We've seen tons of stuff about gravitational lensing since the release of the JWST images. But, how does it work? Get a better idea of it in my latest video!
The image taken by the JWST compared to one taken by Hubble, of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723.
It's s a gravitational lens, showing us the light of galaxies that are far behind the cluster in arcs around it. I tried to orient them the same. LOOK AT THE DIFFERENCE.
If you touch two CLEAN blocks of the same metal together in space, they weld!
Atoms in solid metals move a bit. Touch two clean surfaces together, and the atoms can't tell they're in different blocks so they become one group of atoms, ie ONE SOLID.
(Gif: )
What. The actual. F*ck. This man was tasered after stabbing a woman. Stabbing. A. Woman. And *this* is the headline they use. This, people, is what white male privilege looks like.
On 9/11 Arabs and anyone who looked Muslim realized how alone were. We couldn't come together with you and just mourn because the world turned against us and forced us to explain ourselves for something we didn't even understand. That's what 9/11 was like for us thanks for asking
Let's talk the so-called need to "get women interested in science". The thing is: we *are* interested (HELLO 🙋♀️). We're everywhere. That isn't the problem. The problem is *keeping us here*. Creating a safe environment for women, esp. women of color, is the problem.
Mimi Aung is EVERYONE TODAY!! She tears up in-case-of-failure plan because IT'S A SUCCESS: "We can now say that human beings have flown a rotorcraft on another planet" 😭❤ History has been made, everyone!
Tomorrow we land a rover on another planet. It's carrying an experiment that'll produce oxygen from the carbon dioxide FOR FUTURE ASTRONAUTS TO BREATHE AND USE AS FUEL TO RETURN. It cannot be overstated how incredible this is: It's A MISSION FOR THE FUTURE OF SPACE EXPLORATION.
Hi everyone I know some men think this is cool to say to a woman but it isn't, it's actually an insult. "Beauty" is subjective, and by saying this you imply that astrophysics and beauty cannot go together. This is wrong and perpetuates stereotypes. Please don't do this.
We've detected a Gravitational Wave Background (GWB). Gravitational waves are formed from some of the most energetic processes in the Universe, like black hole mergers, or inflation! So, what does the GWB mean?
(GIF source: )
1/n
The Nobel Prize in Physics awarded was very well-deserved. However, next time you hear Vera Rubin didn't win for discovering dark matter bc *insert excuse here*, let today show exactly why she didn't win for discovering one of cosmology's most pressing questions: she was a woman.
Friends: after one revision, MY FIRST EVER PAPER WAS ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION IN JCAP (Journal for Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics)!!!! I can finally say I'm a PUBLISHED cosmologist and I am THRILLED 😁
PSA: when you follow someone on Twitter, YOU. HAVE. NO. SAY. IN. WHAT. THEY. TWEET. ABOUT. Don't like what someone you follow tweets about? You knew how to start following them, so you can certainly figure out how to show yourself the door Twitter-style. Don't be this person 👇
Perseverance sends 1st image: "WHY IS IT BLACK AND WHITE?!"
Perseverance sends color images: "WHY ARE WE SPENDING MONEY ON SPACE EXPLORATION [THAT GAVE ME MY PHONE CAMERA AND SO MANY OTHER PRACTICAL THINGS I DEPEND ON DAILY] WHEN WE HAVE _insert_unrelated_problem_ ON EARTH?!"
🤦♀️
I was once invited as a speaker (by a *friend*), and shortly after was told they got someone "bigger", so maybe I could do next year. I responded that I'll prioritize orgs that respect speaker's time. That person unfollowed me today. Bc HOW DARE I actually stand up for myself! 🙄
It took one extra particle per billion particle-antiparticle pairs to create a Universe of matter. It should be NOTHING BUT PHOTONS, but ONE EXTRA PARTICLE PER BILLION ENSURED YOU EXIST. It's up to you what you do with that, but seriously, exclusion, bigotry, and racism isn't it.
This has to be the coolest renditions of a black hole I've seen. Look at the gravitational lensing! You can see the part of the disk that's *ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BLACK HOLE* due to the warping of the black hole. HOW COOOOOOL
Physically accurate black hole with volumetric accretion disk, made using
@UnrealEngine
. Black hole spin warps space time, causing further space warp and doppler shift of light, present in the video (Spin = 0.4).
