Today, ESA Euclid Dep. Project Scientist, Roland Vavrek, unveiled the intended Euclid Galactic Bulge Survey to the microlensing community gathered in #CapeTown. Scheduled for March 23rd 2025, the survey will extend the #exoplanet sensitivity of NASA Roman and enable other Galactic science. 🔭🧪

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ebdg5mtcz3r4i22wcsa5x3iv/post/3lgj5v5ob2c2d

These are an arrangement of nine pleasingly coloured rectangles. But they are also a pointer to a new dawn of #exoplanet discovery that will hopefully be commencing in March 2025. Watch out here for more news on this soon... #astronomy #astrophysics 🧪🔭

I just did this survey - takes 5 mins

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:vrsppvjc5fysqnm2zshiirey/post/3lfppt5oiwt2x

Since 2013 @esa.int Gaia has mapped precise positions, motions and distances to over a billion stars in our Galaxy. Today it takes its last measurements. If you've got a decent telescope, take an image of Gaia to help make its data even better: www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/obs...

Observe Gaia from the ground -...

If you'd like your Mastodon account visible to and followable by users of #Bluesky then just give the Bridgy Fed a follow: @bsky.brid.gy. See https://fed.brid.gy/ for details.

Since finishing with X I've been using #Mastodon, and have only started up here on #Bluesky in the last few days. All Bluesky users can widen their audience and have their Bluesky account followable by Mastodon users. Just give the Bridgy Fed @ap.brid.gy a follow. fed.brid.gy

Bridgy Fed

Well, last night was a #stargazing session unlike any i have done before! Watching the #Moon and #Mars whilst #skinnydipping in an icy reservoir at night near #Buxton, UK. The water temperature was about 3C and the ice was up to 7 inches thick in places. Definitely one of the best ways to view the stars!

I want to show the visible light view of planetary nebula NGC 1514 because it's incredibly different from the infrared view offered by JWST, so I downloaded the PANSTARRS view of the area...but the automated mosaic always has a lot of linear artifacts and background matching problems. I was happy to discover that individual exposures are available through STScI's MAST interface, which means I can do a custom stack to get rid of a lot of the artifacts. It's a pain in the ass, but I do like the results.

Finally got an #AirSourceHeatPump installed, after many false starts and a fair bit of #procrastination on my part.

And this morning I deleted my #Twitter / #X accounts and apps so i don't have to put up with #Trump / #Musk sewerage on my timeline anymore.

So, overall, a good week for plumbing improvements.

To all those who feel that #funding #scientific #research is a burden on the #taxpayer. Take note!

Full article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq82y55jg35o

@CppGuy For SETI the only filters that matter are those halting life with technology recognisable to us. If we were to avoid such a filter we will likely, probably within timescales of order 1000s years, be able to send AI self-replicating robots to spread out in the galaxy. Evidence of us would be everywhere within millions of years. SETI sees no such evidence of others. Maybe it's early days for SETI, or maybe there's a filter that is also relevant for us. That's the point of the article.

@CppGuy There's at least 10,000 million million million star systems out there, and our baby footsteps so far in exoplanet discovery indicate most if not all host planets. And Earth sized planets are very common. There's plenty of opportunities for situations that would be similar to our own to occur. We also have no idea how diverse, or potentially non-diverse, life itself can be elsewhere. So, I'd say we literally have no clue about how unusual we may be.

@Lottie Those lattes are sneakier than they look! 😆

@CppGuy It's a reasonable proposition that the ones we might hope to detect/decipher will have technology that is recognisable to us, and therefore closely related. By definition, SETI can only succeed if there are others broadly like us out there. Maybe nobody else out there is like us. If so then, to me, that would be a pretty remarkable discovery. Without any guiding prior information, we should assume the principle of mediocrity - we are not special until we find evidence that shows we are.

@Lottie Have to confess i have not been keeping pace with chocolate hazelnut latte research. Remind me when they're predicted to reach #superintelligence ?

A thought provoking opinion piece from Mike Garrett on a possible cause for the #SETI silence and the warning it may be giving us as regards #AI development:

AI may be to blame for our failure to make contact with alien civilisations
https://theconversation.com/ai-may-be-to-blame-for-our-failure-to-make-contact-with-alien-civilisations-227270

My son's reaction to this announcement - he's torn up his membership of #LabourParty. Who can blame him if Labour U-turns on his future and that of generations to follow. Where is the true #leadership this country needs right now? #ClimateEmergency

Labour ditches £28bn green investment pledge - BBC News:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68232133

WTAF!

Don't often cook #ovenchips, but whenever i have they definitely haven't been anywhere close to being cooked within the suggested time. I think if #nasa were to coat the outside of their #spacecraft in oven chips they'd be absolutely fine during re-entry.

Another look at Jupiter’s moon Io with decorrelated colors and boosted to show the dark jupitershine on the right. A lot of credit goes to the JunoCam team for recovering the camera from apparent severe radiation damage that ruined much of the last perijove images. Expect a lot of cool science to come out of this pass and the next one in February!

NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill

#Jupiter #Io #Perijove57 #Juno #JunoCam #Space #Science