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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️

@craig.deforest.org
2.1K followers 989 following 1.1K posts

Dad, mountaineer, heliophysicist. I lead the PUNCH space mission and direct a team at SwRI. I like science, space, communication, humans, dogs, horses, puns. Lowering barriers and promoting open science are priorities. My personal account; my opinions.

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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 24/09/2026
Moose in the garden this morning
A moose standing in a green aspen forest contemplates a large trampoline
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 13/09/2026
For 20 years I've carried a Timbuk2 messenger bag daily as a laptop-case/man-purse/carry-on. It's time for a change. This is my new @sfbags.bsky.social Waterfield Air Porter. It's smaller than the T2MB, but almost magically well organized. The design is extremely well thought out.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 27/08/2026
Who doesn't love that hopeful, hapless canid? I can't wait to see the new movie tomorrow. A bit of escapist fluff would go down well just about now.
A fan remix of a famous poster has a contrail rising into the stratosphere, well above the clouds.  At the top of the contrail is a tiny firework-type rocket, with a cartoon coyote clinging to it.  A slug at the top says "Aim Higher."  A logo at bottom says "Acme Aerospace".
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 27/08/2026
Keith just wait till you see our next CME story from PUNCH! This image (from the last one) should give a clue.
A time-evolution plot shows how an Earth-directed CME front evolved enroute to Earth, as seen by the PUNCH mission in June 2025 over a 90° wide field of view.  The CME's expansion is far from uniform and shows significant evolution as the CME propagates.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 26/08/2026
Nine images of Tim Curry in iconic roles commemorate his career as a way over-the-top actor who portrayed delicious, larger-than-life villains and (occasionally) heroes.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 12/08/2026
Congratulations to @philplait.bsky.social for winning the #AAS Solar Physics Division prize for popular media! (Missed this when it happened -- I just found out at the AAS/SPD business meeting). Article link here: tinyurl.com/plait-award 🧪☀️ & bad-🔭
A snippet from a slide at the AAS/SPD business meeting for 2026 announced to the membership that Phil Plait won the coveted Popular Media Award for his article in Scientific American.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 27/07/2026
As we approach the eclipse in Spain in just three weeks, it's time to re-post this safe solar viewing guide I wrote way back in 2023. Eyepiece projection with binoculars is a simple, fun, safe way to look at the solar disk as totality approaches. ☀️🔭🚀
A full-page snapshot of a flier circulated for the 2024 eclipse shows how to safely view the Sun using eyepiece projection with a pair of binoculars (or other small telescope).
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 22/07/2026
The most novel part of the PUNCH mission (@punch-mission.bsky.social) is its three WFIs. Deeply baffled, with optics from @televueoptics.bsky.social, they make polarized images of the entire inner solar system every 4 minutes. The Solar Physics article just dropped! Read it here: rdcu.be/fvaSc ☀️🧪🛰️🔭
A cutaway drawing and photograph of the Wide Field Imager for PUNCH shows how the baffle works with an achromatic lens train and a CCD detector to produce starfield images of the noontime sky.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 17/07/2026
Spotted this #EV prototype at the top of #PikesPeak on Monday. It's an interesting body design, reminiscent of chopped-top, chunky refits of 1940s classics. Looks like it can't decide whether to be an SUV, a station wagon, or a hatchback.
Two images of a black-and-white dazzle camoflage EV prototype, spotted at the top of Pike's Peak on June 13th.  It is a hybrid design, not quite a hatchback/station-wagon, not quite an SUV.  Brand is obscured (of course) but the license plate says "Michigan".
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 26/06/2026
Comet Pan-STARRS provided a nice reminder that the solar wind is not just a stream of disconnected particles. It is a fluid -- with flows, turbulence, and all the other things that fluids do. ☀️🧪🛰️🔭🚀🪐⚛️
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 19/06/2026
This probably comes as a shock to nobody, but #unitedairlines has really sucky wifi. 700ms ping , few-percent packet loss, peak speeds well under 1Mbps, several-minute lag on popular websites like this one. #Panasonic is bringing us forward into the 1990s!
