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.

We bail out banks. We bail the steel industry, the water industry, airlines and hotels. The UK higher education sector directly employs nearly 1M people. It's the envy of the world and benefits almost every area of UK society. But apparently it can go burn.

So the DFS sale really has been going on as long as we thought

Our #EPSCDPS2025 meeting in Helsinki was exhausting, and a flight delay made for a very late night. But I had to smile as some of my Leicester colleagues spent the whole flight patiently answering space questions from fellow passengers. Nice reminder that we are privileged to do a very cool job. 😎

For those #IceGiant fans at the #EPSCDPS2025 in Helsinki, you’re invited to join an informal meeting about future Ice Giant exploration on Thursday (12:45-13:45) in the Triton Room (level 2, right next to Neptune, of course!): #planetsci meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPSC-DPS2025...

Heads up to attendees of #epscdps2025 - there will be a splinter session about Solar System planning for the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) in the Ganymede Room TODAY (Weds) at 3 pm!

From its newly discovered satellite, to the composition and dynamics of the narrow rings, to the atmospheric circulation and auroras, it's clear that #JWST has already been astonishing for exploring the #Uranus system. First #EPSCDPS2025 session on JWST results described as "bonkers" 😀 🪐

Conference here in Helsinki has been great so far, but time to turn it up a notch - this morning at #EPSCDPS2025 we begin 2 days celebrating the contributions of #JWST to #planetaryscience, beginning with ice giants, then moving to Jupiter, Saturn, comets, asteroids, TNOs, and more. Venus room 0930!

At a planet formation seminar today, the speaker used these amazing maps of the Solar System from Eleanor Lutz: she has a great blog post on how she took 18000 asteroids, on a log(size) and log(orbit) plot, with 40-year orbit trails, to create this #planetsci #dataviz eleanorlutz.com/mapping-1800...

The #MaxPlanckPostdocProgram offers a guaranteed contract of at least 3 years, targeted mentoring, and career workshops. The call for applications is open now! 🚀 Take advantage of this opportunity and browse the job vacancies. www.mpg.de/en/max-planc...

Flyby success! ESA's Juice spacecraft passed Venus at 07:28 CEST on 31 August. This photo shows our deep-space antenna in Spain in communication with Juice during the flyby. Juice’s current location, Venus, and its destination, Jupiter, are both visible in the sky ❤️

📣 We're looking for post-docs in the fields of heliophysics, planetary science, astrophysics and fundamental physics. Come carry out your independent research with us. Apply to the ESA Research #Fellowships in Space Science 👉 www.cosmos.esa.int/web/space-sc... 🔭🧪☄️

An overview of ESA's roster of upcoming missions, and hopes for the future. Ambitious plans need ambitious funding, so all eyes are on the Council of Ministers in Nov (Bremen), setting ESA budgets for the next 3 years. July interview with @cmundell.bsky.social 🪐 www.techjournal.uk/p/esa-seeks-...

Go #ESAJuice! Swinging by Venus this weekend #planetsci, follow @operations.esa.int for updates:

During the next week, many of us will experience our last 8pm sunset until next April. It has already happened for some southern and eastern parts of England! We've been losing 3-5 minutes of daylight per day through August.

A teaser for the Pluto map I'm working on, originally scheduled to be released on the 10th anniversary of the New Horizons flyby of Pluto. These are minimaps which supplement the main map and contain less information - the main map is much larger and contains all the official and unofficial names.

Onwards to Venus for #ESAJuice (after a little communication blip on the way). No science data or images from the flyby on Aug 31st, but the momentum gained during this 'hot phase' is crucial for getting us out to the cold realms of Jupiter in 2031. #planetsci

Today our team released findings on the nature of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, based on our first round of JWST observations. The data are incredible: Not only did we detect and map gas and dust in the coma, but we found that 3I is one of the most CO2 rich comets ever seen! Check it out:

A new moon discovered around #Uranus by #JWST, a world just 10 km wide spotted from ~3 billion km away. This is a new member of the family of "inner moons," and we've never gotten close enough to see what they look like. Maybe some future robotic explorer will reveal their icy surfaces...

Maryame El Moutamid and colleagues have discovered a new moon orbiting Uranus. The JWST observations show a 10km moon orbiting 56,000km from Uranus's center. This moon adds to the complex puzzle that is the Uranian ring and moon system. #planetsci 🧪 science.nasa.gov/blogs/webb/2...

Some very deserving #planetsci folks on this list - congratulations to all! 🪐

ESO's call for proposals for next year is out, and contains this sad (but not unexpected) line: "VISIR will be decommissioned in P117 (Q2 2026) and is no longer offered." Now there's no mid-infrared Earth-based capabilities from 8-m telescopes (thank heavens for IRTF). www.eso.org/sci/observin...

A future #Uranus mission simply can't happen without radioactive power sources. This article does a good job explaining where we are, but it's a tough read for Outer Solar System fans... prior to 2025, it really felt like we had wind in our sails. Sigh.

