Really interesting white paper! And a great reminder to align our methods with the outcomes we desire. If our outcomes value human discovery and wonder, our methods (and training of students) should value those too!

The new #ASPIRES3 Physics report is difficult reading. Physics: * remains male-dominated (24% fem) & privileged * aspirations decline from the start to end of school 😔 * is considered the least interesting, most difficult science 😭 * is for brainy "geeks" 😮‍💨 Lots of useful recommendations though🎢🧪👩‍🔬⚛️

How a solar radiation storm created January 2026’s aurora The first good auroral show of 2026 began not with a solar flare nor a coronal mass ejection, but a solar radiation (particle) storm. It's the first big one since 2003! bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #particle #sun #astro #heliophysics

Read more about the bills passed yesterday (aas.org/posts/news/2...), and thank your members of Congress today! aas.org/action-alert...

Deployment of Pandora

Now that I can take a breath, I'm SUPER EXCITED we can share that NASA's first Pioneer-class mission, Pandora, is launching this weekend, January 11, at 5:19am!!! I was the Mission Archive Scientist on the proposal, and the NASA Exoplanet Archive will host the mission data. svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14945/

The final Calvin and Hobbes, which appeared in papers 30 years ago today.

We've added a tool to upload your published parameters to the NASA Exoplanet Archive! This tool can help us get your new planets and planet parameters onto the archive, so check it out and consider using for your next #exoplanet paper! 🔭🧪 exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/support/uplo...

First time at #AAS247? You’re not alone! ✨ Check out this orientation guide from the AAS Education Committee, created to help students and first-time attendees navigate the meeting. 🔭 aas.org/meetings/aas... @education.aas.org

You see the printed black square from a page in Robert Fludd's "Utriusque cosmi maioris" (1617) that represented the nothingness that was prior to the universe. The square is framed by four sentences in Latin: "Et sic in infinitum" (And so on to infinity). #earlymodern #skystorians

New orbit movie just dropped. This one is for the newly discovered circumbinary planet HD 143811 AB b. This 9-year timelapse was made through an international collaboration with me, Nathalie Jones (Northwestern graduate student), and Vito Squicciarini (Exeter postdoc)

A discovery fit for Star Wars: CIERA astronomers have directly imaged a Tatooine-like planet orbiting two suns — and it’s closer to its stars than any other directly imaged planet in a binary system. 🌟🌟🪐https://bit.ly/4q8Dfto @thejason.wang #Exoplanets #Astronomy #Northwestern #CIERA

🚀The Roman Cycle 1 Call for Proposals is OPEN! Unlock new discoveries with the Wide Field Instrument—your science starts here! Apply for funding to analyze Roman data, perform theory/lab research, and propose new observations. 🔭☄️ 📅 Deadline: Mar 17, 2026 (5 PM PDT) 📝 bit.ly/4q3jbbL

New paper led by Fabian Polnitzcky & with @sratzenboeck.bsky.social + @joaoalves.bsky.social: based on the ages of stars with infrared excess in Sco-Cen, it seems planet-forming disks last around twice as long as previous estimates suggest - giving twice as long for planets to form. 🔭☄️ #exoplanets

omgomgomg beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...

In good news: "NASA Completes Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Construction" www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-co...

NASA has completed the construction of #NASARoman! Last month, technicians joined the inner and outer portions of the observatory in Maryland. After final testing, Roman will move to the launch site at the Kennedy Space Center for launch preparations in summer 2026: https://go.nasa.gov/48EqnE8 🔭 🧪

You've probably heard about how the rapidly increasing numbers of satellites are affecting #astronomy. A new paper in @nature.com looks at the possible future for space-based telescopes — and finds 96% of some images could be impacted. 🧪🔭🛰️ By @jennaahart.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Join us tomorrow from 2-3pm ET for a special fireside chat on the art of storytelling within space sciences! This is a free event featuring a chat and Q&A with Joy Jones and Tim Fielder. As always, the link to register can be found on our website, we hope to see you there 🌟

@bot.astronomy.blue signup

[On the bench today ⚒️ #BehindTheScenes] I'm working on these ✨amazing✨ hand-painted #mars #rover pendants as part of my collab with celestial pottery artist @amyraehill.bsky.social 🤩 All one-of-a-kind, launching soon: sciencesocks.co/page...#BehindTheScenes]#mars🔭🐡🧪🎨

Join this month's Roman Virtual Lecture Series to learn about Photometric calibration uncertainties in stage IV supernova cosmology.    Subscribe to tinyurl.com/RVLSsubscr for call-in details! 📅  Thurs Nov 20 (Today!) 🕐 4-4:30 PM EDT 🔗 bit.ly/4m7MkjY

This is a real image of a real thing that exists in the universe! And because a bunch of humans decided to get together and build a space telescope, we get to see it! 🤯

First time in a while where I’ve had the “wait that’s an IMAGE. That’s the DATA.” double take.

The average SNAP benefit per month is $177 a person. The average ACA benefit per month is up to $550 a person. People want us to hold the line for a reason. This is not a matter of appealing to a base. It’s about people’s lives. And working people want leaders whose word means something to them.

Hey you. YES YOU. Super persnickety astronomer. You know who you are. NASA Exoplanet Archive just updated our overview pages so the stars are closer to their actual colours, as per Harre & Heller (2021) and Cranmer (2021). You're welcome. 😎 (You can thank @kevinkhu.bsky.social!)

