Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Silk 🇳🇿🇪🇺🇩🇪☕️

@silkb.bsky.social

Is it too early for hints?
If not, my collection of natives has grown since midwinter
#SecretSantaAoNZ

Cardboard Piwakawaka, Tui, Rural and Kea

November 10, 2025 at 3:04 AM

Gabriella E. Smith

@explanimals.bsky.social

Intrigued by animal innovation and avian cognition? My PI Dr. Megan Lambert is advertising a new shiny PhD position studying innovation in kea parrots! Info attached 🤩🦜
For inquiries: [email protected]

November 11, 2025 at 10:20 AM

SoundTrail

@soundtrail.bsky.social

Sad KeA noises

November 11, 2025 at 3:05 PM

Big Island Now

@bigislandnow.com

Using the W.M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, astronomers have taken the closest-ever look at dusty regions where planets form, offering new insight into the earliest stages of planetary birth.

Mauna Kea observatory reveals closest-ever view of planet-forming disk around young star

Using the W.M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, astronomers have taken the closest-ever look at dusty regions where planets form, offering new insight into the earliest stages of planetary birth.

bigislandnow.com

November 12, 2025 at 12:00 AM

Kea (and Cherry)

@sayonarapantalones.bsky.social

I’m ready, samwench meee!

Kea, a fluffy gray and white cat, lays on his side, looking up at the camera. His front paw rests on an ottoman, the sun bright on the light carpet beneath.

November 7, 2025 at 5:25 PM

KeAbirdfruit

@kiwibirdfruit.neocities.org

penguin kea

November 9, 2025 at 8:50 PM

Paul Le Comte 🇳🇿🇨🇦📷

@paullecomtephoto.nz

A bit about each month: Feb Tawharekiri Lakes, Haast Highway, South Westland.

This ancient sand dune landscape is pure West Coast rainforest lagoon. The area receives 4300mm / 169in of rain a year.

Stunning but a nightmare to find a composition in. I made friends with a Kea bird (I speak bird)

The Feb page from my 2026 Calendar: A lagoon in a coastal rainforest

A lagoon in a coastal rainforest with trees, black water from nutrient rich leaching & raindrops on the water.

November 6, 2025 at 10:25 PM

Mauna Kea Meteor Watcher

@nagarehoshiko.bsky.social

Best Shooting Stars over Mauna Kea, Hawaii
As of 2025/11/07

Asahi Astro Live, Mauna Kea, Hawaii
Credit: Asahi Newspaper, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan

Mauna Kea Meteor Watcher

YouTube

www.youtube.com

November 7, 2025 at 10:42 PM

Emily Sinclair

@butterflyonawheel.bsky.social

#WIPSnips I picture

One of my favorite uses of "picture" from The Stardust of Failure:

David invited me to spend winter break with him on the Big Island, ten days in paradise in late January, when whale-song filled the sea and snow dusted the top of Mauna Kea. We stargazed and snorkeled, rode horses in the grasslands and hiked to remote pools and waterfalls. We even debated making another try at the Green Sand Beach, but David’s old leg injury flared up, and we decided to spend that afternoon drinking our way through Kailua-Kona instead.

I snapped a picture of him at a trashy mai tai bar, a raven in paradise in his favorite all-black ensemble, holding aloft a glass overflowing with orchids and fruit. He looks tipsy, happy, and perfectly androgynous in that way that disconcerts people so.

He sent it out on social media a few months later when a rumor went made the rounds (again) that he was dead.

Enjoying my afterlife, said the caption.

November 9, 2025 at 7:30 PM

Claude ✡️🦖🦕

@cascoclauda.bsky.social

the kea, a parrot that looks amazing from every angle 🦜 you can read about conservation efforts to protect these endangered birds here: www.keaconservation.co.nz

a photo of a kea resting on a rock by mark whatmourgh; the parrot has a very sharp beak, and from this angle, its plumage appears mostly greenish-brown

a photo of a kea with its wings outspread by robert l. sanson; here, we can see the kea has vibrant orange-red flashes on the underside of its wings, as well as yellowish spangling over the rest of the wings

a photo of a kea in flight by olivia oates; here, we can see that the upper surface of the kea's flight feathers are brightly coloured, varying from green to blue to deep purple

November 4, 2025 at 2:17 PM

Paul Le Comte 🇳🇿🇨🇦📷

@paullecomtephoto.nz

Here's the Kea I called down to say hi. It was over 1km away but we chatted for a bit & turn out I know West Coast dialect Kea & we bonded. I laid the law down, no vandalising my car & the message was received.

Nightmare location to find clean compositions. My minds eye was wrong.

#GreatNZRoadie

A NZ Kea - the world's only Mountain Parrot sitting in a tree. They are incredibly friendly birds & sadly endangered. They will rip all of the vinyl & rubber extremities off your car if you're not careful.

Honestly I have great images in my mind as I approached this scene. Polarising filter on to cunt out the glare off the water, but in the end the glare differentiated the water from the mess in the background.

