Tom Megeath

In the past year we've had a series of papers with results that've shocked #climate scientists - the globe is heating #FasterThanExpected & we don't fully know why

The public discourse is not keeping up.

Here's a series of 5 new studies that climate hawks & journos need to have on their radar 🧵

A bright, greeny–white splotch in the centre of the image is the nucleus and coma of comet 3I/ATLAS. To the upper right streams the major dust tail. The background comprises distant stars against a black background, with the NGC 4691 galaxy at upper left.

This is an incredible image of comet 3I/ATLAS, taken by Satoru Murata ICQ Comet Observations group on 16 November 2025 from western New Mexico.

Structure within the major dust tail from the comet is clearly visible, together with two smaller jets trailing the nucleus and maybe even an anti-tail.

Foto des rötlichen Emissionsnebels NGC 281 im Sternbild Kassiopeia, der wegen seiner Form auch Pacman-Nebel genannt wird. Das Foto ist ein Summenbild aus 159 Einzelaufnahmen mit je 3min Belichtungszeit, die mit einer gekühlten Astrokamera (ASI294mc Pro) durch ein Teleskop Celestron C8 aufgenommen wurden.

The Pacman Nebula NGC 281 in Cassiopeia had been on my wish list for several years, and now, over the course of 4 nights in September & October, I finally got it. Visually not an easy object due to light pollution, but really fun to photograph (tech. details in image) 🔭
@kat-astro-bot.bsky.social

and Grok be like: “here i am, a brain the size of a planet, and it’s Grok make vulgar party roast, Grok make it even more vulgar, oh God I'm sooo depressed”

can everyone agree that the last three on the list are all horrible? As for Rogue One, i cannot watch without wondering why a spaceship pilot needs goggles (?). The rest is fine (but it does refuse to fully accept its gritty nature until the last 1/3).

I take on average 10,000 stills and a half hour of video every week. Most I'll never think about again. This I'll hold onto until I grow old. 4 hours ago.

Zero edits. No recoloring. No cropping. Nothing. Just straight up reality. 🦑

A screenshot from the film showing Slim Pickens as Major Kong sitting in the B-52 bomber pilot's seat wearing a cowboy hat with the over-the-ear headset over his left ear (attached to which is a microphone extending in front of his mouth), reading through the contents of the crew's survival kit checklist. The subtitle, in yellow, says "Shoot, a fellow could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with that stuff." (The actual line, as dubbed, is "Shoot, a fellow could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.")

Because of the assassination, Major Kong’s (Slim Pickens) reference to Dallas in the scene where he carefully itemizes the contents of the crew’s survival kits was dubbed in post-production to Vegas. But “Dallas” can still be heard on the French-dubbed audio track of the version released in France.

i have lost two beloved coffee shops, i feel your pain.

The Boogeyman Nebula

The Boogeyman Nebula 🌌

Here's a fun astrophotography target to try with your telescope this season - but be warned, this one takes TIME!

LDN 1622 is a dark nebula in the constellation Orion that resembles 'a dark figure with a head and arms' (I kinda see it!)

This is 10 hours!

#astrophotography

A large portion of a gas cloud seen in infrared light. Most of the cloud appears in red, orange and yellow colours. Some sort of cavities can be seen in the cloud, being brighter and in blue: this is where large stars being born have pushed away the gas around them. Hundreds of small dots can be spotted everywhere, being stars in the LMC galaxy around and in the observed region.

A stellar nursery at its finest! 🔭

This is LHA120-N159 region in the LMC as seen by the JWST one year ago. It is home to MANY new born stars and many more to come!

I was in awe with how beautiful this region is while I was processing these data earlier this morning!

HD: flic.kr/p/2rGG32u

An orange-red nebula with cyan filling the voids.

(1/n) Image thread about the LHA 120-N 159 (or just N159) region with #JWST NIRCam. Here the filters F300M (blue), F335M (red) and F460M (green) 🔭
I made F335M red because this is PAH, otherwise the entire image would be green.
Full resolution: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LH...

Webb First to Show 4 Dust Shells 'Spiraling' Apep, Limits Long Orbit - NASA Science NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has delivered a first of its kind: a crisp mid-infrared image of a system of four serpentine spirals of dust, one expanding

Chaos! This *incredible* new #jwst image shows shells of dust emitted over the last 700 years by a system of 3 aging stars. The 2 main stars tear through space at an astonishing ~2000 MILES PER SECOND, whereas the 3rd star cuts through the dust like a knife. More: science.nasa.gov/missions/web...

Here’s an annotated version of our comet image.

