iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Exciting! I’m heading there with New Scientist. Where are you going to view the eclipse?

Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

Played Ada’s Dream this weekend. It’s a heavy board game that inhabits the world of Ada Lovelace. You can give lectures at the Royal Astronomical Society and the door even looks familiar. Such a love letter to the history of science. 🔭🧪⚛️ Image: Meeple Mountain

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

While this may look like the Moon, it’s actually Mercury. In this enhanced colour view, young crater rays appear light blue or white. Medium and dark blue areas are opaque crust minerals. Tan areas are plains formed by the eruption of lava. #astronomy 🧪⚛️ Image: MESSENGER

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

The Space Art of Étienne Trouvelot now sits in my Museum Of Cosmic Curiosities. It’s a growing collection of strange, profound artefacts from the history of astronomy. museum.colinstuart.net

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

With all the Moon mania on the back of Artemis II, here’s one of my favourite pieces of lunar art. It’s from the 19th century artist Étienne Trouvelot, who used the chromolithography technique. There’s more of his artwork in the 🧵 below #astronomy 🧪

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

Astronomer Edwin Brant Frost’s 10 yr old son demanded pocket money, which he used to buy two sheep with a friend. The animals grazed near the Yerkes Observatory & the entrepreneurial kids sold the wool for profit. That was until the sheep ate the new bathing suit of Dr Crump. #astronomy #history

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Poor Galileo, forced to rat Before the Inquisition, E pur si muove was the pat He gave them in addition: He meant, whate'er you think you prove, The Earth must go its way, sirs; Spite of your teeth I'll make it move, For I'll drink my bottle a day, sirs!

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Copernicus, that learned wight, The glory of his nation, With draughts of wine refreshed his sight, And saw the Earth's rotation Each planet then its orb described, The Moon got under way, sir; These truths from nature he imbibed For he drank his bottle a day, sir!

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

When Ptolemy, now long ago, Believed the Earth stood still, sir, He never would have blundered so, Had he but drunk his fill, sir: He'd then have felt it circulate, And would’ve learnt to say, sir, The true way to investigate Is to drink your bottle a day, sir! Astronomer’s Drinking Song 1800 🧪⚛️🔭

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

A starspot on Zeta Andromedae. That’s a surface feature on a star 181 light years away. #astronomy ⚛️🧪 Image: Roettenbacher et al

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

(2/2) The Martian Morse Code Wheels now sit in my Museum of Cosmic Curiosities, a collection of strange and profound objects from the history of astronomy and space exploration. museum.colinstuart.net

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

This Easter, here’s an Easter egg straight from NASA. The tire treads of the Curiosity rover spell out JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) in Morse code. 🧵(1/2) #astronomy 🧪

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

A cosmic rainbow of polarised zodiacal light. It’s faint light scattered off solar system dust. Hue indicates direction and saturation indicates degree of polarisation. Look closely and you can even see The Pleiades just above centre. #astronomy 🧪 ⚛️ Image: NASA/SwRI

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Yes, they are widely available to buy.

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Pallasites are arguably the most beautiful of all meteorites. Large crystals of olivine suspended in a metal matrix gives a stained glass window effect. #astronomy 🧪 Image: Doug Bowman

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

A false colour, composite image of the Moon taken by the Galileo spacecraft. Red = lunar highlands Blue to orange = volcanic lava flows (blue contains more titanium than orange) Purple = pyroclastic deposits formed by explosive volcanic eruptions #astronomy 🧪 Image: NASA/JPL

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

From the delay (or early arrival) of predicted moon transits and eclipses compared to a reference location you could work out far you were from that location. Although I believe the chair was never built and it’s a tricky method to accurately execute on a swaying ship.

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

A marine chair designed for the express purpose of observing Jupiter and its moons while on a ship. Designed in 1757 by Christian Kratzenstein, the purpose was to help determine the ship’s longitude. #astronomy ⚛️🧪

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

(6/6) Still, there’s something hard to beat about an astronaut sneaking his own name into the night sky. Navi/Tiansi now sits in my Museum of Cosmic Curiosities, a growing collection of strange and profound objects from the history of astronomy. museum.colinstuart.net

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

(5/6) Eventually, the International Astronomical Union stepped in to formalise things. In 2025, the star finally received an official name: Tiansi. In Chinese astronomy, it refers to the horses pulling a celestial chariot (part of a much older sky tradition).

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

(4/6) Gus Grissom called it Navi, partly because he used the star for navigation during space missions. But there was also a secret. It was his middle name - Ivan - spelled backwards.

