Outreach for science is critical for many reasons. A high majority of scientific research infrastructures are publicly funded, the researchers of the future are the current new generation in public, crucial in building trust [1], and explaining a scientific case to different audiences requires one to be an expert and an empathetic person simultaneously. Among the ways of outreach, social media has a wide range of tools and places. Each one of them requires a different strategy to adopt for higher reaches and more effective interactions. This post focused on BlueSky, where Science Ascend is also recently active and contributing. BlueSky has no advertisement and is comparatively low in user-post-interaction volume, but the interactions are more organic. There are also many accounts for astrophysicists and simply astrophysics lovers. Furthermore, BlueSky has a specific AstroSci feed that can be reached from here. It is customized to contain posts about astrophysics research only from accepted members and is moderated in this way.
After pointing out all these outreach advantages of BlueSky, this article now focuses on the Astrobot JWST (from Yuval Harpaz, a Psychology PhD holder with interests in Python and spatial data visualization) account there, with its automatic feed from new JWST data releases: Astrobot JWST BlueSky Account
The main activity this tool does is querying the last two hours of JWST image releases, combining the image with the information from the headers of these FITS files and automatically posting content to BlueSky, among other things, both directly or after some automatic processing, with also alt texts. This way, the reach of JWST images increases significantly, and anyone randomly shuffling through the “Discover” tab of BlueSky may just see them. This is where things are getting interesting in terms of how the public interacts with the images. Below are non-exhaustive categories for their typical reactions:
- There are superficial interactions, including loving, joking about it, or simply referring to any other post JWST-related.
- Some people are simply asking what that image is; probably the caption is either unread or a bit cryptic to them.
- Space and alien life-related remarks
- Common image noises and errors, especially when amplified, are considered to be user error or sensor failure.
- Some of the misunderstandings or questions may be caught by experts from that area, and a positive learning experience occurs. Yuval Harpaz also intervenes in explaining the processing he applies, but the best case is similar to BlueSky users who process JWST images and create them to reach out to people.
- (especially for the post-processed images) pointing out the painter's artwork resemblances, or remarking on the similarity of them to the music album covers.
- Another similar reaction is resembling a part or all image to something, maybe a Christmas tree, Santa (probably recency bias towards Christmas), an explosion, etc.
- Other people would like to learn more about the image out of sheer curiosity and check the program name and more with the provided information.
- Critics of both the alt text and caption labels
The oldest post of Astrobot JWST is on 12 November 2024; the interaction and community did not immediately appear, and the content evolved as well. The caption, colored images were changed. Prettier-looking images generally attracted more interaction, and with the Saturn image of JWST, the interactions drastically increased for such cases, only coinciding on 7 December 2025, prior to that, community feedback and interactions as comments and likes were nonexistent. Additionally, Beta Pictoris, with its exoplanet fame (Beta Pictoris b), and several gravitational lensing-visible images were far more interactive, probably because the things they represented were famous elsewhere and easily connected with the audience.
In summary, potential leads and insights these observations hinted at,
- Science Outreach for JWST images requires a multi-pronged support, ranging from an automatic pipeline, to a pretty visualization of the image, to explaining the shortcomings of sensors, focus, or area information in plain language, and experts to answer questions from the public.
- Captions can be more instructive for a general audience, and maybe darker parts of the image may be used to draw and inform objects, especially when people just pass by looking at images only. One critical piece of information most-inquired about is the type of object in focus, such as whether it is a star, galaxy, or else, especially when it is not obvious.
- Already known (Saturn), recently famous (3I/ATLAS) targets might be prioritized to increase the interaction and inform the audience efficiently.
- Alt Text may also include critical and erroneous features of the image, while sometimes generally aiding visually-impaired people. (though this requires far more processing before posting)
These are clear from the public interactions taking place in Astrobot JWST content, and thanks to the efforts of its builder and supporters. Nevertheless, a more systematic approach and collaboration with them may provide a much better picture for the outreach. At the same time, Science Ascend itself will have its own outreach projects, and their results will be directly examined in the next issue.
References
[1] Kuske, J., Martinez, C., Leathers, T., & Villagomes, D. (2025, May 20). What is science outreach and why is it important?. UC Davis.
https://www.ucdavis.edu/majors/blog/what-science-outreach-and-why-it-important#:~:text=Whether%20we%20talk%20about%20the,barriers%20for%20our%20local%20communities.