#3iatlas — Public Fediverse posts

Hello @[email protected] #EPSC2026 here in Den Haag! Looking forward the #3I/Atlas keynote today, plus I will be presenting some @[email protected] related-work in the small body dynamics session SB12 later, and I also have another talk Thurs. Gonna be a busy week! #PlanetSci

2026-09-07 00:00:00 UTC (Delta: 2026-09-06)

INTERSTELLAR VISITOR: 3I/ATLAS
- Barycentric speed: 59.36 km/s (-0.00 km/s)
- Crossing Uranus's orbit in: 231 days

🌎 Relative to Earth
- Distance (km): 1,725,548,261.22 km (+2,871,595.04 km)
- Distance (AU): 11.53 (+0.02)
- Light travel time: 1 h 35 min 55.81 s (+9.58 s)

#3IAtlas #InterstellarObject

2026-09-06 00:00:00 UTC (Delta: 2026-09-05)

INTERSTELLAR VISITOR: 3I/ATLAS
- Barycentric speed: 59.36 km/s (-0.00 km/s)
- Crossing Uranus's orbit in: 232 days

🌎 Relative to Earth
- Distance (km): 1,722,676,666.18 km (+2,896,760.51 km)
- Distance (AU): 11.52 (+0.02)
- Light travel time: 1 h 35 min 46.23 s (+9.66 s)

#3IAtlas #InterstellarObject

2026-09-06 00:00:00 UTC (Delta: 2026-09-05)

INTERSTELLAR VISITOR: 3I/ATLAS
- Barycentric speed: 59.36 km/s (-0.00 km/s)
- Crossing Uranus's orbit in: 232 days

🌎 Relative to Earth
- Distance (km): 1,722,676,666.18 km (+2,896,760.51 km)
- Distance (AU): 11.52 (+0.02)
- Light travel time: 1 h 35 min 46.23 s (+9.66 s)

#3IAtlas #InterstellarObject

2026-09-06 00:00:00 UTC (Delta: 2026-09-05)

INTERSTELLAR VISITOR: 3I/ATLAS
- Barycentric speed: 59.36 km/s (-0.00 km/s)
- Crossing Uranus's orbit in: 232 days

🌎 Relative to Earth
- Distance (km): 1,722,676,666.18 km (+2,896,760.51 km)
- Distance (AU): 11.52 (+0.02)
- Light travel time: 1 h 35 min 46.23 s (+9.66 s)

#3IAtlas #InterstellarObject

2026-09-06 00:00:00 UTC (Delta: 2026-09-05)

INTERSTELLAR VISITOR: 3I/ATLAS
- Barycentric speed: 59.36 km/s (-0.00 km/s)
- Crossing Uranus's orbit in: 232 days

🌎 Relative to Earth
- Distance (km): 1,722,676,666.18 km (+2,896,760.51 km)
- Distance (AU): 11.52 (+0.02)
- Light travel time: 1 h 35 min 46.23 s (+9.66 s)

#3IAtlas #InterstellarObject

2026-09-06 00:00:00 UTC (Delta: 2026-09-05)

INTERSTELLAR VISITOR: 3I/ATLAS
- Barycentric speed: 59.36 km/s (-0.00 km/s)
- Crossing Uranus's orbit in: 232 days

🌎 Relative to Earth
- Distance (km): 1,722,676,666.18 km (+2,896,760.51 km)
- Distance (AU): 11.52 (+0.02)
- Light travel time: 1 h 35 min 46.23 s (+9.66 s)

#3IAtlas #InterstellarObject

2026-09-05 00:00:00 UTC (Delta: 2026-09-04)

INTERSTELLAR VISITOR: 3I/ATLAS
- Barycentric speed: 59.37 km/s (-0.00 km/s)
- Crossing Uranus's orbit in: 233 days

🌎 Relative to Earth
- Distance (km): 1,719,779,905.66 km (+2,922,475.93 km)
- Distance (AU): 11.50 (+0.02)
- Light travel time: 1 h 35 min 36.57 s (+9.75 s)

