do i seem anxious to you?

mads (they/she) // late 20s // disgraced astrophysicist, full-time idiot // midwesterner tumblr veteran

[instantezra]

as im getting more active on tumblr dot com im gonna do a silly lil pinned post for anyone that comes across my blog (◡ᴗ◡✿⁠)

you can call me mads/maddy and i use she/they!

im a tall queer astrophysicist from the midwest and i unfortunately cannot help that (if u know me in real life no u don't 💕)

i used to be a semi-popular beatles fandom blog but now i just post whatever scratches the itch in my brain so apologies in advance

various things i post about are under the cut:

space (i majored in astrophysics like an idiot)

Queen/The Beatles/classic rock

Superman (2025)

Greta Van Fleet

The Front Bottoms

Trixie and Katya/RPDR

Game Grumps/NSP/Starbomb

Glass Animals

Vampire Weekend

Talking Heads

Good Mythical Morning

Taskmaster (mainly UK)

SNL

Musical theatre

Animal Crossing

Undertale

Legend of Zelda

Pokemon (lots o Pokopia)

frogs and snails and creatures in general

[puddox]

saw someone including "Mandate of Heaven" as one of those christian terms tumblr likes to use to sound profound. which i get where you're coming from but t☝️hat one is chinese

[yuriinullification]

holdon

what the fuck is going on in this site's backend

[mrsandman42069]

[littleguysdaily]

This was a Patreon Request

[littleguysdaily]

I'd like your attention for a moment, after some internal review we need to issue a rare rebalancing for Rocky.

NO CHUCKABILITY - We had not seen Rocky with earth-like gravity, and so needed to adjust for this oversight. NO BONES - We were unsure how to solve this, but after much deliberation, we have come to the conclusion that whatever Rocky has got ain't bones. MAX MEDIA LITERACY - We had an unchecked earth bias that clouded our judgement. Rocky's ability to adapt to a culture which is literally alien is extremely impressive. That they were chosen for such an important mission must mean that they are an exceptional Eridian, and their ability to communicate across such a wide gap should have easily gained them that third star.

[miscellaneous-marios]

[bloop-doop-woople-deactivated20]

Repairing with gold, kintsugi

[straightboyfriend]

if it’s your birthday: happy birthday

if it’s not your birthday: reflect on why that is. 👆🏽

[amnhnyc]

Did you know? Fireflies aren’t flies at all: they're beetles! Of all of the insects in the world, fireflies are among the few to have evolved an extraordinary language of light. Many fireflies use a system of flashes in some of the same ways we use words: to attract, to say, “Here I am,” even to deceive. They emit light from a tiny organ, called a lantern, on the underside of their abdomen, where a biochemical reaction takes place within specialized cells called photocytes. The reaction releases energy in the form of light.

Photo: Jessica Lucia, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0, flickr

[nasa]

Meet Our Dino-Sized Telescope!

This illustration shows the relative scale of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and a Tyrannosaurus rex. Roman is over 42 feet (12.7 meters) long — about the length of a T. rex — and over 14 feet (4.4 meters) wide when fully deployed. Roman also weighs around 18,000 pounds, or 8,000 kilograms (dry mass), which is the approximate mass of a T. rex as well.

Did you know NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is both roughly as long and as massive as a Tyrannosaurus rex? This observatory, which will move to the launch site at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida very soon, is over 42 feet (12.7 meters) long and weighs around 18,000 pounds (8,000 kilograms), not including the fuel. Let’s explore some of the components that bring Roman to T. rex proportions.

Artist's concepts of NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (left) and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (right), highlighting the 7.9-foot (2.4-meter) primary mirrors that sit in the heart of each observatory.

At the observatory’s heart sits a mirror that’s 7.9 feet (2.4 meters) across and 410 pounds (186 kilograms), or about the length and weight of a protoceratops! Roman’s primary mirror is the same size as the Hubble Space Telescope’s main mirror, but less than one-fourth the weight thanks to major improvements in technology.

Technicians installed Roman’s primary instrument, the Wide Field Instrument (pictured at left), in the fall of 2025.

The mission’s 300-megapixel infrared camera, called the Wide Field Instrument, is over 8 feet (about 2.5 meters) tall, which is about the length of a triceratops skull. It will give Roman the same angular resolution as Hubble while capturing an area of sky at least 100 times larger. The mission will gather data up to 1,000 times faster than Hubble.