#UE4
#madewithunreal
#BlackHole
#gamedev
Sorry to interrupt your feed but SOLAR ECLIPSE FROM ANOTHER PLANET!! Taken by my favorite rover,
@MarsCuriosity
, the first image is Mars's moon Phobos eclipsing the Sun, and the second, Deimos. OMG this is SO COOL
Mars eclipse pics cred: NASA/JPL-CALTECH/MSSS/
@kevinmgill
But HOW COOL IS IT that touching two surfaces of the same metal together in space can cause them to weld BECAUSE THE ATOMS CAN'T TELL THEY'RE PART OF A SEPARATE DISTINCT GROUP OF SOLID BLOCKS?! This is literally visible evidence of how the VERY SMALL works. PHYSICS IS PHENOMENAL
I've never said this in public about myself, but it's time. So here goes: I'm Sophia Nasr and I'm working on my PhD in cosmology/astroparticle theory. I do science advising for TV shows. I cosplay, and scicomm, sometimes at the same time! And I'm
#BiInSci
. HI FRIENDS! 🙈😁
Lise Meitner is a physicist who discovered nuclear fission. In 1945, she was overlooked when the Nobel Prize committee awarded her male colleague Otto Hahn *exclusively* for it.
She's won many other awards, and element 109 on the periodic table was named Meitnerium in her honor❤
There was a time when I doubted myself, but here we are, another milestone on my path towards the PhD in physics complete: Ya girl is getting her Masters Degree in Physics, everyone!! 👊👩🏫👩💻👩🎓
They might look like nothing but blobs to you, but these images were taken farther from Earth than *ever*. At 3.79 billion miles away, New Horizons has broken Voyager 1's record, which took the famous Pale Blue Dot image at 3.75 billion miles from Earth.…
It took ONE EXTRA PARTICLE per every billion particle-antiparticle pairs for us to have a Universe of matter. If it wasn't for that, it would be a Universe of nothing but photons. We don't understand why they weren't produced in equal amounts. Yet they were, and so we exist.
Medicating depression is extremely important and helpful. Meds don't not "numb" you, they help you feel *rationally* when depression won't allow you to. MEDICATION IS OKAY AND NECESSARY FOR ALL MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES. MENTAL HEALTH *IS HEALTH*. STOP THE STIGMA.
#depression
I would tell them that they are so abundant that they outnumber the number of stars in the galaxy almost 10 to 1.
(There are about 400 billion stars in the Milky Way, while there are 3 trillion trees on Earth)
Today I finally became a citizen of America! Excited to get to actually participate in upcoming elections, rather than just watching while sitting on pins and needles. I'M OFFICIALLY A CANADIAN AMERICAN, FRIENDS!! 😀
I'm Sophia Nasr, and I'm a cosmologist/astroparticle physicist figuring out how the Universe came to be, what it's made of, and how giant structures in the Universe formed and evolve. I also do science advising and cosplay at panels, and am an
#UnapologeticallyFeministScientist
With all I've been through, the roads my life took me on, through the deepest of pits to highest of summits, I found the light at the end of the tunnel: I got my Master of Science!! Another milestone. Despite adversity, I found that light at the end of the tunnel. You will too ❤
Hi professors can we please stop using "good student" solely for straight A students? I know students who work *very hard*, attend all lectures and do homework, but aren't straight A students. Please don't deny them that title just because they get nervous during exams.
The reason it doesn't happen on Earth when you put two of the same metals together is because of oxygen, which causes metal to rust. That oxide layer sits the two metal surfaces, so atoms in each block see a layer of different atoms, and know that's their "limit" for movement.
We *are* made of star stuff, but it's even cooler than that: We're also made of hydrogen, one of the only atoms created in the Big Bang and not forged in stars. Star stuff with a touch of Big Bang stuff. With us lie relics of the baby Universe and that's the COOLEST THING EVER
If you're wondering if this has affected space missions, it has! The Galileo space probe sent to Jupiter couldn't deploy its high gain antenna on the way to Jupiter because the metal rods that were to open up the "umbrella" got cold welded together!