#3IAtlas #InterstellarObject

2026-09-05 00:00:00 UTC (Delta: 2026-09-04)

INTERSTELLAR VISITOR: 3I/ATLAS
- Barycentric speed: 59.37 km/s (-0.00 km/s)
- Crossing Uranus's orbit in: 233 days

🌎 Relative to Earth
- Distance (km): 1,719,779,905.66 km (+2,922,475.93 km)
- Distance (AU): 11.50 (+0.02)
- Light travel time: 1 h 35 min 36.57 s (+9.75 s)

#3IAtlas #InterstellarObject

2026-09-05 00:00:00 UTC (Delta: 2026-09-04)

INTERSTELLAR VISITOR: 3I/ATLAS
- Barycentric speed: 59.37 km/s (-0.00 km/s)
- Crossing Uranus's orbit in: 233 days

🌎 Relative to Earth
- Distance (km): 1,719,779,905.66 km (+2,922,475.93 km)
- Distance (AU): 11.50 (+0.02)
- Light travel time: 1 h 35 min 36.57 s (+9.75 s)

#3IAtlas #InterstellarObject

2026-09-05 00:00:00 UTC (Delta: 2026-09-04)

INTERSTELLAR VISITOR: 3I/ATLAS
- Barycentric speed: 59.37 km/s (-0.00 km/s)
- Crossing Uranus's orbit in: 233 days

🌎 Relative to Earth
- Distance (km): 1,719,779,905.66 km (+2,922,475.93 km)
- Distance (AU): 11.50 (+0.02)
- Light travel time: 1 h 35 min 36.57 s (+9.75 s)

#3IAtlas #InterstellarObject

2026-09-05 00:00:00 UTC (Delta: 2026-09-04)

INTERSTELLAR VISITOR: 3I/ATLAS
- Barycentric speed: 59.37 km/s (-0.00 km/s)
- Crossing Uranus's orbit in: 233 days

🌎 Relative to Earth
- Distance (km): 1,719,779,905.66 km (+2,922,475.93 km)
- Distance (AU): 11.50 (+0.02)
- Light travel time: 1 h 35 min 36.57 s (+9.75 s)

#3IAtlas #InterstellarObject

Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics 18/07/2026

It’s time once more for another Saturday update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further six papers, bringing the number in Volume 9 (2026) to 151 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 599.

I will continue to include the posts made on our Mastodon account (on Fediscience); these announcements also show the DOI for each paper.

The first paper to report this week, published on Tuesday 14th July, is “On combining estimated and analytic covariance matrices” by Alan Heavens (Imperial College London, UK), Lorne Whiteway (University College, London, UK) and Elena Sellentin (Leiden University, The Netherlands). This article, published in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, presents an accurate approximation for the combined likelihood function in cosmological data analysis, improving upon previous methods by better representing the heavy tails of the true distribution.

The overlay for this paper is here

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the announcement on Fediverse here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116916991519124229

The second paper for this week, also published on Tuesday 14th July in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics is: “Line-of-sight shear in SLACS strong lenses II: validation tests with an extended sample” by Natalie B. Hogg (U. Cambridge, UK), Daniel P. Johnson (Université de Montpellier, France), Anowar J. Shajib (U. Chicago, USA) and Julien Larena (Montpellier). The study described in this paper models 27 additional gravitational lenses, finding a significant fraction with unexpectedly large line-of-sight shears. Factors like redshift, filter, and signal-to-noise ratio don’t significantly affect shear magnitudes.

The overlay looks like this:

The official version of the paper can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116917026598474399

The third paper of the week, published on Wednesday 15th July, again in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics “Investigating the Dark Energy Constraint from Strongly Lensed AGN at LSST-Scale” by Sydney Erickson (Stanford University, USA) and 13 others on behalf of The LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration. The study uses a new technique to analyze a large sample of lensed Active Galactic Nuclei, providing an independent probe of dark energy and improving constraints on the Universe’s expansion.