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 16/06/2026
☀️🧪🛰️🚀
Five images reveal the CME that affected NASA's Artemis mission in early April
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 20/05/2026
Holy cow! Feast your eyes a while, on this gorgeous solar spectrum by the Sol'Ex instrument (assembled by Váradi Nagy Pál). It extends to UV and IR as well as the visible band. Marvel at the F lines, the fine structure, the IR doublets and repeating lines, and the molecular bands. Wonderful! ☀️🧪⚛️🔭
A very broadband solar spectrum reveals the colors of UV, visible light, and infrared light that are missing from the solar spectrum.  The spectrum was collected by the "Sol'Ex" instrument, and assembled by Váradi Nagy Pál.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 05/05/2026
It's not every day your sketch gets featured on #Wikipedia's featured-image page. I still love that chimerical-color template. 5-May only: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ After that, look for 5-May here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...
A "fatigue template" figure demonstrates how to see "chimerical" impossible colors, which cannot be reproduced by any steady illumination from any wavelength of light.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 15/04/2026
Time to register for PUNCH-7, if you haven't! You won't want to miss this one if you're a #heliophysicist. PUNCH data are turning out to be spectacular. (More on that soon). ☀️
PUNCH-7 meeting logo is built around flowers observed by the PUNCH team around launch time.  The meeting will be in Boulder, Colorado from 12-14 May 2026.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 08/04/2026
This was good day, two years ago. We got to see the solar corona, and an enormous arch prominence! @astronamir.bsky.social and @dbseaton.bsky.social organized CATE, a huge array of telescopes that captured the eclipse across North America. One of the sites was right there in the Cotton Bowl. ☀️🧪🔭
Craig DeForest gives two-thumbs-up, hoping for clear skies on 8-April-2024, in preparation for a total solar eclipse as seen in the Cotton Bowl - with a special free-admission science program organized by NOAA.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 02/04/2026
Nice to see PUNCH (@punch-mission.bsky.social) getting used to track MAPS. The next day or two will be fateful -- will MAPS survive its perihelion on Saturday? ☀️🛰️🧪🔭https://www.facebook.com/share/p/171r4kMk32/
Screen snap of a Facebook post shows PUNCH mission data being used to track Comet MAPS.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 26/03/2026
Thinking about poster presentations today in our weekly group meeting. Remember to use white space, font size, and graphic design to draw people in. This oldie-but-goodie is a nice reminder of that. 🧪
Graphic design demo shows how font size and highlighting guides the eye.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 12/03/2026
Happy birthday, @punch-mission.bsky.social! One year (minus two hours) ago as I post, this (pic) happened in California. 40 min later, the 4 PUNCH satellites deployed over Africa. Since then, we've downlinked ~1.5 million images of space – and changed the way humanity sees our environment. ☀️🛰️🧪🔭
The Falcon 9 rocket lifts off shortly after sunset on 11-Mar-2025, just after 7pm California time, carrying four PUNCH satellites and the SPHEREx mission to Sun-synchronous polar orbit.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 10/03/2026
On this special day...
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 04/03/2026
This was a year ago. A week after that, we launched PUNCH! 🛰️🔭☀️
Craig DeForest removes a giant red tie he is wearing.  The tie reads "REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT".  The photo was taken a few days before the launch of the four PUNCH spacecraft into low Earth orbit, on a Falcon 9 rocket.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 28/02/2026
This week I visited Reed College, my alma mater from the 1980s. Highlights included dinner with the physics department (including Mary James and David Griffiths) and touring my old haunts at the Reed Research Reactor. Wonderful department - highly recommended. ⚛️🎢🧐
Craig DeForest sits in the operators’ chair in front of the operating console at the Reed Research Reactor.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 23/02/2026
<thud>! Another PUNCH paper dropped today! Congratulations to Sarah Gibson on this omnibus theoretical treatment of polarization in solar wind structures. Given the simplicity of the Thomson scattering mechanism, it's pretty amazing how deep the rabbit hole can go. 🧪☀️⚛️🔭🛰️ bit.ly/4qT9Kvs
Title bar of "Polarization Diagnostics Applied to Coronal Mass Ejeections and the Background Solar Wind", a newly published paper in the journal Solar Physics
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 16/02/2026
Today I had the amazing opportunity to view @swri.org's second printing (1710) of Galilei's "Dialogo". It once belonged to a "Vittorio", who scrawled his name on the flyleaf. Nice to think that, as scientists, we're part of a long story populated with like-minded folks across the years. #rarebooks 🧪
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 14/02/2026
Scientific illustration is still not accessible to the big AIs. Here's a prompt I gave Gemini (after asking it if it could generate SVGs), together with the absolute nonsense it produced in response. #AIslop #wut #gemini
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 10/02/2026
I caught this rare picture of the contrail compound being loaded on an aircraft! The plane's contrail generator (1 of 2) is the large nacelle to the right of the workman. A chemical reaction inside it creates CO2 but also dihydrogen monoxide, which makes visible trails in the air. #chemtrails
A United Airlines aircraft is being refueled at an airport gate.  A fuel truck is parked just beyond the airplane's wingspan, and jet fuel flows through a long hose into the plane as a technician stands on a ladder just under the wing to monitor the connection.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 27/01/2026
It's not every day you get to announce a new research article -- especially one you've worked on for a complete solar cycle. The PUNCH article came out in the journal Solar Physics today! ☀️🛰️🔭🧪 rdcu.be/e0XlR
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 26/01/2026
Hey @officialbenshapiro.bsky.social, how do you feel about this quote now?
