Elizabeth Tasker

YouTube video by Australian Space Agency Bringing Hayabusa2 home

The Australian Space Agency released a cool video on the collaboration between JAXA and ASA, featuring all the favourite things we've dropped on Australia from Hayabusa to the (LAUNCHING-IN-ONE-YEAR 😱) MMX mission 🛰️. BUT KEY QUESTION: can you spot me in the video?

Two thick slices of bread with bacon, cheese, cranberry and pumpkin stuffed between them!

Pumpkin, bacon, cranberry and cheese in one sandwich 🥪from #nokucheese (from the bread and sandwich mind of @jason.jagaimo.com) and brought to my door by Uber Eats… although I’ll admit the latter was very lazy, due to having a rather packed day 😅

Landing on the Moon: Behind the scenes of the night when SLIM made history A journalist lifted his hand, studying the faces of the JAXA representatives as the microphone was passed to his seat. “Landing was successful…” he began. “…I thought you would look

If you’d like to hear more behind-the-scenes gossip (in addition to the tea spilled @nerdnitetokyo.bsky.social tonight 🫖) from when Japan landed on the Moon, here is our blog post on the suspense, stress and excitement on night that the SLIM mission made history!

Tonight! Come and hear about how we landed on the Moon (and play along at home), how the BBC laughed at my coffee cup, and how I was almost lured into espionage.

Home V2 - Travelers' Tales NEWS NEW BOOKS EDITORS' CHOICE — This Week's Story

I don't know a whole lot about them, other than a short story of mine was published in one of their volumes some years back, but what about approaching "Travellers' Tales"? travelerstales.com

Tonight! Come and hear about how we landed on the Moon (and play along at home), how the BBC laughed at my coffee cup, and how I was almost lured into espionage.

Maddy Parks from the Australian Space Agency and myself stand either side of the new exhibit stand, pointing at the asteroid grain, which is in a protective case under a digital microscope. The microscope screen is to the left of the case. A small model of the Hayabusa2 spacecraft is also on display.

Last week, we opened a three year exhibit of a grain from asteroid Ryugu at the Australian Space Discovery Centre, home of the Australian Space Agency, in Adelaide 🛰️! JAXA’s Hayabusa2 returned the sample capsule to the Woomera desert (moderately) close to Adelaide, so this little grain came home! 🧪

A bed with a duvet in a blue cover pulled back to show there’s a proper blanket now in place.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year… 🍂🎃 Duvet back on bed! Although perhaps slightly prematurely, as nighttime temperatures are only a little below 20°C 😅

Also that is a waterproof cover pinned on top, due to the way my still slightly uncouth ex-stray cat expresses rage 🙄

A screenshot of three avatars sitting in a concert all, waving at the camera. Behind them, the Korean pop group can be seen on stage.

We went for a repeat showing of the K-pop NCT DREAM concert in #VR Horizon Worlds because... why not?!

And it's fun to hang out and chat in front row seats, and where you can control the sound to just your group of friends!

A photograph of the half-scale model of the MMX spacecraft with a cardboard cutout showing the height of a person to scale. The cutout is about as tall as the first segment of the three segment solar panel, and almost the same height as the landing legs.

If you were 160cm tall (which is admittedly just 5’3”) you would only exceed the height of the first solar panel on the full-sized Martian Moons eXploration (#MMX) spacecraft!

A large model of the MMX spacecraft. The half-sized model spacecraft is taller than a person, covered in gold for thermal protection, and flanked by large solar panels. It has four landing legs for landing on Phobos.

This half-size (JUST HALF-SIZE) model of the Martian Moons eXploration (#MMX) spacecraft is currently in the ISAS lobby. The model was designed by “GigaStar”, an NPO led by Mase Yasufumi, who has now built… two… despite the crazy complexity! The twin is currently at Miraikan (biiiiig museum).

Associate Professor of Cosmology at University of Oxford Recruiting now: Associate Professor of Cosmology on jobs.ac.uk. Click for details and explore more academic job opportunities on the top job board

Cosmologists! We have a faculty job going here in Oxford - happy to answer questions. Brief version is that this remains a great & collaborative place to do science and the students are superb. 🔭 www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOP628/a...

I guess so! It’s definitely Friday evening Japan time.

I really loved the humour!

SLIMbles wobble, but they don’t fall down! In January 2024, the JAXA SLIM mission achieved Japan’s first soft lunar landing with pinpoint precision, but face down! The team celebrated by creating these awesome models from Mino washi paper that always roll into their head (like Playskool Weebles) 😂

Snapshot of the first slide of my presentation. It shows a microphone where the circular mic is actually a picture of the Moon. A cartoon of the SLIM spacecraft with a smiley face is flying past. The title is "Talk me down: narrating Japan's lunar landing".

Come join me at @nerdnitetokyo.bsky.social (in Tokyo and online) on Friday at 8pm JST for nail biting, humorous, informative, slightly-stressed-because-I-made-all-these-promises account of the night that Japan landed on the Moon while I narrated the live stream 🛰️🔭! Tickets here 🧪: tokyo.nerdnite.com

It was a recorded version: it’s playing on repeat in Horizons at the moment.

The new @walkaboutminigolf.bsky.social VR crazy gold course has the SPOOKY 🎃 vibe of an abandoned fairytale theme park, and you can ride the rollercoaster while awaiting your turn to putt! You can also ride a sheep carousel 🎠 🐑 The courses are incredibly imaginative and so fun to explore!

I feel the same!

Good job finding that post!

A small bottle of milk tea held in my hand in front of a vending machine. You can’t tell, but I swear it’s a hot one!

Hot vending machine drinks are back in town!

Our team @futuremeetings.bsky.social (when not incognito as Celery Penn) explores different tech solutions to online meetings to help keep the world connected, especially as we seem to be drifting ever further apart. We often experiment with VR, and “Celery Penn” is the name of one of our headsets!

はやぶさ粒子トレーディングカード | 地球外物質研究グループ｜宇宙科学研究所

Playing our card gives you up to 3000 points from your opponent's cards (although I'd be lying if I said I truly understood the rules of trading card games).

You can download the complete set of trading cards from asteroids Itokawa, Ryugu, and Bennu here:

The new cards show grains from asteroid Bennu, returned by the NASA OSIRIS-REx mission and shared with JAXA in exchange with Ryugu grains from Hayabusa2. Comparing two independent samples massively increases the scientific value of the missions! (Collaboration, see? 😄)

はやぶさ粒子トレーディングカード | 地球外物質研究グループ｜宇宙科学研究所

You can print them yourself from the JAXA curation team website! curation.isas.jaxa.jp/card/

Ten new trading cards, showing an image of an asteroid grain above its “power” and description of ability.

New asteroid grain trading cards created by JAXA curation! @futuremeetings.bsky.social submitted the suggestion for the “collaboration” card, under the code name, Celery Penn! The grain resembles holding hands, with text “we are always stronger when we work together, even when we’re worlds apart”.

Good call! Thank you ☺️

Thank you!

… except it’s Sunday. And that sums up my week, ladies and gentlemen.

A selfie of me leaning towards a cat basket where a calico cat is sitting. The cat is also leaning forward so we can touch noses.

Happy #caturday! (with #NorahNeko)