Notices by Katie Mack (astrokatie@mastodon.social)

Chandra, the space-based observatory that brings us incredible x-ray images of the most extreme environments in the cosmos, is at risk of cancellation. It’ll be a huge loss to astronomy if the mission ends prematurely for budget reasons. Go to https://www.savechandra.org/ to find out how to help #SaveChandra

(This is a repost of a tweet of mine from 2014 but I figured it might as well live here too! Original: https://twitter.com/astrokatie/status/518697246305439745)

The September edition of my newsletter, WATCH THIS SPACETIME, is out now! 🎉

Featuring: Aliens! Quantum superposition! Airplane physics! And more!

https://mackkatie.activehosted.com/index.php?action=social&chash=c9f0f895fb98ab9159f51fd0297e236d.9&s=bad97c655476f96a390a72c05a742011

When you walk into the ladies’ room and discover that your hotel is part of the Hilbert franchise

@malwaretech Yeah. And for every one of them it’s easy to find some reason to say “well that one is problematic because…”

@hollie I think the perception is it’s a bit complicated, the interface isn’t as nice, it feels kinda siloed

I have spent the last two weeks in conferences with other science communicators and the general consensus in discussions was that (1) Twitter is dying and (2) it’s not clear what will replace it. (And not much enthusiasm about Mastodon, it seems.)

Traveling today on two full flights and wondering why anyone would choose to NOT wear a mask on an airplane now that good masks are easy to acquire and wearing one in such an environment is pretty universally socially acceptable.

It just occurred to me that the Murderbot Diaries are my Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon

@arfisk Not sure what you mean. Back it up with what?

‘The most common response I get when I talk about dark matter is: “isn’t this just something physicists made up to make the math work out?”
The answer to that might surprise you: yes! In fact, everything in physics is made up to make the math work out.’

My latest for BBC Science Focus:

https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/everything-physics-made-up/

??? <-- lunar eclipse

??? <-- solar eclipse

??? <-- apocalypse