Make a Bond movie academic. Thunderball: A Study of Lightning on Jupiter

Final of ✨ #planetaryScience image of 2025 ✨ is here: Uranus vs. Earth or outer vs. inner Solar System 🗳️ The vote link is 3 posts down. Voting ends on Tuesday, Dec. 30, at 3 p.m. UTC/4 p.m. CET/10 a.m. EST/7 a.m. PST/midnight JST. 🧪⚛️

Join my amazing colleague Stefanie Milam later today (9pm UK) for a discussion of Solar System #planetsci from #JWST. www.youtube.com/live/BgrD1bd...

If you've proposed to #JWST in recent years, or you're working with the data, take a look at the presentations from our recent JWST User Committee meeting at STScI - particularly those on the amazing efforts that go into pipeline development, the TAC process, user support, & telescope scheduling 🔭🪐

🛰️ New Europlanet webinar with @esa.int's Juice mission! This webinar will outline the current status of radar sounding for Earth observation and its connection to RIME’s science for the exploration of the Jupiter icy moons 👉 Register us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Uranus And Neptune Might Be Rock Giants astrobiology.com/2025/12/uran... #astrobiology #astrogeology

TIL about a memorial ceremony in Iceland in 2019 to mark the end of a glacier, changing the place name from Okjökull to Ok (jökull = glacier). Uncompromising wording on the bronze plaque: "This is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it".

I still can’t believe they said my name!! I got the Global Space Award 2025 in the category of Science Breakthrough for my leadership of the M-MATISSE mission concept to Mars! A really wonderful night! Next step is to do our super best for the mission to be selected in June 2026!

Leicester has partnered with the China Scholarship Council to provide #PhD funding for Chinese students, with astro/planetary @physicsuol.bsky.social specifically mentioned as a priority. If you have contacts with Chinese undergrads, please do share - deadline Dec 11th. le.ac.uk/study/resear...

☄️ Our #ESAJuice team couldn't wait until February, when they will receive data on #3IATLAS from the mission's science instruments. So they downloaded just a quarter of an image from its navigation camera to get a surprise sneak preview. More info and annotations 👉 www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed... 🔭 🧪

After a whirlwind week of deadlines, I finally had a moment to download some data from a telescope run I was leading.... and.... they managed to point it at the wrong planet. I mean, seen one giant planet, seen 'em all, right? Time for a beer....

Reading through ESA's draft #CM25 resolution on the level of resources to be committed between now and 2030 - strong support for the proposal to complete #CosmicVision and get #Voyage2050 (M7, L4) underway. Particularly like that line on international flagship partnerships (HabWorlds? Uranus?).

🎵 One of these moons is not like the others, one of these moons just doesn’t belong… 🎵 (it’s Mab, so weird, we love her) 🧪🔭🪐 My latest for @eos.org ahead of #AGU25: eos.org/articles/ura...

Couldn't make out #Saturn's rings at all just now through my telescope (admittedly from a light-polluted vantage point). We are now at the secondary "almost ring-plane crossing" due to Earth's orbit, and we'll have #JWST taking some infrared spectra of Saturn's southern spring next week.. exciting!

It's Friday, and apparently bluesky is ready for this fun revelation: Dinosaurs lived on the other side the Galaxy.

With #Uranus and #Neptune being among the best Solar System targets for JWST, I'm hoping to offer a #PhD studentship for Sep'2026 analysing NIRSpec and MIRI observations of both Ice Giant atmospheres. Contact me for details, deadline Jan 18th! #planetsci

My most important service to solar system planetary science was being a part of the Science Definition Team (SDT), nearly a decade ago, that made the science case for an NASA Ice Giants Orbiter and Entry Probe. Check out our 2017 document: arxiv.org/abs/2511.13946

Our #ESAJuice meeting is over, so a quick moment for some sightseeing. This is the Gänseliesel "goose girl" statue in Göttingen... apparently it's tradition for newly minted PhDs to climb the fountain, kiss the statue, and present a bunch of flowers...

Although it's not an easy journey (involving planes, trains, & automobiles), I finally made it to @mpsgoettingen.bsky.social for the #ESAJuice Science Team Meeting (our 26th!). Personal first for me: I've never been to Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and this bit of Germany before.

UK science and technology is suffering from a lack of investment, a hostile immigration system, and fragile university finances, reports @cathleenogrady.bsky.social 🧪 #scipolicy www.science.org/content/arti...

Looking to start a PhD in Physics & Astronomy in 2026? The team @physicsuol.bsky.social have announced their STFC-funded projects on offer next year, spanning astrophysics, planetary science, and space instrumentation. Deadline: Jan 18th, contact us to learn more! le.ac.uk/study/resear...

In 2023, #NASAWebb observed a spectacular light show on Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. The planet’s auroras are hundreds of times brighter and more energetic than Earth’s. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, J. Nichols (University of Leicester), M. Zamani (ESA/Webb). 🔭 🧪

End of an amazing week @stsci.edu, enormous thanks to @chrisinbaltimore.bsky.social & the ESA team for making me feel so welcome, and to all the researchers from STScI, Johns Hopkins, and APL that came to chat. I'm going home brimming with ideas, and in awe of the work everyone's doing with #JWST.

