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Dennis Just 🌵

@sciencepolice.bsky.social
814 followers 456 following 1.3K posts

Astronomy and physics professor, former Orbital Mechanic, and officially a Superhuman - cats, spaceflight, 日本語, gardening, and video games.

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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Evidently this website is now blocked... 🤔 So I want to repost the graphic.
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I made this quickly enough from Google Earth. Al-Mughraqa. This was a town of folks who "[worked] in agriculture, cultivating tomatoes, cucumbers, and lemons." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Mugh...
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Let's go State! 🏈 (Her catio has Penn State blue shining on it)
A black cat in an indoor catio, with blue light illuminating the scene.
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Let’s go State! 🏈
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
This was a fun one to look into. Not so much about the space shuttle's escape pole, but the procedure behind it. dennisjust.substack.com/p/bailing-fr...
dennisjust.substack.com
Bailing from the Middeck
The escape pole, T-handle enclosure, and more.
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
I've learned of myself that the greatest and most appreciative response you'll get from me via email begins with "you rule!"
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Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Sometimes I think about how Hollywood won’t give Guillermo Del Toro the money to make his At the Mountains of Madness movie
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 26/03/2024
Came across this wild footage of a *crewed* Soyuz taking TMA-22 to the ISS during a blizzard. The 2011 mission took Roscosmos cosmonauts Anton Shklaperov and Anatoli Ivanishin and NASA astronaut Dan Burbank to orbit 🚀🌨️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKx8...
youtube.com
Did you know the Soyuz spacecraft can launch in blizzard conditions?
“Soyuz TMA-22 was launched on schedule from the Gagarin's Start launchpad at Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, at 04:14:03 UTC on 14 November 2011. Soyuz Comm...
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
That loser was only a postdoc?? Jfc
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Scientific American @sciam.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
A high-risk mission to save NASA’s Swift Observatory has ended in failure after its rescue spacecraft spun out of control in Earth orbit. Swift will likely burn up in the atmosphere later this year, leaving a glaring gap in astronomers’ cosmic studies.
scientificamerican.com
NASA’s rescue mission for the falling Swift space telescope has failed
The space agency’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, which studied cataclysmic cosmic explosions, is expected to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere later this year
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Happy Black Cat Day! 🐈‍⬛
A soft black cat napping on a fleece blanket.
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
There's at least half a dozen Final Fantasy's much better than FFVII
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
This is a fun one - the period of a pendulum outside a Schwarzschild black hole ⌛ arxiv.org/abs/2608.00866
We determine the small-oscillation period of a simple pendulum in
Schwarzschild spacetime. After transients decay, the displaced rope coincides with a geodesic of the induced spatial metric. This determines the radial lift of the bob to quadratic order in the angular amplitude and leads to the period measured by an observer at the bob's equilibrium position, $r=r_2$, with the fulcrum at $r_1$, \[ T_{(2)}=4\pi\frac{r_2^2}{c r_s}\sqrt{N_2(N_1-N_2)}, \]
where $N_i=N(r_i)$ and $N(r)=\sqrt{1-r_s/r}$ is the Schwarzschild lapse. The result is therefore expressed in terms of the same function that determines clock rates and gravitational redshifts. In the Newtonian limit, we reproduce the classical result $T=2\pi\sqrt{L_0/g}$. We interpret the period close to the horizon in terms of an effective pendulum length. We compare our treatment with the coordinate-length constraint adopted in an earlier study and argue that the two problems are inequivalent away from the classical, weak-field limit.
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
That wonderful feeling when you find out someone else is a Georges Méliès fan and it's time to geek out 🌙
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UNSC2571 @unsc2571.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Explored Mt. St. Helens and transformed it into a Halo Landscape. #landscape #AdobePhotoshop #Halo #Forerunner #ScenicLandscape
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Before 99% of people had ever heard of starship/BFR, back when I was doing the podcast I predicted it'd be "shuttle-like": the thing would fly and serve some use, but wouldn't come *close* to achieving what was claimed. I still think I'll be proven right in the end. arstechnica.com/space/2026/0...
arstechnica.com
Experts warn current Starship heat shield tech is a "dead end" for rapid reuse
NASA has not made substantial investments in thermal protection research for decades.
