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Corey S. Powell

@coreyspowell.bsky.social

8.6K followers 910 following 1.5K posts

Fascinated by things very big, very small, and beyond the limits of the human senses. Founder of OpenMind: www.openmindmag.org Creator of the Invisible Universe column: https://invisibleuniverse.substack.com/

invisibleuniverse.substack.com

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Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · Nov 15

In honor of all the new arrivals, I'm sharing one of my favorite videos.

It shows 24 hours of Earth's rotation, with the camera locked to the sky instead of the ground. We're all hanging out on this spinning rock.

Brilliant work by Bartosz Wojczyński. 🧪

artuniverse.eu/gallery/1907...

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Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 8h

Photo from Toronto, more than a decade ago, but I appreciate the joke

Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 10h

What's out there in the universe? We don't know until we look.

The COWLS project scanned 42,000 galaxies and found hundreds of previously unknown gravitational lenses -- places where the pull of massive galaxies has warped space & bent starlight into arcs and rings. 🧪🔭

esawebb.org/images/potm2...

This ESA/Webb Picture of the Month shows eight stunning examples of gravitational lensing. Gravitational lensing, which was first predicted by Einstein, occurs because massive objects like galaxies and clusters of galaxies dramatically warp the fabric of spacetime. When a massive foreground object lines up just so with a background galaxy, the light from the background galaxy bends as it navigates the warped spacetime on its way to our telescopes.

Depending on how perfect the alignment is, the light from the background galaxy can be bent into an arc, a circle (a phenomenon called an ‘Einstein ring’) or even split into multiple images.

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Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 19h

I understand the objection to awarding a prize for pure theory. But I didn't know about all the personal politics brewing behind the scenes as well!

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Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 19h

In 1912, the Nobel Prize in physics might have honored special relativity, or the photoelectric effect, or the liquefaction of helium. Instead, it recognized an advance in...the design of lighthouses. 🧪

physicsworld.com/a/nobel-priz...

The first light designed to use Gustav Dalén’s technology is located near Djurgården in Stockholm, Sweden. It has since been converted to run on electricity.

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Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 19h

The Nobel Prize, widely considered the ultimate indicator of important science, has often gone off in weird directions due to politics & personalities.

Like that year when an obsolete form of color photography beat out quantum physics for the physics Nobel. 🧪

physicsworld.com/a/nobel-priz...

A still life taken by Lippmann using his method between 1890 and 1910. By the latter part of this period, the method had fallen out of favour, superseded by the simpler Autochrome process. (Photo in public domain)

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

Amazing: Comet ATLAS formed some 8 billion years ago. It made about 3 dozen circuits around our galaxy. It entered our our solar system & just passed 30 million kilometers from Mars...

...where ESA's ExoMars orbiter captured these images of the interstellar comet! 🧪🔭

www.esa.int/Science_Expl...

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Reposted by Corey S. Powell

Physics Today @physicstoday.bsky.social · 1d

You can add John Clarke to the list of Nobel laureates who have published in Physics Today! 🥳

Here's a feature article he wrote in 1971 on quantum tunneling, Josephson junctions, and superconductivity.

Electronics with superconducting junctions

As ultracold becomes easier to maintain, highly sensitive devices based on the Josephson effects may find wider and wider use to measure tiny high‐frequency vol

pubs.aip.org

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

This year's Nobel Prize in physics recognizes the discovery of practical ways to achieve quantum tunneling, which electrons can jump across "forbidden" barriers.

I love the official explanatory cartoon from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences:

www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physi... 🧪

This macroscopic particle-like system is initially in a state in which current flows without any voltage. The system is trapped in this state, as if behind a barrier that it cannot cross. In the experiment the system shows its quantum character by managing to escape the zero-voltage state through tunnelling. The system’s changed state is detected through the appearance of a voltage.

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Reposted by Corey S. Powell

Robert “The Bobby Yaga” McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 2d

VAR!

In the early morning hours #OTD in 1923, Edwin Hubble took a photo plate of M31 that showed a Cepheid variable star.

