To improve reach of your academic #SocialMedia account:
7️⃣ Sharing new papers in your field is a good start. If you additionally share your thoughts, highlight pros & cons, sum up the finding or state why this is important, that's PERFECT. (Be kind & fair, you might meet the authors of the paper at some point!)
8️⃣ Tag your funding source whenever you publish or receive a grant. They'll love it.
1️⃣ Post regularly. The frequency doesn't have to be high. But posting a new paper and then staying silent for months on end isn't enough to build a #brand.
2️⃣ Use hashtags. On #Mastodon, liberally. On #Twitter, not too many. Take the time to find hashtags that your community (& related communities) use often.
3️⃣ Include an image (Key figure? Quote? People?).
4️⃣ Share your expertise. You’re goal is to let people know you’re the go-to person when it comes to [insert specialty knowledge here]. That’s what building #brand is about! So show that you know a thing or two about it.
5️⃣ No need to brag. You don’t have to say you’re amazing at [x]. You show your expertise in how & what you share with your followers.
6️⃣ Post information that‘s USEFUL TO YOUR FOLLOWERS! As you’re using your account to boost your #AcademicCareer, you’re targeting your peers. Useful to them is anything that’s relevant to their work, saves them time, or they enjoy reading. Try highlighting/commenting on recent developments in the field, a policy change, news from a conference,…
That implies some reciprocity: over some territory (Europe eg), one uni would run a #mastodon server for physics (supervised by a physics learned society), another one for humanities and yet another one for maths... (biology I think has this head start thanks to @Co_Biologists, although not sure how big they want to grow!)
a learned society is centred on a scientific field (nation-wide or wider) rather than geographic territory as a university, so more intense exchange between members is expected—more effective in a #decentralized network such as the #fediverse
a learned society is less likely to be at odds with opinions expressed by academics than the employers of those academics.
OK, poll time. All of these features are in the #Mastodon road map at https://joinmastodon.org/roadmap. Which would you like to see implemented first (with proper privacy guards, of course)? Please boost for more numbers.
Congratulations to the team that make up the #Euclid mission on their successful launch! We can't wait to see what mysteries of the dark universe this space telescope will uncover.
#ESA’s #Euclid mission launched today on a #SpaceX#Falcon9 rocket. The space telescope is headed to Sun-Earth L2, 1.5 million km from Earth, to survey the sky and uncover the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy. Below are actual launch and deployment photos.
On the left is a picture of the supermassive black hole located in the M87 galaxy, which was first released in 2019 by the EHT team. On the right is a fresh image of the same black hole, generated by the PRIMO algorithm using the identical data set (2023).
Overall, while there may be some actual photographs of planets that are relatively close to us, most depictions of distant planets are likely to be artistic renderings based on scientific models and simulations, rather than actual images.
As of writing, there are 5,338 exoplanets confirmed and this number is constantly increasing as new planets are being discovered by astronomers using various detection methods, such as the transit method, radial velocity method, and gravitational microlensing method.
Similarly, in a 2015 article published in the scientific journal Nature (@nature), researchers noted that most of the exoplanet images we have are “computer-generated artistic representations” that are intended to help us visualize the properties and characteristics of these distant worlds.
NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration website notes that most of the images we have of exoplanets are “artist's impressions” or “conceptual illustrations.” These images are created by artists and scientists based on the available data and scientific models, rather than being direct observations.
So, while these depictions can be incredibly detailed and informative, they are still illustrations rather than images, since they are not based on direct observations or photographs of the planets themselves.
However, since we cannot directly observe these planets with our current technology, the images we see are not actual photographs or representations of what the planet really looks like. Instead, they are artistic interpretations that are meant to help us visualize and understand the characteristics of these distant worlds.
The study of exoplanets is an active field of research, and scientists are continually learning more about these distant worlds and their potential to support life.
Sharing some of my favorite #Hubble images from the #NASA archives to commemorate the space telescope’s 33rd anniversary. We should take a moment to appreciate the beauty and wonder of the universe.
Information about the images + Hubble facts, a thread: 1/x
#HLF: a stunning image, 16 years in the making, comprising thousands of snapshots and representing one of the widest views of the universe ever captured. It includes observations from the eXtreme Deep Field and captures the galaxy assembly in ultraviolet to near-infrared light.
This is #NGC2525, a captivating galaxy located in the constellation of #Puppis, nearly 70 million light-years from Earth. It is notable for being home to a supermassive black hole. It is being observed by the #HubbleSpaceTelescope to measure the universe's expansion rate.
One of the most visually stunning images #Hubble has captured. This is the giant nebula #NGC2014 and its neighbor #NGC2020, part of a star-forming region in the #LargeMagellanicCloud—a satellite galaxy of the #MilkyWay, about 163,000 light-years distant.
#Hubble captured a stunning image of #Jupiter from a distance of 653 million kilometers from Earth. The image shows the giant planet's turbulent atmosphere, a new storm brewing, and a changing #GreatRedSpot. Also, the image features Jupiter's icy moon #Europa.
I drew this illustration of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as an all-seeing goddess last year.
Now I'm thinking of doing a follow-up to this artwork... Maybe I could do one based on the Hubble Space Telescope? I'm open to suggestions! 🤔🌌
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have come up with what they say is some of their best evidence yet for the presence of a rare class of "intermediate-sized" black hole that may be lurking in the heart of the closest globular star cluster to Earth, located 6,000 light-years away.