The overlay for this one is here:

The final, accepted version can be found on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116922734297811558

The fourth paper of the week, also published on Wednesday 15th July but in the folder Earth and Planetary Astrophysics is “University of Hawaii 88-inch Telescope Observations of the Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS: Spectrophotometric Blue-Sensitive Spectral Time Series Spanning Two Months from Discovery” by W. B. Hoogendam (University of Hawaii, USA) and 24 others from around the world. The study presents observations of the third interstellar object, 3I/ATLAS, using the SuperNova Integral Field Spectrograph, revealing its properties and comparing it to bodies in our solar system.

The overlay for this one is here:

You can read the final version of this one on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116925616134490970

The fifth paper of the week, published on Friday 17th July in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies, is “The birth of the intracluster medium: the evolution of multiphase gas and Lyman-α haloes in a z~3 simulated protocluster” by Jake S. Bennett (Harvard Smithsonian CfA, USA), Aaron Smith (U. Nottingham, UK), Fabrizio Arrigoni-Battaia (MPA Garching, Germany), Debora Sijacki (U. Cambridge, UK) , Cassandra Lochhaas (CfA) and Lars Hernquist (CfA). This study uses a cosmological simulation to explore the transition from complex galactic haloes to mature galaxy clusters, focusing on gas distribution, ionisation, and emission changes during this evolution.

The overlay for this one is here:

You can read the final version of this one on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116934117289387295

The sixth and final paper of this week is “Density reconstruction from biased tracers: Testing the equivalence principle through consistency relations” by Lawrence Dam and Omar Darwish (Université de Genève, Switzerland). This was published on Friday 17th July in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. It proposes using quadratic estimators to test the weak equivalence principle on cosmological scales, offering a practical alternative to the conventional bispectrum approach.

The overlay for this one is here:

You can find the final accepted version on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116934191977670070

As you can see we have now published over 150 papers this year and are just one shy of 600 in total. I expect we’ll pass that milestone next week. I’ll do another update next Saturday.

Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics 18/07/2026

It’s time once more for another Saturday update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further six papers, bringing the number in Volume 9 (2026) to 151 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 599.

I will continue to include the posts made on our Mastodon account (on Fediscience); these announcements also show the DOI for each paper.

The first paper to report this week, published on Tuesday 14th July, is “On combining estimated and analytic covariance matrices” by Alan Heavens (Imperial College London, UK), Lorne Whiteway (University College, London, UK) and Elena Sellentin (Leiden University, The Netherlands). This article, published in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, presents an accurate approximation for the combined likelihood function in cosmological data analysis, improving upon previous methods by better representing the heavy tails of the true distribution.

The overlay for this paper is here

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the announcement on Fediverse here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116916991519124229

The second paper for this week, also published on Tuesday 14th July in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics is: “Line-of-sight shear in SLACS strong lenses II: validation tests with an extended sample” by Natalie B. Hogg (U. Cambridge, UK), Daniel P. Johnson (Université de Montpellier, France), Anowar J. Shajib (U. Chicago, USA) and Julien Larena (Montpellier). The study described in this paper models 27 additional gravitational lenses, finding a significant fraction with unexpectedly large line-of-sight shears. Factors like redshift, filter, and signal-to-noise ratio don’t significantly affect shear magnitudes.

The overlay looks like this:

The official version of the paper can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116917026598474399

The third paper of the week, published on Wednesday 15th July, again in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics “Investigating the Dark Energy Constraint from Strongly Lensed AGN at LSST-Scale” by Sydney Erickson (Stanford University, USA) and 13 others on behalf of The LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration. The study uses a new technique to analyze a large sample of lensed Active Galactic Nuclei, providing an independent probe of dark energy and improving constraints on the Universe’s expansion.

The overlay for this one is here:

The final, accepted version can be found on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116922734297811558

The fourth paper of the week, also published on Wednesday 15th July but in the folder Earth and Planetary Astrophysics is “University of Hawaii 88-inch Telescope Observations of the Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS: Spectrophotometric Blue-Sensitive Spectral Time Series Spanning Two Months from Discovery” by W. B. Hoogendam (University of Hawaii, USA) and 24 others from around the world. The study presents observations of the third interstellar object, 3I/ATLAS, using the SuperNova Integral Field Spectrograph, revealing its properties and comparing it to bodies in our solar system.