Its sweeping cosmic surveys will help scientists discover new information about planets beyond our solar system, untangle mysteries like dark energy, and map how both normal matter and dark matter are structured and distributed throughout the universe. Casting such a wide, deep “net” into space will give astronomers plenty of cosmic bycatch as well; Roman’s crisp, panoramic views will offer practically limitless opportunities for astronomers to do all kinds of exciting science.

The Coronagraph Instrument was installed on Roman’s instrument carrier in October 2024.

Roman’s Coronagraph Instrument is about as wide (5.5 feet, or 1.7 meters) as a velociraptor is long. The Coronagraph is designed to demonstrate new technologies for directly imaging planets around other stars. It will block the glare from a star and make it possible for scientists to see the faint reflected light from planets in orbit around them.

The Coronagraph aims to photograph worlds and dusty disks around nearby stars in visible light to help us see giant worlds that are older, colder, and in closer orbits than the hot, young super-Jupiters direct imaging has mainly revealed so far.

This photo shows Roman’s 18 detectors, which are the heart of the mission’s 300-megapixel camera.

Roman’s “eyes,” 18 saltine cracker-sized detectors in its primary instrument, are each about as tall as an allosaurus tooth. They each have about 16.8 million tiny pixels for a total of 300 million, which means Roman’s images will be super hi-res. Each detector is made of millions of mercury-cadmium-telluride photodiodes (sensors that convert light into an electrical current), one for each pixel.

Principal technician Billy Keim installs a cover plate over Roman’s detectors.

The detectors are secured to a silicon electronics board that will help process the light signals using indium, a soft metal that has roughly the same consistency as chewing gum. Together, these ultra-sensitive detectors can capture vast areas of sky in a single shot while still revealing incredibly fine detail, allowing Roman to map the cosmos faster and more precisely than ever before.

Roman’s electrical wiring was installed on the spacecraft flight structure in the summer of 2023.

There are 1,000 pounds, or 450 kilograms, (the weight of a pachycephalosaurus) of electrical cabling, made up of about 32,000 wires and 900 connectors, laced throughout the observatory. If the wires were laid out end-to-end they would span 45 miles — nearly enough to trace the entire perimeter fence in the imagined Jurassic Park! Functioning as the Roman’s “nervous system,” the cabling enables different parts of the observatory to communicate with one another, provides power, and helps the central computer monitor the observatory’s function.

The Roman observatory was fully integrated on Nov. 25, 2025, at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Roman’s six solar panels each measure about 7 by 10 feet (2 by 3 meters), collectively giving Roman a “wingspan” similar to a pteranodon’s! Together, they will provide a total of 4 kilowatts of power, which is about the same rate that a modest rooftop solar panel system produces during the daytime.

Over the course of two days in June 2025, eight technicians installed Roman’s solar panels onto the outer portion of the observatory.

The panels are covered in a total of 3,902 solar cells that will convert sunlight directly into electricity much like plants convert sunlight to chemical energy. When tiny bits of light, called photons, strike the cells, some of their energy transfers to electrons within the material. This jolt excites the electrons, which start moving more or jump to higher energy levels. In a solar cell, excited electrons create electricity by breaking free and moving through a circuit, sort of like water flowing through a pipe. The panels are designed to channel that energy to power the observatory.

Roman’s high-gain antenna will provide the primary communication link between the spacecraft and the ground.

The radio dish that will send data across a million miles of intervening space back to Earth spans 5.6 feet (1.7 meters) in diameter. That’s about the size of the largest known dinosaur footprints, yet it weighs only 24 pounds (10.9 kilograms). Its large size will help Roman send radio signals across a million miles of intervening space to Earth. The dual-band antenna will use one frequency band to receive commands and send back information about the spacecraft’s health and location. It will use another frequency band to transmit a deluge of data at up to 500 megabits per second.

We’re only a few months out from launch, and so close to a completely new understanding of the universe and our place within it. Follow along with Roman’s road to launch at nasa.gov/roman, and virtually tour the Roman observatory here.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[hazelsmazecave]

LGBT = Let's Do Epic Shit

[nemfrog]

The little people of the garden. 1922. Book cover.

Internet Archive

[briannyssey]

dude star wars is so good and/or bad and/or mediocre sometimes, depending

[sailermoon]

this is how new yorkers @ mamdani

[sailermoon]

[yellowlartdump]

"Honey help I tried putting the child to sleep with a soothing car ride and now he's more excited than ever"

... and Bubble needs to pee

[superhell]

i just don't think 16 minutes is going to cover it

[instantezra]

tempted to get 2013 classic rock tumblr levels of obsessed w pink floyd again

[tall]

[chocolatodafirst]

You are your own worst enemy

[andyridgeley]