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Riding With Robots

@ridingrobots.bsky.social
2.6K followers 1.1K following 2K posts

Robotic solar system exploration, astrophotography, exasperating earnestness. My day job is impersonating your favorite planets and spacecraft on social media for your favorite government agency. Opinions are my own.

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Gretchen McCulloch @gretchenmcculloch.com · 16h
Huh. Today in "always look up the etymology because sometimes you're just repeating a myth but sometimes it's weirder and more incredible than you could have possibly imagined" www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/c...
Screenshot of Merriam Webster etymology note for cockamamie: 
By the look and sound of it, cockamamie (also spelled "cockamamy") could have something to do with a rooster and the outrageous sound it makes. But in fact, cockamamie is believed to be an altered form of the term decalcomania, which refers to the process, invented in the mid-19th century, of transferring pictures and designs from specially prepared paper to surfaces such as glass or porcelain. (The word referring to the picture or design itself, decal, is a shortening of decalcomania.) The word decalcomania comes from French, with décalcomanie combining the verb décalquer, meaning "to trace" or "to transfer by tracing," and -manie, meaning "-mania." Starting in the 1930s, painted strips of paper with images capable of being transferred to the skin were called decals or—in children's slang—cockamamies. Those familiar with today's temporary tattoos will understand quickly that these were regarded by many as silly novelties, lending the word cockamamie the necessary leeway for application to anything ridiculous.
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Rosamundi @rosamundi.bsky.social · 5h
I had no idea this was an option.
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Dr. Adeene Denton @spacewhalerider.com · 3h
I did show my students the spoopy sun today
The Sun but it looks like a jack-o'-lantern
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Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 4h
I hinted that there would be more images from the Juice flyby, so here is the timelapse of the full event! It's always amazing to get these views of our fragile Blue Marble from the spacecraft we send out to explore the solar system! 🔭🧪 #planetsci
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Riding With Robots @ridingrobots.bsky.social · 18h
Happy New Years from Mars. It's the first day of the new Martian year, which lasts 687 Earth days. According to the internationally adopted timekeeping system, this is Mars year 39. The Curiosity rover sent down this view from Gale Crater today.
Black-and-white photo of a rocky desert landscape with hills of layered rock.
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Riding With Robots @ridingrobots.bsky.social · 19h
From NASA: How do you get a probe ready for the heat of Venus? Put it in a furnace.🔥 From Aug. 28 to Sept. 10, a model of our DAVINCI probe went through six cycles to 869°F (465°C), each matched to its planned hour-long descent. It came out unscathed: go.nasa.gov/3VYwVKR
Close-up of the DAVINCI probe engineering model, a rounded metallic vessel about the size of a yoga ball, before heat testing.
Credit: NASA/Mike Guinto
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Riding With Robots @ridingrobots.bsky.social · 19h
From NASA: 2026 has been a busy season for tropical cyclones in the northeastern and central Pacific basins. This image from NASA’s EPIC camera on the DSCOVR satellite shows four named storms churning on Sept. 27: Nolo, Odalys, Polo, and Rachel. science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-...
Full-disk satellite view of Earth. The Americas are visible on the right. Four tropical cyclones swirl above the blue waters of the Pacific Ocean. From left to right: Nolo, Odalys, Polo, and Rachel. The Intertropical Convergence Zone appears as a band of puffy white clouds near the equator. The storms are all near this area. Credit: NASA
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Riding With Robots @ridingrobots.bsky.social · 20h
omg
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Riding With Robots @ridingrobots.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
One year ago. Deep Space Station 15, one of the 34-meter antennas at NASA's Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex. It was first built to support Voyager 2's Uranus flyby. The rain stopped just long enough reveal the antenna and the setting Moon www.nasa.gov/communicating-with-missions/dsn/
A huge, white antenna dish situated in a field of desert brush points skyward under heavy clouds at dusk. The crescent Moon is setting over a distant range of mountain. Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Bill Dunford
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Tyler Nordgren @spaceart.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I’m working on a design for Hawaii Volcanoes incorporating all the ways the park is special at night - both below the horizon and above. #art #astronomy www.SpaceArtTravelBureau.com
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Riding With Robots @ridingrobots.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Rosetta's dispatches from Comet 67P were a source of daily wonder. Forever thankful for the teams that made this happen.
