Michael Busch

The contingent of white American Evangelical Christians who want an apocalyptic war in the Middle East because they claim to want the end of the world is quite distinct and distinctly dangerous in the power they currently have along with other omnibigoted Christian supremacists like Pete Hegseth.

The total lunar eclipse last night from Fairbanks, Alaska with a searing bright aurora right overhead. Insane combo.

This week, the House will be voting on the War Powers Resolution authored by Khanna-Massie.

I will be voting YES to stop U.S. involvement in another illegal forever war.

bsky.app/profile/nkal...

Cops are great

And qualified immunity needs to be outlawed

Rotational Doppler Cartography of Technosignatures on Unresolved Planets The discovery of many Earth-like planets has renewed interest in whether life and technological civilizations exist elsewhere. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) seeks evidence for te...

For another recent study of radio leakage from Earth:

Takahashi 2026, "Rotational Doppler Cartography of Technosignatures on Unresolved Planets" is on the #arXiv today:

arxiv.org/abs/2603.01032

Following the tradition of Woody Sullivan.

Fan et al. 2025 discusses the detectability of broadband transmissions from the Deep Space Network: rather than the carrier waves and planetary radar continuous wave transmissions that are detectable to much greater distances: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

Primary election today in Texas y’all. Go vote.

I do not know what would have happened had those planes launched - my source here is a brief mention in Scott Sagan's "The Limits of Safety" about nuclear accidents.

via @nuclearanthro.bsky.social , I also learned of the time in 1969 when the Air Force received orders to nuke North Korea because Richard Nixon was drunk.

Military commanders & Nixon administration staff apparently delayed carrying out the order and it was canceled.

Far too many close calls.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis; a bear climbed the fence at the Duluth air base. That triggered a sabotage alarm; triggering Air Force planes in Wisconsin with bombs on board to deploy.

Someone drove their car onto the runway to stop the launch.

Two images of a planetary nebula in space. The image to the left, labelled “Euclid & Hubble”, shows the whole nebula and its surroundings. A star in the very centre is surrounded by white bubbles and loops of gas, all shining with a powerful blue light. Farther away a broken ring of red and blue gas clouds surrounds the nebula. The background shows many stars and distant galaxies. A white box indicates the centre of the nebula and this region is the image to the right, labelled “Hubble”. It shows the multi-layered bubbles, pointed jets and circular shells of gas that make up the nebula, as well as the central star, in greater detail.

📸 This new NASA/ESA #Hubble Space Telescope image features the Cat’s Eye Nebula (NGC 6543).

Hubble’s sharp vision meets Euclid’s wide view to uncover this spectacular portrait of a dying star.

esahubble.org/images/potm2...

@science.esa.int @stsci.edu

Today in the cyberpunk dystopia.

Nobody should be using Grammarly for anything.

Yet again, USA:

Require your members of Congress do their jobs and act to end all of this, #CloseTheCamps, #AbolishICE and the Border Patrol, remove Homan & Miller, #ImpeachNoem, and #ImpeachTrump.

Give them no choice otherwise.

Too Afraid to Leave Home: ICE’s Toll on Latino HIV Care Operation Metro Surge is leading some Latinos to delay or cancel HIV prevention or treatment appointments.

NEW: In Minneapolis, @cameronoakes.bsky.social and Sam Donndelinger report, ICE’s Operation Metro Surge is preventing Latino patients from accessing HIV care. This story was produced in collaboration with @unclosetedmedia.bsky.social, an investigative LGBTQ-focused nonprofit news publication.

Donald Trump may not personally subscribe to the apocalyptic variety of Christianity that promotes war and mass death as a precondition of "the rapture". But plenty of his supporters do.

Nor is this new. Compare to Bush 43 and his religious claims regarding the wars he started.