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
@iwriteok.bsky.social Your latest episodes turning out to be quite topical. "Companies owned by an American government-and-military contractor [and special forces guy] have been operating several planes involved in logistics for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Sudan." (From The Economist)
 Companies owned by an American government-and-military contractor have been operating several planes involved in logistics for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, according to an investigation by Reuters. The report alleges that companies controlled by Steven Shaulis, an American special-forces veteran with decades of experience working for the American government and the UN, have operated at least three Boeing aircraft flying to hubs in Sudan’s Darfur region.  The RSF, whose top commanders are under sanctions by America, Britain, the EU and the UN, was found in February by UN investigators to have carried out a campaign a mass killings and ethnic targeting in Darfur that bore the “hallmarks of genocide”. Mr Shaulis declined to comment.
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Andrew Jones @andrewjonesspace.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Oh cool, this was a fun surprise to see in my inbox this morning. Congrats, RayJay! 🔭 www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/caltech...
jpl.nasa.gov
Caltech Welcomes Astrophysicist Ray Jayawardhana as New President
Taking the helm of the institute that manages JPL for NASA, the distinguished astrophysicist brings a lifelong interest in space exploration and a track record of scientific discovery.
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
CIRIA V. GERRANS Cops coerced a man to fabricate evidence which then convicted a guy of murder. He's later exonerated after 32 years. The question - are the cops entitled to qualified immunity? 9th Cir. says no (thank god), but Trump judge says yes in dissent. law.justia.com/cases/federa...
law.justia.com
CIRIA V. GERRANS, No. 24-3308 (9th Cir. 2026)
Joaquin Ciria was convicted in 1991 for the murder of Felix Bastarrica in San Francisco, based largely on the testimony of George Varela, who was 18 at the time and an accomplice to the actual shooter...
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Culture Crave 🍿 @culturecrave.co · 07/06/2026
'Persona 6' has been officially announced
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
I saw a throwaway reference to the shuttle’s elevons free-floating on-orbit during STS-41C, and my efforts to figure out why didn’t quite pan out 🚀 open.substack.com/pub/dennisju...
static.klipy.com
J.K. Simmons: What Did We Learn, Palmer?
Alt: J.K. Simmons: What Did We Learn, Palmer?
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
It's a small thing but I'm trying to get back into gardening. I just haven't really had time this past ~year or so 🌱
A few types of succulents in a black potting bed, hanging in front of a gray corrugated fence.
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
30 Rock predicts Freedom 250 🇺🇸
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Hell yea! New Illusory Wall video, for anyone who wants to watch 45 minutes on the smell mechanic from Dark Souls 1 www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4SU...
youtube.com
How Enemies Detect You in Dark Souls: Part 2 - Smell
YouTube video by illusory wall
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Go Cats!!
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
It’s a nice life 🐈‍⬛ 🚂
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DutchSpace @dutchspace.eurosky.social · 24/04/2026
Nice on-orbit shot of Hubble ! "Collected on April 23, 2026, by one of Vantor's WorldView Legion satellites, this remarkable non-Earth image showcases Hubble from just 61.8 km away" Source: Vantor on the other site.
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
Not for nothing but I’m glad to see conservative astronauts also signing to this.
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Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans) @iwriteok.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
At the present moment I am not interested in anything politically beyond the destruction of the Republican Party as a viable political force. If we don't break the back of the conservative movement nothing else really matters. Whatever good shit you want to do won't happen.
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
The juxtaposition on arxiv is the best part of April 1st - you'll have "Protoplanetary Disk Evolution in a Low-Metallicity Environment: JWST's First Mid-Infrared Census of Low-Mass Stars" followed by "On The Detection of Digiorno-like Objects in the Flavor Zone" 🍕
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
As an already nervous flier, I really really hope navigating ORD is easy enough this week.
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
My collaborator and friend's group is featured in this article on developing structures within lunar lava tubes. A number of my community college students have worked with him and gone on to do great things. Very cool! 🌙 www.asce.org/publications...
asce.org
Lava tubes could make life on the moon possible
The structures, set deep beneath the lunar surface, are safe, efficient, and habitable with the right strategies and tools.
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
Anyone with eclipse shades (or a welder's mask) and clear skies should check out this massive sunspot 4466. 10x larger than the Earth, you can see it's *shape* with the naked eye. Incredible ☀️
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
Which is cat, and which is folded sweater? 🐈‍⬛
A gray couch with two black blobs on it. The foreground blob is a cat napping on some blankets, while the background blob is a folded black sweater.