Graphic: NASA/JPL
•Kicked one of the worst drug addictions that swallowed a huge chunk of my life: ✔
•Went into PHYSICS after kicking an addiction that falsely renders you "a lost cause": ✔
•Working on dark matter for my PhD: ✔
•Fashionable: ✔
•Can dance: ✔
•Bad bitch? YES I THINK SO
The average density of dark matter in our local neighborhood is ~6*10^-22 kg/m^3. The average volume of a human body is ~0.0664 m^3. Assuming a dark matter particle has mass of order ~1 GeV, then right now ~20,000 dark matter particles are passing through your body. Happy Monday!
WOW, a visualization of a black hole binary! You can see the effects of General Relativity, which says mass bends spacetime. And it shows how extreme gravity around black holes is: you see the accretion disk around them BECAUSE OF GR 😱
(Sped up; source: )
A student came to me to for advice bc she loves physics but isn't good at math. I told her many physicists weren't, that I see her passion, and she *can* do it. She would be fantastic! I see and feel her passion. She was so happy! Follow your passion, there's nothing you can't do
I want to share some really fabulous news with you all: I just got a fellowship and I'm STOKED! I'm the first UCI PhysSci Scicomm Fellow for the
@UCIPhysAstro
department, and I couldn't be happier 😭💖 humbled, and absolutely floored by the support of my institution.
The school of
@UCIPhysSci
has established a new science communication fellowship! Our first
#UCIPhysAstro
#scicomm
Fellow is Sophia Gad-Nasr
@Astropartigirl
, a 3rd year grad student of cosmology working on dark matter. Congrats, Sophia!
Yeah dude I just HATE knowing how things work! Who the fuck CARES how the Universe will die, or that we don't understand 95% of it SO WHAT. I hate the Universe. And apparently myself since I AM a physicist who's also a woman. GASP. 🙄
But the truth is that as an Arab, as a person who looks like they're Middle Eastern or anything remotely close, we lost the same sense of security everyone did and mourned for the deaths of so many innocent people, but we also lost something else on 9/11: our identity.
I know we all need a bit of positivity, so allow me to brighten your timeline with a thread of some images I processed of Saturn from Cassini! Can't say which is my favorite, but this one comes pretty close.
Everyone: MY FIRST PAPER EVER IS OUT!! This research has been pivotal to my direction in academia. I got to work with and learn from some of the most brilliant physicists, including
@article82
! And YES IT'S ABOUT DARK MATTER!! Wanna know more? Thread!
Simply for being, or even LOOKING Arab or Muslim, we became untrusted. We became something people feared, loathed, were disgusted by, attacked and interrogated in places we were supposed to feel safe. Our world was turned over on 9/11. And we're not even allowed to talk about it.
In case y'all missed it, Voyager 1 lives! The most distant humanmade object in the solar system, sent out into space 40 years ago and now in interstellar space, fired up its thrusters for the first time in 37 years. Tell me that isn't all kinds of awesome! 😀
Hey
@LEGO_Group
, I fixed your Lego Friends magazine discussion among girls. You made it look like girls can't science and perpetuated the stereotype that women don't understand or belong in science. YES, WE CAN SCIENCE, AND YES WE *DO* SCIENCE AND WE DO IT GREAT.
Imagine living in a world where posting a video of yourself doing karaoke gets you objectified on the internet because of your body. That world is my world, is all women's world. Every. Fucking. Day.
On Tuesday I awoke a physicist again. I've been going through a hell that's crushed my confidence in EVERY ASPECT OF LIFE. I couldn't work. Couldn't do ANYTHING. But then: I derived an equation that'll go in my first FIRST author paper!
More on my IG post:
5 years ago on this day, Pluto went from being a blob to a fascinating and complex planetary body, with a heart on it. It was our first look at a Kuiper Belt Object EVER. Let's look at some of the cool images New Horizons took. Thread! (1/n)
(Image credits go to NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)
And the worst part is that talking about our experience is always something frightening because we fear that you will turn to us and tell us we're ignorant and insensitive, so we keep it in.
