Tom Megeath

“We’ve established that the observatory is fully functional,” said Julie McEnery, #NASARoman senior project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “The telescope can guide and take exposures, data flows appropriately, and we can slew from one place to another for observations.” 🔭

What’s hiding in Orion’s clouds? 🔍 Visit the Orion A molecular cloud, the nearest known massive star factory, lying about 1350 light-years from Earth. This region hosts many curious structures buried deep inside the dusty clouds. Discover them: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1701/ 🔭

A glowing stellar nursery 👶⭐ Webb’s infrared sensitivity has revealed the protostars & stars of NGC 7129, a stellar nursery that lies 3,300 light-years from Earth. In the centre, lies the massive star LkH(alpha) 234, which has carved into its cloudy surroundings 👉 www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed... 🔭 🧪

Volkswagen might be on the skids today, but back in 1959 they were manufacturing Volkswagen Beetles fitted with dashboard-mounted coffee machines 🗃️

Not everybody knows this, and everybody should. On Sept. 26, 1983, a Soviet nuclear warning system alerted Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov that the U.S. had launched a missile attack. He did not retaliate, preventing WWIII. This is a post about AI. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanisl...

Science is a part of your brain you just don't turn off. In an $80 Motel Room, a Discovery to Shed Light on the Origins of Life 🎁 link www.nytimes.com/2026/09/26/s...

NASA has selected PRIMA, a far-infrared space observatory designed to reveal the cold, dusty universe hidden from visible-light telescopes. Caltech, JPL, and IPAC will play key roles in the mission, targeted to launch in the 2030s. Read more: www.caltech.edu/about/news/n...

Today I learned there are only two known polyhedra in which each face shares an edge with every other face. One of them being the timeless beauty of the tetrahedron and the other one being whatever the heck this is

The autumnal equinox is only a few days away and here's what Stonehenge looked like in the 16th century. BL Add MS 28330; Lucas De Heere, Corte Beschryvinghe van Engheland, Schotland, ende Irland; 1573 CE-1575 CE; England (London); f.36r @blmedieval.bsky.social

#NASARoman activated the Wide Field Instrument—a 300-megapixel infrared camera that will allow it to explore wide swaths of the cosmos quickly. This test image captures the very first photons of starlight to reach the instrument—taken as an initial performance assessment: https://go.nasa.gov/4rg4qEc

Details: https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/roman/2026/09/14/fuel-savings-double-potential-lifetime-for-nasas-roman-mission/

NASA's new Roman Space Telescope now has enough fuel to last 22 years after a near-perfect course correction More than double what it was built for!

“these solutions are announced in a rush, leaving no time for a proper writeup, the isolation of new methods & ideas, & citing relevant previous work of others. … We are witnessing a general threat to intellectual work, with misalignment between the outcome of the use of AI and its initial purpose.”

Today was a great day for me on professional and personal levels, so I will share something even greater: a JWST observation of the centre of our galaxy! 🔭 This is Sagittarius B2, a molecular cloud a few hundreds light years away from SgrA*, as seen by MIRI and processed by me!

I am having a particularly frustrating week, so here’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. The eruption of Sarychev Peak in the Aleutian Islands, seen by the crew of the space station. www.nasa.gov/image-articl...

As a kid from New Mexico who lived in California, upstate NY, Boston area, and NW Ohio, it’s nice see my linguistic map be almost anywhere but Texas.

Congratulations to the Nancy Grace Roman telecope team for a flawless launch. I look forward to amazing data on our galaxy and its star forming regions.

LAUNCH at 1125 UTC Aug 30 of a Falcon Heavy from Kennedy Space Center with NASA's Roman Space Telescope

Breaking: We have lift off! NASA’s Roman Telescope is on its way to deep space, embarking on a mission that could solve some of the universe’s greatest and most enduring mysteries and discover new, alien worlds.

Ahh, I'm seeing a lot of particle physicists riding into astronomy research, ready fix our field and solve all our science questions for us. I mean, how hard can astronomy be, right? Welcome in, dear.

Watch what it's like to sample an asteroid. On 20 October 2020, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft positioned itself above asteroid Bennu and used its sampling system to grab material for return to Earth. Rather than being a solid chunk of rock, Bennu turned out to have the cohesion of a ball pit.

I have been working on NGC 2392 (Lion Nebula) bit by bit over the past couple of weeks. Pretty happy with it! As always, high quality image and perhaps overly verbose information is available at my Flickr gallery: flic.kr/p/2swHfCQ

With record-breaking heatwaves, France just had both its warmest June and July on record. Systematic collection of weather data basically began in Western Europe, giving Europe the longest thermometer-based histories in the world. After more than 250 years, we have changed the climate. 🧪

G79.29+0.46 - From Judy Schmidt (geckzilla.bsky.social) - https://flic.kr/p/KZgYoB

My new paper is out in Science Advances! Neptune's inner moons preserve clay minerals from the deep interiors of ancient icy worlds, exposed by Triton's catastrophic arrival. Here's the story and what it tells us about the violent history of the Neptunian system. 🧵 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I just read Wilson’s brutal review. I had a similar reaction to Interstellar. As an astronomer, I was expecting an ingenious script about time and relativity, instead I got angry Matt Damon. Maybe Nolan’s movies are best enjoyed with expectations set to blockbuster and critical faculties paused.

I'm absolutely devastated for colleagues at Jodrell Bank who found out this morning that funding for the UK's e-MERLIN radio telescope array will be terminated. This is a short-sighted move, to save a tiny fraction of the overall UK science budget. #SaveJodrellBank 🔭🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn't nirvana, soundgarden, pearl jam, or alice in chains.

Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn't nirvana, soundgarden, pearl jam, or alice in chains.

Star City Spoiler: so if For All Mankind is all about Mars and war, Spy City is ultimately about love and Venus. Nicely done.

Today in 1955, Bertrand Russell issued the Russell-Einstein Manifesto in London, calling upon every government on Earth to prevent a nuclear war by publicly renouncing war, abolishing thermonuclear weapons, and pursuing “peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them.”

Students have long been given the idea that the goal of taking classes is to get good grades, learning is just a side effect. Now it’s not even a side effect.

Midnight sun during the #Arctic spring. Animation looks downward at the North Pole over a 24-hour period. More seasonal animations: zacklabe.com/arctic-clima...

This is absolutely astonishing - it's rare in astronomy to see so much change on a human timescale, but this really shows how dynamic the gas and dust around a young star can be. Seeing the shadows from the inner regions cast out onto the outer spiral arms, amazing!

Entering the grand halls of the NAS I felt a potent mixture of awe and fury. Science is so amazing. Not just for its material discoveries, but also for what it reveals about human values and our ability to know the world *together*. Shame on everyone who is complicit in this crisis. >>

Wait, is that the Moon out beyond the Moon? And is the ISS out in lunar orbit or something?! Man, fire your AI provider... bsky.app/profile/redd...

Well, isn’t this a sight for sore eyes! 😍 Our beloved Hubble appears in this amazing image from one of Vantor's WorldView Legion satellites. It was 36 years ago today that Hubble was launched in the bay of the Space Shuttle Discovery from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Credit: Vantor.

Today is a good day to remember that Carl Sagan was as outspoken about the dangers of war and nuclear weapons as he was an advocate of space exploration.