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Tod Lauer

@todlauer.bsky.social
2.1K followers 153 following 2K posts

Extragalactic astronomer (black holes, galaxies, galaxy clusters, stellar pops) who also dabbles in planetary astronomy. Really, basically a pixel pusher.

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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Bound for Titan!
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Ouch!! arxiv.org/abs/2609.28612
arxiv.org
The shell around VY Canis Majoris in SPHEREx is likely an artifact
Recently, the presence of a large shell around the bright hypergiant star VY Canis Majoris was reported in images from the SPHEREx mission. We report similar shells around other bright stars at simila...
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Exercise for the reader. How do you revise a JWST proposal when in cycle 4 you got top quintile (but no time), so you just tried again in cycle 5 but got bottom quintile?
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Wow!
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Beyond belief...
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Melina Thévenot🏳️‍⚧️ @melina-iras07572.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Proper Motion of stars in the galactic center with #JWST NIRCam F182M. programs: 1306, 4515 www.stsci.edu/jwst-program...
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
And now, it's time to play "Find the Astronomer!" You can start by naming the conference. I'm in the photo, but with a full head of hair and not wearing glasses, so it was a while ago.
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
An Earth-mass BH has the size of this black marble. You couldn't get much closer than 100km without being ripped apart by tidal forces. It swallows a Rose Bowl of water in 1s to generate 0.1 solar luminosity (Eddington).
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Jen , the MT liberal bird lady @liberal-jen.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
A murmuration of starlings above Sardinia, Italy. One of my favorite natural phenomena.
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Rocket exhaust.
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
The launch of the Roman Space Telescope
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Next up - demolition of the Kennedy Center. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/25/a...
nytimes.com
Trump Lawyers Warn That Kennedy Center Might Need Demolition if Not Fixed (Gift Article)
In a court filing about honoring President Trump on the facade, the administration said that without a proper renovation the building might need to be “taken down.”
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
The Roman Space Telescope is due to launch this coming Sunday. In this wonderful graphic, Chris Hirata has captured the complex and tortured 26 years of history that it took to get to this mission. My part was to PI the Dark Energy Space Telescope (Destiny) study, and to serve on random committees.
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
I discovered 24 objects in Rubin #SpaceSurveyors 🪨 - 2 ☄️ - 1 🌌 - 6 ⭐ - 12 💥 - 3 spacesurveyors.app
spacesurveyors.app
Space Surveyors
Space Surveyors game
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NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory @rubinobservatory.org · 18/08/2026
Think you’ve got what it takes to survey the sky? Control NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory's telescope and try to detect the most objects with our interactive, 60s game: Space Surveyors! 🎮 How many can you catch before the sun rises? Drop your score below👇 spacesurveyors.app
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
theguardian.com
Trump orders Pentagon to redesign US aircraft carrier to use steam catapults to launch jets
President has suggested steam catapults every year since 2017, saying digital systems are too ‘complicated’
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Had a visit in our den tonight from a giant hairy desert scorpion.This one was about the size of my palm. Ironically its not that venomous, unlike the vastly smaller bark scorpion, but your brain doesn’t process it that way. We showed it the door.
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
So what would be on a second Bingo card? I might so with "Milky Way Supernova," or "Erupting Main Belt Asteroids," as a couple of candidates.
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
This is so wonderful! The annual Rubin Community Workshop is going on this week, and so this has made a big splash.
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Amazing work!
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
www.nytimes.com/2026/07/21/a...
nytimes.com
Plas Johnson, Saxophonist Behind ‘The Pink Panther,’ Dies at 94 (Gift Article)
His recording for the theme song, written by Henry Mancini, included a solo improvised in the studio. He also backed Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand.
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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 24/07/2026
This is really, really bad. This is one of the complexes we use to communicate with spacecraft in deep space. The effects of climate change are extending out into the Solar System.
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
This! www.science.org/content/blog...
science.org
The Assault On Science Funding Continues
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Take a little time today to honor Plas Johnson, who just passed away at age 94. Don't know the name? But you've certainly heard him play the saxophone. If not listen to the attached video - that's him. www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyZi...
youtube.com
The Pink Panther Theme
YouTube video by Henry Mancini - Topic
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
But who gets to use this single marked parking spot?
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
A great day for signs around Tucson, starting with finally getting an answer to an old question:
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
This is kinda fun!
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Daniel Pomarède @pomarede.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
NASA’s Dragonfly Clears Key Tests as Titan Rotorcraft Takes Shape Dragonfly is starting to look less like a collection of spacecraft parts and more like the rotorcraft that will fly across the surface of Titan, Saturn’s hazy moon. science.nasa.gov/blogs/dragon... #Dragonfly 🧪🔭
science.nasa.gov
NASA’s Dragonfly Clears Key Tests as Titan Rotorcraft Takes Shape - NASA Science
NASA’s Dragonfly is starting to look less like a collection of spacecraft parts and more like the rotorcraft that will fly across the surface of Titan,
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Lee Billings @leebillings.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Now on @sciam.bsky.social: A recent paper in the high-profile journal Nature claimed what would've been an epochal revision to our understanding of the cosmos. Instead, independent follow-up work suggests the claim is wrong via a subtle-but-basic mistake. www.scientificamerican.com/article/phys...
scientificamerican.com
Physicist says splashy new cosmology study made ‘elemental’ mistake
A recent study in the journal Nature carries cosmos-quaking implications for our understanding of the universe—except a new preprint says that it’s wrong
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
OK, it's one thing to see a science abstract that is far beyond my expertise, but not an abstract in astrophysics that doesn't even seem to be about any science. And who would read this abstract and say, "Oh, yeah! I'm really gonna have to drop what I'm doing and read this one!"
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
I haven't seen any video of the Rubin control during the full-power activation of the LSST, but I suspect that it was something like this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-cO...
youtube.com
Star Trek: The Motion Picture - 'Warp 7' scene (fan-edit with slightly unused score)
YouTube video by Donny P with a Y: That Power Rangers Guy⚡
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
So it begins
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Open our carport door to go get the paper and hear a loud rattle from this guy only five feet away.
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Tits McGee @scientits.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
‘Say yes and never do it’ Mel Brooks knew how to deal with the studios
You have some wonderful stories of basically getting away with stuff at the studios.

