Tod Lauer

Tod Lauer

@todlauer.bsky.social

Extragalactic astronomer (black holes, galaxies, galaxy clusters, stellar pops) who also dabbles in planetary astronomy. Really, basically a pixel pusher.

2.1K followers153 following2K posts

Tod Lauer
@todlauer.bsky.social

Out tonight: A little work on where to find the most massive BHs, how many of them there are, and their role in generating the nHz gravitational wave background arxiv.org/abs/2610.33162

arxiv.orgThe Hosts and Mass Distribution Function of the Most Massive Black Holes: Implications for the nHz Gravitational Wave BackgroundWe use the core-radius, $r_γ,$ of a galaxy's central core along with a volume-limited sample of brightest cluster galaxies (BCG) to determine the $z=0$ mass distribution function of the most massive s...
Tod Lauer
@todlauer.bsky.social

This paper hits me harder than I might have expected.

Dr. Jessie Christiansen@aussiastronomer.bsky.social

If you’re sent a paper to review, remember that you make choices. Choices of which papers to review and why, choices of which standards to apply and why. Rigorous peer review is one of the bedrocks of our field. Where we, as the reviewing community, draw our lines, is where the lines get drawn.

Tod Lauer
@todlauer.bsky.social

Maybe to much of an obscure or insider joke, but I was amused by this pattern of citations to Volonteri & Begelman (2010), which raised the possibility of "Black Hole Stars," (as it's now known), which is a leading hypothesis to explaining Little Red Dots.

Tod Lauer
@todlauer.bsky.social

Bound for Titan!

Paul Byrne@theplanetaryguy.com

This is the Dragonfly spacecraft, ultimately destined for Titan, photographed in July during early construction at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. The mission PI, Zibi Turtle, shared this image at the OPAG meeting today. Credit: NASA/JHU APL/Zibi Turtle

Tod Lauer
@todlauer.bsky.social

Exercise for the reader. How do you revise a JWST proposal when in cycle 4 you got top quintile (but no time), so you just tried again in cycle 5 but got bottom quintile?

Tod Lauer
@todlauer.bsky.social

And now, it's time to play "Find the Astronomer!" You can start by naming the conference. I'm in the photo, but with a full head of hair and not wearing glasses, so it was a while ago.

Tod Lauer
@todlauer.bsky.social

An Earth-mass BH has the size of this black marble. You couldn't get much closer than 100km without being ripped apart by tidal forces. It swallows a Rose Bowl of water in 1s to generate 0.1 solar luminosity (Eddington).

Tod Lauer
@todlauer.bsky.social

The Roman Space Telescope is due to launch this coming Sunday. In this wonderful graphic, Chris Hirata has captured the complex and tortured 26 years of history that it took to get to this mission. My part was to PI the Dark Energy Space Telescope (Destiny) study, and to serve on random committees.

Tod Lauer
@todlauer.bsky.social

Had a visit in our den tonight from a giant hairy desert scorpion.This one was about the size of my palm. Ironically its not that venomous, unlike the vastly smaller bark scorpion, but your brain doesn’t process it that way. We showed it the door.

Tod Lauer
@todlauer.bsky.social

So what would be on a second Bingo card? I might so with "Milky Way Supernova," or "Erupting Main Belt Asteroids," as a couple of candidates.

Tod Lauer@todlauer.bsky.social

This is so wonderful! The annual Rubin Community Workshop is going on this week, and so this has made a big splash.

Tod Lauer
@todlauer.bsky.social

Amazing work!

ESO@eso.org

The conclusion of a century-long quest 😲 Our VLT obtained firm evidence that Betelgeuse, a red supergiant star in the Orion constellation and one of the most famous stars in the night sky, is not alone! 🔭 🧪 1/4

Tod Lauer reposted

Paul Byrne
@theplanetaryguy.com

This is really, really bad. This is one of the complexes we use to communicate with spacecraft in deep space. The effects of climate change are extending out into the Solar System.

Andy Scollick@andyscollick.bsky.social

The Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex at Robledo de Chavela municipality in the Community of Madrid, Spain on fire. Burgohondo wildfire. 📷 via Infues Avila

Tod Lauer
@todlauer.bsky.social

This is kinda fun!

Elle@elleisanisland.bsky.social

First of all, this is clever and adorable. Secondly, if you spell out your name it writes a little story for you ("Dickensian Alphabet" by Tom Gauld)

Tod Lauer reposted

Daniel Pomarède
@pomarede.bsky.social

NASA’s Dragonfly Clears Key Tests as Titan Rotorcraft Takes Shape Dragonfly is starting to look less like a collection of spacecraft parts and more like the rotorcraft that will fly across the surface of Titan, Saturn’s hazy moon. science.nasa.gov/blogs/dragon... #Dragonfly 🧪🔭

science.nasa.govNASA’s Dragonfly Clears Key Tests as Titan Rotorcraft Takes Shape - NASA ScienceNASA’s Dragonfly is starting to look less like a collection of spacecraft parts and more like the rotorcraft that will fly across the surface of Titan,

Tod Lauer reposted

Lee Billings
@leebillings.bsky.social

Now on @sciam.bsky.social: A recent paper in the high-profile journal Nature claimed what would've been an epochal revision to our understanding of the cosmos. Instead, independent follow-up work suggests the claim is wrong via a subtle-but-basic mistake. www.scientificamerican.com/article/phys...

scientificamerican.comPhysicist says splashy new cosmology study made ‘elemental’ mistakeA recent study in the journal Nature carries cosmos-quaking implications for our understanding of the universe—except a new preprint says that it’s wrong
Tod Lauer
@todlauer.bsky.social

OK, it's one thing to see a science abstract that is far beyond my expertise, but not an abstract in astrophysics that doesn't even seem to be about any science. And who would read this abstract and say, "Oh, yeah! I'm really gonna have to drop what I'm doing and read this one!"

Tod Lauer
@todlauer.bsky.social

So it begins

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory@rubinobservatory.org

The moment we've all been waiting for is finally here… On June 29, 2026, NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory officially began the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST)! 🔭🧪☄️🌌 🔗: rubinobservatory.org/news/action-...

Tod Lauer
@todlauer.bsky.social

Where does one even start with this?

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

JD Vance: "I think Nixon's historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, and deservedly so. I joked that if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12 hours news story. The idea that it took down a presidency is crazy."

Tod Lauer
@todlauer.bsky.social

What did the early Universe *sound* like. With nice work by Stephane Pigeon who runs mynoise.net, we now have this nice "sonification" of the acoustic noise at the time of recombination. Have a listen! (and use headphone with the "wide" stereo setting. mynoise.net/NoiseMachine...

mynoise.netSound Horizon — A Sonification of the Early UniverseListen to the echoes of the early Universe. Explore a sonification of Planck satellite data and the primordial acoustic peaks frozen in the Cosmic Microwave Background.