iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory @rubinobservatory.org · 30/06/2026

The start of a new survey of the Universe? That deserves a new view of the cosmos 🌌 Meet the Ocean of Stars, NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory's newest wide-field image. 🔭🧪 🔗: rubinobservatory.org/gallery/imag...

211737

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory @rubinobservatory.org · 30/06/2026

The moment we've all been waiting for is finally here… On June 29, 2026, NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory officially began the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST)! 🔭🧪☄️🌌 🔗: rubinobservatory.org/news/action-...

3294138

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 29/05/2026

What we are talking about here goes beyond science — this is the dismantling of the American administrative state as we know it. This is maybe the biggest change in American governance since the New Deal. It is hard to overstate that THIS IS A BIG FUCKING DEAL. 🧪🔭⚛️

7187111

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 29/05/2026

It’s truly astonishing to see how comprehensively the US government is tearing down every part of the system that has made it up until now a world-leading power in science, research, and technological development. The entire world will suffer from this wanton destruction.

23980472824

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 28/04/2026

1) There's no reason an administrator at NASA should care how a Solar System body is categorized. 2) NASA isn't the org that makes classification determinations for Solar System objects. 3) If Isaacman wants Pluto reclassified again, he can lobby the International Astronomical Union on his own time.

902410460

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Science is good. We should fund it.

134125832516

Stephanie Deppe, PhD @spacescisteph.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Brb, trying to stave off my post-moon joy depression by rewatching this whole mission on repeat while endlessly scrolling through all the incredible photos #ArtemisII

090

Stephanie Deppe, PhD @spacescisteph.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Oh thank god. Welcome back Artemis II, thank you for the incredible moon joy of the last ten days 💙💚

0151

Stephanie Deppe, PhD @spacescisteph.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Well I was really enjoying Artemis until 🍊🤡. Time for sleep goodnight!

040

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

Jess Fox @jessfoxbooks.com · 07/04/2026

Ewwwww NASA how dare you make me listen to his voice and how dare you make them listen to him too. This is a slap in the face considering he’s the one ruining science.

1255

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory @rubinobservatory.org · 25/02/2026

The largest spot-the-difference effort EVER has begun!🚨 On the night of Feb 24, NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory officially released its first ~800,000 public alerts of detected changes in the night sky!🔍 A new era of discovery is here✨ 🔭🧪☄️ 🔗: rubinobservatory.org/news/first-a...

A 3-by-4 grid of grayscale astronomical images zoomed in on single objects. From left to right, the columns are labeled Template, New image, and difference. From top to bottom, the rows are labeled supernova, variable star, active galactic nucleus, and solar system object.

418870

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 14/02/2026

I wonder if people are paying attention to how much their doom scrolling is cutting into time they used to use to read books

571056154

Stephanie Deppe, PhD @spacescisteph.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

Y'ALL I GAVE THE COOLEST TALK OF MY LIFE TODAY. Rubin's super detailed, hi res images on a state of the art LED planetarium? YES PLEASE. I didn't want to leave. Seriously could have just basked under that dome all night. 🔭

A teeny tiny me in front of Rubin's spectacularly pink and tan image of the Trifid and Lagoon Nebulae

A teeny tiny me in front of a spectacular field of stars. No seriously, there's not a spot of black anywhere, it's just full of stars

3569

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

Andy Rivkin @asrivkin.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

For comparison, every robotic mission NASA has ever sent in its history, from the dawn of the Space Age 65 years ago to today, from Mercury to Pluto and beyond, has cost less than $40B. I know which one has done more for humankind and which one should be dismantled.

262114704

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory @rubinobservatory.org · 05/09/2025

Making waves in the cosmos, galaxy style 😎🌊 Shell galaxies preserve the memory of a cosmic splash, like ripples in a pond 🌌✨ These elliptical galaxies are surrounded by faint, layered arcs that form when a large galaxy absorbs a smaller one. 🔭 🧪

At the center is a shell galaxy, its faint arcs of starlight draped around it concentrically like layers of folded fabric. Background stars and galaxies of varying shapes, sizes, and colors scatter the dark sky.

1569

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 10/08/2025

"PhD-level experts in your back pocket" is a completely nonsensical description of AI but a pretty good description of social media if you follow the right people

133103551999

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory @rubinobservatory.org · 23/07/2025

Happy birthday, Vera Rubin! 🥳✨ What better way to celebrate than with NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory's view of galaxies SHE studied? NGC 4343, 4526, 4535, and 4378 are just a few gems from our Cosmic Treasure Chest. Explore them and more at skyviewer.app 🔭🧪

Edge-on spiral galaxy angled pointing lower left to upper right. It's glowing with a bright core that's cut with the dark veins of dust clouds. The background is peppered with a myriad of colorful stars and distant galaxies in black space.

A smooth, cigar-shaped galaxy angled pointing lower left to upper right glowing with a bright core. Two bright stars beam just to the upper left and lower right of the galaxy. The background is peppered with a myriad of colorful stars and distant galaxies in black space.