Fourth day of meetings and talks here in Baltimore, and I'd like to say a massive thank-you to those who decided that I was only allowed to meet people called Sarah on Thursday afternoon. Some top-quality trolling there, almost spat out my coffee. #SarahThursday

Thanks to the team at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory for hosting me today: home of Dragonfly quadcopter to Titan (model below), Parker Solar Probe, New Horizons to Pluto, DART asteroid impactor, and more. Talked HabWorlds, JWST, heliophysics and exoplanets, all in one exhausting day.

Over in the *alternate timeline*, I'm at Goddard Spaceflight Centre today chatting to colleagues about JWST and future missions to explore the furthest reaches of our Solar System. But unfortunately we appear to be stuck in *this timeline,* with my NASA colleagues furloughed due to the shutdown.

I'm in Baltimore this week, meeting colleagues at Space Telescope and staying near Johns Hopkins' Homewood campus: a beautiful, peaceful campus in the autumn sun, all red brick and marble styled after the Homewood house (1800s, now a museum).

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) spacecraft is ready to aim its instruments at interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS! 🪐☄️ Here’s what’s happening and why it’s such a rare opportunity 🧵

Maybe “it’s easier to make an ocean world than we thought.” Research by Caleb Strom @uofnorthdakota.bsky.social, comments by Richard Cartwright and Chloe Beddingfield @jhuapl.bsky.social. Story by @astrokimcartier.bsky.social. eos.org/articles/tin...

Before #NASAWebb, it had been 30+ years since astronomers looked closely at Neptune. With Webb, scientists imaged the planet’s auroras and studied its atmosphere, including unexpectedly finding a significant drop in temperature—all at a distance. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI. 🔭 🧪

A day off to decompress, despite the stormy skies. #Leicester's Bradgate Park is fabulous in the autumn colours, fallow deer everywhere. This 850-acre park, a rocky moorland covered in bracken and woodland with the River Lin running through it, is just north of the city and spectacular year round.

wanna feel old? the date Marty traveled to in the future was ten years ago today

🔊Announcing a new Physics/Astro PhD scholarship scheme in Edinburgh, for students from a Black heritage, inc mixed Black background. Please help me spread the word. The scholarship covers all tuition fees, living costs & research travel. #blackinSTEM 🔭👩‍🔬⚛️ ℹ️: www.ph.ed.ac.uk/studying/pos...

Friday night after a long week. Time for a laugh with @mattgreencomedy.com at @theytheatre.bsky.social in #Leicester

Folks were tracking #JWST proposals to see if Cycle 5 would break records (again). With success rates<10%, that means ~2500 of these amazing ideas will not get time, so will be coming right back at Cycle 6. So.... why not extend Cycle 5 and offer twice as many hours to halve the stress...?

Excellent piece from the Planetary Society highlighting some of the human stories of NASA's workforce losses: www.planetary.org/articles/400...

Between the lowest and highest proposal numbers I've seen, there are already 1600 new #JWSTCycle5 proposals, ~14hrs before the deadline (8:00 pm US Eastern Daylight Time)...

#ESAJuice reached 30% of its journey to Jupiter! 🙌 What has Juice been up to and what comes next? Read along. 1/8

Just a normal dy in the solar system. Jupiter on october 13th observed from Paris.

Are you looking for our Public Lecture Series? The 2024 and 2025 lectures are now available on this YouTube channel playlist. 🔭 🧪

Animation of #Uranus from JWST NIRCam, taken on October 6th as part of a calibration programme, but showing lots of little discrete clouds around the north polar cap. See Melina's thread for full details:

One NASA science mission saved from Trump’s cuts, but others still in limbo arstechnica.com/space/2025/1...

First images of comet #3I/ATLAS from Europe's Mars orbiters 😍 Observing the comet from 30 million km away, #ExoMars reveals the halo of gas and dust surrounding the comet's nucleus. Read more 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl... 🔭🧪

Sundays are for bringing 35-year-old Sierra Cosworths back to life on the Scalextric. Tiny parts tested my eyesight, fingers raw from rubbing down tarnished tracks, but it's aliiiiive, and the boy is off his playstation for a few hours....

SIX postdoc jobs (!) going at the new Leverhulme Centre for Space and Humanity at the University of Leicester, directed by @andrewfutter.bsky.social If you're in the social sciences/humanities and working on outer space, have a look!

UT Austin Astro is hiring! It's an open call, but definitely interested in getting another exoplanet person! Feel free to reach out with any questions about the department or living in Austin! aas.org/jobregister/...

Do not try with a desktop computer.

Oxford in the autumn sunshine. Can't beat it.

A summary of where we are in #UKHE, and how we got here. Some scary times ahead. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Spent time at the @spacecentre.bsky.social today, meeting primary school teachers to show them the breadth of STFC research in planetary and astrophysics happening at Leicester - part of a professional development course for local teachers ahead of them bringing Year-5s to NSC in October.