interplanetary.bsky.social
Planetary scientist, astronomer and award-winning science communicator 🪐. Formerly at JAXA, NASA, Boston Uni, and the Uni of Leicester. Now Associate Professor at @UniofReading. Forbes 8 Billion Under 8 Billion. Website: odonoghuespace.github.io
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The WH proposes $6 billion cut in NASA budget, an overall 24% reduction from previous year – and a shocking 47% cut in funding for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate [reductions to to NASA’s fleet of spacecraft already in space, or proposed], an extinction-level event for the Earth & space sciences.
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This Wrexham lad made good
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Sorry, I hope it doesn't go through like this. Any idea when everyone will know?
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Not great.
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Here's hoping this 'request' is ignored somewhat by congress. It tends to be for NASA, if memory serves, but things are different now, and I'm not sure how the NSF requests usually play out. It's important to be optimistic, but equally important to show that this is outrageous!
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Is that the NASA allocation to Keck, NexSci?
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Taking the mission cancellations alone: decades of engineering and scientific craft through millions of hours of work are at stake. The Juno spacecraft for example is the only active spacecraft at *any* outer planet, by any nation. Switching off that spacecraft is basically surrendering the frontier
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You don't even like the additional money it generates? theconversation.com/space-resear....
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Hello, may I please have some contact information for someone who operates your Planeterrella(s)? I contacted 3 different email addresses, but they may be wrong, so I'm reaching out to your social channels before I guess anymore!
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We've had some amazing skies down 'ere, haven't we! We paid for it though with December.
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When the lines go slightly over like that, I think it offends the mind in that "uncanny valley" kind of way!
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Was thinking the same thing this morning 😅
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Nice thread, Chris, thanks!
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We’ve seen this kind of heating at Earth before, but never at a giant planet, and not on this scale.
The Sun’s reach is stronger, and farther, than we expected, if it's able to bully big old Jupiter like this.
The paper: agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...
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A fast stream of solar wind slammed into Jupiter’s magnetosphere, triggering enhanced auroral activity, which amplified heating in the upper atmosphere.
That heat expanded the atmosphere around the planet in a thermal wave over 12 Earths long.
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Jupiter’s magnetic field is huge, the biggest in the solar system, and its aurora is mostly controlled from within. Here it is to scale with the Moon, if we could *see* the magnetic field lines.
We found that external solar forcing plays a major role, despite this.
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Unfortunately, around 90 animations are already circulating globally with the Twitter handle @physicsJ on them. The idea was to keep the Twitter account essentially inactive, so that viewers would be redirected here instead. In this sense, the account is basically an advertisement for Bsky, I hope!
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Deleted every tweet/video/image I have there several months ago, as it would otherwise add credibility to the lies on there
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Ok, I did it just because, conveniently, Stellarium include some pretend sunspots. Here I start with an Alt Az (person standing upright kinda) mount, going from 10am-noon. You can see the spots rotate in the field. At the end I switch to Equatorial mount, and then you see it stop field-rotating.
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The gif isn't playing, by the looks of it. It's on that link though. You can also open up Stellarium or Sky Safari and switch between Alt Az and Equatorial Mounts
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Hans this is 'field rotation'. Chris's mount is 'Altitude Azimuth'. It's parallel to Earth's surface, like us when we stand up; watch a crescent Moon throughout the day, you'll see it rotate. 'Equatorial mounts' are tilted same as Earth's axis, so no rotation. Gif via calgary.rasc.ca/field_rotati...