Ok, I have to do a small thread about all the galaxies in that #JWST image - because if you turn up the brightness ... omg, they just POP out from everywhere. And as someone who's galaxies were mere blobs hidden in a sea of noise ... THIS IS AMAZING First up is this spiral boy near the bottom of the image. Look at that defined arm, with a definite flocculent disk around it. Hints of a second too! Is that a colliding neighbour to its right? And a foreground edge-on spiral to the left?

So, Messier Marathon - what's that when it's at home?

In the 1970s, three American astronomers concocted a devilishly tricky observing campaign - see every Messier Catalogue object in one epic night of observing. Here's a short 🧵, with full details in my @FifthStarLabs article

https://twitter.com/DrJeniMillard/status/1503306075789045760

The Messier Catalogue, a collection of the brightest and most accessible objects of the night sky, came about quite accidently in the late 1700s. Charles Messier (photo) was a comet hunter, but he kept coming across things decidedly comet like (fuzzy, nebulous) but stationary

As promised, here's your who's who and what's what guide to #Inspiration4, the first privately crewed orbital flight. THREAD.

First up - who's who:

1) US technology billionaire Jared Isaacman - Commander and funder of the venture. 2) Physician assistant Hayley Arceneaux - survivor of childhood bone cancer and now employee of St Jude Children Research hospital, the very place that saved her life and the benefactor of this mission. Chosen to represent St Jude's. Will be first to space with a metal leg pin.

Did you know that Ceres was the OG 9th planet of the Solar System? Discovered in 1801 by Italian Catholic priest and astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi (because astronomy was almost always a side-gig), this now-dwarf planet was originally described as a comet... Probably? (1/5)

https://twitter.com/DrJeniMillard/status/1419564163534368769

In his own words: I have announced this star as a comet, but since it shows no nebulosity, and moreover, since it had a slow and rather uniform motion, I surmise that it could be something better than a comet. (2/5)

Today is #InternationalDayOfWomenInScience. Here's my story. I hope it might inspire some of you to take up science, or maybe encourage you to support your female relatives in their pursuit of a career in STEM.

Thread... I come from a town in South Wales called Barry. Never heard of it? It's where this show was filmed (pic).

I went to a typical primary and all- female secondary school. No fancy science academy. But I do think an all-female school helped encourage my love of science. (2/n)

So what's new this time?
- 23 cameras, including zoom AND we can make 3D images
- We're directly searching for signs of past microbial life
- New, stronger wheels (with JPL spelled out in morse code in the hole pattern!)
- Caching
- Experiments for human survival on Mars (1/n)

https://twitter.com/NASA/status/1286111799054684160

The journey to Mars takes about 7 months, we're looking at a mid-Feb 2021 landing.

It'll be the first time we get to see the sky crane in action, because there's now a camera attached! Although there will be a time delay, we'll actually see Perseverance land! (2/n)

OK, here's the answer to the question: did NASA just ruin the zodiac and invent a constellation?

Tldr: no, Ophiuchus has always been there, it was just ignored when the signs were drawn up 3000 years ago. And due to precession, it's all out by about one sign anyway...

1/n To answer this, we have to go back 3000 years to those cool cats, the ancient Babylonians, the first astronomers and astrologers (because back then, the two were intertwined, which is not the case now).

These guys were smart. They had a 12 month calendar, and they had (2/n)