Katie MackVerified account

@AstroKatie

(a.k.a. Dr Katherine J Mack) astrophysicist/cosmologist, occasional freelance science writer, connoisseur of airplane food

Raleigh, NC
Joined April 2009

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  1. Pinned Tweet
    4 Oct 2015
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  2. 4 hours ago

    Anyway if you’re into galactic carnage, I did a whole thread about it a while ago:

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  3. 4 hours ago

    On the bright side, by the time this cosmic collision happens, Earth will be a desiccated, lifeless, charcoal briquette of a world, having had all its oceans boiled off by the expanding future Sun! 🔥🌎🔥

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  4. 5 hours ago

    It was... quite a week.

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  5. 5 hours ago

    Oh and of course there was some hate mail, because obviously. One guy looked up every e-mail address in my department and sent a mass e-mail to ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE ranting about how wrong I was about climate change. No one in the department ever said a word to me about it.

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  6. 5 hours ago

    The next day, I was flying to Perth to film a thing with Brian Cox, and media were getting in touch to write about the tweet. By the end of that week, my following had doubled, my account had been verified, and a ton of people I admired had suddenly become mutuals.

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  7. 6 hours ago

    I tweeted that tweet while walking down a hallway one morning. I think I may have chuckled silently to myself. Promptly forgot about it until somehow people found it and it started getting retweets. By evening, I’d been screenshot by JK Rowling & my notifications couldn’t keep up

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  8. 6 hours ago
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  9. 9 hours ago

    There are a lot of bad things about the shutdown. One of them is that a large number of astronomers cannot attend or present results at the biggest conference of the year. American scientific progress is suffering for the sake of one giant ego and a pointless wall.

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  10. Retweeted
    13 hours ago

    my hot take is that jokes SHOULD be hard work. they SHOULD take a lot of thought. we’ve seen over and over how humor can normalize and propagate toxic behavior and can be used to harm marginalized communities. we SHOULD work hard to make sure jokes that dont do that.

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  11. When I was a high schooler, I was extremely fortunate to find a physics prof who let me come in and try my hand at some research stuff and it was AMAZINGLY valuable for me. But it takes having certain resources, time, and experience to be able to offer that, & not every prof does

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  12. I had a student shadow me for a day when I was a postdoc, as part of a “work experience” program set up by both the high school and university. I think it went reasonably well, but I don’t know how easy it would be to set up, logistically, without an existing system in place.

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  13. [poll] Fellow : If a high school student wanted to “shadow” you at work for a couple days (of your choosing), is this something you’d be willing to set up?

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  14. Retweeted
    18 hours ago

    Psst. + ? The conference comes to SUNDAY. Hundreds of astronomers. Optical astronomy, exoplanets ... crossing streets? 🔭🌃

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  15. Retweeted
    18 hours ago

    I have nearly finished a department-level count of tenure-track women faculty in astronomy-related programs (165+) in the US/Canada, accessible here: Only 2 programs have >50% women faculty, only 8 w/ >40%. Majority <20% women. Details/plots below.

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  16. Retweeted
    Jan 4

    Are you reading this post on a mobile device? Then the is not just the only CERN invention you are using right now! The first touchscreen was created at CERN

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  17. Jan 3
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  18. Retweeted

    One minute explanation of why ocean conservation is a social justice issue. (Also, octopuses are amazing 🐙.) Thank you for this feature. 💙

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  19. Retweeted
    Jan 3

    What’s so great about the far side of the Moon? China’s Chang’e-4 spacecraft is exploring the site of a huge and ancient impact event that (probably) exposed rocks down to the mantle, telling us about the Moon’s internal mojo!

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  20. Retweeted
    Jan 3

    Marvelous night for a Moon cruise - China's Yutu rover safely down the ramp on the Moon's far side, exploring the unknown.

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  21. Retweeted
    Jan 3

    The Chang'e 4 lander has a mini biosphere with the FIRST SEEDS ON THE MOON. They are potatoes and thale cress, the 'lab rat' of plant biology.

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