Using Henrietta Swan Leavitt’s distance-luminosity relationship, Hubble concluded that M31 is another galaxy outside the Milky Way. 🧪 🔭 ⚛️

Image: Carnegie Observatories

Photo plate of Hubble's famous "VAR!" discovery. This is a photonegative plate of an image of the Andromeda Galaxy, with several small annotations made in grease pencil. One of them was previously marked "N" for "nova," but the N has been crossed out and replaced with an excited "VAR!" to indicate a Cepheid Variable.

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Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 3d

You made it!

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Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 3d

But maybe not with Enceladus

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Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 3d

DO IT

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Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 4d

One of the key mysteries in cosmology is how quickly supermassive black holes formed in the early universe. The answer seems to be: a lot faster than we thought.

The finding could help explain how formless gas evolved into a landscape of stars & galaxies. 🧪🔭

chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2025/r...

In the artist's illustration, the quasar, RACS J0320-35, sits at our upper left, filling the left side of the image. It resembles a spiraling, motion-blurred disk of orange, red, and yellow streaks. At the center of the disk, surrounded by a glowing, sparking, brilliant yellow light, is a black egg shape. This is a black hole, one of the fastest-growing black holes ever detected. The black hole is also shown in a small Chandra X-ray image inset at our upper right. In that depiction, the black hole appears as a white dot with an outer ring of neon purple.

The artist's illustration also highlights a jet of particles blasting away from the black hole at the center of the quasar. The streaked silver beam starts at the core of the distant quasar, near our upper left, and shoots down toward our lower right. The blurry beam of energetic particles appears to widen as it draws closer and exits the image.

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Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 5d

I know, it's agonizing to watch the process unfold in real time. I used to think we might have good evidence of life by now. I'm starting to realize that getting definitive answers even within our own solar system may take a few more decades. Quite likely not in my lifetime. It ain't easy!

Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 5d

Thanks. I find it impossible to stay focused on fighting the bad stuff without taking some breaks to celebrate the best of what we are capable of

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Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 5d

Data from the Cassini spacecraft shows that there is complex organic chemistry happening in the ocean of Saturn's moon Enceladus.

It took 17 years to get the result! The finding boosts the case that life could possibly exist inside this little ice-covered world. 🧪🔭

www.esa.int/Science_Expl...

Left: Cassini image of Enceladus showing its geysers. Right: This illustration shows the process of light, soluble and reactive organic compounds making their way onto ice grains emitted in jets of water from Saturn's moon Enceladus, where they were detected by the Cassini spacecraft.

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Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 6d

Our galaxy is full of rogue planets, worlds that live in darkness without a parent star. And now we've caught one as it forms, scooping up gas at a rate of 6 billion tons a second. 🧪🔭

www.eso.org/public/news/...

Nebula where new stars are forming. Marked is Cha 1107−7626, a planetary-mass object with a disk.

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Joshua J. Friedman @joshuajfriedman.com · 7d

One of my favorite anecdotes from THE PREHISTORY OF THE FAR SIDE: "That doesn't sound like the Jane Goodall we know."

A few days after this cartoon was published, my syndicate received a very indignant letter from someone representing the Jane Goodall Institute.
Not only did my syndicate and I both get read the Riot Act, there was a vague implication that litigation over this cartoon might be around the corner.
I was horrified. Not so much from a fear of being sued (I just couldn't see how this cartoon could be construed as anything but silly, but because of my deep respect for Jane Goodall and her well-known contributions to pri-matology. The last thing in the world I would have intentionally done was offend Dr. Goodall in any way.
Before I had a chance to write my apology, another complication arose.
The National Geographic Society contacted my syndicate and expressed a

desire to reprint the cartoon in a special centennial issue of their magazine. My editor, aware of what had just occurred, declined, explaining why.
Apparently, whoever it was that sent the inquiry from National Geographic was shocked. They told my editor that "that doesn't sound like the Jane Goodall we know." They did some checking themselves, and an interesting fact was eventually discovered: Jane Goodall loved the cartoon. Furthermore, she was totally unaware that any of this "stuff" was going on. Some phone calls were made, and the cartoon was not only reprinted in the centennial issue of National Geographic, but was also used by her Institute on a T-shirt for fund-raising purposes.
I've since had an opportunity to visit Dr. Goodall at her research facility in Gombe. It's a wonderful place (sort of like right out of National Geographic).
"To refer to Dr. Goodall as a tramp is inexcusable even by a self-described 'loony' as Larson. The cartoon was incredibly offensive and in such poor taste that readers might well question the editorial judgment of running such an atrocity in a newspaper that reputes to be supplying news to persons with a better than average intelligence. The cartoon and its message were absolutely stupid." —Excerpt from the above-mentioned letter that started the ruckus

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Reposted by Corey S. Powell

Katharine Hayhoe @katharinehayhoe.com · 7d

The world has lost its most powerful advocate for nature and hope. Yet many remain who will continue her legacy and I know she will continue to inspire generations more.

