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Reposted by Francesca Fragkoudi

Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 1d

Astronomers have detected a dark blob of...something, billions of light years away. It's as massive as a million Suns & it emits no detectable radiation.

It might be a clump of dark matter, revealing new details about the structure of the invisible universe. 🧪🔭

www.ucdavis.edu/news/astrono...

Left, our best surface brightness model of the 1.7-GHz global VLBI observation used here, which has been reconvolved with the main lobe of the interferometer’s point spread function and added to the residuals (34 μJy per beam r.m.s.). For reference, red contours show the surface brightness at 2.1 μm observed by the W. M. Keck Observatory adaptive optics system30. The positions of two low-mass perturbers are each marked with a black X. The 2 × 108 M⊙ object first detected by ref. 24 is labelled , and the 1.13 × 106 M⊙ detection reported here is labelled . The zoomed-in region shown in the right-hand two panels is indicated by the black square, which has a side length of 60 mas. Top right, detail of the bright arc around , with the colour scale modified to emphasize the gap in the arc produced by the gravitational perturbation of . Bottom right, GI corrections to the lensing convergence (expressed in units of lens-plane surface mass density), showing a compact, positive feature whose position and mass are consistent with the independent parametric modelling results for . The dashed black circle has a radius of 80 pc and the lensed emission is indicated by the black contours.

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Reposted by Francesca Fragkoudi

Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · 1d

Paper day! My PhD student Mariana Júlio, with @readdark.bsky.social, @pengfeili.bsky.social and others, studies the internal dynamics of dwarf galaxies and finds they don't agree with the Radial Acceleration Relation, challenging the dark matter alternative MOND.

arxiv.org/abs/2510.06905

🔭☄️🧪
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The radial acceleration relation at the EDGE of galaxy formation: testing its universality in low-mass dwarf galaxies

A tight correlation between the baryonic and observed acceleration of galaxies has been reported over a wide range of mass ($10^8 < M_{\rm bar}/{\rm M}_\odot < 10^{11}$) - the Radial Acceleration Rela...

arxiv.org

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Francesca Fragkoudi @astrofrancesca.bsky.social · 1d

interesting results! 🤩

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ExGal-Twin: Excellence in Galaxies - Twinning the IAC @exgaltwin.bsky.social · 24d

🌌 Yesterday, the Durham Advanced School on Astrophysical Simulations kicked off at Durham University! PhD students and researchers are diving into both theoretical and practical aspects of astrophysical simulations. Big thanks to the Institute of Computational Simulations for organizing! 🙏

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ExGal-Twin: Excellence in Galaxies - Twinning the IAC @exgaltwin.bsky.social · 29d

The wait is over! Next week the Durham Advanced School on Astrophysical Simulations kicks off at @durhamuniversity.bsky.social We’re finalizing preparations for this international event with 50 students and ~12 lecturers 👩‍💻👨‍🏫 Big thanks to the DU-ICC for hosting!
📸 More updates and photos coming soon!

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Sera Markoff @profsera.bsky.social · 29d

As a member of the Netherlands Royal Academy of Arts & Sciences (KNAW) I support our statement on the war in Gaza.

www.knaw.nl/en/news/stat...

Statement by the KNAW Board on the situation in Gaza - KNAW

The KNAW Board calls on the Dutch Minister of Education, Culture and Science to actively press for suspension of Israel’s participation in the EU’s Horizon Europe programme for scientific and scholarl...

www.knaw.nl

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IAU Office of Astronomy for Education @astro4edu.bsky.social · Aug 15

From using Arduino to simulate exoplanet transits (perfect for older students fond of technology) to exploring lightning on other planets, and wrapping up with a tactile Jupiter experience designed for younger children: This is the astroEDU summer collection of activities 2025! 1/4 🔭 #astroedu

Announcement card vor the astroEDU summer 2025 activities collection with three images showing electonics, a tactile Jupiter and a person rubbing a styrofoam container

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Reposted by Francesca Fragkoudi

Sera Markoff @profsera.bsky.social · Aug 14

Great article about the importance of software engineering and open source code in astrophysics 🔭🧪 (and if anyone is keen to work with me on #BlackHoles lmk, I am planning to hire a software engineer soon!) 😊

www.simonsfoundation.org/2025/08/12/a...

