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Reposted by Heidi B. Hammel

Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 1h

For more information about the Friday night massacre at CDC, I wrote up an analysis of who got terminated and what that means for public health.

Grateful to @saveamericamvmt.bsky.social for supporting and amplifying. We are in really terrible trouble.

rasmussenretorts.substack.com/p/the-death-...

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Heidi B. Hammel @hbhammel.bsky.social · 17h

😂

Phil Plait @philplait.bsky.social · 19h

If i were an interstellar comet I'd file a 50 AU restraining order.

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Heidi B. Hammel @hbhammel.bsky.social · 19h

Harvard Professor proposes that he be named Director-General of a special new UN Committee to tell us planetary astronomers how to study interstellar objects, using a special characterization scale named after Harvard Professor (of course!). Srsly. arxiv.org/pdf/2510.01405

arxiv.org

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Heidi B. Hammel @hbhammel.bsky.social · 20h

what Tod said

Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 4d

The effort put into understanding 3I/Atlas has been spectacular, imaginative, professional and well-organized. Planetary scientists don't need Avi Loeb put in charge of an international directorate to tell them how to do their jobs.

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Heidi B. Hammel @hbhammel.bsky.social · 20h

That's so cool, on so many levels! Congrats!

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Heidi B. Hammel @hbhammel.bsky.social · 22h

New unified model of equatorial winds on giant planets helps to explain some of the zonal wind observations 🔭 I and my colleagues have made for Neptune and Uranus over the past few decades - www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

From gas to ice giants: A unified mechanism for equatorial jets

A bifurcation in equatorial jet formation can explain the differences between the gas and ice giants.

www.science.org

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Heidi B. Hammel @hbhammel.bsky.social · 23h

🔭 Kudos to the Rubin team time.com/collections/...

Vera C. Rubin Observatory: The Best Inventions of 2025

Find out why Vera C. Rubin Observatory is on TIME's list of 2025's best inventions.

time.com

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Heidi B. Hammel @hbhammel.bsky.social · 23h

Donation site for @mit.edu if you are so inclined: www.mit.edu/building-a-b... - I usually donate specifically to the fund for grad students named in honor of my mentor when I was an undergraduate there: the fund number for the James L. Elliot (1965) Graduate Student Support Fund is 3297565.

Better World | MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Scholarships and fellowships funded by our community open a world of opportunities to tomorrow’s changemakers. Professorships nurture research powerhouses and tap the potential of rising stars. Suppor...

www.mit.edu

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Reposted by Heidi B. Hammel

US National Gemini Office @usngo.bsky.social · 10d

Gemini South finds Hayabusa2’s target asteroid is 3x tinier and spinning 2x faster than previously thought! #astronomy noirlab.edu/public/news/...

Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/T. Santana-Ros
ESO/M. Kornmesser. Asteroid: T. Santana-Ros et al. Hayabusa2 model: SuperTKG (CC-BY-SA)

Gemini Data Critical to Revealing that Hayabusa2 Target is Tinier and Faster than Thought - Gemini South paves the way for characterizing small asteroids from the ground with new data on spacecraft Ha...

Astronomers using observatories around the world, including the Gemini South telescope, the SOAR telescope and the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope funded in part by the U.S. National Science Founda...

noirlab.edu

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Heidi B. Hammel @hbhammel.bsky.social · 10d

chonky and chonkier somehow makes me think there are oodles of delightfully large cats inhabiting the subsurface ocean of Enceladus 😸

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Reposted by Heidi B. Hammel

Mark Boslough @boslough.bsky.social · 12d

My opinion piece on the pseudoscience of the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis was published today by Skeptical Inquirer.

skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/th...

The Problem with Inadequately Reviewed Fringe Science | Skeptical Inquirer

Skeptics usually recognize pseudoscience when we see it. Our heuristics include an assessment of the qualifications and reputations of an idea’s proponents ...

skepticalinquirer.org

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Reposted by Heidi B. Hammel

Lee Billings @leebillings.bsky.social · 11d

Now on @sciam.bsky.social: NASA’s next-gen Habitable Worlds Observatory may be our best chance to find alien life. But can a nation busy ripping itself apart unite to launch a mission to solve life’s cosmic mysteries? By @nadiadrake.bsky.social (and me).

www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-...