Dear Physicists and Physics fans, I would like to encourage you to celebrate #WomenInPhysics Day this Friday, November 7th. Why November 7th? Because it is the birthday of two of the most impactful women physicists of the 1900's: Marie Curie and Lise Meitner. 🎢 ⚛️ 🧪 👩‍🔬

Already registered for #AAS247, but didn’t sign up for any workshops? Here’s how to sign up: aas.org/meetings/aas... 1) Click “Register for AAS 247” from the conference webpage 2) Scroll to the table with the section labeled “1. Workshops” 3) Scroll to the workshop you want , click “Add” (1/2)

HiRISE 3D: Fine Layer Deformation Redux Today’s HiPOD doubles as our 3D post because it was just too good to pass up! (See the HiPOD for details.) Full image: https://www.uahirise.org/anaglyph/ESP_089275_2270_ESP_088932_2270_RED NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona #Mars #NASA #science

Making Lemmonade 🍋 Couldn’t pass up a chance to go after Comet Lemmon given last night’s combination of clear skies and a new moon. Good way to replenish the soul after that heartbreaking ALCS finale. 😅 🏷️: 📸🌿🐡🔭

Growing list of astronomy PhD programs that are pausing admissions this year 🔭 aas.org/posts/news/2...

For this money, your tax dollars could have paid for a second TESS mission to find planets, but instead:

So proud of Phoenix! She’s amazing, does cool research and has done so much at an early stage in her career. She’s applying to grad programs too! So 👀. Y’all would be lucky to have her! #BlackInAstro

my last phd thesis paper is now accepted to ApJ and is on the arXiv today! arxiv.org/abs/2510.11021 We simulate the PDS 70 exoplanet system's future using hydrodynamic + n-body simulations involving the disk and the two planets to see how its orbital architecture evolves! 🪐🪐

Valuable info about the Physics Nobel Prize today from Prof. Joseph Barranco at SFSU on Martinis and Devoret being a grad student and postdoc in Clarke's lab at UC Berkeley & Clark and Devoret being immigrants. "California *public* education made this happen. Immigration made this happen." ⚛️

Kylee Carden reports for @astrobites.bsky.social on how we might someday detect moons around planets outside our solar system by precisely tracking the positions of a star and a planet. aasnova.org/2025/10/06/f... 🔭

This week (!) is the 30th anniversary of the announcement of 51 Pegasi b, the first exoplanet found orbiting a star like our Sun - since then, we've found over 6,000! To celebrate, @alexwitze.bsky.social and @nature.com collected some astronomers' favourite planets: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Outstanding new paper from Evert Nasedkin on the variable, isolated exoplanet analog, T dwarf, SIMP-0136! Time resolved atmospheric retrievals find temperature driving variability and potential auroral signatures (stratospheric temperature inversion)!

#NASAWebb has found the first direct evidence of potential moon formation around a giant exoplanet. The discovery is shedding light on how such systems evolve and why moons could be potentially habitable worlds: https://bit.ly/46xGodN 🔭 🧪

STScI's Alyssa Pagan says that there is a methodology for dealing with the wider electromagnetic spectrum: “In terms of assigning color, we generally do some standard chromatic ordering because it has the most scientific value and meaning in it, and usually also gives you aesthetic images.” 🔭 🧪

From Kylee Carden: Though moons are ubiquitous in our Solar System, we have not yet found one elsewhere (an exomoon). Today’s paper investigates whether we could find moons by precisely tracking the positions of a star and planet. 🔭✨☄️ astrobites.org/2025/09/25/e...

For those who may not know ... the magnetic field of Uranus is tilted ~60 deg relative to its spin axis. So it looks like the aurorae are occurring near the equator, because, in fact, they are! Within ~ 30deg of the equator.

We *absolutely* should celebrate it. Do your part by enjoying the 200+ page masterpiece in its entirety on ADS! ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1925PhDT... 🔭 Special shoutout to Figure 2, an incredible piece of art that I want on my wall (and suspect could even make an excellent tattoo if executed well?)

Today is a special paper day for me: for the first time we can do chemistry in a circumplanetary disk around a planetary-mass companion! Gabriele Cugno and I used JWST to tease out the signal of CT Cha b, finding a rich carbon chemistry (7 molecules + 1 isotopolog detected)! arxiv.org/abs/2509.15209

Some tidbits about the most recent 1,000 exoplanets: - Nearly half (~490) were discovered with NASA's TESS mission - As a result, their host stars are nearly *10 times brighter on average* than previous stars! - We have found a lot more cool giant planets (Jupiter analogs), with RV and imaging

Sometimes 2025 just feels like a lot, and you need an excuse to celebrate your fabulous team (and the whole exoplanet community!) reaching a new milestone… Happy 6,000 Confirmed Exoplanets Day, everybody!!!! (You may recognize the narrator of the video at the link! 🫣) www.nasa.gov/universe/exo...

NSF Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoc Fellowship apps are OPEN! 🔭 However, app only appears on research.gov if your role "Proposed Postdoctoral Fellow"! Click "Proposals", "Prepare and Submit Proposals", then "Prepare New". If you do not see NSF 22-621, change role to "Proposed Postdoctoral Fellow"!

We observed the habitable zone planet TRAPPIST-1e with JWST to search for an atmosphere. You've seen the headlines, now let's dive into the science! 🧪 THREAD (1/N) #Exoplanets 🔭

Okay, now that I can stop talking with all caps, why is this important? So, we're looking for planets like Earth, right? It's the only place we've found with life so far. What makes it "Earth"? Well, some things include being a rocky planet, and being the right temperature for liquid water. (1/N)

WELCOME TO THE FAMILY, ALPHA CEN A b!!! First hinted at in Wagner+21, now Chas Beichman, Aniket Sanghi and team have published new JWST images of alpha Cen A showing another hint of this Saturn-sized planet candidate! exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/overview/alp...