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Andrew Cole

@aacole42.bsky.social
657 followers 238 following 108 posts

Astronomer, ultimate frisbee player, freelance beer critic, bass guitar enthusiast. Constructively irreverent. "In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

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Reposted by Andrew Cole
Benjamin Pope @benjaminpope.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Free registration is open for Stars & Planets in Hobart, the biggest annual Australian exoplanet & stellar conference. Really looking forward to seeing everyone in Tassie! exoplanets.au/meetings/202... Abstract Submission: 18 September Registration: 31 October Dates: 16 – 20 November
exoplanets.au
ASA Stellar & Planetary Astronomy (SPA)
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Kinda nuts. Writing is thinking, and offloading one’s writing to an assistant sends a signal you didn’t want to spend the time thinking through your point. If someone can’t be bothered to write their stuff, why should anyone bother to read it?
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Dr Anna Clark @drannaclark.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Nicolaus Copernicus, astronomer, revolutionised science with heliocentric theory of the universe, died #OTD 1543; landmark work De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium published 1543. Harmonia Macrocosmica, Andreas Cellarius, 1661 (Marriott Library)
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Appalling
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
Seems like a reasonable number have icy planets too (modulo annoying microlensing statistical selection)!
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
Just in the middle of fighting this fight, again
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
Stealing this quote: "Comets are like cats: they have tails and they do as they please"
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
Reposting because I assume that the fundamental arguments are no different whether the stadium is in the US or Australia...
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
Does that make him a Gnu York Yankee?
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 09/08/2025
More and more these days, science communication is about correcting misinformation. Luckily, this post does so very well!
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 03/08/2025
Thread.
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
Discovering an old Tom Lehrer record in my parents' collection when I was about 10 set the tone for my whole worldview... this is a great anecdote.
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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
Public engagement cannot just be the job of a couple of celebrity professors at Princeton and a small cohort of impoverished contingents whose projects can't be sustained against the cruel winds of adjunctcy. It has to be a major priority for the whole field.
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Ed B @ebenyon.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
Covid on the increase in #Tasmania, along with flu. "The best thing people can do is stay up to date with vaccinations and stay home while unwell." Consistent message that vaccines are "a simple, safe and effective way to protect you and your family...." #vaccine #health
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University of Tasmania @utas.edu.au · 30/06/2025
Dr Lucia McCallum shares "If we want satellite navigation to work, our supermarkets to be stocked and our online money transfers arriving safely, we need to make sure we have a clear view of black holes in distant galaxies – and that means clearing up the radio highway." Read more: utas.au/hd
utas.au
Scientists look to black holes to know exactly where we are in the Universe. But phones and wifi are blocking the view
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
Congratulations, Matt! Awesome to see hard work and good leadership rewarded.
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Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science (ACEAS) @antarcticsciaus.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
Huge congratulations to @antarcticsciaus.bsky.social Director Prof. Matt King @deformedearth.bsky.social and Chief Investigator Prof. Anya Reading on being awarded an Australian Laureate Fellowship! @utas.edu.au @imas-utas.bsky.social | ARC | www.arc.gov.au/australian-l... Project details below ⬇️
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That's What I Call Science 🎙 @thatssciencetas.bsky.social · 09/06/2025
Exoplanets are planets outside our Solar System 🌞 But how many are there? What do they look like? How do we find them? Do they contain other life 👾? We have so many questions!! Fortunately, Dr Erica Thygesen is here to tell us all about these magnificent far-off worlds 🪐 🔭 🛰️
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Rob Hortle @rlhortle.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
Happy doomsday fish day to all who celebrate. In news totally unrelated to apocalyptic portents, the Premier will address the media at 9.45... #politas #auspol
tinyurl.com
BEAST FROM THE DEEP - Rare 3-metre ‘doomsday fish’ found on remote beach
A massive deep-sea "doomsday" oarfish has washed up on a remote beach in Tasmania.
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Simon Ellingsen @amasingsimon.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Well fore-warned is fore-armed 😊. Some new work from a UTas PhD project on the motion of the Large Magellanic Cloud is on the way as well. That will improve our understanding of Local Group Dynamics even more.
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
YMMV. In my extended family the "correct" course of action depends entirely on if the offspring concerned would view said apparel as a cool/genuine expression of parental support, or as a cringe attempt to curry favour. But we've never had anyone close to a state championship or anything like that.
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Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
Sure, there are caveats, but for me the operating position is getting closer and closer to "there are no legitimate uses for ChatGPT in college classes," and I'm not really encountering any compelling arguments to the contrary.
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
Devo's version of "Satisfaction"
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Marco Langbroek @marcolangbroek.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
New day, new #reentry forecast for the #Kosmos 482 Descent Craft, a failed 1972 Soviet Venus lander set to reenter in a few days. Latest #TUDAT reentry forecast: 10 May +/- 21h (nominal: 7:51 UTC +/- 20.6h). Details in blogpost: sattrackcam.blogspot.com/2025/04/kosm...
sattrackcam.blogspot.com
Kosmos 482 Descent Craft reentry forecasts [PERIODICALLY UPDATED]