November 6, 2025 at 10:37 PM

CheetahMan

@chertahman.bsky.social

Signalis OC drop:
PAGR-Papagei "Parrot" and PAGR-K Papagei Kea, the Nation's best (and most cruel) scientist.

#Signalis #SignalisOC

November 4, 2025 at 12:36 PM

cb

@cbhula.bsky.social

It is 3,878 days with no construction of the TMT on Mauna Kea on Hawaii Island. They donʻt have the funds, have a number of challenges to their permits still in progress. Stay focused, stay informed and stay ready. NO..to 18 stories high and 2 stories dug into the mountain.

November 5, 2025 at 5:18 PM

mary p

@matreyoo.bsky.social

My mind's on Hāna, Maui because we'll be there for an event in just over a week. So today's #RockinTuesday is a photo from Kōkī Beach that is such a favorite that it's my laptop screensaver.

#photography

'Alau Island Seabird Sanctuary viewed through some lava rocks in the shallow ocean water with a wave breaking against them. 'Alau is a cinder cone. We like to see the 'iwa (great frigatebird) and koa‘e kea (white-tailed tropicbird) when we're at Kōkī Beach. That and Huli Huli Chicken!

November 5, 2025 at 12:04 AM

Views of volcanoes

@volcanoviews.stefanbohacek.online.ap.brid.gy

Mauna Loa's Summit and Northeast Rift Zone from Mauna Kea via https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/observatories/hvo/cams/panorama.php?cam=MKcam #volcano #nature

November 7, 2025 at 6:22 PM

Trails Screenshots

@trailsscreenshots.bsky.social

Renne: Based on Tita's letter, he sounds like a big softie who can't stop himself from helping people.

#TrailsOfColdSteelIV

Renne speaking to KeA, Elie, Lloyd, Estelle, and Joshua.

November 7, 2025 at 10:00 PM

Hourly Cosmos

@hourlycosmos.bsky.social

NASA's K2 Finds Newborn Exoplanet Around Young Star - From NASA Marshall Space Flight Center - https://flic.kr/p/Jieag7

Astronomers have discovered the youngest fully formed exoplanet ever detected. The discovery was made using NASA's Kepler Space Telescope and its extended K2 mission, as well as the W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Exoplanets are planets that orbit stars beyond our sun.

The newfound planet, K2-33b, is a bit larger than Neptune and whips tightly around its star every five days. It is only 5 to 10 million years old, making it one of a very few newborn planets found to date.

"Our Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old," said Trevor David of Caltech in Pasadena, lead author of a new study published online June 20, 2016, in the journal Nature. "By comparison, the planet K2-33b is very young. You might think of it as an infant." David is a graduate student working with astronomer Lynne Hillenbrand, also of Caltech.

Planet formation is a complex and tumultuous process that remains shrouded in mystery. Astronomers have discovered and confirmed roughly 3,000 exoplanets so far; however, nearly all of them are hosted by middle-aged stars, with ages of a billion years or more. For astronomers, attempting to understand the life cycles of planetary systems using existing examples is like trying to learn how people grow from babies to children to teenagers, by only studying adults.

To read the full article, click here.
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These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organiza...

November 10, 2025 at 9:00 AM

Mauna Kea Meteor Watcher

@nagarehoshiko.bsky.social

Best Shooting Stars over Mauna Kea, Hawaii
As of 2025/11/05

Asahi Astro Live, Mauna Kea, Hawaii
Credit: Asahi Newspaper, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan

Mauna Kea Meteor Watcher

YouTube

www.youtube.com

November 5, 2025 at 10:40 PM

Nancy Cook Lauer

@allhawaiinews.bsky.social

Appetite returns for green sea turtles following recovery from extinction, officials seek to build Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea decommissioned telescope site, HART wants to become permanent agency, more news from all the Hawaiian Islands www.allhawaiinews.com/2025/11/appe...

Appetite returns for green sea turtles following recovery from extinction, officials seek to build Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea decommissioned telescope site, HART wants to become permanent ag...

Curated daily state and local government and political news from all the Hawaiian Islands. Occasional Hawaii state and local political commentary.

www.allhawaiinews.com

November 4, 2025 at 3:32 PM

Nick Suda

@nicksuda.com

Scenes from "the surface of Mars," aka the summit of #MaunaKea #BigIsland #Hawaii, Oct 23 2025. It was tough to be outside in the below freezing, high-wind, very low-oxygen conditions of this place for longer than a few minutes at a time!

An array of satellites located at the summit of Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii.

An antenna that is part of the Very Long Baseline Array used to study celestial objects, located near the summit of Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Various observatory stations located at the summit of Mauna Kea, Big Island, Hawaii. The one on the left is the Subaru Telescope, administered by the NAOJ of Japan.

Various observatory telescope buildings located on the summit of Mauna Kea, Big Island, Hawaii.

November 2, 2025 at 8:10 PM

Beary Sleepy

@bigkickguy.bsky.social

you know there's something itching in my brain about how lloyd grew up with his brother pulling double duty as dad and how he basically falls into the same role with KeA later

November 3, 2025 at 5:29 PM