The overlay for this one is here:

You can read the final version of this one on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116925616134490970

The fifth paper of the week, published on Friday 17th July in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies, is “The birth of the intracluster medium: the evolution of multiphase gas and Lyman-α haloes in a z~3 simulated protocluster” by Jake S. Bennett (Harvard Smithsonian CfA, USA), Aaron Smith (U. Nottingham, UK), Fabrizio Arrigoni-Battaia (MPA Garching, Germany), Debora Sijacki (U. Cambridge, UK) , Cassandra Lochhaas (CfA) and Lars Hernquist (CfA). This study uses a cosmological simulation to explore the transition from complex galactic haloes to mature galaxy clusters, focusing on gas distribution, ionisation, and emission changes during this evolution.

The overlay for this one is here:

You can read the final version of this one on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116934117289387295

The sixth and final paper of this week is “Density reconstruction from biased tracers: Testing the equivalence principle through consistency relations” by Lawrence Dam and Omar Darwish (Université de Genève, Switzerland). This was published on Friday 17th July in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. It proposes using quadratic estimators to test the weak equivalence principle on cosmological scales, offering a practical alternative to the conventional bispectrum approach.

The overlay for this one is here:

You can find the final accepted version on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116934191977670070

As you can see we have now published over 150 papers this year and are just one shy of 600 in total. I expect we’ll pass that milestone next week. I’ll do another update next Saturday.

Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics 18/07/2026

It’s time once more for another Saturday update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further six papers, bringing the number in Volume 9 (2026) to 151 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 599.

I will continue to include the posts made on our Mastodon account (on Fediscience); these announcements also show the DOI for each paper.

The first paper to report this week, published on Tuesday 14th July, is “On combining estimated and analytic covariance matrices” by Alan Heavens (Imperial College London, UK), Lorne Whiteway (University College, London, UK) and Elena Sellentin (Leiden University, The Netherlands). This article, published in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, presents an accurate approximation for the combined likelihood function in cosmological data analysis, improving upon previous methods by better representing the heavy tails of the true distribution.

The overlay for this paper is here

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the announcement on Fediverse here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116916991519124229

The second paper for this week, also published on Tuesday 14th July in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics is: “Line-of-sight shear in SLACS strong lenses II: validation tests with an extended sample” by Natalie B. Hogg (U. Cambridge, UK), Daniel P. Johnson (Université de Montpellier, France), Anowar J. Shajib (U. Chicago, USA) and Julien Larena (Montpellier). The study described in this paper models 27 additional gravitational lenses, finding a significant fraction with unexpectedly large line-of-sight shears. Factors like redshift, filter, and signal-to-noise ratio don’t significantly affect shear magnitudes.

The overlay looks like this:

The official version of the paper can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116917026598474399

The third paper of the week, published on Wednesday 15th July, again in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics “Investigating the Dark Energy Constraint from Strongly Lensed AGN at LSST-Scale” by Sydney Erickson (Stanford University, USA) and 13 others on behalf of The LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration. The study uses a new technique to analyze a large sample of lensed Active Galactic Nuclei, providing an independent probe of dark energy and improving constraints on the Universe’s expansion.

The overlay for this one is here:

The final, accepted version can be found on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116922734297811558

The fourth paper of the week, also published on Wednesday 15th July but in the folder Earth and Planetary Astrophysics is “University of Hawaii 88-inch Telescope Observations of the Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS: Spectrophotometric Blue-Sensitive Spectral Time Series Spanning Two Months from Discovery” by W. B. Hoogendam (University of Hawaii, USA) and 24 others from around the world. The study presents observations of the third interstellar object, 3I/ATLAS, using the SuperNova Integral Field Spectrograph, revealing its properties and comparing it to bodies in our solar system.

