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26 May, 4 tweets, 3 min read
If the Moon is visible where you are right now, go look!! It should be a lovely deep red, illuminated not by direct sunlight but by the light of all the sunrises and sunsets of the Earth while in its shadow. #LunarEclipse2021
If you CAN’T see the Moon, I highly recommend browsing the hashtag #LunarEclipse2021 or #LunarEclipse and admiring everyone’s excited cell phone photos, they are delightful 🙂
This is one of my favorite weird optical illusions in astronomy. When it’s fully eclipsed, the Moon suddenly really looks 3D! #LunarEclipse2021 #LunarEclipse
If you got a cool photo of the #LunarEclipse astronomical marvel (fuzzy cell phone photos count!!) please drop it here so we can all “oo!” and “ah!” at it together! ⬇️

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More from @AstroKatie

Katie Mack Profile picture
19 May
One of the frustrating things about debunking UFOs or ghost sightings or paranormal phenomena or whatever is that the actual explanation is usually both mundane and complicated (featuring math and geometry and physics) and that just can't compete with an exciting mystery.
"Space aliens using trans-dimensional physics are visiting us and demonstrating rapid low-altitude flight enabled by advanced otherworldy technology!"
"Okay, so, let's talk about parallax; when an object is moving slowly in the near field against a distant background..."
“This guy has a thrilling first-person account of his terrifying encounter!”
“I’d like to talk about perceptual illusions and emotional memory but in the meantime if you’ll take a moment to look at this graph....”
Read 4 tweets
Katie Mack Profile picture
5 May
As of Monday, I am officially a PILOT! 👩‍✈️🛩️

After three delays due to weather, I finally had my checkride (the final step for getting a pilot license, which consists of an oral exam and a practical test). Here's a picture of me, the examiner, and my certificate after the flight! Me standing outside a build...
Learning to fly has been AMAZING and I'm thrilled I've been able to do it during the pandemic. My flight school (@Fly7B2) has been good about masks etc during lessons & indoors. It's just a hobby for me, but I'm now obsessed with aviation and can't wait to see where it takes me! Me piloting an airplane wit...
For those interested, here's the track log from my checkride. Lots of maneuvers, almost two hours of flying. The examiner was very thorough, as he should be! Flight actually started at Northampton, but I had the GPS off for the first bit for navigation by pilotage/dead reckoning. A track log showing an airp...
Read 4 tweets
Katie Mack Profile picture
20 Apr
Nice article by @uncertainquark for @exploreplanets about why terraforming Mars is probably a lot harder than you've been led to believe planetary.org/articles/can-w…
The problem with Mars isn't that it's dry, or even that it's cold. The problem is it has very little air and that air is mostly CO2, and is, incidentally, being slowly sheared off by the solar wind (for lack of a magnetic field). Just heating the planet doesn't solve any of that.
There's actually a decent amount of water (as ice) at/near the surface. But even if you made the planet warmer, above what we consider freezing, that ice will turn right into vapor because there's too little air pressure for liquid water to exist. The atmosphere is a challenge.
Read 4 tweets
Katie Mack Profile picture
8 Apr
I want to expand on this a little... it's an issue that makes the POSSIBLE NEW PHYSICS announcement today a bit more complicated/caveat-y...
Both the measurement and the theory prediction for this experiment require INCREDIBLE precision. And the calculations are HARD. You have to account for how every particle known to science might interact with a muon, hypothetically, and exactly how that would affect its motion. 😳
One way to do this calculation is called the "data-driven" approach, which relies on generalizing from other precise measurements. The other is a new approach using supercomputers doing "lattice QCD" -- solving lots of very difficult equations on a very tight grid.
Read 5 tweets
Katie Mack Profile picture
7 Apr
I've been tweeting a bunch of articles and threads about the #gminus2 result -- a possible indication of ✨ NEW PHYSICS ✨ coming from @Fermilab! Check my timeline for details, but I'll give a very brief and simplified summary here...
An experiment at @Fermilab is measuring a property of muons -- subatomic particles similar to electrons, but heavier -- to try to determine if our current understanding of particle physics is correct or not. The experiment hinges on the fact that muons are a tiny bit magnetic 🧲
The "Muon g-2" experiment measures how muons spin around and how that spin wobbles when they're sent around a circular track in the presence of strong magnetic and electric fields. That depends on how the muon spins and its "g-factor", related to its magnetism.
Read 11 tweets
Katie Mack Profile picture
8 Mar
New guidelines from the CDC for what might be okay for fully vaccinated people: cdc.gov/coronavirus/20…

Note: Dr. @RWalensky emphasized during the White House press conference that this is the best guidance RIGHT NOW but may change as conditions change and the science develops.
New CDC guidance:

"Fully vaccinated" (FV) = at least 2 weeks after final vaccine dose

* FV people can hang out in small groups with each other without masks

* FV people can hang out in small groups with LOW RISK unvaccinated people

* Non-essential travel still discouraged
The reason they're not saying fully vaccinated people can "just go out and do whatever" is partly because vaccines aren't 100% effective and partly because being vaccinated might not always prevent you from carrying the disease to others. (This is still being studied.)
Read 4 tweets

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