Africa: Africa Launches Continental Space Agency - Here Is What It Means: [New Times] Nine years after the African Union (AU) adopted a continental space policy, the Africa Space Agency (AfSA) inaugurated its headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, this week paving the way for the continent's push to harness space science and technology for development. http://newsfeed.facilit8.network/TKLJRp #Africa #SpaceAgency #Technology #SpaceScience #Innovation
Planetary Society Op Ed in the New York Times about proposed budget cuts at Nasa. They would be catastrophic.
Those in the U.S. please contact your representative and Senators asking them not to cut the budget.
Astronomers confirm the existence of a lone black hole
https://phys.org/news/2025-04-astronomers-lone-black-hole.html
The colours of Sirius 
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When the blue-white star is close to the horizon, atmospheric turbulence causes rapid changes in the line-of-sight refractive index, causing the star to twinkle, changing brightness & colour.
It’s easy to catch with a mobile phone camera & an app that allows manual control (I use ProCam): this is a 30 sec exposure, 1/40 sec frame rate, 3 x lens defocussed, WB set to 5800K, moving the phone throughout 
The very definition of a clickbait headline.
If you read the article, you’ll soon discover that the only scientists “hailing” this result are the authors of the paper.
Everyone else interviewed for comment is way more sceptical.
A 3-sigma detection of dimethyl sulphide is interesting, if well below the significance used in particle physics, say.
But as others have said, it could readily have non-life origins too.
Caveat emptor.
I'm saddened to have just heard the news that Svetlana Gerasimenko passed away last week, on 8 April.
She was the co-discoverer in 1969 of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko with fellow Ukrainian astronomer, Klim Churyumov (1937-2016).
This is the comet that was explored by ESA's Rosetta spacecraft from 2014-2016 & landed on by the Philae probe in November 2014.
A comet & events that changed my life 
Ad astra, Svetlana 
Amid geopolitical uncertainties, international leaders stress cooperation at Space Symposium https://www.byteseu.com/921114/ #ColoradoNews #ColoradoSprings #Geopolitics #Science #SouthernColorado #Space #SpaceScience
The peak of solar maximum is behind us now, but the Sun is still putting on a decent show of sunspots 
Here’s the current status, images by projecting through my binoculars on to some white paper & then photographing with my iPhone 
From top right (east) to bottom left (west), we have Active Regions 4055 & 4058, then 4056, 4061, & 4060.
Current snapshot from https://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en/solar-activity/sunspot-regions.html in the next toot.
Glad to see that the American Astronomical Society has come out with a strong statement opposing the proposed cuts to NASA's science budget. If implemented these would be a disaster not just for US space research, but for the world - so many missions by other agencies are predicated on US participation.
Trump really doesn't like science.
"Among the proposals were: A two-thirds cut to astrophysics, down to $487 million; a greater than two-thirds cut to heliophysics, down to $455 million; a greater than 50 percent cut to Earth science, down to $1.033 billion; and a 30 percent cut to Planetary science, down to $1.929 billion."
Many science missions by ESA, JAXA etc have NASA contributions so not just US.
Despite the machinations of Trump's evil empire, science marches on!
Mostly, in other countries.
Here's exciting new space science from Smethurst and collaborators. Hey! That's Dr. Becky, whose team has discovered something surprising about the early universe!
The best space telescope you never heard of just shut down
#Gaia #Space #Astronomy #ESA #Telescope #Science #MilkyWay #Galaxies #Stars #SpaceExploration #GaiaMission #Astrophysics #SpaceScience #SpaceTelescope
https://the-14.com/the-best-space-telescope-you-never-heard-of-just-shut-down/
A nice conjunction during dusk this evening between our Moon at 30% illumination, and Jupiter and its four Galilean moons.
I post this as an apology to Callisto, which was the last location to be axed from my forthcoming book, "111 Places in Space You Must Not Miss" during final edits last night 
I mean, it's a fascinating place & the chapter I'd written had some good stuff in it, but since I'd written 118 chapters, something had to give 
Since this morning, the NASA/ESA/CSA #JWST has been taking near-IR images of Sharpless 305, a star-forming region in the outer reaches of the Milky Way
Below is an image taken with the ESO VLT many years ago in poor weather – the JWST images should be better 
When finished in a couple of hours, that'll be the last of my Guaranteed Time Observations, granted when I was selected as a member of the JWST Science Working Group in 2002 
It has been a privilege
A celestial event captured the world's attention! Recently, a solar eclipse cast a shadow across cities in North America, Europe, Africa, and parts of South America. While no region experienced totality, northeastern Canada enjoyed up to 92% obscuration. Full details on this remarkable phenomenon can be found in the article by BBC.
#SolarEclipse #Astronomy #SpaceScience #NASA #Eclipse2023 https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/ce3036yp5ydo
