Chandra & NASA Webb Telescope together again! The Crab Nebula is the result of a supernova explosion seen by people on Earth in the year 1054. Located about 6,500 light-years from Earth, the neutron star at its center is roughly 20 km in diameter and it rotates about 30 times per second!

Hello, I am Nicole Gountanis (Γκουντάνης)! I am an Astronomy PhD student at OSU Astronomy advised by David Weinberg and Annika Peter. I am interested in using the properties and clustering of galaxies as cosmological probes of dark matter, dark energy, and modified gravity.

JWST Crab paper is out! It was an incredible experience studying the Crab's synchrotron emission using JWST for my PrincetonAstro senior thesis with Tea Temim (@teatemim) and Anatoly Spitkovsky. Enjoy! 🦀 arxiv.org/abs/2406.00172

I had the incredible opportunity to attend the Dark Matter Theory, Simulation, and Analysis in the Era of Large Surveys workshop at Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics. We did not detect dark matter, but the baryons put together some beautiful views 🌊

Looking forward to giving my first talk at DHWFest at the University of Utah on July 15!

My first first-author paper is now out on arXiv! Special shoutout to Aliza Beverage (Aliza Beverage 🏳️‍🌈) and Nathan Sandford (Nathan Sandford) for their mentorship. Enjoy 😊 arxiv.org/pdf/2407.07971

For the last 10 weeks I’ve lifted in 4 time zones, attended 2 conferences, published 2 papers, and gave my first major conference talk. I’ve truly poured my heart into everything I’ve done and I’m so proud of what I have accomplished 😊

I helped develop an analytic one-zone chemical evolution code used in my recent paper (arxiv.org/abs/2407.07971). fanCE is available on GitHub (github.com/nmgountanis/fa…) so others can adapt them to interpret other galaxies/stellar populations or explore alternative assumptions.

Interacting galaxies, viewed from the mirrors of JWST's MIRI. Processed by Go Webb. flickr.com/photos/1964397…

First time working with simulations. Hands down the most beautiful scatter plot I’ve ever made 😊

From astrobites: Today we give highlights from the recent APS Conference for Graduate Women and Gender Minorities and provide information for applying to the APS Conference for Undergraduate Women and Gender Minorities in Physics! 🔭✨️ astrobites.org/2024/10/05/aps…

Had to make a Haiku about my research for a class assignment. It came out better than expected: Final burst of stars, galaxies hide their old tales in lines of metals. arxiv.org/abs/2407.07971

Please consider donating to support me represent OSU and USA at the powerlifting university world championships in Istanbul, Turkey. Even a few dollars makes a difference. Please share if you can. Thank you!