The overlay for this one is here:

You can read the final version of this one on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116925616134490970

The fifth paper of the week, published on Friday 17th July in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies, is “The birth of the intracluster medium: the evolution of multiphase gas and Lyman-α haloes in a z~3 simulated protocluster” by Jake S. Bennett (Harvard Smithsonian CfA, USA), Aaron Smith (U. Nottingham, UK), Fabrizio Arrigoni-Battaia (MPA Garching, Germany), Debora Sijacki (U. Cambridge, UK) , Cassandra Lochhaas (CfA) and Lars Hernquist (CfA). This study uses a cosmological simulation to explore the transition from complex galactic haloes to mature galaxy clusters, focusing on gas distribution, ionisation, and emission changes during this evolution.

The overlay for this one is here:

You can read the final version of this one on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116934117289387295

The sixth and final paper of this week is “Density reconstruction from biased tracers: Testing the equivalence principle through consistency relations” by Lawrence Dam and Omar Darwish (Université de Genève, Switzerland). This was published on Friday 17th July in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. It proposes using quadratic estimators to test the weak equivalence principle on cosmological scales, offering a practical alternative to the conventional bispectrum approach.

The overlay for this one is here:

You can find the final accepted version on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116934191977670070

As you can see we have now published over 150 papers this year and are just one shy of 600 in total. I expect we’ll pass that milestone next week. I’ll do another update next Saturday.

Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics 18/07/2026

It’s time once more for another Saturday update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further six papers, bringing the number in Volume 9 (2026) to 151 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 599.

I will continue to include the posts made on our Mastodon account (on Fediscience); these announcements also show the DOI for each paper.

The first paper to report this week, published on Tuesday 14th July, is “On combining estimated and analytic covariance matrices” by Alan Heavens (Imperial College London, UK), Lorne Whiteway (University College, London, UK) and Elena Sellentin (Leiden University, The Netherlands). This article, published in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, presents an accurate approximation for the combined likelihood function in cosmological data analysis, improving upon previous methods by better representing the heavy tails of the true distribution.

The overlay for this paper is here

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the announcement on Fediverse here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116916991519124229

The second paper for this week, also published on Tuesday 14th July in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics is: “Line-of-sight shear in SLACS strong lenses II: validation tests with an extended sample” by Natalie B. Hogg (U. Cambridge, UK), Daniel P. Johnson (Université de Montpellier, France), Anowar J. Shajib (U. Chicago, USA) and Julien Larena (Montpellier). The study described in this paper models 27 additional gravitational lenses, finding a significant fraction with unexpectedly large line-of-sight shears. Factors like redshift, filter, and signal-to-noise ratio don’t significantly affect shear magnitudes.

The overlay looks like this:

The official version of the paper can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116917026598474399

The third paper of the week, published on Wednesday 15th July, again in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics “Investigating the Dark Energy Constraint from Strongly Lensed AGN at LSST-Scale” by Sydney Erickson (Stanford University, USA) and 13 others on behalf of The LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration. The study uses a new technique to analyze a large sample of lensed Active Galactic Nuclei, providing an independent probe of dark energy and improving constraints on the Universe’s expansion.

The overlay for this one is here:

The final, accepted version can be found on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116922734297811558

The fourth paper of the week, also published on Wednesday 15th July but in the folder Earth and Planetary Astrophysics is “University of Hawaii 88-inch Telescope Observations of the Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS: Spectrophotometric Blue-Sensitive Spectral Time Series Spanning Two Months from Discovery” by W. B. Hoogendam (University of Hawaii, USA) and 24 others from around the world. The study presents observations of the third interstellar object, 3I/ATLAS, using the SuperNova Integral Field Spectrograph, revealing its properties and comparing it to bodies in our solar system.

The overlay for this one is here:

You can read the final version of this one on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116925616134490970

The fifth paper of the week, published on Friday 17th July in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies, is “The birth of the intracluster medium: the evolution of multiphase gas and Lyman-α haloes in a z~3 simulated protocluster” by Jake S. Bennett (Harvard Smithsonian CfA, USA), Aaron Smith (U. Nottingham, UK), Fabrizio Arrigoni-Battaia (MPA Garching, Germany), Debora Sijacki (U. Cambridge, UK) , Cassandra Lochhaas (CfA) and Lars Hernquist (CfA). This study uses a cosmological simulation to explore the transition from complex galactic haloes to mature galaxy clusters, focusing on gas distribution, ionisation, and emission changes during this evolution.