If you had the option to travel forward in time *only once*, which of the following would you choose?
A) ~100 yrs, to see where physics and tech is at
B) ~500-1000 yrs (for same reason as above)
C) 10⁹ yrs, to watch progress of Andromeda/Milky Way collision
D) Other (comment!)
Underwhelmed by
#blackhole
pic? Yes it's huge at ~40 billion km across. But at 55 MILLION LY away, the ring is ~40 μarcsec across. That's ~1/50,000,000 the Moon's diameter! And it's not visible light, it's radio waves. You need to appreciate these limits. Astrophysics is hard.
So please forgive us when we're reminded of 9/11 and can't simply focus on the lives that were lost. We wanted to, but the world didn't let us. Our world was turned over. 9/11 means something more to us because the world transformed us into beasts simply for being born who we are
At the culmination of 10 years of my life work (including undergrad), I am officially Doctor Sophia Gad-Nasr!! 👩🎓
Huge thank you to my advisor Manoj Kaplinghat for helping me become the physicist I am today. It was a great honor to work with him. And thank you to my committee,
Here's a list of major annual Meteor showers, when they happen, their peak, the comet/asteroid that creates their debris, and the period of that comet/asteroid (plus an interactive map for each!):
• Quadrantids, Dec 26 - Jan 16, Jan 4, Asteroid 2003 EH1, 5.52 years
• Lyrids,
Aaahhhh I GOT SHORTLISTED FOR A POSTDOCTORAL POSITION FOR THE FIRST TIME TODAY!! I know it's just an interview, but it's a very big deal to me that I got on the shortlist because it makes the next stage of my academic career feel REAL 😁
Next time you look in the mirror in frustration at the lack of symmetry of your eyebrows, nose, face, remember: Nebulas are beautiful. Galaxies are beautiful. And they wouldn't exist if not for asymmetry in the early Universe. Embrace asymmetry. It is beautiful. You are beautiful
Seeing the first image taken by the first EVER Arab mission to Mars gives my heart hope. Despite Arabs being demonized by the world, WE DID IT, WR TRANSCENDED. Thank you for being exemplary in every way, UAE! Calling the mission Hope is so fitting ❤
📸 UAESA/MBRSC/LASP/EMM-EXI
As an Arab, I get called a terrorist as a "joke", or "for fun", or to insult me. So when I see a white man *actually commit* terrorism and kill 8 people, 6 of which are Asian women, and they were having "a bad day"? NO, call it like it is: he's a f*cking TERRORIST.
#StopAsianHate
When I heard this q, my first instinct was "our galaxy has ~10¹¹ stars so obvs it wins". Then I stopped thinking HANG ON THERE ARE LOTS OF TREES. Rightly so: there are ~10¹² trees on Earth. That's an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE MORE TREES ON EARTH THAN STARS IN OUR GALAXY. Happy Thursday!
We did it: we fully deployed the first ever space origami successfully! This is a new era for Astronomy and space telescopes. WE'RE GOING TO SEE THE VERY FIRST GALAXIES AND STARS EVERYONE!!
Earrings from
@ScienceSocks
Being bisexual DOES NOT mean: •we're untrustworthy
•can't do monogamous relationships
•we'll cheat w/someone opposite the gender we're dating
Being bisexual DOES mean:
•we are attracted to either gender. THAT'S IT. STOP BLAMING OUR SEXUALITY WHEN SHITTY THINGS HAPPEN.
It's not normally a problem because spacecraft parts are well lubricated and oiled, so there's always a layer between two metals of the same type. But Galileo waited in storage for nearly 5 years before being launched, so the lubrication probably wore off.
BEHOLD: the first view of the Milky Way's supermassive black hole, Sgr A*, in polarized light from the EHT, showing that it has a structured magnetic field! This is surprising because, although a magnetic field was found around the first image SMBH, M87*, that SMBH is 6.5 BILLION
@elonmusk
@joerogan
Hi, I'm a dark matter physicist! We have lots of evidence for dark matter. A big one is the Cosmic Microwave Background, which has dark matter encoded into it. It is also necessary to explain the large scale structure we see in the Universe because there needs to be a type of
Most of you know I study particle dark matter. I find this stuff so interesting that I wanted to write a thread, all about this weird stuff, to tell you why it's so cool, and what other ideas exist to explain this unknown sector of our Universe!