A Stellar Revolution: How Open-Source Tool MESA Changed the Way We Study Stars

A Stellar Revolution: How Open-Source Tool MESA Changed the Way We Study Stars on Simons Foundation

www.simonsfoundation.org

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Francesca Fragkoudi @astrofrancesca.bsky.social · Aug 13

Last month we had the privilege of having Durham U's Chancellor, Dr Fiona Hill, record the narration for a new VR movie we're developing about the life of our Milky Way, using the new Auriga Superstars simulations 🔭☄️✨
We're really excited to share this soon with you all 👀
#astronomy #astrosci

Durham University @durham.ac.uk · Jul 11

Our astronomers are developing a virtual reality movie to inspire children from North East England and beyond to be curious about science and the cosmos. Our Chancellor, Dr Fiona Hill, has recorded the voiceover for the movie which will premiere later this year! Watch this space…

#NAM2025

A woman wearing headphones and holding a piece of paper sits in front of a microphone in a recording studio.

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The Royal Society @royalsociety.org · Aug 12

Astrophysicist Margaret Burbidge FRS was born #OnThisDay in 1919. During her long career she helped originate the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis, discovered the most distant astronomical object known at the time, and helped develop instruments for the Hubble Space Telescope.

#WomenInSTEM #Space

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Francesca Fragkoudi @astrofrancesca.bsky.social · Aug 6

oh dear, scary, but good to know since I often use google for quick calculations and unit conversions 😱

John Forbes @redshiftless.bsky.social · Aug 4

PSA to scientists: Google calculator appears to no longer do basic unit conversion correctly!

n.b. the correct answer here is 223.4 Myr, a factor of about 60 larger than Google's answer.

🔭 🧪

A screenshot of a google search result for "2*pi*(8 kpc)/(220 km/s)" which is roughly the time it takes the Sun to go around the Galaxy. In the screenshot, google's calculator has popped up and parsed the expression correctly, but then returns the result 3 899 243.9 years, and answer which is off by 2 orders of magnitude.

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Alex Ji @alexji.bsky.social · Aug 5

We’ve got a new zooniverse program called Dwarf Quest! Help us find members of our Milky Way’s galactic entourage in data from the Dark Energy Camera
www.zooniverse.org/projects/ywy...

Zooniverse

The Zooniverse is the world’s largest and most popular platform for people-powered research.

www.zooniverse.org

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @cosmicrami.com · Aug 3

So something @stilgherrian.com shared earlier caught my eye and I did some reading.

Apparently, SpaceX is lodged a complaint with the FCC that another company, AST, is putting to many satellites into orbit.

First and foremost, let's get this out of the way ... fuckin lolz. They have no shame.

1/n

Letter from SpaceX that is complaining to FCC about AST.

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Jim Al-Khalili @jimalkhalili.bsky.social · Jul 30

🧪Physicists disagree wildly on what quantum mechanics says about reality, Nature survey shows

From nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Physicists disagree wildly on what quantum mechanics says about reality, Nature survey shows

First major attempt to chart researchers’ views finds interpretations in conflict.

www.nature.com

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Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans @astroroyalscot.bsky.social · Jul 30

Big day for the matriarchy! 🥳 Huge congrats to the awesome Prof. Doughtery, lead on the Jupiter-bound ESA JUICE mission & STFC Exec Chair.

