New deep radio observations of the "Sausage" cluster ( CIZA J2242.8+5301), which contains one of the most famous radio relics in the sky on #astroph

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.23342 by G. Lusetti et al.

Radio relics should trace merger shocks ~Megaparsec wide, launched by mergers in clusters of galaxies. Their modelling extrapolates that of supernova remnants, but there are problems...this paper attempts to solve them by better constraining the shock structure.

On #astroph today:
using Euclid to study the ram-pressure stripping of galaxies in the Perseus cluster https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.23342 by George et al.

Galaxies are orbiting the potential well of clusters of galaxies at a slightly transonic velocity with respect to the gas sound speed; this makes them loose a fraction of their gas and stars and mix them with the intracluster medium.

#Fosstodon crowd, do you think you and others would watch a regular #stream of #hacking #astronomy software? For analysing state-of-the-art public data from #space telescopes such as JWST, Euclid and Chandra?
With play-along coding and opportunity to join astronomy research because we will find bugs? Learning about astronomy along the way? #opensource #astrodon #question #youtube #Influencer

Perseverance, Opportunity, same vibe

Left: captured 9 hours ago by Perseverance
Right: captured 9 years ago by Opportunity

Best day of the year:
my 120 hours of teaching are done, see you in class at the end of Feb.2026 (all my teaching is concentrated in one semester).

Grand finale: presenting the physics of the Tesla Coil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_coil) and an example of it in the class, and use it to play music - yes, music is played by the dancing discharge spark you see on the top.

Sound on!

A multiwavelength glimpse at a space oddity!

Astronomers from ICRAR have led a global team to reveal new insights into the growing population of Long-Period Transients.

What makes ASKAP J1832-0911 stand out from the rest of the Long-Period Transients is that, for the first time, coincident X-ray emission, along with radio emissions, have also been detected from such an object, thanks to the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Check out my new article on #SpaceAustralia here:

https://www.spaceaustralia.com/feature/askap-and-chandra-catch-pulses-long-period-transient

ICRAR

Hello les gens! Journée de rtt aujourd'hui pour préparer la grande traversée. Demain c'est le grand jour, le début des Rencontres Astronomiques du Printemps ! Dix heures de route, de Bretagne jusqu'à Craponne sur Arzon (43)
Les miroirs de télescope ont pris leur bain, y a plus qu'à charger le matériel et de quoi bivouaquer pendant 4 jours. On croise les doigts pour que le grand Tetris du chargement de la voiture soit couronné de succès ! #Astrodon #StarParty #astronomie #astrams #RAP2025

Very hard work for the little - LDN43, the Cosmic Bat Nebula.

This is another one of those dust clouds that is busy birthing new stars. You can *just* make out some faint glow near its center where those new stars are lighting this thing up.

Two galaxies seen in a 'joust' preceding a cosmic mega-merger

At the heart of one of the galaxies resides a quasar. The intense radiation unleashed by the quasar is seen disrupting clouds of gas and dust, known as molecular clouds, in the other galaxy.

https://www.reuters.com/science/two-galaxies-seen-joust-preceding-cosmic-mega-merger-2025-05-21

"I'm not sure, I'll have to check if JWST observes in X-rays" #astrodon

Just come back from a week of teaching people how to analyze Chandra data with CIAO.

The hardest part was coming up with fun questions for the post-lunch kahoot quiz!

#AstroDon
#XraysAreTheBestRays
#astronomy

Incredible new #JWST deep field (120 hours!) released by folks from ESA/NASA Webb teams.

Not only is nearly everything in this image a galaxy (the two spiky stars are not), but those curved arcs are images of galaxies beyond this cluster, which are projected and warped into our view thanks to the power of gravity!

It's called a gravitational lens. To visualise what's happening, take a look at this diagram.

There are distant galaxies that we can't normally see. There's also a galaxies between them and us, with lots of mass.

This mass warps space-time and bends the distant galaxy light towards us so we see them.

I am amazed. You should be amazed. This is a really epic image.

Galaxy image and alt-text credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, H. Atek, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)

Diagram credit: NASA, ESA & L. Calçada

#paperday

“Radio Observations as a Probe of Cosmic Web Magnetism” written with four hands with Ettore Carretti, on #astroph today

https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.18619

and also open.-access here: https://www.mdpi.com/2218-1997/11/5/164

We review the current state of affairs in using radio observations of cosmic magnetic fields (from synchrotron emission and through the Faraday Rotation effect) to constrain the origin of cosmic magnetism.
#astrodon #astronomy #science #physics

I'm thinking about leaving mastodon. I've got a few other social media accounts. My main one being on BlueSky @davidbflower.bsky.social I post considerably more doings there. Both pictures and other things. #AstroDon #Astronomy #Astro #Space #Astrophotography

Vega (Alpha Lyrae). 26 May 2025. #AstroDon #Astronomy #Astro #Space #Astrophotography

469219 Kamoʻoalewa

China sets out to sample an unusual near-Earth asteroid. The target, flying in a rare quasi-satellite orbit, could be a piece of the Moon.

https://www.science.org/content/article/china-sets-out-sample-unusual-near-earth-asteroid

#JOB ALERT

If you're an experienced communicator, passionate about #astronomy, and fluent in English and Spanish, there's a great job opportunity as ESO's Head of Communication in #Chile

Details here: https://recruitment.eso.org/jobs/2025_0041#