The overlay for this one is here:

You can read the final version of this one on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116934117289387295

The sixth and final paper of this week is “Density reconstruction from biased tracers: Testing the equivalence principle through consistency relations” by Lawrence Dam and Omar Darwish (Université de Genève, Switzerland). This was published on Friday 17th July in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. It proposes using quadratic estimators to test the weak equivalence principle on cosmological scales, offering a practical alternative to the conventional bispectrum approach.

The overlay for this one is here:

You can find the final accepted version on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116934191977670070

As you can see we have now published over 150 papers this year and are just one shy of 600 in total. I expect we’ll pass that milestone next week. I’ll do another update next Saturday.

Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics 18/07/2026

It’s time once more for another Saturday update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further six papers, bringing the number in Volume 9 (2026) to 151 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 599.

I will continue to include the posts made on our Mastodon account (on Fediscience); these announcements also show the DOI for each paper.

The first paper to report this week, published on Tuesday 14th July, is “On combining estimated and analytic covariance matrices” by Alan Heavens (Imperial College London, UK), Lorne Whiteway (University College, London, UK) and Elena Sellentin (Leiden University, The Netherlands). This article, published in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, presents an accurate approximation for the combined likelihood function in cosmological data analysis, improving upon previous methods by better representing the heavy tails of the true distribution.

The overlay for this paper is here

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the announcement on Fediverse here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116916991519124229

The second paper for this week, also published on Tuesday 14th July in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics is: “Line-of-sight shear in SLACS strong lenses II: validation tests with an extended sample” by Natalie B. Hogg (U. Cambridge, UK), Daniel P. Johnson (Université de Montpellier, France), Anowar J. Shajib (U. Chicago, USA) and Julien Larena (Montpellier). The study described in this paper models 27 additional gravitational lenses, finding a significant fraction with unexpectedly large line-of-sight shears. Factors like redshift, filter, and signal-to-noise ratio don’t significantly affect shear magnitudes.

The overlay looks like this:

The official version of the paper can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116917026598474399

The third paper of the week, published on Wednesday 15th July, again in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics “Investigating the Dark Energy Constraint from Strongly Lensed AGN at LSST-Scale” by Sydney Erickson (Stanford University, USA) and 13 others on behalf of The LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration. The study uses a new technique to analyze a large sample of lensed Active Galactic Nuclei, providing an independent probe of dark energy and improving constraints on the Universe’s expansion.

The overlay for this one is here:

The final, accepted version can be found on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116922734297811558

The fourth paper of the week, also published on Wednesday 15th July but in the folder Earth and Planetary Astrophysics is “University of Hawaii 88-inch Telescope Observations of the Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS: Spectrophotometric Blue-Sensitive Spectral Time Series Spanning Two Months from Discovery” by W. B. Hoogendam (University of Hawaii, USA) and 24 others from around the world. The study presents observations of the third interstellar object, 3I/ATLAS, using the SuperNova Integral Field Spectrograph, revealing its properties and comparing it to bodies in our solar system.

The overlay for this one is here:

You can read the final version of this one on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116925616134490970

The fifth paper of the week, published on Friday 17th July in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies, is “The birth of the intracluster medium: the evolution of multiphase gas and Lyman-α haloes in a z~3 simulated protocluster” by Jake S. Bennett (Harvard Smithsonian CfA, USA), Aaron Smith (U. Nottingham, UK), Fabrizio Arrigoni-Battaia (MPA Garching, Germany), Debora Sijacki (U. Cambridge, UK) , Cassandra Lochhaas (CfA) and Lars Hernquist (CfA). This study uses a cosmological simulation to explore the transition from complex galactic haloes to mature galaxy clusters, focusing on gas distribution, ionisation, and emission changes during this evolution.