We also want to thank our downlink and uplink teams who spent a huge amount of time working on this. Our camera was not designed to image interstellar objects 19 million miles away, but their hard work and planning paid off.

A blurry white fuzz in the center of a black frame.

NASA's pix of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS are now up science.nasa.gov/solar-system...

This is the HiRISE/MRO image ⬇️

When I lived in Pasadena in the 80s, a fellow student had a chronic cough. The doctor asked if he was a chain smoker. My friend said he never smoked. The doctor then asked, are you a runner? He said yes. Ah there you go, same thing, said the doctor.

Multi panel MW , Cygnus region.. ASI2600 + sigma 50mm
#astronomy

A pink glowing nebula is centered on a black background dotted with stars. The nebula is sail shaped and has a bright sharp edge along the bottom. Several bright blue stars are embedded in the glowing gas.

Sh 2-140 is about 3000 light years away in the direction of Cepheus. An emission nebula, it is heated by young stars. The sharp edge along the bottom of the nebula marks a dark molecular cloud where new stars are forming.

8.2hrs, #Seestar S50 🔭 🧪
Siril, GraXpert, Starnet, GIMP

so there are radio astronomers doing organic chemistry in space and looking for prebiotic molecules.

YouTube video by TEDx Talks Could we make beer in space? | Andrew Walsh | TEDxPerth

not to mention the search for the ingredients of beer in space youtu.be/tF1o-dNwE8c?...

Toward the RNA-World in the Interstellar Medium—Detection of Urea and Search of 2-Amino-oxazole and Simple Sugars | Astrobiology In the past decade, astrochemistry has witnessed an impressive increase in the number of detections of complex organic molecules. Some of these species are of prebiotic interest such as glycolaldehyde, the simplest sugar, or aminoacetonitrile, a possible precursor of glycine. Recently, we have reported the detection of two new nitrogen-bearing complex organics, glycolonitrile and Z-cyanomethanimine, known to be intermediate species in the formation process of ribonucleotides within theories of a primordial RNA-world for the origin of life. In this study, we present deep and high-sensitivity observations toward two of the most chemically rich sources in the galaxy: a giant molecular cloud in the center of the Milky Way (G + 0.693-0.027) and a proto-Sun (IRAS16293-2422 B). Our aim is to explore whether the key precursors considered to drive the primordial RNA-world chemistry are also found in space. Our high-sensitivity observations reveal that urea is present in G + 0.693-0.027 with an abundance of ∼5 × 10−11. This is the first detection of this prebiotic species outside a star-forming region. Urea remains undetected toward the proto-Sun IRAS16293-2422 B (upper limit to its abundance of ≤2 × 10−11). Other precursors of the RNA-world chemical scheme such as glycolaldehyde or cyanamide are abundant in space, but key prebiotic species such as 2-amino-oxazole, glyceraldehyde, or dihydroxyacetone are not detected in either source. Future more sensitive observations targeting the brightest transitions of these species will be needed to disentangle whether these large prebiotic organics are certainly present in space.

urea has been found by radio astronomers in a molecular cloud near the galactic center (liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/...)

i agree with you fully up to here: many of us would know of the four nucleotides from teaching about the origin of life in introductory surveys of astronomy. It’s about all the biology we do know.

this solar storm has passed but the aurora app (as well as some facebook pages) can alert you when the next storm hits.

Aurora in bands of green and red over a suburban landscape of houses snd trees.

Last night (wednesday) the aurora was faint to my eyes, but glorious for the lens of my iphone.

I didn’t know it was this bad at Goddard. Infuriating. 🧪

(NW Ohio)

the redcaurora seen through clouds with tree and power line in foreground

The amazing thing was that this aurora was visible through thin clouds. I then shouted at the clouds and the sky cleared for an hour. You are welcome NE Ohio.

NW ohio sky lights up

It’s a front door visible aurora in NW Ohio

this is an important point and seems to happen in public discussions of science that are being co-opted to promote personal or political agendas and/or conspiracy theories. The scientific process is either inhibited or the actual, productive discussion moves to more restrictive circles.

Loeb’s 3I/ATLAS “Anomalies” Explained Avi Loeb continues to claim that 3I/ATLAS has many anomalous behaviors that lead to the conclusion that it “might” be an alien spacecraft.  He carefully hedges the probability that it is a spacecraft ...

I've summarized the truth about Loeb's 10 "anomalies" about 3I/ATLAS in one post.

Thanks to @deschscoveries.bsky.social @michael-w-busch.bsky.social @cometary.org and @marshall-eubanks.bsky.social for contributing their expertise!