Wanna hear something incredibly cool? A small swatch of material from the left wing of the Wright Brothers plane, the first plane to ever fly on Earth, is attached to Ingenuity on Mars.
So, a piece of the first plane to ever fly on Earth was also part of the first ever flight
It's fucking exhausting to be an Arab or Arab-looking POC after 9/11. We carry our experiences in the shadows, remember the loneliness imposed on us by our comrades, our educators, our friends.
We deeply mourn the loss of innocent lives that day. Let us speak of what we lost, too
@elakdawalla
I work from home most of the time anyway. My advice:
•stay away from the TV
•if your bed triggers nap mode, work in the living room. If not possible, fill room with LIGHT (natural, or desk lamp)
•keep your phone on another desk and put on silent for the hours you plan to work
This is the supermassive black hole in M87, silhouetted against swirling gas it'll either eat, or expunge in jets. The lines are the magnetic field that powers the jets that shoot gas thousands light-years out of the galaxy. Incredible.
Our present on this Wednesday is a new black hole photo. The folks at
@ehtelescope
managed to capture the magnetic field lines around the black hole in M87. The bright ring is the glow of radiation from super hot gas getting eaten some 53 million ly away. Truly remarkable.
Please don't make the mistake of calling the 9/11 terrorists Muslims. They were not. They carried a Quran and twisted Islam into something ugly, something it isn't, tarnished a peaceful religion in the process. They were not Muslims. They do not share the faith of Muslims.
Hello. 100,000,000,000,000 neutrinos passed through you each second you spent reading this. And every single one of those particles is proof that our understanding of physics is incomplete. Exciting new physics is on the horizon: remember that as you sip your morning coffee ☕️
The gravitational waves measured by IPTA have wavelengths ~10 LIGHT-YEARS. It is literally a galactic scale observatory! Locally (on Earth scales), these GWs aren't waves (they're flat), so LIGO can't detect them. You need a galactic observatory for these.
Cred: David J Chapman
"A̶l̶l̶ ̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶m̶a̶s̶s̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶r̶s̶ Most very massive stars that go supernova leave a black hole behind."
You read that right: Not all very massive stars leave behind black holes after going supernova. What compact object do they leave behind then?? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
Since I'm losing followers for caring how my name is spelt, here's why it matters:
I'm an astrophysics PhD candidate, ie expert.
@jubileemedia
elicited my expertise. I gave them an entire day. I was not paid, or adequately fed. I DESERVE MY EXPERTISE TO BE ATTRIBUTED TO MY NAME.
Just here to remind you that your body is constantly smacked with ~10¹⁵ neutrinos *every second*. That's 1,000,000,000,000,000 neutrinos passing through you like you didn't even exist. Happy Monday, everyone!
I'm just here to tell you that Saturn officially has more known moons than Jupiter: 82 vs 79. 20 more moons have been discovered. SATURN IS A WORLD OF WONDER. Please enjoy these images of Saturn and its stunning rings I processed from Cassini to celebrate.
I both regret and am PLEASED to inform you that the photo in my earlier post is NOT the latest of Io from Juno. THIS IS, taken Dec 30, only 1500 miles above its surface! I tweaked it to sharpen and zoom in on some of the features to showcase the BEAUTY OF THIS VOLCANIC WORLD 🤩
Friends: the latest photo of Jupiter's moon Io, the most volcanically active body in our solar system! It is the closest moon to Jupiter and is one of four Galilean moons (these are the four moons you'll typically see in telescopes). Its surface is speckled with lava lakes and
I got interviewed by
@EmilyNRome
, and here's a clip of a video where I talk about the Hartle-Hawking state which I helped bring to life as science advisor for
@12MonkeysSYFY
! Check the link for full video + article with quotes from me and
@terrymatalas
:
Another thing that prevents cold welding in space is using two different metals (then atoms can distinguish themselves from their neighbors because they're different!), plastic, or some other material, if it's to touch metal. This bypasses the need for a layer between two parts.