railing

A salmon-crested cokatoo on a steel handrail

Saw lots of cool tropical birds today at an aviary. #PR #LaMarquesa

Christmas Day winds up to 114 mph damage UC Lick Observatory Powerful Christmas Day winds gusting up to 114 mph severely damaged UC Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, forcing the nearly 140-year-old facility to close while officials headquartered at UC Santa Cruz assess structural damage and begin repairs expected to take months.

Powerful Christmas Day winds gusting up to 114 mph severely damaged UC Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, forcing the nearly 140-year-old facility to close while officials headquartered at UC Santa Cruz assess structural damage and begin repairs expected to take months.

Chart in white on a red background showing the distribution of game types played. The categories in descending order are City Builder, Space Sim, Grand Strategy, Cozy, Colony Sim, and Automation.

Statistics numbers in white text on a patterned red background. These show a variety of gaming stats on Steam denoting 37 games played and showing some of the most played games at the bottom: Starfield, Octopath Traveller II, Europa Univeralis V, X4 Foundations, and Victoria 3.

I'm a sucker for these types of personal stats. 🤣
Now what's a good, cozy, colony/city builder with elements of grand strategy set in space?
s.team/y25/dbgghtg?...
#SteamReplay #Gaming

New Blog Post: A book review for La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman
strakul.blogspot.com/2025/12/book...
This is a separate trilogy (The Book of Dust) set in the same universe as His Dark Materials.
#Books #booksky 📚💙

A pair of dark green pine trees heavily covered in snow. There are bare trees in the background with snow in their branches and more snow in the ground. There are white fluffy clouds in a blue sky.

I was not anticipating this much snow to accumulate overnight. Wow! #Maryland

A logo "HSLA" which stands for Hubble Spectroscopic Legacy Archive, has three stylized spectra with rainbow colors radiating from left to right. In the background are stars, galaxies, and a giant planet.

Hey #astrosci community! After working on this project for 3 years, there's a new Hubble Spectroscopic Legacy Archive that's just been newly made available at @stsci.edu: archive.stsci.edu/missions-and... follow me to learn more! (1/n)

This is now more than double the NASA budget, which the White House wants to slash.