Astrophysics-georg - I Know Way Too Much About This

Supernovas, Nebulas, and Stars captured by Hubble space telescope ✨🌌 💫

Was out filming with the telescope and first of all, I have it on the porch, which is shared with our neighbors. One of them came out and saw me with the telescope and I was like straddling it because it’s the only way I can use the viewfinder on that thing and conversation was just:

Him: uhhh-

Me: don’t

Him: -yes ma’am

And then I met our other neighbors, some drunk girls, who thought it was a /cannon/. So I put it on the Moon and was like “wanna see?” And they were about as excited as your typical 4 year olds to see the moon and when I told them they could take pictures through the eyepiece (the eyepiece I was using was a wide angle plossl) they could not have been more excited

(x)

A philosopher once asked, "Are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at them because we are human?" Pointless, really..."Do the stars gaze back?" Now, that's a question.

- Neil Gaiman, Stardust

Space! ft. NASA

It was a big year in our part of the cosmos. We’ve invited our friends at @nasa​ to recap all the stunning scientific advances that gave us a deeper glimpse into the galaxy around us this year.

JWST Showed Us Space with New Eyes

In July 2022, we saw the first full-color images and data from the largest and most powerful space observatory ever made: the James Webb Space Telescope. This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” is speckled with glittering stars, and called the Cosmic Cliffs. It’s the edge of the star-birthing Carina Nebula. Usually, the early phases of star formation are difficult to capture, but the infrared Webb can peer through cosmic dust thanks to its extreme sensitivity, spatial resolution, and imaging capability.

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI 

Artemis I Flew Us Beyond the Moon 

NASA’s most powerful rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), lifted off for the first time on November 16, 2022, launching the Orion spacecraft on a journey around the Moon. Orion has now traveled farther from Earth than any other spacecraft designed to carry humans to deep space and safely return them to Earth. The Artemis I mission is the first part of a new era of deep space exploration. The program is designed to take astronauts back to the Moon and eventually on to Mars.

Credit: NASA

This One’s for the Dinosaurs

NASA’s DART mission successfully redirected an asteroid—the first time humanity has ever changed the orbit of a celestial object in space. On Sept. 26, 2022, the vending-machine-size spacecraft slammed into the stadium-size asteroid Dimorphos, slightly shortening its orbit around its much larger companion asteroid Didymos. Neither asteroid posed a threat to Earth before or after the test. The objective was to test this “planetary defense” technique, should an asteroid ever pose a threat. Note: there are no known asteroid threats to Earth for at least the next 100 years, but NASA is keeping an eye on the skies, just in case.

Credit: NASA/JHUAPL

Be sure to follow @nasa​ for more!

Here's a reminder to stop shortening the James Webb Space Telescope's name to "James Webb" and instead use "JWST".

"A lot of us would appreciate it if people didn't refer to the JWST as just "James Webb". He does not deserve to have his name associated with the praise the telescope receives. He didn't do these things. What he did do was awful. I only wanna hear sentences in which "James Webb" is the subject when they're about what he did. Otherwise it erases everything that we fight to bring awareness to. All we see when people do this is praise for a man who brought so much pain to the community. It feels like people are ignoring the fight to rename it and it legitimises NASA's name choice and justifies their horrible treatment of those who spoke up. So please consider using the full name, JWST or other alternative names that have been suggested."

from this post:

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Rover's Rovers

Something I want to add: A lot of us would appreciate it if people didn't refer to the JWST as just "James Webb". He does not deserve to ha

With NASA announcing their streaming service NASA+ and also announcing it’s going to be free and also ad free, I’d just like to appreciate the lengths they go to make scientific knowledge and exploration as available as they possibly can.

bro i can’t come to the phone right now, neptune has a moon that shines like a star.

i feel like the crimew thing shows how much queer discourse dehumanizes people. crimew is an extremely cool & talented person who's like. literally embodying 'be gay do crime' in it's truest form, but the minute that people find out it is a bi lesbian, suddenly thats. all they can think of her as? like no consideration of how it Hacked The Fucking No Fly List, everyone can only focus on her lesbian identity crimes. because none of the people who do this shit can ever see "wrong" queer people as people. they treat identity discourse like it's the biggest issue in the world even to this absolutely absurd level. doesn't matter what they do for queer liberation doesn't matter if they are happy, if you Do Identity Wrong all you are in their eyes are a freak who's personally responsible for lesbophobia or transphobia or w/e. funny how that works