A lumpy, double-lobed comet floating in the darkness of space, with streamers of material floating away from its surface, glowing in the sunlight.
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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
At least McCarthy could say he was targetting members of a communist conspiracy against the United States, the targeting of Jack Smith is just like "he's a democrat so fuck him haha"
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Riding With Robots @ridingrobots.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Thiiiis
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Riding With Robots @ridingrobots.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
One year ago. Deep Space Station 15, one of the 34-meter antennas at NASA's Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex. It was first built to support Voyager 2's Uranus flyby. The rain stopped just long enough reveal the antenna and the setting Moon www.nasa.gov/communicating-with-missions/dsn/
A huge, white antenna dish situated in a field of desert brush points skyward under heavy clouds at dusk. The crescent Moon is setting over a distant range of mountain. Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Bill Dunford
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Bryn Nelson @seattlebryn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Even Kafka would have marveled at the surrealism of this deliberate cruelty.
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Helen Kennedy @helenkennedy.com · 29/09/2026
Trump’s new AI website is kinda fun, it turns out.
Can the president use taxpayer funds to air his old campaign ads on TV?

No. Federal appropriations law has long barred using taxpayer funds for political advertising.
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Night of the Abigail @popeguilty.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Sure, agents struggle to accomplish even the most basic tasks and Facebook recently got caught pretending they built agents by outsourcing tasks to poorly-paid contractors but what if they were cute? What now, skeptics?
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Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The tweet that immediately came to mind:
We're a modest company with modest goals:
1: sell a quality product at a fair price
2: drain the world's oceans so we can find and kill god
6:19 PM • Oct 21, 2014 • Twitter for iPhone
9.8K Retweets
32.7K Likes
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Vincent Ledvina @vincentledvina.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Here it comes... the large coronal hole is almost directly facing Earth now, which means fast solar wind is 3-4 days away. In fact, NOAA SWPC has just issued a G1/minor storm watch for Oct 2. This means there are chances for mid-latitude auroral displays Thu and Fri nights. #heliophysics
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Hannah Vardit @hannahvardit.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
i worry that men think being A Good Guy is dramatically and heroically intervening on behalf of an endangered woman and then being publicly rewarded on a grand scale when actually being A Good Guy is just usually saying, “hey man that’s not funny” or “wow that’s fucked up” and there is no reward
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Mark Robertson @markrobbie.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
St. Cooper of Capistrano 🪶
A juvenile cooper's hawk, atop a telephone line post, the setting moon behind him like a holy nimbus
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Riding With Robots @ridingrobots.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
From NASA: Watching for Color in the Wasatch Back science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/watching-for-color-in-the-wasatch-back-152068/ The canyon in the upper left is one of my favorite places to Watch leaves, and the canyon in the lower right is a great place to watch the night sky.
Heber City in Utah makes a green triangle at the center of the image, with vegetation, the straight lines and right angles of streets, and tan and gray buildings. On all three sides of the city, moutains create bumpy ridges, mostly a dark greenish brown. Along the left ridge of mountains, changing leaves have turned green vegetation a striking red. Some similar red leaves are scattered along the right mountains, as well. Pines and yellow aspen on a rainy mountainside with low clouds in Utah. Photo: Bill DunfordA tall pine under a starry night sky crossed by the Milky Way. Photo: Bill Dunford
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Kimberly Cartier @astrokimcartier.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
My latest for @eos.org dives into a recent investigative report on a hidden but crucial part of NASA's budget: the research and analysis that underpins most of its science goals and missions. 🧪
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Yvette Cendes @whereisyvette.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
We made the NY Times!!! 🤩 🔭🧪🎢
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Liz Szabo @lizszabo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
How to talk to someone who is considering suicide. September is Suicide Prevention Month. Call 988 if you or someone who know needs help. talkawaythedark.afsp.org/thinkingabou...
talkawaythedark.afsp.org
If Someone Is Thinking About Suicide #RealConvo Guide | AFSP
If you’re having an open, honest conversation with someone about mental health, you may feel a lot of pressure. Here's some advice and tips on how to help them.
