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shanil.bsky.social
Award-winning astronomer, passionate science educator & creator of Our Island Universe — a podcast promoting the public understanding of #science. Co-author of "Daughter of the Stars”, a photobook about #lightpollution. @uwaterloo.ca & @yale.edu alum 🇨🇦➡️🇺🇸
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🔭 At Angkor Wat, the rising Sun aligns with the central tower on #solstices and #equinoxes — a cosmic connection carved in stone. 🏯🌞 📍 Cambodia (~1150 CE) Astronomy, architecture, and spirituality woven into one breathtaking temple. 🧪 #AncientSkies #CulturalAstronomy

👏🏽 Profiles like these don’t just celebrate achievement — they serve as beacons for the next generation. Spotlighting the contributions of #Black #astronomers affirms the talent & vision that exist across #astronomy. 🧪🔭 Congratulations to all featured! #RepresentationMatters #YouCantBeWhatYouCantSee

I have seen a couple of the #RubinFirstLook images and they are AH-MAZE-ING! Tune in.

Long before telescopes, cultures around the world saw this pattern in the sky. They watched. They remembered. They built structures to say: we see the pattern. We are passengers on the 3rd rock from the Sun — spinning, tilting, and dancing through the cosmos in a choreography older than memory.🧪🔭

Long before smartphones or #Stonehenge tours, Native Mississippians tracked the Sun with #Woodhenge — a giant timber circle aligned to #solstices. 🌞🪵 📍 Cahokia, Illinois (~1100 CE) Brilliant Indigenous astronomy. No aliens required. 🧪 🔭 #AncientSkies #CulturalAstronomy

Twice a year, the Sun casts a shadow serpent down the Temple of Kukulcán at Chichén Itzá. 🐍🌞 This equinox illusion isn’t magic — it’s Maya #astronomy at its finest. 📍 Yucatán, Mexico (~1050 CE) #Science, story, and stone — perfectly aligned. #AncientSkies #CulturalAstronomy

This year’s #StanleyCup Final rematch between the #Oilers & the #Panthers really came down to 1 key variable: goaltending. The @nhlflapanthers.bsky.social had it & the @edmontonoilers.bsky.social didn’t. The last 2 years have proved it. Even with generational players like 97 & 29, you need a stud. 🏒

🌠 #Mars Meets #Regulus Tonight! 🌠 An hour after sunset this evening — look west! The warrior planet & the royal star stand side by side — a cosmic encounter of power, pride & mythic grandeur. 📷 Don’t miss this dazzling celestial color contrast! Binoculars bring it to life. #Conjunction #Stargazing

Flare looks close to Sun-centered! That means should a coronal mass ejection (CME) accompany this powerful #solarflare, the conditions may be conducive to a beautiful display of the #northernlights for the night-facing Earth in ~2 days. Stay tuned for details as more imaging becomes available! 🧪🔭

“𝙄𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪’𝙧𝙚 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙧𝙮, 𝙮𝙤𝙪’𝙧𝙚 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜!” ALL Americans need to listen to this woman. She may be young but she knows exactly what is at stake, why it is important that we use our voice to make sure we are heard, and why it shouldn’t matter how identify politically right now. 🎯 🎥 Credit: Unknown

This is misinformation and a very, very specific form of manipulation being employed here by NBC News. This is not a honest accounting of anything. This is the authoritarian recreation of reality in order to help the regime in power. It’s meant to confuse not to inform.

I am ashamed of this country. We are supposed to be a melting pot of cultures. Celebrating eachother and our differences. I am sick to my stomach.

A US Senator was forcibly removed for standing against ICE raids. This is the line. We need walkouts, mass resistance & an #AmericanSpring. Protests didn’t work in 2017. Only disruption & civil disobedience will save our country. Democracy demands we rise — now. Walk out. Rise up. 🔗 cbsn.ws/43I8fbg

General Mattis warned us in 2020: Trump’s use of force against civilians was authoritarian and anti-American. Now he’s doing it again — with fewer restraints, louder silence, and deeper damage. Half of us knew who he was. The rest refused to listen. #AmericanSpring 🔗 www.npr.org/2020/06/04/8...

Why let a front page temper tantrum between two psychopaths go to waste?! After Musk stated #FOTUS is named in the #Epstein files & Bannon called for Musk to be deported as an illegal immigrant, Russia offered Musk “asylum” & even to “mediate” a “peace deal for a reasonable fee”!😂 wapo.st/3ThV22x

THIS! We need to spread the message. Hit! The! Streets!

In which a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute (Reidl) and Senator Kennedy are the ones making sense. #TheStupidestTimeline

Chris Murphy: "We can't be preparing for the 2026 election. It might not come. All of our focus right now has to be on protecting the democracy, about stopping the corruption."

Ugh, he just gets better. 😩

“We aspired to intelligence. We didn’t belittle it.” We reached for the stars🔭, cured diseases🧪, cultivated great art AND a great economy. Today? We silence #science & fast-track nuclear reactors to power #AI. This isn’t progress. It’s a descent into darkness. First step? Recognize the problem.

“There’s no art in this White House.” If you do 1 thing today I hope it’s to watch this clip from @brucespringsteen.net. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Please just watch & *listen* in silence for 60 secs before spewing the hate & the ad hominem attacks. “We are lost.” www.instagram.com/reel/DKFlpQg...

“If you haven’t been poor, don’t legislate for the poor.” - Rep Lateefah Simon, CA-12

🚨 This is 𝒅𝒆𝒆𝒑𝒍𝒚 alarming: A new Executive Order directs the U.S. to 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗮 𝗻𝘂𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗼𝗻 𝗮 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲 within 3 years. Its purpose? To 𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗔𝗜 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 as part of “national security objectives.” Yes, you read that right. A nuclear reactor… for #AI. 🤯🧪 #Science #AI #Nuclear #Policy

Inspired by @jtuttlekeane.bsky.social and @ohdearz.bsky.social, here's what the White House proposed budget cuts to NASA would do to the entirety of the agency's Science Mission Directorate. Bloodbath is right.

A once-mighty #NASA astrophysics fleet—revolutionizing our view of the cosmos—is now being dismantled before our eyes. ❌ TESS, Chandra, Fermi, IXPE, UVEX… ❌ 20+ missions canceled, gutted, or abandoned. ❌ A generation of discovery, erased. This isn’t belt-tightening. It’s self-inflicted blindness.🔭

𝗦𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮 𝗹𝘂𝘅𝘂𝗿𝘆. It’s the engine of American innovation. This President wants to kill it. ❌ NIH: ⬇️$18B ❌ NASA: ⬇️$6.8B ❌ NSF: ⬇️$5B This isn’t fiscal discipline. It’s surrender—to disease, to ignorance, to rivals like China. We don’t build prosperity by firing scientists & killing missions.🧪

WATCH - @jessicatarlov.bsky.social on Fox: “If that was a Democratic dogemaster who showed up with a shiner and there was a report he did so much Ketamine he couldn’t pee straight… you would be leading your show with it.”

BREAKING: The president's budget request just hit Congress, which could usher in a dark age for NASA space science. Congress has the final say, but you can help shape the outcome by adding your name to our global petition. This is just the start of our fight. Sign the petition: planet.ly/petition

After my post on vaccinating my children when they were babies, I got asked to have ‘nuanced’ convos with antivaxxers. No. I’m not platforming lies that led to the drop in vaccines, sick children with lifelong impacts and dead children. Vaccines save lives and protect health. Period.