Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Michelle Collins @runningastronomer.bsky.social · 20h

Tomorrow it is world space week on Guildford high Street! Join us from 10-4 for space, science, planets, galaxies, stars and satellites! I can't wait ☄️🌕👽🌟🛰️🛸👩🏻‍🚀🧪🔭

an astronaut in a space suit is flying through space

Alt: an astronaut in a space suit is flying through space

media.tenor.com

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Michelle Collins @runningastronomer.bsky.social · 2d

I will!

Michelle Collins @runningastronomer.bsky.social · 2d

Really cool paper!

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Reposted by Michelle Collins

Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · 2d

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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Michelle Collins @runningastronomer.bsky.social · 4d

Cordoba is lovely, by the way 🤩

Me and Duncan Forbes, posing amidst the red and white striped arches of the Mesquita

The main altar of the cathedral found within Cordoba's mosque.

A wider view of the arches and pillars of the Mesquita

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Michelle Collins @runningastronomer.bsky.social · 4d

Have you heard last week's episode of the Starxiv yet? It's a great one! Episode 22 will be released next Monday but I won't be in it as this week I'm in Cordoba for a conference on galaxy outskirts ☄️🔭

The StarXiv ✨ podcast @starxiv.bsky.social · 12d

Episode 21 is live! Tune in to here the latest results on Mercury's magnetosphere, population III stars, relic galaxies, quasi-periodic eruptions and more, with your hosts, Michelle and Nicole. Available on our website, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get podcasts 🔭 ☄️

starxiv.com

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Reposted by Michelle Collins

James Davenport @jradavenport.com · 4d

If anyone from the UN wants to talk, here’s a nice summary. The astronomy community does NOT endorse this proposal, just take it from one of THE EXPERTS on ISOs with Rubin. Meg (and many others) has helped the community plan for +10yrs for these kinds of studies.

Meg Schwamb @megschwamb.bsky.social · 4d

I'll for global coordination for ISO follow-up, but it's telling that no one who's actually coordinating follow-up was actually asked to participate in this proposal or thought of to be even suggested as names on committees in this proposal

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Michelle Collins @runningastronomer.bsky.social · 6d

Welcome to the party, companies! I've been working in slippers since about 2011. It is comfortable and adds to the slightly mad academic style. www.theguardian.com/money/2025/s...

Sock it to the shoes: why more offices are going footwear-free

British companies are trialling no-shoes policies as a way to improve focus, comfort and morale – but not everyone is convinced

www.theguardian.com

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Michelle Collins @runningastronomer.bsky.social · 7d

I literally sang this to myself repeatedly during the last HST cycle 😂

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Reposted by Michelle Collins

Rubin LSST:UK @lsstuk.bsky.social · 8d

An exciting and positive read – we're happy to see the piece give a shoutout to rising talent in #astronomy, including Astha whom we interviewed recently about her LSST:UK work too.

Michelle Collins @runningastronomer.bsky.social · 8d

Great article featuring some of our Surrey astrophysics students! Unfortunately they seem to have been attributed to the wrong supervisor, but wonderful to see them talking passionately about the work they are doing with @payeldas.bsky.social @derkal.bsky.social and Noelia Noël 🔭☄️🧪

David Blanchflower BSc @davidbflower.bsky.social · 8d

Can a satellite unlock the secrets of the universe? 🔭 🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

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Michelle Collins @runningastronomer.bsky.social · 8d

Great article featuring some of our Surrey astrophysics students! Unfortunately they seem to have been attributed to the wrong supervisor, but wonderful to see them talking passionately about the work they are doing with @payeldas.bsky.social @derkal.bsky.social and Noelia Noël 🔭☄️🧪

David Blanchflower BSc @davidbflower.bsky.social · 8d

Can a satellite unlock the secrets of the universe? 🔭 🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Euclid: Space professor reflects on success of satellite

The Euclid satellite, launched by Space X, was developed by a team including Professor Adam Amara.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Reposted by Michelle Collins