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 21/01/2026
Yes, indeed! Here's a plot shown by Dr. Sami Solanki, winner of the #AAS Hale Prize, in 2022. It compares solar brightness to Earth's climate shift. For 20 years the Sun had been ~0.1% fainter than its long-term average, reflecting weak activity in the last two cycles. We don't (yet) understand why.
A plot of climate change vs. solar brightness shows that the Sun has been ever-so slightly (0.1%) fainter over the last 20 years than the long term historical average.  It is expected to brighten back up to the long-term average, over the next solar cycle or so.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 19/01/2026
This reminds me of the warning sign I saw last year at Surf Beach, CA -- which, now that I think of it, is a good indicator of a healthy (aka neglected-by-people) ecosystem.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 14/01/2026
We had a great time when my son and his girlfriend came to visit over the holidays. Encountered a little turbulence in downtown Denver. #train #turbulence #illusions
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 15/12/2025
This morning I had the singular pleasure of visiting the Lake Ponchartrain causeway (world's longest over-water causeway, I'm told) and examining it with binoculars. It was a cloudy, blustery day but I can confirm that, yes, the world is round.
Craig DeForest examines the Lake Ponchartrain causeway on a cloudy, blustery morning, looking to see if the Earth is round.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 03/12/2025
Here's a fun science nugget from @PUNCH-mission.bsky.social: a colorized polarimetric image of the extended solar corona, with bonus dust trails from a micrometeoroid impact! ☀️🛰️🔭
A colorful image of the solar corona and dust trails in orbit highlights the polarimetric capabilities of PUNCH.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 01/12/2025
"There's something about the outside of a horse that's good for the inside of a man" -- discovering my inner #TeddyRoosevelt. (#horses, #trailriding)
A late-fall deciduous forest hosts a winding trail.  A horse's neck and head, seen from above and behind as from a rider's eyes, punctuate the foreground. The horse has forward-perked ears.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 21/11/2025
Swiss Dawn from the 61C intercity Bern->Basel. Had a great week at ISSI, participating in the solar eclipse/middle-corona conference by day and PUNCH support by night.
A single photograph captures a warm train interior and a cold snowscape exterior in the dawn light of a Swiss morning.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 12/11/2025
Still going on! 10pm MST, 40°N, 105°W. Lots of dynamics and structure. #aurora ☀️🔭
Image of the aurora of 11-Nov-2025, from the Colorado Rocky Mountains above Boulder, CO
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 12/11/2025
From my backyard in the Colorado Rockies, a few minutes ago (about 2025-11-12T03:30Z; 11/11/25 8:30pm MST) #aurora 🔭🧪☀️
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 07/11/2025
The Proba-3/ASPIICS paper just dropped on ArXiV! If you like heliophysics, the corona, or cool mission concepts, give it a read. ASPIICS is a coronagraph comprising two spacecraft in formation: a camera and a separate occulter. They're producing amazing images. ☀️🛰️🔭🚀 arxiv.org/abs/2511.01679
An image of the solar corona produced by a true "artificial eclipse" with two spacecraft flying in formation so that one is in the shadow of the other.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 23/10/2025
I'm delighted to see that @swri.org has joined us here! Southwest Research Institute does a ton of interesting things, but of course #heliophysics is one of them. The outreach/social-media team are really great, give 'em a follow! You won't be sorry. 🧪 (bsky.app/profile/swri...)
Banner for SwRI's bsky user pageSouthwest Research Institute logo
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 21/10/2025
Don't ever change, Apple Photos AI. You are very helpful. No, really. Without you, I might have confused this for a picture of a golden retriever.
