The unsung contributions of Vera Rubin: her mission in retrospect
In today’s bite, we celebrate the diversity of Vera Rubin’s life and work, and spread a bit of her message to the young astronomers of the world.
It turns out the Sun is more chill than we previously thought
That giant blob of plasma right there in our cosmic backyard rules our everyday lives, and yet it still holds many surprises. We will see today that the Sun is significantly less active than other stars similar to it, and how this affects our future studies on the subject.
M-dwarf stars go overboard with ocean worlds
M-dwarf stars pose as the current favorite target for exoplanet hunters to look for habitable planets. The simulations reported by today’s article, however, show that many of these planets should be expected to be extremely water-rich, and maybe uninhabitable. But it all dependes on how the systems evolve.
The impact of the Physics GRE in astronomy graduate admissions
It’s that time of the year again: graduate school application season. Today we revisit a 2015 article that shows, once more, that GRE scores requirements on graduate admissions hurt diversity and equity of opportunity in astronomy, and we are overdue on fighting against the inertia.
Tabby’s star faded throughout the Kepler mission
It seems that Tabby’s star has more tricks up in its sleeve than previously thought: today’s pre-print shows evidence that the WTF star has actually dimmed during the 4-year long Kepler mission, throwing more fuel into the fire. But do not expect aliens. Just saying.