Topic: Pamela Gay
Welcome, Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS!

Welcome, Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS!

by | Jul 16, 2025 |

Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS I want to call your attention to an assuming moving dot. Catalogued as 3I/ATLAS, this high speed dot is moving at more than the escape velocity of our Solar System as it comes crashing through on its journey through the Milky Way. This dot is moving at a whopping 68 km/sec! Folks, this is an interstellar object that originated from some other star system. The ATLAS telescope in Chile discovered it on July 1. Amateur astronomer Sam Deen and others were able to find pre-discovery images take by the ATLAS and the Zwicky Transient Facility. The pre-discovery images...

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A Brief History of Community Science, Part 2

A Brief History of Community Science, Part 2

by | Jul 16, 2025 |

The landing page for a new community science platform. Join us at mappers.psi.edu! Back in the spring of 1999, while one part of the internet focused in on still unpatched Y2K bugs, another, often overlapping part of the internet focused in on something much more fun...

A Brief History of Community Science, Part 1

A Brief History of Community Science, Part 1

by | Jul 15, 2025 |

Across the centuries, people of all kinds have contributed to the field we now call science. From early developments in mathematics, to systematic observations of how objects move in the sky, and changes take place in the landscape, we’ve seen people systematically...

Starship: Dreaming of Mars, struggling for LEO

Starship: Dreaming of Mars, struggling for LEO

by | Jun 26, 2025 |

I think it is fair to say that humans have dreamed of going to Mars for as long as we have known that Mars is a planet. We see these dreams in amazing books, like The Martian Chronicles and John Carter of Mars, and even in Percival Lowell’s attempts to map what we now...

In physics, 3 is the hardest number

In physics, 3 is the hardest number

by | Jun 16, 2025 |

Galaxy meger NGC 520. Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration, and B. Whitmore (STScI The diversity in galaxy mergers is amazing, and entire careers and catalogs have been dedicated to systems. A favorite pastime for many merger...

The Jet that Pierced a Galaxy

The Jet that Pierced a Galaxy

by | Jun 15, 2025 |

An artist's illustration of the cosmic joist with the actual data embedded. Illustration Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser. Image Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/S. Balashev and P. Noterdaeme et al. Researchers are learning that the jets associated with black holes can do more...

The mystery of ASKAP J1832-0911

The mystery of ASKAP J1832-0911

by | Jun 13, 2025 |

A graph of Chandra data and a fit to the data superimposed on an image that combines x-ray, IR, and radio data. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/ICRAR, Curtin Univ./Z. Wang et al.; Infrared: NASA/JPL/CalTech/IPAC; Radio: SARAO/MeerKAT; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk I...

The biggest cuts NASA’s ever faced

by | Jun 12, 2025 |

Credit: Planetary Society On May 2, the president released his target bottom line numbers for NASA, the National Science Foundation, and other federal agencies. This budget includes a 44% cut over FY25 to the NASA budget and a 56% cut to NSF. If Congress takes these...