#PPOD: When the Sun, Moon, and Earth align just right, moonlight meets the mist at the base of a great waterfall. The result is a moonbow: a rainbow born not of daylight, but of reflected lunar light. The aurora borealis follows a similar logic, though its source is far more violent. Charged particles from geomagnetic storms race toward Earth, guided by magnetic fields into the upper atmosphere, where they excite atoms into glowing pillars of light. Credit: Josh Dury

#photography #science

Just one final thing - someone filmed some of my departure speech after Monkey Cage last night (I should make it clear no one knew I was going to do it) and it has been put up here - i cannot deny i was very emotional #science #comedy

chortle.co.uk/news/2025/12/13/…

Hey everyone, I’m #newhere. I’m interested in #atheism, #photography, #science, and #skepticism

I have a long journey in diaspora.

Came to diaspora when G+ closed years ago, then the instance closed and I moved to diasporasocial,net
That server was disconnected days ago. All of this week it shows as Error 500, with no other information, and no heads up from the admins. A friend here suggested I join. Now I have to figure out how to regain content, and contacts.

I have been a photographer (never a professional) for over 40 years. Now retired from a long career in IT, am devoting most of my time to travel and photography.

Will post more when I regain contacts, and figure out how to connect in diaspora again.

A somewhat stereotypical and weird interaction I have now seen several time with several people:

Them: "I and my collaborators like your project/idea/code, could you privately share all details with us please?"

Me: "Ok, that might work, but can you tell me a bit more about what you want to do with it?"

Them: "No way, you need to sign a non-disclosure-agreement with us first".

😱 😱 😱 😱 😱

Anyone else...?

#Academia #astrophysics #science

#PPOD: After a seven-year journey on board the Cassini spacecraft, ESA’s Huygens probe reached Titan’s surface, marking the most distant landing ever achieved by a spacecraft. During the descent, its cameras collected data on the dense atmosphere and took the first-ever images of the surface. These revealed an extraordinary world with lakes, islands, and erosion features similar to those that shape our planet, confirming that liquid methane once flowed there. Credit: ESA/NASA

#space #science

Friends of mine's first publication as a PI showing the dangers of sublethal pesticide doses for honey bee behavior:

sciencedirect.com/science/arti…
(gift link)

I feel happy for the author, but so sad for the bees!

#biology #pesticides #bees #science #environment

Endless expanse 🤩

The full #Moon shines bright in the sky. Below it, the giant dome of our Extremely Large Telescope glows with the golden #sunset light of the Atacama Desert in #Chile.

The ELT dome might look small in the image, but the full 30-min walk via the set of stairs from the entrance of the dome to its top indicates its gigantic size: 80 m high and 93 m wide.

Read more: eso.org/public/images/potw2549…

📷 L. Sbordone/ESO

#astrodon #astronomy #astrophysics #space #science

187 blogs are now aggregated, indexed, and archived by @rogue_scholar: doi.org/10.53731/aa1rk-1xf54

My wish for the year end is 200 blogs, among which 3 in the Dutch language

Are you blogging?

#blog #science #openscience

• yes (33%, 1 vote)
• considering (33%, 1 vote)
• what do I need to do? (33%, 1 vote)
• no (I will reply why) (0%, 0 votes)

Particle Physicists Detect ‘Magic’ at the Large Hadron Collider

In search of quantum advantage — the ability of a quantum computer to outperform classical computers on certain tasks — physicists began to look for entangled states that differed as much as possible from stabilizer states. These states earned the name magic states.

#LargeHadronCollider #LHC #physics #science #quantum #entanglement #technology #tech

quantamagazine.org/particle-ph…

Particle Physicists Detect ‘Magic’ at the Large Hadron Collider | Quanta Magazine

The supercollider is now being used to explore quantum phenomena, including a “magic” form of quantum entanglement.

^{Shalma Wegsman (Quanta Magazine)}

Another canary in the collapsing coalmine.

A paper today in Nature by Borlaff et al. on the impact of ever-increasing numbers of satellites in low-Earth orbit on space telescopes like Hubble, SPHEREx, & CHEOPS today, & Xuntian & ARRAKIHS in the future.

The number of proposed satellites is eye-watering, & the effects on astronomy horrendous – there are wider effects on pollution of the upper atmosphere & safety of key orbital assets as well.

nature.com/articles/s41586-025…

#Science #SpaceScience

Satellite megaconstellations will threaten space-based astronomy - Nature

Rapidly growing satellite constellations pose a substantial threat to astronomical observations, with projections indicating that future space telescopes will have more than 96% of their exposures affected by satellite trails, necessitating urgent mi…

^Nature