NASA’s First-Ever Alien-Hunting Space Telescope Could Enlighten Our New Dark Age

The Habitable Worlds Observatory is poised to tell us whether Earthlike planets are common—if it can get off the ground

www.scientificamerican.com

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Reposted by Heidi B. Hammel

Don Davis @ddavisspaceart.bsky.social · 12d

A recent vista from Mars obtained by the Perseverance Rover on its 1635th Martian day, or 'Sol', Clouds far above the eternal dust pall are unusually well shown in this afternoon view. This is a mosaic of two wide angle color Navcam images.

This mosaic of two wide angle photos from the Perseverance rover shows the Martian surface stretching into the distance beyond two foreground hills. The rover tracks can just be seen winding into the distance. In this view clouds are unusually well defined as they float well above the tan dust that eternally colors the Martian skies.
In the original photos the area near the Sun is 'burned out' by the limitations of the camera sensor. I have addressed this by manually painting over the overexposed areas to reconstruct something of the brightness contours as they probably would have appeared to a human observer. I have also 'warped' the lower corners to fill the rectangular format. Artist's prerogative :-)

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Reposted by Heidi B. Hammel

American College of Medical Toxicology @acmtmedtox.bsky.social · 17d

Position Statement: ACMT Supports the Safe Use of #Acetaminophen in Pregnancy.

Read our full statement here➡️ bit.ly/3VxbKw8

ACMT Position Statement: ACMT affirms the safety of acetaminophen in pregnancy and calls for an evidence-based approach to the search for causes and treatment of autism.

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Heidi B. Hammel @hbhammel.bsky.social · 17d

"All that remained was to complete the crew capsule, called Orion, connected to SLS and to complete ground tests." 👀 Oh, that's "all"? Um . . . www.bbc.com/news/article...

Artemis II: Nasa plans crewed Moon mission for February

The mission around the Moon will pave the way for a lunar landing as soon as 2027.

www.bbc.com

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Reposted by Heidi B. Hammel

Noel Casler Comedy @noelcaslercomedy.bsky.social · 18d

If you think Tylenol is bad for children’s health what until you see what guns do.

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Heidi B. Hammel @hbhammel.bsky.social · 18d

I'll admit that Mars is not one of my favorite planets, but even I can't get enough Martian dune images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera, like this one colorized to look like the planet Uranus 😉 More stunning HiRISE pix at www.uahirise.org/catalog/

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Heidi B. Hammel @hbhammel.bsky.social · 24d

Oh my! That is weird!

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Heidi B. Hammel @hbhammel.bsky.social · 25d

Thx - I did encounter that graphic already but it has simultaneously too much info and too little info 😂

Heidi B. Hammel @hbhammel.bsky.social · 26d

Thx, Andy - audience is people who are not asteroid folks or even scientists - we can talk offline sometime about it

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Heidi B. Hammel @hbhammel.bsky.social · 26d

asteroid skymind - I am looking for a figure that shows asteroid spectral type as a function of near IR wavelength (0.9-2.5 micron) spectroscopy. Like this chart, but perhaps generalized and also with C and M type asteroids. Any leads? @asrivkin.bsky.social?

Pic shows reflectance spectroscopy for four different asteroids (Hektor, Eros, Kalliope, and Elektra) in the near infrared. Source: Emery et al "Chapter 19 - Spectral Analyses of Asteroids" in the book: Remote Compositional Analysis Techniques for Understanding Spectroscopy, Mineralogy, and Geochemistry of Planetary Surfaces.

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Heidi B. Hammel @hbhammel.bsky.social · 29d

Cole Gregg explores whether interstellar material might come from circumstellar debris disks (it probably can!), and if so, where that material might come from and what would be the physical characteristics thereof #epscdps #epscdps2025

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Reposted by Heidi B. Hammel

Meg Schwamb @megschwamb.bsky.social · 29d

Leah Albrow's talk (given by John Forbes who stepped in to give it) planet dynamical instabilities leave their mark on the ISO population #EPSCDPS2025

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Heidi B. Hammel @hbhammel.bsky.social · 29d

John Forbes: according to a model based on stellar populations, our galaxy contains a tapestry of streams of interstellar objects (ISOs) as illustrated in this still from a video that has been shown repeatedly in this ISO session #epscdps #epscdps2025

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Heidi B. Hammel @hbhammel.bsky.social · 29d

Close encounters of the average kind: Yukon Huang explores an analytic model of interstellar objects are scattered out of their planetary systems #epscdps #epscdps2025

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