Civilian deaths in Iran pass 700 amid fear of bombs and regime clampdown As US-Israeli airstrikes hit their cities, people tell of how the authorities are warning them off the streets

More than 700 civilians have been killed since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran last weekend, according to rights groups, as people inside Iran told the Guardian they were fearful of a rising death toll.

2026 DY14.

That makes more sense for something discovered last week.

Now on Bluesky:

bsky.app/profile/plan...

There is not yet any asteroid with the designation "2026 YD14", and 2025 YD14 & 2024 YD14 are both in the main belt.

So I am confused which asteroid you meant to refer to?

Deen & Lam identify one marginal potential detection from Palomar in 2016. If real, it would exclude the potential lunar impact in 2032.

I await the results of the latest JWST observations, which should be far clearer.

Additional discussion at groups.io/g/mpml/topic...

2024 YR4: Identification of Possible Precoveries in 2016 IPTF Data 2024 YR4 is a 40-100 meter-diameter asteroid and former Torino Scale 3 object which currently has a roughly 4% chance of impacting the Moon on 2032 December 22, an event which recent studies suggest c...

Today on the #arXiv :

Deen & Lam 2026, "2024 YR4: Identification of Possible Precoveries in 2016 IPTF Data" - arxiv.org/abs/2603.00449

This paper presents an archival search of old telescope images of #2024YR4 . It just happened to fall in gaps of several surveys.

World map with red covering North and South America, Asia, Australia, and the Pacific ocean

In case you missed it among all of the everything lately, there's a total lunar eclipse tomorrow morning! If you're in a red part of the map, you may be able to see the moon turn red!

Details in thread below, or catch more info from Time & Date, who made the map: www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/luna...

Gazing into deep this dusty maelstrom using near-infrared filters, Hubble reveals many stars and star-forming activities that might otherwise be obscured by dust. Strongly red spots indicate [Fe II] emission. There are only a few tiny splotches of those. Make of that what you will. Data from the following proposal were used to create this image: Peering to the Heart of Massive Star Birth Red: WFC3/IR F164N Cyan: WFC3/IR F160W Blue: WFC3/IR F110W North is 45.51° counter-clockwise from up.

RAFGL 5180 - From Judy Schmidt (geckzilla.bsky.social) - https://flic.kr/p/2jcRWq8

It might be shorter to make a list of Trump cabinet officials who should not be impeached for perjury and corrupt behavior.

For some reason, this seems relevant to @nuclearanthro.bsky.social 's interests.

Yet again, USA:

Do not allow this or anything like it.

And #UnpackTheCourts.

Yet another reason to #AbolishICE and the Border Patrol.

I am confused by the concept of rice with high-fat meat being considered "low calorie"

Color photo of the Pioneer 10 rocket launch, which took place at night. The photo is dominated by the bright white and yellow glowing exhaust at the bast of the rocket as it lifts off.

A black and white diagram showing the path of Pioneer "F" and "G," later dubbed "10" and "11," through the inner solar system, past the asteroid belt, and to the vicinity of Jupiter. The diagram shows the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Pallas, Vesta, Ceres, and Jupiter.

A (vertical) triptych of Jupiter images captured by Pioneer 10. All three photos show white, orange, and tan cloud bands. The Great Red Spot is on the left limb of the planet in the top photo, and moves towards the center in images 2 and 3. In addition, the shadow of an inner moon moves across the face of the planet.

Color image of the anodized aluminum plaque attached to Pioneer 10. It shows line art diagrams of a man and woman, their relative size compared to the probe, a diagram of our solar system with Pioneer's path past Mars and Jupiter then out of the solar system, our location relative to a number of pulsars, and a schematic representation of a well-known Hydrogen atom transition.

Pioneer 10 launched #OTD in 1972.

It was a mission of firsts: passing through the asteroid belt, visiting Jupiter, crossing Neptune's orbit, achieving the speed needed to leave the solar system.

We detected a last, faint signal on January 23, 2003. Now it belongs to the cosmos. 🧪 🔭 🛰️

Images: NASA