Mikko Tuomi / is on Nostr

Astronomer, researcher at Helsinki University, discoverer of dozens of planets, notably the candidate habitable world #Proximab around the nearest star to the Sun, Proxima Centauri. Made of stardust.

Climate breakdown could be the solution to Fermi paradox. There is no planet B.

The account may contain incurable doses of science.

Science (exoplanet astronomy mostly) blog in Finnish: https://tuomim.wordpress.com/

Also: @mustapipa.bsky.social

#astronomy #exoplanets #science

Last Notes

2025-03-24 14:55:39

Dark #energy is probably doing something weird, and we don’t know why.
Astronomers just announced they’re seeing more evidence that dark energy — the mysterious substance that pervades the #cosmos and causes the expansion of the #universe to accelerate — is not a constant over time, but may instead be weakening.
It means dark energy has changed over time, getting weaker and changes how we think the universe behaves in a fundamental way.
https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/is-the-universe-misbehaving-again
https://media.scicomm.xyz/media_attachments/files/114/217/984/182/450/280/original/4dab08494949d30a.jpg

2024-10-21 19:11:30

Do disruptive #climate protests work? Real-time survey finally offers answers.
Disruptive and high-profile climate protestors can raise public support for conventional environmental groups.
The study is the first to use the public’s real-time response to an actual protest to test the ‘radical flank effect’, which proposes that the subversive fringe of a movement can make mainstream activists seem more reasonable .
#activism #protest
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03431-0

2024-09-27 08:18:23

Most of the #exoplanets we've discovered orbit red dwarf #stars.
This is because about 75% of the stars in the Milky Way are red dwarfs, so you would expect red dwarf planets to be the most abundant.
This also means that most #habitable worlds are going to orbit these small, cool stars, and that has some significant consequences for our search for #life.
But even detecting the atmospheres of such planets may be extremely difficult in practice.
#astronomy #astrobiology
https://phys.org/news/2024-09-exoplanets-atmospheres.html

2024-09-06 15:08:16

Securing the world's #water supply is one of the greatest challenges of our time.
New research is now presenting an alternative method for quantifying the global risk of water scarcity.
Results indicate higher risks to water supply than previously expected if accounting for the environmental conditions and governability where #rain is produced.
https://phys.org/news/2024-09-global-scarcity-greater-accounting.html
Paper by Posada-Marin et al. (2024):
https://phys.org/news/2024-09-global-scarcity-greater-accounting.html

2024-09-02 19:06:31

#Phobos over #Mars.
#astronomy #astrophotography
https://media.scicomm.xyz/media_attachments/files/113/069/521/272/760/430/original/c8a5da69af571fce.jpg

2024-07-31 20:11:51

A black hole is a bottomless pit in the fabric of space-time into which stuff, including light, plummets, never to be seen again.
The term paints so vivid an image that it has entered everyday language, and we commonly talk of losing this or that “down a black hole”.
Ironically, such a metaphorical black hole has swallowed up the name of the woman who co-discovered these celestial objects: Louise Webster.
#astronomy #history
https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/6296

2024-02-08 18:50:56

Some types of #bacteria are capable of surviving in extremely hostile environments, both on Earth and in #space.
Bacteria has been found growing in places on Earth that experience abnormally high amounts of radiation, salt, extreme temperatures and almost no water.
One type was also found living on the outside of the space station and other types are able to grow in meteorite material.
Some bacteria could also survive Martian conditions.
#astrobiology #Mars
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-bacteria-survive-mars-conditions.html

2023-06-03 20:13:28

This vertically oriented logarithmic map spans nearly 20 orders of magnitude, taking us from planet Earth to the edge of the observable #Universe.
#astronomy #cosmos
https://www.pablocarlosbudassi.com/2021/02/atlas-of-universe-is-linear-version-of_15.html
https://media.scicomm.xyz/media_attachments/files/110/482/107/149/877/671/original/ff94c94b9998e432.jpg

2023-04-04 18:47:03

All biological amino acids on Earth appear exclusively in their left-handed form, but the reason for this is elusive.
Recently, scientists uncovered new clues about the cosmic origin of this asymmetry.
That the precursors to the biological amino acids may have determined the amino acid chirality during the early phase of galactic evolution.
#[0] #[1]
https://phys.org/news/2023-03-insights-cosmic-evolution-amino-acids.html
Paper by Shoji et al. (2023):
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpclett.2c03862