A face-on spiral with a bright core and sweeping arms knotted with blue clusters of star-forming regions. The background is peppered with a myriad of colorful stars and distant galaxies in black space.

A face-on spiral with a bright core and a single thin arm wrapping all the way around, almost looking like a ring. Two bright blue stars beam above and to the lower left of the galaxy, with a third yellow star to the lower right. The background is peppered with a myriad of colorful stars and distant galaxies in black space.

418253

Stephanie Deppe, PhD @spacescisteph.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

Me: ok brain, we gotta do this application due tonight that we've barely started. ADHD brain: no worries, I got this. 3 hours, no problem. Me: we're behind, better double check the requirements. *Deadline extended by three days* ADHD brain: niiiiice, got two more days to relax 😎 Me: 😑😑😑

0100

Stephanie Deppe, PhD @spacescisteph.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

Hi, it's me, a solar system scientist turned science communicator asking journalists for the thousandth time to stop giving a certain Harvard professor airtime about objects from outside our solar system. I know you know the one.

1115614

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

Michael Merrifield @astromikemerri.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

I could play with the Rubin Skyviewer for hours. Off in one corner of the first image released is this rather lovely little galaxy car crash, which are always my favourites. 🔭 skyviewer.app/explorer

1339550

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 24/06/2025

I just had a look around ... and .... look at them twinsies. LOOK AT THEM 😍 #RubinFirstLook #CaptureTheCosmos 🔭🧪

two spiral galaxies in a rich star field. They are both spiral galaxies and are face on. The one on the right is larger is size and has clearer spiral arm structures.

113523

Stephanie Deppe, PhD @spacescisteph.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

Holyyyyyy....I am a tired exhausted puddle on the floor. What a day for @vrubinobs.bsky.social! This observatory is incredible. Highly, HIGHLY recommend joyscolling around Rubin's Skyviewer. I quite like this galaxy - which is your favorite? 🔭🧪 skyviewer.app

A large face-on galaxy in a cosmic tapestry of glittering galaxy jewels. The galaxy nearly looks like a ring surrounding a bright core. A few bright stars pepper the scene, and the background is filled with the smudges of distant galaxies of various colors against the black of space.

642735394

Stephanie Deppe, PhD @spacescisteph.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

Officially tackling full reveal day with 4 hours of sleep, which is more than I expected to be honest. JOIN US AT 11AM EDT!!!!

071

Stephanie Deppe, PhD @spacescisteph.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

I cannot express to you the hours, days, YEARS that went into these images across Rubin. They are spectacular. And truly just a peek. It has been the wildest few months of my life getting my small piece, the social media, ready for this. You're not ready for 11am. ls.st/rubin-first-look-livestream

ls.st

First Images from NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory | #RubinFirstLook

We’re nearly ready to #CaptureTheCosmos! Join the NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory team on June 23, 2025 at 11am US EDT as they reveal the first incredible ...

36212

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

Marina Koren @marinakoren.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

My first story for National Geographic is out, and it's about the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which will spend the next decade scanning the night sky in the Southern Hemisphere, revealing all kinds of cosmic wonders: www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...

nationalgeographic.com

The 4 biggest mysteries the new Vera Rubin Observatory could solve

No telescope has basked in the night sky quite like this before. Here's what it could reveal about the universe.

912040

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 19/06/2025

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

6263661411259

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory @rubinobservatory.org · 13/06/2025

We're getting SO CLOSE to the reveal of NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory's first images on June 23! So let's take a walk down memory lane 🎞️ Come with us through 10 memorable moments from the past 10+ years of building Rubin 🔭 🧵 📷: H. Stockebrand

17220

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

Leah from South Dakota @leahfromsd.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

I never, ever want to hear again that women are too emotional to be leaders.

057701408

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

Elon threatening to just leave people on the ISS is making a pretty good case for why you nationalize your space program!

326230784147

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory @rubinobservatory.org · 05/06/2025

You're gonna need a bigger data management system... 🚤🦈 In 10 years, NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory data processing will generate around 500 petabytes. Managing all of this data is an international job. 🔭🧪 📷: RubinObs/NSF/DOE/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA/W. O'Mullane 🧵

Rubin Observatory's massive 8.4-meter telescope beneath the night sky through the observatory's open dome slit. THe night sky is visible through the slit in the upper half of the image. The teal telescope structure is at bottom right and fills much of the image. It is tilted left of vertical by about 45 degrees. The denser glowing band of the Milky Way is visible through the open dome oriented from upper left toward lower right.

1208

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory @rubinobservatory.org · 05/06/2025

Bend it like gravity! ⚽️ Gravitational lensing is a powerful tool for mapping the invisible "dark" Universe. With NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory's 10-year survey, scientists will have their best dataset yet for studying the nature of dark matter. 🔭🧪 🔗: rubinobservatory.org/news/rubin-g...

Illustration with a woman with long dark hair and blue shirt holding a book. She is surrounded by a suspended circle of film strips like from a film camera. Each frame in the film has a different gravitationally lensed galaxy or object, with one or more arcs around a central circular galaxy or other object.

