#startorialist

OTD four years ago, in 2016, NASA’s Juno Mission arrived at Jupiter and began doing ALL THE SCIENCE. Pop on over to our online shop to pick up some goodies to celebrate the gorgeousness of this gas giant! 

Featured above:

Jupiter Plush Toy

Mismatched laser cut Jupiter and Juno spacecraft wooden earrings

3D printed gold steel Juno Mission logo necklace

Juno Mission spacecraft print socks

Swirls on Jupiter steampunk choker (as imaged by NASA’s Junocam)

Click for quick links to browse all of our Jupiter products and Juno products. 

#TBT to us over the years!! 

I think the top photo actually predates our very first blog post! The blog existed in our heads but only became a reality a couple weeks later in the final days of 2013...SO MANY YEARS AGO. 

Look at our baby selves at AAS223, the World Science Festival, and the Intrepid Museum’s Hubble25 exhibit in 2014 - we were so young and carefree living on stardust. 

Flash forward to 2016, hanging out at Columbia University’s Astrofest and in the StarTalk studio (with Star Baby #1 making its presence known). 

And last but not least, two of our last conferences together in person - AGU 2018 and AAAS 2019 (with uber imminent Star Baby #2). 

Now here we are and it’s hard to believe our dreams of an online shop have finally become a reality!

Thanks to all of you for being here every step (post) of the way. You never forget your first (blog) home. ;) 

Today is the day we usually celebrate Pi Day, but honestly it feels infinitely* silly with so much happening around our pale blue dot. So instead of celebrating an irrational number, we thought we’d share slices* of some small but rational* steps for uplifting one another in difficult times.

As many of you know, we are in the process of setting up our own small (women-owned!) business, and as we work through that process we appreciate even more how much time and energy the artists & vendors we share here have put into their own craft. For many of them, maintaining their livelihoods is especially challenging right now, but luckily, we can help!

Instead of hoarding toilet paper, why not start your winter-holiday gift shopping very early! Or stock up on birthday presents, or gifts for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, graduations (with or without in-person ceremonies), Just Because Day! If you’re not sure what someone special (even yourself) might like, purchase a gift card from your favorite artist. Want a custom creation? Message an artist on social media for a commission so they don’t have to pay fees to sites like Etsy. :)

Here are just some** of our favorite small businesses (women, family, and/or minority owned) who could use your support:

Amy Rae Hill (whose commissions like this teapot are out of this world!)

Cepheid Studio (check out her new shinies, like this Hubble pin badge!)

Chrissy Sparks Art (we adore her hand-painted cosmic wooden ornaments)

Cosmic Funnies (whimsical web comics, illustrations, stickers and more featuring all your favorite celestial objects)

Design by Liz K

Lost in Space Jewelry (custom Planetary Position Plaques make lovely gifts!) 

Megan Lee Studio

Pretty Little Earth

Science Socks (watch this space for more designs!) 

Sofie Shen (illustrator extraordinaire who can make your space art dreams come true)

Surlyramics 

Tactile Melodies

Two Photon Art (they have some great freebies to download, too!)

Yugen Tribe (our long-time favorites with stunning new designs, like these Solar System beauties)

We’ll continue to share work by these artists and more via this thread over on Twitter!

Socially-distant hugs from across the Universe, --Emily & Summer

(image credits: FreakingNews.com, user: vicspa) 

*We made be sad and stressed, but puns will always prevail.

Exciting new designs from Boutique Academia on hand at our AAS235* BOOTHtique featuring everyone’s favorite black hole (M87) and a perennial favorite of ours, the solar spectrum as seen by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory. Plus their speed of light necklace that we love (available in both gold-plated and sterling silver).

For those of you not at AAS235, these designs are also all available on the Boutique Academia website. Be sure to follow them on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and check out all our previous posts here. 

- Summer & Emily

Today is the last official day of NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope mission <sniff>. Launched over 16 years ago, Spitzer brought the infrared universe to the forefront as one of NASA’s Great Observatories. It studied everything from our own solar system to the Milky Way to some of the most distant galaxies. It mapped the first "weather map” of an exoplanet, refined the density estimates for the seven planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system, and found the largest molecules known to exist in space, aka Buckyballs. I could go on and on and on! 

In celebration of this amazing mission, Science Socks made these awesome socks so you can trap your own infrared radiation and keep your feet warm in memory of Spitzer! BONUS, $2 from every sale is donated to STEM for Her - a non-profit in the D.C. area that promotes education to create awareness, excitement, and opportunities among girls and young women to pursue successful STEM-related careers. 

If you’re not ready to say goodbye just yet, you can relive some of this phenomenal mission with this tribute video and learn more about 15 of Spitzer’s greatest discoveries here. 

We are so embarrassed that we haven’t shared the wonderful work of Liz Kruesi on the blog yet even though we’ve been carrying her designs at the #BOOTHtique for almost two years now!! Liz is a freelance science writer and jewelry maker on the side. We fell in love with her pieces back in 2017 at the Women in Astronomy IV meeting where she was sporting her solar system necklace. 

Since then, she has created quite possibly one of the loveliest planetary collections. Her pieces feature beads reminiscent of each planet (and its moons) and each item comes with a cheat sheet describing the stones that represent each object. We started with her Jupiter and Saturn designs and they were so popular at the Division of Planetary Sciences Conference in 2018, that people were soon swapping them with each other so they could sport one of each planet. The fad soon took over the Neptune and Uranus designs as well. Now we just assume this will be the case and order both matching and mis-matching pairs from her. ;)

New to the BOOTHtique at AAS235* are her Earth+Moon, Earth/Mars mismatched, and Pluto+Charon earrings! 

For those of you not at AAS235, check out Liz’s Etsy store and be sure to follow her on Twitter, Instagram. 

- Summer & Emily

TGIF Startorialists! And by TGIF, we mean Thank God its Finally TIME TO SHARE THAT WE ARE OFFICIALLY OFFICIAL! As of January 1st, we are incorporated and more importantly, we have a new logo!* 

We were pretty quiet in 2019 and this is why; turns out it takes a lot of work to become a business. ;)  

Now that it’s a new year and a new us, we have lots of exciting things planned for you…so as usual WATCH THIS SPACE.

- Summer & Emily