The StarXiv ✨ podcast @starxiv.bsky.social · 11d

Nicole’s final paper discussed this new take on second-gen (G2) stars in globular clusters: maybe they weren’t born polluted… maybe they merged into it. Mergers of MS + HeWD binaries can produce G2-like stars with He and N enrichment — even in the field.
arxiv.org/abs/2509.15337 🔭☄️

Left panel: optical CMD, namely F555W-(F439W-F555W), of the globular cluster NGC 362 based on HST photometry from Piotto et al. (2002); three red filled squires show the expected consecutive locations of an initial MS binary in its evolution toward RGB-like merger remnant, schematically shown in the right panel; the blue points show the stars of the RGB in its total range beginning from the RGB base. Right panel: schematic illustration of the main consecutive stages of the evolution of a hard binary initially composed of two MS stars (1), then converted into a (MSS+HeWD) binary (2), which finally merges forming RGB-like merger product (3) evolving along the cluster RGB.

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Reposted by Michelle Collins

Royal Astronomical Society @royalastrosoc.bsky.social · 9d

Today marks the start of '100 Hours of Astronomy'! 🔭🪐💫

Want to take part in the global stargazing event? Join in any time from now until Sunday by completing four simple challenges to find star patterns and a planet in the night sky.

Find out more at: 100hours.online

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Michelle Collins @runningastronomer.bsky.social · 10d

This episode I learnt about quasi periodic eruptions, mysterious bursts of x rays emanating from near super massive black holes. What causes then? Tune in to hear one theory about this 🔭☄️🧪

The StarXiv ✨ podcast @starxiv.bsky.social · 12d

In Michelle's second paper, we learned about quasi-periodic eruptions from Ansky and what might generate them. In this case, new monitoring shows that the period and intensity of Ansky's QPEs are increasing, but why? Tune in to find out ☄️ 🔭 !https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.16304

Data showing the flare profiles measured in 2024 and 2025. The luminosity and period have dramatically increased!

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Michelle Collins @runningastronomer.bsky.social · 11d

🔭☄️🧪

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Michelle Collins @runningastronomer.bsky.social · 11d

4-most are here! Check out this cool spectroscopic survey and follow their progress. The science will be amazing!!! First light coming VERY soon

4-meter Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope (4MOST) @4most-eu.bsky.social · 24d

Welcome to the official 4-metre Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope (4MOST) Bluesky account! Stay tuned for our first-light events coming very soon, and updates on all of the amazing science we will be completing over the years to come!

📷: Y. Beletsky/ESO

#4most #ESO #telescope #astronomy

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Michelle Collins @runningastronomer.bsky.social · 11d

How much mixing happens at early times in the universe? And will it be a problem when using chemical tagging to investigate galaxy build up? Nicole talked us through it in our latest episode 🧪☄️🔭

The StarXiv ✨ podcast @starxiv.bsky.social · 12d

Nicole talked about early metal mixing with Aeos, a sim of Pop III enrichment. Gas is only chemically coherent within 100 pc and 7 Myr after a SN. Beyond that, stars form with distinct abundance patterns. This Mahalanobis distance plot shows this divergence.
arxiv.org/abs/2509.13580 🔭☄️

Top: Number of stars per time bin. Bottom: dM along with 16th to 84th percentile spread of dM over TSF assuming instantaneous and homogeneous mixing across spheres of radius R. (The zero-point of TSF is the time at which each star forms.) Prior to ∼7Myr after a star forms, smaller spheres have smaller dM. The dM for each sphere intersects at ∼7Myr, suggesting τchem=7Myr. After 7Myr, the dM of spheres R≤0.1kpc continues to increase dramatically, consistent with rapidly changing local gas, whereas the dM of spheres R≥0.5kpc flattens, consistent with expectations for an IMF-averaged gas abundance.