The overlay for this one is here:

You can read the final version of this one on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116934117289387295

The sixth and final paper paper of this week is “”Density reconstruction from biased tracers: Testing the equivalence principle through consistency relations” by Lawrence Dam and Omar Darwish (Université de Genève, Switzerland). This was published on Friday 17th July in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. It proposes using quadratic estimators to test the weak equivalence principle on cosmological scales, offering a practical alternative to the conventional bispectrum approach.

The overlay for this one is here:

You can find the final accepted version on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116934191977670070

As you can see we have now published over 150 papers this year and are just one shy of 600 in total. I expect we’ll pass that milestone next week. I’ll do another update next Saturday.

Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics 13/06/2026

It’s Saturday again so it’s time for another update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further three papers, bringing the number in Volume 9 (2026) to 122 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 570.

I will continue to include the posts made on our Mastodon account (on Fediscience); these announcements also show the DOI for each paper.

The first paper to report this week, published on Thursday 11th June, is “Dancing Streams In Merging Halos: Stellar Streams in a MW–LMC-like merger” by (all based in the USA): Sachi Weerasooriya (Carnegie Observatories), Tjitske Starkenburg (Northwestern U.), Emily C. Cunningham (Columbia U.) & Kathryn V. Johnston (Flatiron Institute). This article explores how galaxy mergers, like the Milky Way-Large Magellanic Cloud merger, significantly alter the properties and structures of stellar streams, challenging the recovery of their initial orbits. It is in the folder marked Astrophysics of Galaxies.

The overlay for this paper is here

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the announcement on Fediverse here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116730200889106529

The second paper for this week, also published on Thursday 11th June but in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics is “X-SORTER (X-ray Survey Of meRging clusTErs in Redmapper): X-ray and Spectroscopic Characterization of 12 Optically Selected Galaxy Cluster Merger Candidates” by Christopher Hopp, David Wittman, Rodrigo Stancioli, Zhuoran Gao & Faik Bouhrik (UC Davis) and Scott Adler (Rochester), all based in the USA. The X-SORTER program identifies merging galaxy clusters to study dark matter interactions, using optical indicators and X-ray observations. This method efficiently identifies active clusters suitable for detailed dark matter studies.

The overlay for this one looks like this:

The official version of the paper can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116730279994960097

The third and final paper of the week, published on Friday 12th June in the folder Earth and Planetary Astrophysics, is “JCMT Constraints on the Early-Time HCN and CO Emission and HCN Temporal Evolution of 3I/ATLAS” by Jason T. Hinkle (U. Illinois, USA) and 6 others based in the USA and Chile. This article presents observations of the third Interstellar Object, 3I/ATLAS, providing early sub-mm constraints on its activity. The findings suggest a steeper production rate slope than typical Solar System comets.

The overlay for this one is here:

The final, accepted version can be found on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116735805179724489

And that concludes this week’s update. It has been a slow week on the publishing front, but the main reason is that we have a big backlog of papers accepted but waiting for the authors to put their final versions on arXiv and we can’t do anything about that! I’ll do another update next Saturday.

How the buzz over an ‘alien’ interstellar comet went viral
Is an interstellar spacecraft zooming through our solar system? That’s the big question for fans of unidentified flying objects — and for a researcher at the University of Washington who analyzed the speculation over the interstellar com
https://cosmiclog.com/2025/12/06/how-the-buzz-over-an-alien-interstellar-comet-went-viral/
#GeekWire #3IATLAS #A11pl3Z #Aliens #InterstellarObjects #SocialMedia #Space #UniversityOfWashington

Technically still Halloween, the wee ones are in bed, clutching their tummies with dread, and we can talk about something really scary: The End Of The World! (insert spooky music here.)

Some say the #Hopi people have a legend that says when the Blue Star returns, it will bring about the 5th age, and end our current one. As #3iatlas was nearing the sun (and doing some weird stuff), it started glowing blue. The End is Nigh!

Or so some folks would like you to believe. Only, none of it is true. The "Hopi blue star" legend was started by a white dude in 1963. I would like to point out the sheer volume of indigenous culture white dudes in the 60s appropriated, modified, rewrote or completely invented.

This "rapture-esque legend" has no written or oral record before novelist Frank Water's Book of the Hopi.