A schnozz-portrait of a horse at sunset is covered by an AI-driven recognition window, identifying it as "HORSE: Domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal" with the opening paragraph of the Wikipedia article on taxon equus ferus caballus.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 19/10/2025
Sometimes we all need a little boddhi satva in our lives. Or a big one.
I do *not* have a big head! See?
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 16/10/2025
Are you an undergrad or grad student nearing graduation? Find your next gig! Announcing: the AAS/SPD grad student & postdoc opportunity fair, Wed. 5-Nov. Hear about opportunities across the nation, meet potential advisors, & learn about your next career step. 🧪🔭☀️🎢⚛️ spd.aas.org/graduate-stu...
This is a flyer for the 5th annual Virtual Prospective Grad Student & Postdoctoral Opportunity Fair put on by the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society.  More information here: 

https://spd.aas.org/graduate-student-postdoc-opportunity-fair
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 08/10/2025
A lot of things sort of suck right now. I was delighted to find out that, for under $40, you can now buy an instrument that will tell you, with digital precision, just how much things suck. Provided you can attach a hose to those things. www.amazon.com/Manometer-Pr...
A digital manometer can also tell you how much things suck, and also how badly things blow, depending on which hose you use.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 06/10/2025
What's all this fuss about solving for eigenmodes of mechanical systems? Gaussian elimination has been a solved problem since 1835. #math #dadjoke #illseemyselfoutnow
Image of the grave of mathematician Karl Friedrich Gauss, who is buried in the town of Göttingen, Germany
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 04/10/2025
Great milestone from the PUNCH SOC team this week -- as we continue refining our data, we've rolled out preliminary Level 3 data, with most of the solar F corona removed. Current data are "v0g"; expect version "v0h" in about two weeks. We'll reprocess everything when we reach v1. ☀️
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 02/10/2025
David Hathaway and Lisa Upton just released an updated solar cycle prediction. In their words, it's "virtually unchanged since early 2022", an indicator that they're more or less getting it right with empirical prediction. Looks like we're *just* past maximum in the current cycle. ☀️🔭🧪🚀
A plot of the Hathaway/Upton solar cycle prediction and measured sunspot numbers, with a backdrop of the Sun as seen in X-rays by the Yohkoh spacecraft in the late 20th Century.  We appear to have (just) passed solar maximum.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 01/10/2025
PUNCH has tracked Comet 2025/SWAN continuously at 4 minute cadence since early Aug, and 3I/Atlas continuously since 21-Sep. With the U.S. govt. shut down, I've been asked not to publish PUNCH imagery of 3I/Atlas. Instead, here's a tracked image from just before it entered our FOV. ☀️🔭🛰️🚀
A tracked image shows 3I/Atlas's location on 20-Sep-2025 as seen by the PUNCH mission.  Axes and title indicate right ascension, declination, and UTC timestamp,  indicating this is an astronomical image.  The comet was then just outside the PUNCH field of view, so most of the image is dark, with a small circle at the center marking the location of the comet.  tiny bit of actual PUNCH data appears at the upper right of the image.  The blackness reminds us that the U.S. government is shut down as of today (1-Oct-2025).
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 27/09/2025
Comet 3I/Atlas is a fun challenge for PUNCH. We're very sensitive, though not a "telescope" (~2.5' resolution: basically naked-eye). At mag 12, the sky is *very* crowded. But we can see Atlas and SWAN in nearly-raw data. We're imaging at 4 minute cadence 24/7; FOV is 90° centered on the Sun. 🧪🔭🛰️☀️
A starfield from the PUNCH mission shows two comets:  SWAN and the interstellar comet Atlas.
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 22/09/2025
In order to view the #solarwind, PUNCH also captures literally everything in the sky that is within 45° of the Sun. When Comet 2025 R2 (SWAN) was announced, we looked for it in the data, and there it was! Here's a blog post about it. ☀️🛰️🔭🧪 whtwnd.com/punch-missio...
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Dr. Craig DeForest ☀️ @craig.deforest.org · 15/09/2025
Interesting #art #sculpture seen in the #Prague airport. "Pegasus", 2010.
"Pegasus" by David Cerny is a sculpted chimera between a three-blade propellor mounted on a cowled radial gasoline engine, and a pair of hoofed rear legs from a horse or ox.  A tail reminiscent of an airplane empennage rises from behind.  It is on display at the Prague airport in Czechia.
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