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

(3/6) For years, it went by an unofficial name: Navi. But that wasn’t based on an ancient myth. It came from astronaut Gus Grissom.

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

(2/6) It sits in the constellation of Cassiopeia - the distinctive ‘W’ in the northern sky. And it’s not some faint background star. It’s the one right in the middle.

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

Some star names are short, like Vega or Rigel. Others are beautiful tongue twisters, like Zubenelgenubi or Shurnarkabtishashutu. And yet, one bright star had no official name until very recently. This is the story of the star with no name. 🧵 (1/6) #astronomy 🧪⚛️ Till Credner / AlltheSky.com

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

False colour image of Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io. The yellow shows sulphur plumes. It’s the most volcanically active place in the solar system. #astronomy 🧪 Image: ALMA (ESO/ NAOJ/ NRAO)/ I. de Pater et al./ NRAO/ AUI NSF/ S. Dagnello/ NASA/ ESA/ UC Berkeley.

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

“The King of Siam, an honourary member, reported as dead, is still alive” Spotted in an old @royalastrosoc.bsky.social paper. #astronomy 🧪

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Mars’s moon Phobos set against the Red Planet. At an average diameter of just 22km across, it is smaller than a city. (Although I always say it looks like a giant space potato). #astronomy 🧪 Image: Mars Express

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

One of Carl Sagan’s most famous lines compares Earth to a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. But it wasn’t his. He pinched it from Sir James Jeans, who wrote in the 1930s: “our Earth will look smaller than the tiniest of motes in a sunbeam” #astronomy ⚛️🧪 Image: NASA/JPL

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

I’ll be live in an hour, talking about the future of human missions to Mars. Rockets, radiation, dust storms and what it will actually take to live on another planet. Got a question about Mars? Leave it here and I’ll try to answer it live. 8pm UK / 4pm ET open.substack.com/live-stream/... 🔭⚛️🧪

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

(2/2) Julius Caesar’s comet coin is now in my Museum of Cosmic Curiosities - a growing collection of strange and profound items from the history of astronomy and space exploration. museum.colinstuart.net

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

Julius Caesar was famously murdered on this day in 44BCE. Four months later, a comet blazed across the daytime sky in Rome. Some thought it was Caesar’s soul. A cult grew around the comet & eventually it appeared on Roman silver coins. 🧵 (1/2) 🔭🧪⚛️ #history 📸 Classical Numismatic Group/ NASA

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

The IceCube detector in Antarctica detected three high energy neutrinos nicknamed Bert, Ernie & Big Bird. Big Bird’s energy was a billion times bigger than a dental X-ray, jammed into a particle with a mass less than a millionth of an electron. #astronomy ⚛️🧪 Image: IceCube Collaboration

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

You can calculate it. The particle’s energy was measured as ~ 3.2 x 10^20 eV. If it was a proton, that’s a Lorentz factor of ~ 3.41 x 10^11 1.5 billion / 3.41 x 10^11 = 0.0044 years (or ~ 1.6 days)

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

The 1.7 days part? Einstein’s relativity gives you a budget to spend, which must spent in its entirety on two things: - travelling through space - travelling through time The more you spend on the first, the less you have left to spend on the second.

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

As photons travel at the speed of light they do it instantly. Time doesn’t exist for a photon.

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

A cosmic ray once hit the Earth so hard astronomers named it the Oh My God particle. It had travelled 1.5 billion light years to reach us. But it was travelling so close to light speed that from its perspective the journey took a mere 1.7 days. #astronomy ⚛️ 🧪

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Add to your calendar: Google: calendarlink.com/event/8M9sf/... Apple: calendarlink.com/event/8M9sf/...

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

We’re going back to the Moon in April, could Mars be next? Come and find out how we might pull it off and the obstacles that still stand in our way. This Sunday 8pm UK / 4pm ET Livestream: open.substack.com/live-stream/... (Calendar links below) #astronomy 🧪⚛️

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

Jules Verne is one the few craters on the Moon named after someone’s full name. Normally it’s just their surname (or occasionally first name for megastars like Tycho). Image: LRO #astronomy 🧪

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

It’s a good analogy because if you reduced the Earth to the size of an apple then its crust would be as thick as the apple skin.

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

The peak of Everest isn’t the highest on Earth. At least if you’re measuring from the planet’s centre. That honour falls to Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador. It’s close to the equator, where the Earth bulges outwards as it spins. 🔭🧪⚛️ Image: Eduardo Navas

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Colin Stuart 🔭 @colinstuartspace.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Add to your calendar. Google: calendarlink.com/event/8M9sf/... Apple: calendarlink.com/event/8M9sf/...

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