What happens if you pair up the powers of #Cheops, #ESA's CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite, and #Gaia, ESA's billion star surveyor? Turns out you find a ring around a dwarf planet in our own Solar System in a place where it really should not be!

▶️ https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Cheops/ESA_s_Cheops_finds_an_unexpected_ring_around_dwarf_planet_Quaoar

This is one of the things I love about (space-based) astronomy so much: The potential of cool discovery! The way to use telescopes and their data for something totally unexpected!

#astrodon #astronomy #VicisAstro

@vicgrinberg you forgot the green pea galaxies 😉

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pea_galaxy#:~:text=A%20Pea%20galaxy%2C%20also%20referred,Digital%20Sky%20Survey%20(SDSS).

#Astrodon #astronomy #vicisastro #scicomm

Get close to a black jole, and you'll suffer spaghettification, the tidal effect of an extremely strong gravitational field.

Did you know that neutron stars contain nuclear pasta, neutrons condensed into strange shapes?

There is also the "Swiss Cheese" Universe model in cosmology.

And don't forget the Gaia Sausage, the remains of a dwarf galaxiy that merged with our Milky Way billions of years ago.

Yeah, I am also getting hungry when doing astro...

#astrodon #astronomy #VicisAstro #scicomm

We, folks working in astro, love our abbreviations. Really, we do! There is the

MUCHFUSS [1] - Massive Unseen Companions to Hot Faint Underluminous Stars from SDSS project

and the

STROOPWAFEL [2] - Simulating rare outcomes from astrophysical populations, with application to gravitational-wave sources

for example. and of course the all-loved

DOOFAS (Dumb Or Overly Forced Astronomical Acronyms Site) page: https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~gpetitpas/Links/Astroacro.html

#astrodon #astronomy #VicisAstro #scicomm

Why space-based telescopes like #XMMNewton or #JWST? Because our atmosphere is incredibly good at filtering out radiation that is not in the visible or radio range.

That's obviously pretty good for humanity overall, but kinda inconvenient if we want to observe highly energetic X-ray photons from close to black holes or peer deep into stellar nurseries using infra-red light.

Image credit: credit: OpenStax, Rice University, modified from STScI/JHU/NASA

#astrodon #astronomy #VicisAstro #scicomm

It turns out #BlackHoles are a lot like cats 😼 Especially, they play with their food 🐀

You don't believe me?

Remember how a cat plays with a mouse: catches it, releases it, catches it again, releases it again ... Turns out, black holes can do the same with stars: they can catch and partially disrupt a star, release it, wait until it approaches again, play with it a bit more, release it, wait for the next approach:

▶️ https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/XMM-Newton_spies_black_holes_eating_the_same_stars_again_and_again

#astrodon #astronomy #esa #scicomm #VicisAstro

It turns out #BlackHoles are a lot like cats 😼 Especially, they play with their food 🐀

You don't believe me?

Remember how a cat plays with a mouse: catches it, releases it, catches it again, releases it again ... Turns out, black holes can do the same with stars: they can catch and partially disrupt a star, release it, wait until it approaches again, play with it a bit more, release it, wait for the next approach:

▶️ https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/XMM-Newton_spies_black_holes_eating_the_same_stars_again_and_again

#astrodon #astronomy #scicomm #VicisAstro

Why is one telescope not enough to observe black holes?

Remember the parable of the blind men & the elephant? If we look at a #BlackHole with one telescope, we are one of the blind men, touching just a part of the giant beast.

To understand black holes we need to look in X-rays to see matter falling into them[1], in radio to resolve their shadow[2], in optical to see their progenitors explode[3], in gravitational waves to see them merging[4], etc.[5]

#Astrodon #Astronomy #VicisAstro #scicomm

#Mars geology is wild! Examples?

- There is Olympus Mons, the tallest known mountain & volcano, 22 km height (with a caldera 3 km deep). [1] And the three giant Tharsis Montes. [2]

- The Martian hemispheres are very different: the Northern is young, flat and several km lower than the old, crater-covered Southern. [3,4]

- The Hellas Basin is one of the largest identified impact craters in the Solar System, with a diameter of 2300 km. [5]

#astrodon #VicisAstro #astronomy #scicomm

Sources: ⬇️

So uhm, I went through my #scicomm posts and tagged them with #VicisAstro so I myself can find them again without having to scroll back endlessly 😅 (And think about what to do with them once the 1 year expiration date I set for my posts here passes.)

Sorry if you all (well the ones who favorited/boosted them) got messages about it.