Notices by Corey S Powell (coreyspowell@mastodon.social)

A Canadian man narrowly avoided being struck by a meteorite that crashed into the walkway outside his home.
The offending space rock has since been bagged & tagged.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-charlottetown-meteorite-strike-first-audio-1.7430018 #science #space #nature #disaster

A new study offers deeper insight into an age-old physics question: Why does petting your cat lead to a buildup of static electricity?

(Even better, the result is relevant to all friction-related static charge.)

https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2024/september/why-petting-your-cat-leads-to-static-electricity/ #science #physics #cats #nature

A colony of microbes, found sealed within a 2 billion year old rock in South Africa, may offer a glimpse into evolutionary history long before the emergence of multicelluar life. An amazing find.

https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/en/press/z0508_00374.html #science #nature #evolution #life

Earlier today, the Parker Solar Probe set two space records: closest approach to the Sun and fastest-ever human object, hitting a speed of 191 km/sec.

https://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/ #science #space #speed #tech

For your weekend relaxation: 1.8 billion years of plate tectonics in 72 seconds.

Fun to locate your hometown (or ancestral town) and track where it's been over the years...or how long it's even existed as a physical location.

https://theconversation.com/witness-1-8-billion-years-of-tectonic-plates-dance-across-earths-surface-in-a-new-animation-238209 #science #earth #nature #history

For a break from dark reality, here is one of my favorite academic what-if papers: "What if Earth were replaced with an equal volume of closely packed blueberries?"

The answer is full of surprises, from the Ice VII core to the boiling-jam surface and superheated-steam atmosphere.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.10553 #space #science #art #fantasy

Intriguing new JWST image just dropped.

It shows the Sombrero Galaxy in (literally) a whole new light, revealing the galaxy's iconic "brim" as a dusty, clumpy ring.

https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2024/news-2024-137 #science #space #astronomy #astrodon #nature

NASA's visualization team created a beautiful preview of every phase of the Moon in 2025, hour by hour.

The best part: Watching how the Moon's appearance changes due to its inclination, oval orbit, and libration (wobble).

https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5415 #science #nature #nasa #astronomy #space

For the purists, here's a video of all lunar phases in 2025 with no labeling. It takes about 5 minutes to watch the full thing -- and what a sweet, meditative 5 minutes it is.

(Full video at link.)

https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5415 #science #nature #sky #earth #moon

Astronomers have just discovered the first known "Einstein zigzag."

Due to a rare, lucky cosmic alignment, the combined gravity of two galaxies bent light like spaghetti & split a distant quasar into six different images.

This six-part image could allow a very accurate measure of the expansion of the universe.

https://www.science.org/content/article/first-known-double-gravitational-lens-could-shed-light-universe-s-expansion #science #space #astronomy #physics

I spent a month immersed in the world of neutrino research & emerged with a profound respect for these weird little particles.

Physicists' theory of neutrinos began almost as a joke. It ended with the realization that neutrinos might explain why the universe exists.

Come down the rabbit hole with me:

https://aeon.co/essays/going-deep-underground-to-reveal-the-mysteries-of-the-neutrino #science #physics #nature #life

Taking a break from awful things:

Scientists taught rats to drive cars. The rats quickly learned to rev the engine and take longer routes just for fun.

Bonus: Watch the researcher do a little happy leap when the rat gets into the car.

https://theconversation.com/im-a-neuroscientist-who-taught-rats-to-drive-their-joy-suggests-how-anticipating-fun-can-enrich-human-life-239029 #science #tech

To keep my American brain from exploding today, here are some remarkable new deep-space images from JWST.

First, a celestial smash-up. JWST's infrared eyes reveal cold dust that forms the "skeleton" of these colliding galaxies, known as IC 2163 and NGC 2207.

https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2024/news-2024-136 #space #science #nature #astronomy

Eclipse of the Sun. By the moon Phobos. From the surface of Mars. Captured by NASA's Perseverance rover on September 30.

I will never stop being amazed that we can see such things.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-perseverance-captures-googly-eye-during-solar-eclipse/ #space #science #astronomy #nasa

A fireball streaked by while Yasutaka Saika was taking a photograph of Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS, producing this beautiful, accidental celestial alignment.

Captured on Oct 24 from Tereske, Hungary.

https://www.facebook.com/yasutaka.saika/ #space #science #astronomy #photography

The Nobel Prize in Physics goes to John Hopfield & Geoffrey Hinton for work in machine learning and neural networks.

Here's why that research qualifies as physics (it's also a fascinating read):

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2024/popular-information/ #science #physics #nobel #tech

Hurricane Milton right now, via the GOES-East weather satellite.

What a terrifying monster of a storm.

https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/floater.php?stormid=AL142024#tab2 #HurricaneHelene #weather #nature #space

Did the Covid pandemic cause nights to get colder on the Moon?

Sounds hard to believe! But a serious new study claims lockdowns--> less pollution--> less thermal radiation from Earth--> lower nighttime temperatures on the Moon.

https://academic.oup.com/mnrasl/article/535/1/L18/7760380?login=false #space #science #environment #climate

One of my favorite deep-space images: a panorama of the center of our galaxy seen in radio waves.

Supernova explosions blew out the bubbles. A massive black hole powers the central glow. And those long, vertical filaments? Nobody really understands them.

https://www.sarao.ac.za/media-releases/new-meerkat-radio-image-reveals-complex-heart-of-the-milky-way/ #science #space #astronomy #nature

OMG.
A triangle of glowing plasma.
Bigger than the Earth.
Hovering over the surface of the Sun last week.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html #space #science #astronomy #sky