classified military Space (spy satellites) and Missiles
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Reposted by Andrew Cole
Tennyson E. Stead @tennysonestead.bsky.social · 12/04/2025
Objectively, being able to make things without AI makes us better at making things than the people who can't. I'm better than the kids who copied my homework, and you're the same person pulling the same crap 30 years later.
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
I believe the statistics say it's worse now, but when my family came down with norovirus in 2006, the doctor definitely said "you have the cruise ship virus". It's the kind of experience that sticks in the memory...
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Nick Feik @nickfeik.bsky.social · 06/04/2025
Australia could be taking advantage of the millions of students now too scared to go to university in America. Instead both Dutton and Albanese are threatening to *massively reduce* intl student numbers.
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Dr Space Junk (Alice Gorman) @drspacejunk.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
Men walked on the Moon - but women made the guidance computers that got them there and back. At the landing sites and command module crash sites the computers are evidence of a unique women's lunar heritage. 🧪🏺
zoharesque.blogspot.com
The Apollo core rope memory and women's heritage on the Moon
Between 1969 and 1972 there were six Apollo human spaceflight missions to the Moon, each leaving a complex site behind. A common joke now is...
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
The Douglas Adams quote, as always, sums it up pretty well!
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 29/03/2025
This piece from @tressiemcphd.bsky.social starts with a bang and just gets better and better. Gift link.
nytimes.com
Opinion | The Tech Fantasy That Powers A.I. Is Running on Fumes (Gift Article)
A.I. is just what we need in the post-fact era: less research and more predicting what we want to hear.
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 05/03/2025
Exactly- it can be applied to so many things!
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 05/03/2025
Shambolic - adjective (informal, British): chaotic, disorganised, or mismanaged.
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Benjamin Pope @benjaminpope.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
Very glad that the Australian government has announced they will extend funding of the Anglo-Australian Telescope until at least 2027. So many surveys depend on this facility - which for so long has been a vehicle for bringing wonderful astronomers to Australia to use it and growing our community.
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Michael Jennions @mikejennions.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
Hi Australian Researchers. I have a plan. Let's thank the amazing @arc-tracker.bsky.social for a decade of selfless work by nominating them for a Eureka Prize (Leadership in science). Are you with me? If so, repost this. Please also reply and state your support for this quest. We can do this people.
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
Presumably the definition of “ilku-duty” could be expanded to include committee work…
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Chris Lintott @chrislintott.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
Almost certainly being paranoid, but astronomers: someone outside the US has ADS backed up, right?
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
Very very interesting, since a black hole of this mass would be pretty elusive unless it happened to be accreting material from the surroundings. A spike in the velocity dispersion of stars within the dynamical sphere of influence of the BH? This is small, maybe a few to several tens of arc seconds.
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Lady Luddite (KJ Colt) @moistenedtart.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2... Here’s the direct link to read online
gutenberg.org
Simple Sabotage Field Manual
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
Context matters! Was it by an Associate Dean?
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Mehreen Faruqi @mehreenfaruqi.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
PhD students deserve so much better than being abandoned to the poverty line. This situation is unacceptable—raising RTP stipends to at least minimum wage and access to parental leave entitlements is long overdue, yet Labor refuses to act.
canberratimes.com.au
53 cents in the bank: how Canberra's PhD students live on the poverty line
Cost of living turns bright minds away from vital research.
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
Jeez, how is it I never encountered this Kipling poem before?
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Dr Paris Buttfield-Addison @hey.paris · 16/01/2025
happy 35th birthday to They Might Be Giants' "Flood"
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
If there’s a bad IRAF joke, I haven’t heard it
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ARC Tracker @arc-tracker.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
#CentresOfExcellence Expression of Interest outcomes have been released to applicants in their RMS accounts: www.arc.gov.au/news-publica...
arc.gov.au
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U.S. Naval Institute @usni.org · 10/01/2025
The USS Essex sailed from Hawaii to California using only celestial navigation methods. This is what the navigation team learned and why all ships should make similar voyages. usni.org/magazines/p...
usni.org
Ships Must Practice Celestial Navigation | Proceedings - January 2025 Vol. 151/1/1,463
The USS Essex sailed from Hawaii to California using only celestial navigation methods. This is what the navigation team learned and why all ships should make similar voyages.
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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 08/01/2025
Really nice piece from @drgin.bsky.social 👇🏽
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
Advertise your account using one (1) Simpsons image.
media.tenor.com
a red car is parked next to a trailer that says u-tow on it
Alt: a red car is parked next to a trailer that says u-tow on it. Sideshow Bob wearily steps on an infinite number of rakes, Sisyphus-style.
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 30/12/2024
I can’t believe this kind man is the same monster who once founded the Department of Education!
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Andrew Cole @aacole42.bsky.social · 29/12/2024
He wasn’t a communicator or an arm-twister, but looking back it seems like most of his policy ideas were absolutely correct (except for laying the groundwork for the S&L crisis of the 80s). In the end, his biggest flaw was probably not being a Washington insider.
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