So, despite our best and fervent wishes, I don't think we're going to get Giant Meteor 2025 to end this nonsense for us.

#BedtimeRoutine tonight starts with this awesome podcast analysis of & shifting the b.s. from the facts around #3Iatlas
with excellent arguments & critical questioning. plus it's ideal to wind down with..

#GifsArtidote: fucking fascinating stuff happening up in our #galaxy. exciting times for #science, #humanity & me. i feel so fucking blessed & grateful to be alive in these insane times. woohoo! bring it on!

#KnowledgeIsPower #press #news #SpaceNews #media #BreakingNews #TruthSeeker

https://youtu.be/psTyEb6nOW0?

VLT maakt nieuwe beelden van de interstellaire komeet 3I/ATLAS

Astronomen hebben met behulp van de Very Large Telescope nieuwe beelden gemaakt van 3I/ATLAS, het derde interstellaire object dat ooit is waargenomen.

Deze VLT/FORS2 afbeelding, gemaakt op 3 juli 2025, toont de interstellaire komeet 3I/ATLAS.

https://www.kuuke.nl/vlt-maakt-nieuwe-beelden-van-de-interstellaire-komeet-3i-atlas/

#3IATLAS #A11pl3Z #C2025N1 #eso #InterstellairObject #InterstellaireKomeet #komeet #VLT

#DerStandard:
"
Mysteriöses Objekt dürfte der dritte Besucher aus dem interstellaren Raum sein

Der Komet 3I/Atlas wurde am 1. Juli entdeckt und stammt wohl aus einem anderen Sonnensystem.
"
https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000277868/mysterioeses-objekt-duerfte-der-dritte-besucher-aus-dem-interstellaren-raum-sein

".. Objekt 1I/Oumuamua von 2017 aufgrund seiner länglichen Form und eines offensichtlichen Antriebs .." Huh? Oh, äh ... Nö.

3.7.2025

#3IAtlas #A11pl3Z #Astronomie #ATLAS #Komet #Sonnensystem

Calling it 3I/ATLAS doesn't cancel out the creepiness of it originally having a name that's l33t speak for "All Please"
#alien #intruder #3IAtlas #A11pl3Z

Sadly it appears the official name is 3I/ATLAS – I mean even just going with 3I/Sauce would've been more entertaining. Oh well.

I'm still disappointed that interstellar objects get the "I" (letter eye) prefix though. I mean, any astute techy person knows you don't use G, O, or I in alphanumeric handles/names because they look like numeric 6, zero and one or lowercase L. It creates ambiguity that nobody wants.

#a11pl3z #3IATLAS

Renders of the 3 interstellar objects on their day of discovery using the Catalina Sky Survey Orbit Viewer. Thx to @Apophis for that tool!

https://neofixer.arizona.edu/css-orbit-view?Namev=1I/%60Oumuamua&JDTv=2458000.5&av=-1.2809909059883968&Mv=0&ev=1.199252&Iv=122.6778&Periv=241.6845&Nodev=24.5997&Pv=0&qv=0.255240%20%20&Tv=2458006.4469299996&Cx=-928&Cy=235&Cz=286&CZ=990&YYYY=2017&MM=10&DD=19

https://neofixer.arizona.edu/css-orbit-view?Namev=2I/Borisov&JDTv=2458600.5&av=-0.8443731761644145&Mv=0&ev=3.3835756&Iv=43.99379&Periv=208.98541&Nodev=308.20581&Pv=0&qv=2.0126273&Tv=2458825.90006&Cx=45&Cy=-963&Cz=264&CZ=441&YYYY=2019&MM=08&DD=30

https://neofixer.arizona.edu/css-orbit-view?Namev=A11pl3Z&JDTv=2460858.5&av=-0.19840172468031414&Mv=0&ev=9.9842969&Iv=175.20817&Periv=124.51317&Nodev=325.05432&Pv=0&qv=1.7825&Tv=2460971.931866&Cx=178&Cy=926&Cz=330&CZ=612&YYYY=2025&MM=07&DD=01

#A11pl3Z #3IATLAS