A screenshot of a post by the Jane Goodall Institute on LinkedIn stating that they learned that Dr. Goodall passed away due to natural causes in California while on her speaking to her current speaking tour there.

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Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 7d

In case you were wondering, here is the overall winner of the 2025 Astronomy Photographer of the Year award. It's a photo of the Andromeda Galaxy, showing this familiar sky object in a new, unique, and quite stunning way. 🔭🧪

www.rmg.co.uk/stories/spac...

The Andromeda Core shows the central region of the Andromeda Galaxy (also known as M31), which is the nearest large galaxy to us at around 2.5 million light years away. Andromeda is a barred spiral galaxy like our own Milky Way. It’s made up of an outlying spiral structure of dust, gas and stars connected by a dense, bar-shaped concentration of bright giant stars in the galactic core.

This isn’t a simple target to capture on camera. Competition judge and Royal Observatory astronomer Dr Ed Bloomer explains: “The cores of galaxies are often extremely bright, and unless the astrophotographer is careful it can overwhelm the image and obscure that lovely detail.” However, he says, “What we have here is an image which preserves an astonishing amount of detail right towards the very heart of Andromeda, which is extremely difficult to do.”

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Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 7d

If you need a blast of beauty (and who doesn't?) I highly recommend browsing the new Astronomy Photographer of the Year winners. They're spectacular -- and neither of these shots even made it to #1. 🧪🔭

www.rmg.co.uk/whats-on/ast...

"During a routine time-lapse observation of the solar chromosphere [the thin, reddish layer of the Sun’s atmosphere above the visible surface], I captured a serendipitous moment when an aircraft crossed the field of view. Preserving this transient frame, I employed multiple blending modes to enhance the details of the solar background. Beyond stacking individual video frames, I processed the sequence, undertook colour inversion and synthesised 100 images through combined mean and minimum blending. This dual approach effectively accentuated both bright plages [active regions in the chromosphere] and dark laments through enhanced contrast.

"The composite image reveals the evolution of the Sun’s dynamic surface across a two-hour observational period, while the aircraft’s two-second transit remains frozen in time. This layered imaging rearranges time, blending celestial bodies and human technology in one photo."

"This is one of my biggest astrophotography accomplishments to date, and the largest panorama I have ever captured, with the full resolution image containing over a billion pixels from 62 images stitched together. I had envisioned this composition for a long time, capturing the twin glacial rivers with the Milky Way core off to the left of the image, as well as the famous Southern Cross and other pointers high in the centre sky."

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Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 8d

Cutting-edge science happens all around the world. The world's greatest eye on the Moon is the 50-year-old Kryoneri telescope in Corinthia, Greece.

(The Kryoneri Observatory is also a hub for a new laser deep-space communications network.) 🔭🧪

matsani.gr/en/astronomi...

The Kryoneri Astronomical Station was founded in 1972 in Corinthia, in the north of the Peloponnese, just 22 km southwest of the nearest town, Kiato. It is located at an altitude of 1000 meters, at the foot of Mount Kyllini, on a plot of 65 acres that was later extended to 105 acres. Its operation started in 1973 with a 15 cm diameter microscope and another smaller one for observing the polar star. Since 1975 the station has had a reflecting Cassegrain telescope with a diameter of 1.23 meters, shown here, which was built in Newcastle, England, and is now one of the largest telescopes in Greece and the Balkans.

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Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 8d

With better engineering we could have avoided SevenEves

Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 8d

There's a strong observational bias in the dataset, since the flashes are visible only on the unlit parts of the Moon.

Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 8d

The brightest lunar meteorite impacts are actually visible to the naked eye! But even the big ones are subtle: fast and overwhelmed by the glare of the Moon.

This is the newest event, observed last month. 🧪🔭

www.esa.int/Space_Safety...

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