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

The game show "Let's Make a Deal" offers useful lessons in how to evaluate claims about alien life.

It also shows how cutting basic research undermines our ability to make extraordinary new discoveries.

My latest Invisible Universe column:

https://invisibleuniverse.substack.com/p/monty-hall-and-the-meaning-of-life #science #nature #math #aliens #space

For reference: The amount of money in the planned tax cuts would fully fund Green Bank for the next 500,000 years (yes, really). Money is not the real point.

Interstellar clouds are brewing rich organic chemistry. Astronomers just detected a complex molecule called cyanocoronene (C₂₄H₁₁CN) floating between the stars in Taurus.

We don't know if life is common in the universe. But prebiotic chemistry sure is.

https://public.nrao.edu/news/cosmic-chemistry-breakthrough-largest-aromatic-molecule-found-in-deep-space/ #science #space #technology

This discovery comes from the NSF's Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. Its funding is set to be gutted, effectively scrapping the telescope, in the 2026 budget.

Jobs lost. Science lost. All to save a whopping...$7 million.

https://greenbankobservatory.org/about/telescopes/gbt/ #science #trump #tech

New observations from the Very Large Telescope in Chile may have caught a Jupiter-like planet at its moment of birth around another star.

The universe just keeps on building more cool things.

https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2523a/ #space #science #nature

Nature presents us with 80 "octaves" of light, of which humans can see exactly 1.

Bringing the other 79 octaves into view has taken two centuries of effort, but it has transformed our ability to sense our place in the cosmic order.

My new essay in Aeon magazine:

https://aeon.co/essays/william-herschels-sensors-let-us-see-the-invisible-universe #space #science #nature #tech

By tuning in to different microwave frequencies, ALMA can create snapshots of different components of the disks that surround newborn stars.

For the first time, we can see the swirls and waves that turn clouds of gas and dust into worlds like our own.

https://www.almaobservatory.org/en/press-releases/exoalma-survey-reveals-incredible-images-of-structures-in-protoplanetary-disks/ #science #nature #astronomy

I recently visited the ALMA observatory in Chile. While I was poking around the telescopes, ALMA researchers released amazing new views of planet-forming disks around young stars.

These are the most detailed images yet of new solar systems being born.

https://public.nrao.edu/news/exoalma/ #space #science #tech #nature

Possibly the weirdest planet yet discovered?

Newfound world 2M1510 (AB) b appears to orbit not one but two stars...and they are actually failed stars, known as brown dwarfs...and the planet orbits sideways, in a unique up-and-down polar orbit.

https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2508/ #space #science #astronomy #nature

Astronomers keep finding more to see in the iconic "Pillars of Creation."

An infrared view from JWST reveals stars being born in dusty cocoons. A matching image from Chandra exposes their violent side, as the baby stars create powerful flares & jets that blast out x-rays.

https://chandra.si.edu/deadstar/pillars.html #space #science #nature #nasa

NOAA's new GOES-19 satellite continuously monitors solar activity, to protect satellites, communications & electrical systems. (It also regularly catches the Earth & Moon photobombing its view of the Sun.)

One small example of what NOAA funding does...

https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/noaas-latest-goes-satellite-releases-new-publicly-available-coronagraph-data #space #science #tech #earth

I look at a lot of space images, but this one made my eyes bug out like a cartoon character.

What you see here isn't a spiral galaxy, exactly. It's a spiral galaxy whose image was bent into a circle by the gravity of an elliptical galaxy visible at the center.

Warped space, right before your eyes!

https://esawebb.org/images/potm2503a/ #space #science #art #nasa #esa

Whoa: The European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter spacecraft got a spectacular view of Comet ATLAS (C/2024 G3) as it passed close to the Sun. Look at that enormous, splintered tail!

This comet won't be seen again for another 600,000 years.

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Solar_Orbiter #space #science #art

Here it is: The first clear image of an eclipse of the Sun by the Earth, taken from the surface of the Moon.

This is what last night's lunar eclipse looked like from the Blue Ghost lander's perspective on the Moon. Amazing!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/fireflyspace/54386246629/in/dateposted/ #space #science #art #tech

The "smallest known galaxy" sounds like an oxymoron (akin to the old joke, "jumbo shrimp").

But the discovery of Andromeda XXXV, just one-millionth the size of our Milky Way, offers serious clues about how coherent structures form & survive in a chaotic universe.

https://news.umich.edu/small-faint-and-unexpected-in-a-lot-of-different-ways-u-m-astronomers-make-galactic-discovery/ #science #space #nature

I loved working on this article:

The technology in your cell phone has a hidden connection to the stars. Modern computer chips are made using ultraviolet light from vaporized balls of tin--and those balls closely mirror the physics of supernova explosions!

https://spectrum.ieee.org/euv-light-source #science #tech #space

Blue Ghost is on the Moon! Images are coming in now from what appears to be the first fully successful commercial lunar lander. Just look at that shadow.

Over the next 2 weeks, Firefly's Blue Ghost will drill, study lunar dust, and observe an eclipse of the Sun...by the Earth.

https://fireflyspace.com/news/firefly-aerospace-becomes-first-commercial-company-to-successfully-land-on-the-moon/ #space #science #tech

My friend Martin Ratcliffe recently shared his photo montage of the 2023 annular solar eclipse over Bryce Canyon, Utah.

I may be biased, but I think it's spectacular (and it got selected for an astronomy picture of the day).

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap231019.html #science #photography #art

Meanwhile, far from Earth...

The space between stars is full of gas and dust that is normally dark & invisible to us. But a flash of light from a 350-year-old supernova has lit up the interstellar medium -- revealing it in all its strange, swirling glory.

https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2025/news-2025-102 #space #science #nature

@getajobmike

A neutron star merger produces a black hole, but also a significant amount of ejected matter. We know that a lot of stuff must be shot out because astronomers can see radiation from this material, which is observed as a kilonova.

See, eg: https://www.psu.edu/news/eberly-college-science/story/merging-neutron-stars-unfolding-story-kilonova-told-x-rays