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
As far as I can tell, the Schmidt Observatory System is essentially “what are the best next-gen facilities coming online in the future? Ok yea let’s just build all of them nice and fast and synergize them w the rest of the community.” Incredible 📡🔭🔭🛰️
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 02/01/2026
How cool is this - Cal Poly Pomona and SLO's float, the only one designed and built entirely by students, won the Rose Parade. The float's message is about the dangers of climate change, with a bunch of cute woodland animals repairing a damaged robot 🤖 www.cpp.edu/news/content...
A float at the Rose Parade showing a damaged robot with glasses with hearts in them lying down in a forested scene. A tiger has some wiring in its mouth on the robot's leg, a monkey climbs on its right shoulder, and several bird lie at the top. A sign with the words Rose Parade are obscured but lie in the background. The scene is rainy with a few people visible in the foreground.
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 27/12/2025
Skydivers landing at Arizona Stadium?? #Tucson
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Andrea Luck @andrealuck.bsky.social · 27/12/2025
Hey Martians, did I mention we now also have a video of epic Phobos passing over a Martian dust storm near Pavonis Mons? 🌪️🌋🥔 Video & full info: flic.kr/p/2rNN8wk Credit: ESA/DLR/FUBerlin/AndreaLuck CC BY @esa.int Mars Express HRSC 300 MP Photo quoted below Easy zoom: easyzoom.com/image/674026
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
I'm very happy I woke up at 4am this morning to catch 3I/ATLAS right before its closest approach to Earth (today!) This interstellar visitor is traveling over 60 km/s ☄️ At 269 million km (1.8 AU), I took a series of 2.5 min exposures with my Seestar 🔭
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
Just a little PSA - if you have any solar eclipse shades (or a welder's mask), you should try and check out the massive sunspot group that has rotated into view these past few days. It looks so big it may be naked-eye visible, which is pretty neat!
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 27/11/2025
Today’s big Thanksgiving goal is to finally, after all these decades, beat 7th Saga 🎮 🐈‍⬛
A black cat lies on a brown carpet. The TV in the back shows the Super Nintendo game The 7th Saga. The text says “Good morning. Have a safe journey.”
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
Different setup today - go Cats! 🏈🍸
A white and brown cat’s face at the left, with a small brown table at center with a half-finished espresso martini and a laptop showing the Arizona-Baylor football game on top.
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
🎙️ and Bok Choy's got Hogan down for the count!! 🐱🤼
A fluffy white cat is sitting, like a loaf, on top of a Hulk Hogan wrestling buddy (an old plush toy).
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
Shoot, they're renaming Arizona Stadium to the Casino Del Sol Stadium. I always liked that we had a normal stadium name without a dumb corporate name, but $60M I guess 🤷 arizonawildcats.com/news/2025/11...
arizonawildcats.com
Arizona Athletics and Casino Del Sol Announce Transformative $60 Million-Plus Stadium Naming Rights Partnership - University of Arizona Athletics
The partnership is the largest in the Big 12 Conference
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
Kitty Peak National Observatory 🐱 I have no idea where I stumbled on this but it's in my photos from the summer of 2020. And I love it! 🔭 Is the 90" supposed to be a cat tree? #astronomy #cats
Title: "Points of interest."
Frame: A drawing of the telescopes at Kitt Peak, but their domes are drawn as kitty cats. The 90-inch Bok telescope has a flat top, like a cat tree.
Caption: "Kitty Peak National Observatory. Famous for pioneering work in the study of shiny objects that move."
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 15/11/2025
Go cats! Bear down!🐱 🏈
A small black cat in the front, with a tv showing college football in the background.
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
What a title for a paper lol ☄️😳 Out of 10 billion simulated, ten thousand strike the Earth. arxiv.org/abs/2511.03374
arxiv.org
The Distribution of Earth-Impacting Interstellar Objects
In this paper we calculate the expected orbital elements, radiants, and velocities of Earth-impacting interstellar objects. We generate a synthetic population of $\sim10^{10}$ interstellar objects wit...
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
Watching dopey Penn State in the new place 🏈
A television showing two broadcasters in suits. A tiny black cat lounges on a false wall behind the tv.A fluffy white cat in the foreground. A television showing a broadcaster is in the background.
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Dennis Just 🌵 @sciencepolice.bsky.social · 02/11/2025
I'm gonna try posting to this blog each week. Back in Twitter's day I shared a lot of shuttle and space tidbits I thought were neat, and then used Twitter as a look-up reference. Now this blog will serve that role - I figure I might as well share it! 🚀 dennisjust.substack.com/p/oms-kit
dennisjust.substack.com
OMS Kit
Plus other OMS trivia
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