If anyone's confused on the astro royal hierarchy: Michele and I are the astro equivalents of 🇬🇧Westminster and 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Holyrood 🤗

ℹ️: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... 👩‍🔬🔭🧪

UK gets first female Astronomer Royal in 350 years

Prof Michele Dougherty is the first woman to be appointed to the influential post.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Francesca Fragkoudi @astrofrancesca.bsky.social · Jul 23

Grazie Alessandra 🥰

Francesca Fragkoudi @astrofrancesca.bsky.social · Jul 21

Our sister institute at Durham, the Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, are advertising for a five year lectureship position 🔭☄️
Advertisement is here, have a look and come join us in pretty Durham: durham.taleo.net/careersectio...
#astrosci

Lecturer in Observational Astronomy (Research %26 Education)

Click the link provided to see the complete job description.

durham.taleo.net

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Paul McMillan @mcmillan-astro.bsky.social · Jul 15

🔭 Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, UK astronomy version. Inspired by a comment from LOC chair David Alexander at #NAM2025 🔭

Sgt Pepper Beatles in NAM 2025 group photo

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Mike Boylan-Kolchin @mbkplus.bsky.social · Jul 14

I have a lot of thoughts here, but the most basic one is that it's insane that we've allowed people to get so rich that they can basically fund this with their own money while at the same time not providing any real mechanism for governmental oversight or regulation.

George Pearkes @peark.es · Jul 14

Some absolutely insane numbers here.

zuck
1m
For our superintelligence effort, I'm focused on building the most elite and talent-dense team in the industry. We're also going to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into compute to build superintelligence. We have the capital from our business to do this.
zuck
1m
SemiAnalysis just reported that Meta is on track to be the first lab to bring a 1GW+ supercluster online. 💪
zuck
1m
We're actually building several multi-GW clusters. We're calling the first one Prometheus and it's coming online in '26. We're also building Hyperion, which will be able to scale up to 5GW over several years. We're building multiple more titan clusters as well. Just one of these covers a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan.
zuck
1m
Meta Superintelligence Labs will have industry-leading levels of compute and by far the greatest compute per researcher. I'm looking forward to working with the top researchers to advance the frontier!

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NAM 2025 Durham @nam25-durham.bsky.social · Jul 9

DAY 3 #NAM2025durham 🌟

Midweek at #NAM2025 brings one of our busiest days of sessions! Join us for these special events:
🎨 Artwork unveiling in OCW including dance and poetry performances
🎲 board games night in the TLC

And reminder to vote for most engaging exhibitor by 5pm!

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Francesca Fragkoudi @astrofrancesca.bsky.social · Jul 9

yeh maybe. Worth experimenting with 😅

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Francesca Fragkoudi @astrofrancesca.bsky.social · Jul 9

That's probably true within the world of academia. Outside of that I think many people see uni profs primarily as "people who teach", not sure they know about the research, etc. part of the job. E.g. people often ask me if I have 3 months of holiday in summer since "uni is closed, students are away"

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Francesca Fragkoudi @astrofrancesca.bsky.social · Jul 8

My awesome PhD student 🤩

Durham University @durham.ac.uk · Jul 8

The @royalastrosoc.bsky.social @nam25-durham.bsky.social is a chance for our students to hear from leading astronomers and share their own research. PhD student Martyna Winiarska says that taking part in NAM is what being a researcher is all about 👉 durham-student.org/national-ast...

#NAM2025

A woman with curly hair and wearing university graduation robes and a hat smiles at the camera.

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Francesca Fragkoudi @astrofrancesca.bsky.social · Jul 8

my title was asst prof, but I kinda preferred lecturer, especially when talking about my job to people outside academia. I've literally had people say "oh are you a professor's assistant?", whereas "lecturer" always got the message across. "reader" would probably confuse people though.

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Durham University @durham.ac.uk · Jul 2

We're excited to be hosting almost 1,000 leading space scientists at the @royalastrosoc.bsky.social ‪National Astronomy Meeting #NAM2025 next week, 7 to 11 July! Leading up to NAM, discover more about our amazing research into the mysteries of the Universe 👉 www.durham.ac.uk/news-events/...

A montage of space related images including a simulation of the cosmic web, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and people looking up at the Milky Way in the night sky.

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