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Pat Bagley @bagleycartoons.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
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Riding With Robots @ridingrobots.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Curiosity has discovered many rock gardens on Mars, but the one it's tending to right now might be my favorite so far.
A robotic hand in contact with bright, flat, flagstone-like bedrock, which is crossed by swirls of dark sand.
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Riding With Robots @ridingrobots.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I'm embarrassed. It's embarrassing.
Screenshot of another political ad posted by Jared Isaacman on his official agency account, this one bizarrely claiming that Trump "is a builder. He's rebuilding our industrial base in America, infrastructure right now, he's rebuilding our military, he's helping rebuild our space program."
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Elizabeth Cantwell @eccantwell.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Here to tell you that the chemistry and tension in this scene still hits for 2026 teenagers, as evidenced by the very vocal reactions of my students today
Dorothy Malone and Humphrey Bogart in the bookstore scene in 1946’s The Big Sleep
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Riding With Robots @ridingrobots.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
NASA's Europa Clipper mission will perform a similar gravity assist maneuver in December. science.nasa.gov/mission/europa-clipper/mission-timeline
Screenshot of NASA's Eyes on the Solar System simulation showing the Europa Clipper spacecraft passing low over Earth on Dec. 5, 2026.
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David Dickinson @astrodave.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Why we need a dedicated mission to Saturn's moon Enceladus - www.404media.co/alien-life-c... via @404media.co
404media.co
Alien Life Can Survive on This Tiny Moon—We Just Need to Go Find It
Scientists have discovered that Earth-like microbes could potentially survive conditions inside Enceladus’s subsurface ocean, and that detecting signs of life on the moon may be easier than expected, ...
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Vincent Ledvina @vincentledvina.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
A heart-shaped coronal hole has rotated onto the Earth-facing disk. It is pouring fast solar wind into space and will face Earth in the coming days. Fast solar wind will likely move over Earth around Oct 3-4 and cause ehnahced geomagnetic activity.
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Riding With Robots @ridingrobots.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
From NASA astronaut Jessica Meir: Hues of Africa. This week as I floated into the space station cupola and came upon this Northern Africa landscape, I reflected back on the first time I saw this scene from space. I was simply in awe of its colors, patterns and textures…
Earth seen from space. Beneath the curving horizon is a colorful landscape and puffs of cloud far below.
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Carl Ballard @carlballard.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
One thing is you don't need to do like a whole monologue about why harrassment is bad. You can just say "really?" in a disappointed voice or "come on, man."
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Riding With Robots @ridingrobots.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Maybe this speaks to the week I’ve had: For a full five seconds after I got this note during a phone meeting I thought it said, “Live bear inside.” Bear is a cat.
Hand-written sticky note that reads “Leave Bear inside. Tx”
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ESA Space Science @science.esa.int · 28/09/2026
A successful Earth flyby improves Juice’s course to Jupiter Earlier today, Juice flew just 8640 km above the Indian Ocean and snapped these images with its onboard monitoring cameras. 1️⃣Africa, by Juice monitoring camera 2️⃣Madagascar, by Juice NavCam 3️⃣Moon, by Juice NavCam 🔭 🧪 #planetsci
Mostly black space, most of Earth visible at the top right of the image. Part of a spacecraft visible on the left.Part of the island of Madagascar in black and white.A crescent Moon, with about a quarter of the Moon showing. Many craters are visible.
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Aang23 @aang23.satdump.org · 28/09/2026
JUICE (ESA) images from JMC again. Received by @amsat-dl.org in Bochum :-)
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Riding With Robots @ridingrobots.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
From NASA: Together, NASA's telescopes wear many hats – capturing different wavelengths of light and cosmic happenings. This group image of the Sombrero Galaxy shows how.
