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Katie Mack

@AstroKatie

Jun 29, 2023

The news is out! The @NANOGrav pulsar timing array collaboration has detected a background of cosmic gravitational waves rippling through our Universe! Let’s talk about it!
(Full press conference tomorrow, )
1/n https://t.co/5jd4mp989Wnanograv.org/news/2023Annou…

@NANOGrav Q: What does this mean?
A: Whenever violent gravitational events (like colliding black holes) happen in the cosmos, it causes ripples in space itself: gravitational waves. This is the 1st detection of a “stochastic background” of these waves, coming from all over the cosmos.
2/n

@NANOGrav Q: What are pulsars?
A: Pulsars are ultra-dense neutron stars (remnants of dead stars) that have jets of radiation coming from their poles & rotate rapidly. Typically the jet isn’t aligned with the pole, so it sweeps around. When it hits us, we get a pulse.
3/n

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Katie Mack

@AstroKatie

Jun 18, 2023

Nothing exemplifies a complete failure to understand the point of science like demanding to settle a scientific issue through the medium of emotionally persuasive public shouting

We actually do a lot of arguing and debating within science! But — and this is pretty important context — we do it with knowledge and expertise already in hand, having read and understood the relevant literature, and for the purpose of improving the work. Not to win via applause.

Scientists don't do everything right & our methods aren't always unimpeachable.

But there's really not enough awareness that most of us spend a HUGE amount of our time trying desperately to find flaws in our own & each others' work. And we are very well equipped for this!

Read 4 tweets

Katie Mack

@AstroKatie

Apr 1, 2023

We don’t call Trump a liar and criminal because we don’t like him. We don’t like him because he’s a liar who does lots of crimes.

He has explicitly bragged that his fans would happily excuse his crimes even if they were murders in the streets; let’s not pretend the righteous indignation and claims of innocence are genuine.

I don’t think the right wing seriously believes he’s not a criminal. I think they just understand that it’s more socially/politically acceptable to play-act outraged credulity than to admit they don’t care about rules or honesty as long as their guy is winning.

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Katie Mack

@AstroKatie

Apr 1, 2023

I applied to Twitter for verification in 2016, when I had about 40k followers and was starting to have a voice in the online astronomy/physics community. The checkmark suddenly appeared shortly after a snarky tweet of mine went super viral and my following doubled in a week.

I don’t know how much of it has been due to going viral, or to my science, or just to how I tweet in general, and I don’t know how much verification helped, but I built up a wonderful little network of amazing people here whose work I admire and whose friendship I truly value.

Twitter has had its bad aspects for sure but for me, it’s been a doorway into a room full of my heroes, & a chance to listen to voices I might otherwise never encounter. I don’t know what it will be when so many people whose company I treasure find it no longer worth their time.

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Katie Mack

@AstroKatie

Oct 31, 2022

The point of Twitter verification is that for certain individuals/organizations it’s useful to be able to verify their statements are coming from them. (This is why so many journalists/reporters are verified.) It’s supposed to help combat disinformation, not be a status symbol.

People think of it as a status thing because a lot of people with status are verified but the causality is that if you’re well known, you’re more likely to be a target for impersonation and/or there’s more public interest in being able to verify that your statements are yours.

(This is not to say that Twitter verification is always applied sensibly/fairly. It certainly isn’t. And the verification distribution system has been bad in many ways for a long time. But turning it into purely a vanity accessory for pay would in fact be worse.)

Read 4 tweets

Katie Mack

@AstroKatie

Aug 31, 2022

This is an image of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). It's a projection of the whole sky onto an oval, aligned such that the center of the image is in the direction of the center of our Galaxy, and the edges are the opposite direction.

The CMB is often described as the afterglow of the Big Bang, but it's actually a DIRECT view of the Universe around us -- of parts so far away that the light has been travelling for about 13.8 billion years, so we see those regions as they were when the cosmos was STILL ON FIRE

In the early universe, all space was filled with hot dense plasma: space was aglow. Then, as time passed & the cosmos expanded, that plasma cooled & the gas became dark. So we see the bright plasma THROUGH the dark gas; the Cosmic Dark Ages are *closer* to us, backlit by the CMB

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