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Michelle Collins @runningastronomer.bsky.social · 11d

I love how much we can learn about galaxies from deep images like these, and incredible coming from amateur telescopes too🤩 🧪☄️🔭

The StarXiv ✨ podcast @starxiv.bsky.social · 12d

Michelle's first paper discusses the Pearl in the Shell, a study of an ultra compact dwarf and a debris cloud around a nearby spiral galaxy. The study combines data from professional and amatCheck it out in our latest episode! arxiv.org/abs/2509.14038 🔭 ☄️

Amateur image of NGC 7531 (left). DESI Legacy Imaging Survey image of NGC 7531 (right). Sky-subtracted image of NGC 7531 as
processed by Gnuastro’s NoiseChisel program was used as a basis for photometry measurements. Features are labelled: (a): main shell; (b): faint
outer shell; c: counter plume.

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Reposted by Michelle Collins

The StarXiv ✨ podcast @starxiv.bsky.social · 12d

Nicole talked about early metal mixing with Aeos, a sim of Pop III enrichment. Gas is only chemically coherent within 100 pc and 7 Myr after a SN. Beyond that, stars form with distinct abundance patterns. This Mahalanobis distance plot shows this divergence.
arxiv.org/abs/2509.13580 🔭☄️

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Reposted by Michelle Collins

The StarXiv ✨ podcast @starxiv.bsky.social · 12d

Episode 21 is live! Tune in to here the latest results on Mercury's magnetosphere, population III stars, relic galaxies, quasi-periodic eruptions and more, with your hosts, Michelle and Nicole. Available on our website, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get podcasts 🔭 ☄️

starxiv.com

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Reposted by Michelle Collins

Karen Masters @karenlmasters.bsky.social · 16d

Deadline is a week from now, and I'm hoping to hire to start ASAP - the grant period is officially 1st Oct 2025-2027 (I promise I posted the advert as soon as I could after hearing we got funded; how do the rest of you do this to hire for Academic year cycle?).

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Reposted by Michelle Collins

Karen Masters @karenlmasters.bsky.social · 16d

I'm hiring at Haverford - a 2 year NASA funded postdoc to work on Galaxy Zoo with Roman Space Telescope Data: www.haverford.edu/human-resour... 👩‍🔬🔭

Postdoctoral Researcher in Extragalactic Astrophysics

Haverford College invites applications for our full-time (37.5 hours per week), fixed-term (2 year appointment), exempt, benefits-eligible Postdoctoral Research in Extragalactic Astrophysics opportuni...

www.haverford.edu

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Michelle Collins @runningastronomer.bsky.social · 19d

Oh no! I'm so sorry, that's awful

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Reposted by Michelle Collins

Elise Cutts @elisecutts.bsky.social · 23d

Bad science communication can be disastrous. But a typo clearly isn't as bad as fraud. Clearly, a scale is needed to resolve this ambiguity.

Thus, I here propose the Loeb Scale for scientific PR disasters.

It is NOT to be confused with the recently proposed Loeb Scale for interstellar objects. 🔭

The Loeb Scale for science PR disasters

Science miscommunication is dangerous. But how dangerous?

www.reviewertoo.com

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Reposted by Michelle Collins

Prof Stephen Serjeant @stephenserjeant.bsky.social · 23d

I'm glad to read this. About time. Also I don't understand why he was made FRS in the first place. He's not a scientist and he's not an engineer. He's a business leader who pontificates wildly on scientific subjects in which he knows next to nothing and his DOGE has actively damaged US science. 🔭🧪

James Ball @jamesrball.com · 23d

Mini-scoop: After resisting pressure to strip Elon Musk of his fellowship for months, the Royal Society is meeting on 1 October to discuss his removal – following his decision to address Tommy Robinson's far-right rally on Saturday.

www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-r...

Royal Society to debate throwing out Elon Musk

One of the most prestigious scientific bodies in the world is considering expelling Musk after his appearance at Tommy Robinson’s extremist London rally

www.thenewworld.co.uk

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