M104 has a wide, flat, round brim, shown here as a hazy violet ring viewed nearly on its edge. At the center of the brim-like ring is a cluster of golden specks surrounding a warm white core.
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Paul Voosen @voosen.me · 28/09/2026
New Horizons is now *three days away* from shutting off its two heliophysics instruments, simply because NASA has not provided the $2M in funding it had promised to the mission last year or this year. There is no science basis for shutting these off. Our earlier coverage:
science.org
NASA’s New Horizons mission may shut down two instruments over lack of funding
Decision risks “incalculable loss” of data from the edge of the Sun’s influence, scientists say
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s2a systems @s2a-systems.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
A short clip of ESA's JUICE Earth flyby, recorded about 38 minutes before closest approach.
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Chase Million @millionconcepts.com · 28/09/2026
From Mark Sykes: "On the basis of documents received on September 23, 2026, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, it is now clear that the costs incurred against those budgets in FY2025, as of June 30, 2026, were more than 50% lower than the amounts budgeted in the aggregate."
blog.planetary-research.org
ALERT: FY2025 NASA Planetary Research and Analysis Funding Cut by More than 50%
A recent investigative report on 15 years of NASA Planetary Research and Analysis (R&A) program funding showed relatively flat funding profile that conflicted with recommendations by NRC Planetary Decadal Surveys an by Congress. On the basis of documents received on September 23, 2026, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, it is now...
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Owl Daily @owldaily.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
Wings of wonder. 📸 amycomp123 #Nature #Owl #Birds
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Cynthia Phillips, PhD @planetcynthia.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Interviewed about the upcoming Earth flyby by the @esa.int European Space Agency's JUICE spacecraft, which will fly past Earth tomorrow on its way out to the Jupiter system! NASA's Europa Clipper Mission will follow with an Earth flyby coming up on December 3. www.washingtonpost.com/science/2026...
washingtonpost.com
Why a spacecraft exploring moons where life may thrive is zipping by Earth
Sent to determine what conditions hypothetical life would face deep in the solar system, “Juice” must first make two more passes of everyone’s favorite inhabited world.
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Christopher Michel @christophermichel.com · 11/08/2026
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft has left Mars behind. On May 15, it passed within 2,864 miles of the planet. It is now traveling toward the metal rich asteroid Psyche, where it will arrive in 2029. Portrait of PI Lindy Elkins-Tanton. More: explorers.com/lindy-elkins... @nationalacademies.org
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Christopher Michel @christophermichel.com · 01/09/2026
Happy 91st birthday to the extraordinary Sylvia Earle. Six decades exploring the ocean, descending into places few humans have ever seen, and fighting like hell for the living planet she loves. What a privilege to make her portrait. More: explorers.com/sylvia-earle @nationalacademies.org
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Christopher Michel @christophermichel.com · 26/09/2026
John Grotzinger helped lead Curiosity’s search for ancient habitability on Mars. He showed up for our Caltech portrait session on a homemade bicycle carrying a model rover wheel. Perfect. Portrait + story: explorers.com/john-grotzin...
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Christopher Michel @christophermichel.com · 26/09/2026
Dave Gallagher was weeks from retiring after 36 years at JPL when he was asked to become its 11th director, in one of the lab’s hardest periods. In Dave’s office hangs a photo of his father, a Navy pilot. Different kind of service. Same instinct.
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Simeon Schmauß @stim3on.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Coming up tomorrow, ESA's Juice spacecraft will fly past Earth for another gravity assist! I had the fantastic opportunity to help planning the JMC shots this time around. We're trying a bunch of new things with this camera, so I'm really excited to see how they'll turn out. 🔭🧪 #planetsci
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Marko Rummelsburg @markorummelsburg.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
It's raining plasma on the Sun's western limb.
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Riding With Robots @ridingrobots.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Just going through and liking all the replies.
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