How many universities do you know with their own space elephant? This is 'Ele-gene Voyager' (by Marta Zubieta), celebrating @uniofleicester.bsky.social roles in space exploration @physicsuol.bsky.social and DNA fingerprinting. Part of the Loros #StompRoundLeicester

Mark diaries: 1 yr from today! 12th Aug 2026: total solar eclipse🌞🌚🌍 for Northern Spain, Greenland and West Iceland. Where's the best spot? Well eclipsophile.com has kindly calculated the average Aug cloud cover & Spain looks v promising 🧪🔭 📷: M Tomasso ℹ️: www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/sola...

truth

Images from Palomar at 2 different infrared wavelengths last night - one that Saturn's methane atmosphere absorbs, and one the it reflects! (The faint point source is the moon, Tethys!) Taken by David Ciardi, Catherine Clark, @lowbacca.bsky.social and Miranda Felsmann; animated by me (and ezgif!)

Ouch. I dearly hoped I could spend this summer sciencing, but despite all my 2024 efforts, committees said "nah" and it's back to endless word wrangling for me.

We are pleased to announce the release of the #JWST Cycle 5 Call for Proposals for General Observer and Survey time and funding for Archival Research programs. Read more: ow.ly/IjWC50WyF62

Fancy joining the #PlanetaryScience team at @uniofleicester.bsky.social? We have 3 postdoc positions open: Mercury with BepiColombo with Emma Bunce; the Martian ionosphere with @bscredrojo.bsky.social; or Jupiter's auroral lightshow with @jnic.bsky.social. Visit jobs.le.ac.uk and search "Physics"

I do sometimes show up at exoplanet conferences just to showcase solar system data. But to be fair, the Earth-observing community does this to solar system planetary scientists all the time, so what goes around....

Long train to Durham to attend the National Astronomy Meeting... got bashed in the head by handbags 3x; sat next to crying baby while trying to write a paper; and cooked on a packed carriage. Still, Durham turns out to be not too shabby!

Amplifying the call from Marc Delcroix and co. over the weekend: the team are looking to verify/refute a potential impact on #Saturn on July 5th, 09:00-09:15UT. Videos taken by amateur observers at that time might hold the key. This 📸 credit: Mario Rana pvol2.ehu.eus/pvol2/news/v...

Our final call for expressions of interest for the STFC Rutherford Fellowships, with a deadline tomorrow - do get in touch if you have any questions!

I think at least some of you follow because of NASA flavored things. And I am hearing some VERY bad things that are getting memory holed as quickly as they occur. Not only that, but significant chunks of leadership at NASA Centers have been taking early retirement offers, leaving staff unprotected

Peter Rosén has created another great animation of #Jupiter's storms during the 2024/25 apparition, made from thousands of amateur observations and projected in a variety of different ways. Incredible amount of work must have gone into this #planetsci [Credit: P. Rosén] youtu.be/x1W_Ux_jgaE?...

Are you in, or near Leicester this Sunday? If you are, come and see me in the Night Sky Show at De Montfort Hall, for an epic adventure and evening of cosmic entertainment. It's out of this world. Book here: www.demontforthall.co.uk/event/the-ni... The cheesiness is optional

International or UK researcher looking for a #fellowship in #astrophysics, #planetaryscience, and/or space instrumentation? Leicester @physicsuol.bsky.social is inviting expressions of interest for this year's STFC 5-year Ernest Rutherford Fellowships (deadline June 26th): le.ac.uk/physics/rese...

ESA studying impacts of proposed NASA budget cuts The European Space Agency is weighing options for programs affected by proposed major budget cuts at NASA as it also seeks to expand cooperation with other nations.

Carly's looking for a postdoc to join her team at @oxfordphysics.bsky.social to work on Europa exploration - go join them! #planetaryscience

Scientists expected the trailing side of Uranus's moons would be darkened by radiation. When we looked we found the exact opposite. @startswithabang.bsky.social Here's why and what it might mean: bigthink.com/starts-with-...

We are in the final days of our effort to collect signatories on our petition to protect NASA science and SO CLOSE to our 20,000 signatory goal. ANYONE in the world can sign. Help us reach our goal: planet.ly/petition

UK universities lost £6.2 billion on research grants in 2023-24 as the gap between grants and costs widened. Via @annamckie.bsky.social www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...

Happening now: NASA's Juno mission is closing in on Jupiter for the spacecraft's 73rd close encounter with the giant planet. Follow along virtually in real time at eyes.nasa.gov/apps/solar-system/#/sc_juno See the latest real images from Juno at missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing

Tomorrow, my kids and I are joining a "pack" on a Wolf Run to support "Wishes for Kids," in memory of a young friend. If you think the idea of me (a) running and (b) running in mud sounds like my idea of hell, why not support those making me do it? www.justgiving.com/page/claire-...

'Galaxy Rise' 777 images captured by Don Pettit are processed, graded & interpolated to create a video from ISS Expedition 72 with music by Chris Zabriskie. Cropped and edited from 6m04s 4k original. Credit: Don Pettit / ISS / NASA / ESRS / Seán Doran