1225

Stephanie Deppe, PhD @spacescisteph.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

So glad this country's being run by toddlers. This is super fun.

171

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory @rubinobservatory.org · 04/06/2025

The sky doesn’t wait—and neither will we!💨 NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory has an automated scheduler that takes into account current weather conditions, moon phases, and observatory capabilities to determine the best next place to point the telescope. 🌙 #CaptureTheCosmos 🔭🧪 📷: P. Assunção Lago (Rubin)

The glowing, dense band of stars of our home Milky Way galaxy appears to spill across the image from the open dome slit of Rubin Observatory at bottom right.

17713

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

Sean Carroll @seanmcarroll.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

No money was actually saved, but at the same time we had truly devastating cuts to scientific research, medicine, and foreign aid. Just reinforces what a tiny fraction of spending those areas always were, with an outsized positive impact.

1133289

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

Peter Gleick @petergleick.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd. It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.

Graphs showing 25 years of budgets for the National Institute of Health, NASA, and the NSF. In all cases, the proposed budget for next year is far, far below any year of the previous quarter century.

449151557830

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

Nirmalya Kajuri @kajunut.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

Why does LIGO need two detectors anyway? Here’s why. 1/n 🧵⚛️

284

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 31/05/2025

Inspired by @jtuttlekeane.bsky.social and @ohdearz.bsky.social, here's what the White House proposed budget cuts to NASA would do to the entirety of the agency's Science Mission Directorate. Bloodbath is right.

27702320

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

Kevin Anchukaitis @thirstygecko.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Trump administration cuts to NSF will result in more than 200,000 FEWER people per year involved in basic science, training, and education - what should have been the next generation of US scientists. This isn't even eating your seed corn, it is setting your seed corn on fire and salting the earth.

16795501

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory @rubinobservatory.org · 13/05/2025

Rubin #CommissioningNotes ✍️: The data deluge from NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory is coming! Rubin captured over 500 exposures per night across 3 nights this week, using its automated observation scheduler — that’s 20x more than during the 7 week period with the engineering camera last year!🔭 🧪 🧵

View of Rubin Observatory's massive telescope structure inside the observatory dome. The telescope is a teal steel structure shaped like a squat vase with a round bottom. To the left, a large white donut-shaped screen is mounted on the dome wall, about two-thirds the size of the telescope structure. Just above the telescope, the vertical dome slit is slightly open, showing a blue-purple night sky outside. The interior of the dome is silver metal above and black light-blocking screen s on the sides, all criss-crossed by teal support beams.

14911

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory @rubinobservatory.org · 12/05/2025

You get a star, everyone gets a star! NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory will collect precise data about 17 billion stars in our galaxy and nearby. That's more than twice the number of people on Earth! With such a detailed map, scientists will better understand our home galaxy's history. 🔭 🧪

2386

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory @rubinobservatory.org · 11/04/2025

Now that the world's largest digital camera is installed, what work remains before Rubin goes live? For starters, hooking up and testing all the camera's connections to the telescope, before cooling it down to -100 C (-148 F) 🥶 Read all the details at rubinobservatory.org/news/prepari...! 🔭🧪

The huge LSST Camera mounted in the center of Rubin's Observatory's telescope. The camera is seen end-on, and look like a long black cylinder ending at a mirror. To the left and right of the camera, scaffolding is set up to allow work access to the camera.

211931

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory @rubinobservatory.org · 12/03/2025

Lights, camera, action! The world's largest digital camera has been installed at NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory! 🤩 The LSST Camera was the final major component of the observatory. With it in place, Rubin officially enters its final phase of testing!🔭 🔗: rubinobservatory.org/news/lsst-camera-installed

521570

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory @rubinobservatory.org · 06/03/2025

Scrub a dub 🫧 ...except no scrubbing the delicate observatory optics! We don't use cloths or lens cleaner to clean the giant camera lenses. Instead, our summit staff use a high-speed stream of carbon dioxide "snow" to push debris off of the glass surface. 🔭🧪

619232

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory @rubinobservatory.org · 14/01/2025

When you turn it on and it works spectacularly! The Rubin team has successfully completed the first on-sky engineering tests using the 144-Mpx engineering camera. Up next: installing the largest digital camera in the world, LSST Camera! 🔭🧪 rubinobservatory.org/news/rubin-completes-comcam-tests

115538

Reposted by Stephanie Deppe, PhD

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory @rubinobservatory.org · 19/11/2024

Welcome to Rubin's #CommissioningNotes! Entry 1️⃣: we're in full swing! Ok, but what's "commissioning?" Rubin Observatory is the result of millions of hours of work by thousands of people around the world -- and now all that work is coming together! 🔭🧪 youtu.be/-xbzfu75Nzc

youtu.be

#RubinObservatory is the full swing of commissioning! #shorts

We're on a cosmic mission, ambition needs no permission when you're working toward the transmission of data without opposition - that's commissioning 😎Ok, b...

2396