Erica Sawczynec

Rubin Observatory with open dome under a night sky. Text reads "NSF-DOE Rubin Observatory has released its first world-public alerts. Here's what you need to know. El Observatorio Rubin de NSF-DOE publicó sus primeras alertas públicas a nivel mundial. Esto es lo que necesitas"

Rubin Observatory under a night sky. Text reads "What are alerts? ¿Qué son las alertas? Alerts are a "heads up" that something in the sky changed in brightness or position. Las alertas son "avisos" que indican que algo en el cielo cambió de brillo o de posición."

Rubin Observatory during an orange sunset. Text reads "Does an alert mean a new discovery? ¿Una alerta significa un nuevo descubrimiento? Not necessarily. An alert flags a change in the sky, which could be either a new discovery or a known object. No necesariamente. Una alerta señala un cambio en el cielo, que podría tratarse de un nuevo descubrimiento o de un objeto ya conocido."

Rubin Observatory under a night sky during a long exposure shot, causing the stars to streak. Text reads "Why are these first alerts such a big deal? ¿Por qué son tan importantes estas primeras alertas? Rubin is now a real-time discovery machine, enabling scientists worldwide to follow up within minutes! Rubin es ahora una máquina de descubrimientos en tiempo real, que permite a científicos de todo el mundo hacer seguimientos en cuestión de minutos."

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory has officially started releasing world-public alerts! 🎉

Here's what you need to know about these first alerts and what's coming up for Rubin ➡️

🔭🧪☄️

Hey y'all. I'm hiring. Are you interested in building instruments for astrophysics?

wd5.myworkdaysite.com/recruiting/u...

Rice students expose ICE raids with new interactive map It's a nationwide digital spotlight on ICE arrests and detention centers.

It's a nationwide digital spotlight on ICE arrests and detention centers.

divine timing on this one

if stellar continuum has 0 haters, I am dead

GoFundMe Ignores Own Rules by Hosting a Legal-Defense Fund for the ICE Agent Who Killed Renee Good The fundraiser for the ICE agent in the Renee Good killing has stayed online in seeming breach of GoFundMe’s own terms of service, prompting questions about selective enforcement.

GoFundMe is allowing a fundraising campaign tied to the potential legal defense of Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who fatally shot Renee Good, to remain online despite what appears to be a breach of the platform’s own terms of service, prompting questions about selective enforcement.

Pandora spacecraft in front of an exoplanet

It's happening!!! Pandora is going to space in just over 16 hours (if all goes well). Pandora is going to help us study exoplanet atmospheres, even when their host stars are misbehaving. I am headed up to Vandenberg to watch the launch shortly, and will make a thread about the mission/launch here!

this is the worst news for me to see on the timeline 😭

my character stands in front of her house doing the joyful react while standing next to a blue rose in animal crossing new horizons. it is winter and there is snow all around, the holly bushes surrounding the house are also in bloom.

nobody can tell me shit now that i have a blue rose in animal crossing. it took me four months of dedicated work to get this baby

2025 Word of the Year: Slop Plus 'gerrymander', 'touch grass', 'performative', and other words that defined the year

bit.ly/453uzfx

sounds nuts but old navy jeans have stood the test of time for me over all other brands, and usually the sales rack has like $10 jeans

Re-upping this today, citing the concluding paragraph we wrote as I just responded to a frustrating survey about integrating GenAI into humanities education at my institution.

Abolishing ICE is only the beginning. Have you looked at your local cops?

..

According to mappingpoliceviolence.us, police kill at least three people per day; from a meta analysis published in NYT, we now know the number could be six or even more.

It’s widely known (and, I think, pretty uncontroversial) that learning requires effort — specifically, if you don’t have to work at getting the knowledge, it won’t stick.

Even if an LLM could be trusted to give you correct information 100% of the time, it would be an inferior method of learning it.

I really hate it when scientists keep saying that “we need to rebuild trust in science,” because it implies that scientists are to blame for the mistrust rather than the millions of dollars of dark money that have funded political attacks on science in order to advance a far right agenda.

twilight lite™️

THEN YOU PURCHASE THEM AND DO NOT USE THE PROPERTY OF OTHERS

Basic light pollution diagram showing four different streetlight set ups ranging from more light pollution on the left to less light pollution on the right. The most pollution option, labelled "very bad" is a street lamp with a round uncovered bulb on top, making a sphere of light in the air. The next option, labelled "bad" has a tiny cap on top, that limits the upward pollution a bit. The "better" option is mostly uncovered on top, limiting pollution above the streetlight. The final option, labelled "best" has a full shroud overtop, limiting the light to only below the streetlight, where it is needed for pedestrians and vehicles.

Lots of folks captioning aurora photos like "for a few minutes we didn't think about politics"

guess I'm built different, every time I'm out trying to see night sky stuff I frequently think about how much light pollution is entirely preventable with just a tiny bit of regulation

I don’t really care if AURORA BOREALIS NORTHERN LIGHTS happened to you. It should have happened to me instead.

update: it was a terrible last night of 4.5-5 arcsecond seeing 🫩 i love feeling cold front weather but i hate observing as one rolls in

the McDonald Observatory 2.1 meter telescope dome with a beautiful sky gradient from sunset in the background

the McDonald 2.7 meter telescope pointing at zenith with an open telescope dome revealing the sky it is pointing at

the IGRINS slit camera viewer observer interface showing guiding on a target with two very nearby companions!

the inside of the Mcdonld 2.7 meter dome at sunset, the telescope is in its stow position with IGRINS at the cassegrain focus. the telescope dome is open showing the beautiful sunset sky outside

out observing targets for my thesis (and some running survey programs) with IGRINS. Had some great weather the past few nights and hoping for more! 🔭✨

WOW!
An incredible discovery. The first ever image of a baby exoplanet embedded in the dust rings from which planets are forming around a star. Confirms the developing view of planet formation that we’ve never before seen in action.
🧪🔭
www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/news/2025...

They're tearing Goddard apart for scraps and I'm supposed to write as many proposals as I can to scramble for a fraction of the money NASA has left? Depressing, degrading, and dehumanizing in a time when the future of planetary science can be measured in the number of people it leaves behind.

What is happening at Goddard is absolutely devastating. We are losing history. We are losing an incredible amount of human talent, skill, and knowledge. Rebuilding it will be impossible same for same. Industry can not absorb the people or the equipment. This is undoing space science in the US.

Chat… Are Black Holes Dark Energy??

In my new longer-than-usual piece for @astrobites.bsky.social, I do a deep dive into the background of the controversial 2023 paper which claimed black holes expand in step with the universe and can therefore explain dark energy. 🧪

astrobites.org/2025/10/30/a...

daaaaaamn the bottom left figure of the spectrograph is super great!

Mamdani: "New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and as of tonight, led by an immigrant."

mamdani is human. he'll fuck up and fail, especially with a hostile press and the giant mess that is nyc's politics. but today is a great day for the brave women who told what cuomo did, and for those of us who care that it should matter. that power shouldn't go to those who hurt the poweless.

Terrible scenes just minutes into the new socialist regime in New York as literally hundreds of billionaires discover mamdani already living rent free in their heads