I’d learned one very simple trick: say yes. Simply say yes. Like Joseph E. Levine, on “The Producers,” said, “The curly-haired guy—he’s funny looking. Fire him.” He wanted me to fire Gene Wilder. And I said, “Yes, he’s gone. I’m firing him.” I never did. But he forgot. After the screening of “Blazing Saddles,” the head of Warner Bros. threw me into the manager’s office, gave me a legal pad and a pencil, and gave me maybe twenty notes. He would have changed “Blazing Saddles” from a daring, funny, crazy picture to a stultified, dull, dusty old Western. He said, “No farting.” I said, “It’s out.”That’s probably the most famous scene in the movie, the campfire scene.

I know. He said, “You can’t punch a horse.” I said, “You’ll never see it again.” I kept saying, “You’re absolutely right. It’s out!” Then, when he left, I crumpled up all his notes, and I tossed it in the wastepaper basket. And John Calley, who was running [production at] Warner Bros. at the time, said, “Good filing.” That was the end of it. You say yes, and you never do it.

That’s great advice for life.

It is. Don’t fight them. Don’t waste your time struggling with them and trying to make sense to them. They’ll never understand.
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
A great wonderful tribute to Mel Brooks: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
nytimes.com
100 Reasons to Love Mel Brooks on His 100th Birthday (Gift Article)
Here are 100 reasons to love the comedy writer, director and star who’s celebrating a milestone on Sunday and who’s changed our culture in surprising ways.
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
Mel Brooks turned 100 today! I can't think of a better tribute than this scene from Blazing Saddles. When I saw it in the mid-70s, part of my brain refused to believe it was seeing what it was seeing, while the other part was laughing so hard that I nearly blacked out www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPIP...
youtube.com
The Campfire - Blazing Saddles (5/10) Movie CLIP (1974) HD
YouTube video by Movieclips
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Where does one even start with this?
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Pretty thin night on arXiv just now, or at least the astro-ph part:
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
What did the early Universe *sound* like. With nice work by Stephane Pigeon who runs mynoise.net, we now have this nice "sonification" of the acoustic noise at the time of recombination. Have a listen! (and use headphone with the "wide" stereo setting. mynoise.net/NoiseMachine...
mynoise.net
Sound Horizon — A Sonification of the Early Universe
Listen to the echoes of the early Universe. Explore a sonification of Planck satellite data and the primordial acoustic peaks frozen in the Cosmic Microwave Background.
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Edwin Heathcote @edwinheathcote.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
I saw this referred to as the Strait of Warm Ooze. Very good.
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
And with the start of summer, one of my favorite versions of my favorite song: www.youtube.com/watch?v=C08W...
youtube.com
Summertime - Jazz piano 🎹
YouTube video by PianistaItaliano
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Riding With Robots @ridingrobots.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
My grandfather was a baker. Late in life he went to college. These are from his astronomy class notes, 1962.
Hand-dawn diagram of the celestial sphere, with a little stick figure person at the center. Hand-drawn diagram of the electromagnetic spectrum
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Born 100 years ago, today:
Allan Sandage
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NASAWATCH @nasawatch.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
Just sayin'
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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
After spending $14 million in taxpayer funds, Trump's renovations to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool are peeling off and floating to the surface
huffpost.com
Trump's $14M Reflecting Pool Paint Job Is Now Peeling Off And Floating To The Surface
Just in time for America's birthday.
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Stanley Kubrick was well ahead of all of us:
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Just a little autocorrect mayhem to enliven the day. Trying to text a collaborator about large galaxies without central cores as "coreless," but it was sent as "careless," so I sent an addendum to correct that, which was sent as "cordless." So what would careless or cordless galaxies be exactly?
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Would be nice if we had a vaccine to prevent this.
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A Man Called Keith @angryduck78.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
This is important.
An image of a computational fluid dynamics study of a standard, shorthaired Guinea pig.
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Tod Lauer @todlauer.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
A decade ago, I put together a collection of HST images with trails that I discovered while working on the M31 PHAT survey. They were all over the place even back then. It's a fantasy that going to space solves the problem, unless we now go all the way to L2.
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