Our Assistant or Associate Professor of Instruction position (emph on cosmology and/or relativity) is now up on the AAS Jobs Register aas.org/jobregister/... Note the short turnaround for submitting an application (Apr 30!).

Accelerating star surveys with SCExAO strike again! This time a work led by Uyama-san identifying a potential GJ229B-like companion (or something else strange going on) arxiv.org/abs/2604.03767

Our dept at UTSA invites applicants for a full-time, fixed-term Assistant/Associate Professor of Instruction position. This is a teaching position involving undergraduate courses in astronomy and/or physics, w/ emphasis on Cosmology and Relativity courses. bit.ly/4sjCi1V

For all the coronagraph fans out there: I'm pleased to share our paper (led by @mattkenworthy.bsky.social) on the design & performance of the Apodizing Phase Plate coronagraph for the ERIS instrument at the Very Large Telescope + our recommendations for using it to study exoplanets & brown dwarfs 🪐🔭

A new solar system in the making? For the second time ever, two planets have been directly observed forming around a host star. Our VLT and VLTI have helped astronomers confirm the presence of a second gas giant orbiting the star WISPIT 2.  More: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2604/ 🔭 🧪

Pro tip: when writing a proposal, write an introduction that, you know,*introduces* the topic to a reviewer who might not be thinking of your specialty every waking hour of their day. A good introduction, that also shows that you know what others are doing on the problem, really helps a proposal.

Steward teams are building instruments for Lazuli — a new space telescope launching by 2029 as part of the Eric & Wendy Schmidt Observatory System. Our adaptive optics will image giant exoplanets nearly a billion times dimmer than their host stars! bit.ly/4dkXYH1

Here come the cold giants! A combination of RV and astrometry reveals several "Jupiter analogues", among them one planet (around HIP 39330, a G5V star, ca. 100 ly away) that matches Jupiter quite nicely: a=5.05 au, e=0.078, M=1.67 M_jup. If only we could quickly check for terrestrial planets inside!

Happy Blacker Friday (er, Lotz Friday?) ... ... to those who celebrate (or mourn, depending on your proposal outcome?).

This is half the reason why I review papers.

between this and Jonathan Gagne's MOCA catalog, I have a lot of exploring to do ...

arxiv.org/abs/2603.00250 So ... now a claim that AB Aurigae has *another* protoplanet besides AB Aurigae b? I don't see this thing in any imaging/spectroscopy data set (CHARIS, STIS, MUSE,etc), incl unpublished. But I wouldn't be surprised if AB Aur b is not the only protoplanet in the system.

[one political post-- since it is about my state-- then back to science] Gracious. Now contrast this with the absolute dumpster fire that will likely be the GOP runoffs between Cornyn vs. Paxton (and Gonzales vs. Herrera).

arxiv.org/abs/2602.20346 SCExAO/CHARIS paper on polarimetry of Herbig Disks from Camryn Mullin!

Astronomers have used #NASAWebb—most powerful infrared telescope to date—to search for brown dwarfs at very low masses in a nearby nebula that contains newborn stars. Join Dr. Kevin Luhman (Penn State) for a discussion on the surprising aspect of these new brown dwarfs TONIGHT at 7 p.m. ET. 🔭

No idea whether this works well. But yet another reason for me to avoid depending on Canvas as much as humanly possible for courses I teach. Looks like I will be giving in-person exams the next time I teach ASTR 1013.

Pope Leo: “We perceive in the ashes imposed on us the weight of a world that is ablaze, of entire cities destroyed by war. This is also reflected in the ashes of international law and justice among peoples, the ashes of entire ecosystems and harmony among peoples, the ashes of critical thinking.”

We are lucky that the review quality in these core journals is pretty solid. My understanding is that other fields have a lot of low quality journals receiving fair % of manuscripts. Our poor-quality MDPI-afffiliated ones (e.g. "Galaxies": don't get me started) thankfully haven't caught on much.

That part of grad school when you'll do anything to not be writing.

In light of yesterday's EPA news, some broader and slightly brighter context, from Jeff Tollefson:

a good reminder...

John just made my life better ...

💯

conference.ipac.caltech.edu/SpiritofLyot6/ This is probably the most excited I've been to go to a conference in quite a while ...

Just a note: TODAY is the application deadline for the PhD program in Physics/Astro at UTSA. Best of luck!

After a hard day of work, I am going to chill on the sofa with a drink ... and do 4 hours of mandatory compliance training before I am allowed to submit proposals.

The bipartisan bill funding NASA & NSF -- rejecting proposed catastrophic cuts -- has been signed into law. This summer, I saw that the most left-leaning Democrats to hard-right Republicans in Congress agree on little yet both see the value of astro & planetary science. I hope support continues.

reactormag.com/definitively... You're welcome.

The whole story is worth reading, but I want to highlight this plot of science agency staffing that we pulled together from historic and current data. It shows that cuts to science staffing are almost uniformly steep across the board and unlike anything seen in the first Trump administration.

Happy Martin Luther King Day my friends: "I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war." Speech given on December 11, 1964 after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Lucy's Taqueria in Hilo, Hawaii. Simple, cheap but excellent. Great quesadillas and margaritas. For a while, I probably ate there at least once a week. Closed because hardworking owner decided to retire.

Just a reminder =)

NASA Discovers Distant Planet With Conditions That Could Sustain Rocks https://theonion.com/nasa-discovers-distant-planet-with-conditions-that-could-sustain-rocks/

Packed splinter session at #AAS247 for the announcement of The Eric and Wendy Schmidt Observatory System—a modular, rapid-response network of four novel observatories designed to democratize access to the cosmos. Read more about the initiatives here: www.schmidtsciences.org/focus-area-a...

Thank you US Senator Mark Kelly for welcoming #AAS247 attendees to Arizona and for your continued support of the astronomical sciences. We’re grateful for your ongoing advocacy for science and discovery. #ExploreAstronomy Photo by © CorporateEventImages/Todd Buchanan 2026 🔭

The Conference version of the bills that fund NASA and NSF: www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/do... (Report) www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/do... - 24.4 billion for NASA; 8.75 billion for NSF. -NSF shall advance both GMT and TMT to final design phase.

It looks like our luck this winter ran out.

The world seems like a dumpster fire but it is not *all* a dumpster fire. The drop in homicides in Baltimore looks quite encouraging.

Webpage updated! subarutelescope.org/staff/currie...

A nice article on our OASIS survey discoveries (HIP 54515 b, HIP 71618 B) from the Maunakea Observatories webpage: www.maunakeaobservatories.org/stories/suba... And local coverage in Hawaii: www.staradvertiser.com/2025/12/18/h... kauainownews.com/2025/12/17/d... bigislandnow.com/2025/12/18/m...

In a historical milestone, Hubble has witnessed the catastrophic collision of asteroids in the nearby Fomalhaut planetary system 🪨💥  Observations also revealed that an object previously suspected to be a candidate planet was, in fact, a dust cloud.  🔭 🧪

The Southwest Research Institute announces results on Europa/Clipper observations of the 3I/ATLAS (not-alien-ship) interstellar comet. Congratulations to everyone at SWRI + team! www.swri.org/newsroom/pre...

"comments very welcome!" - I don't think they would like my comments.

12 nights on SCExAO next semester from five programs (!!): - the OASIS survey allocation + follow up characterization - my own independent vetting of Roman Coronagraph ref/target star targets (b/c current plans=inadequate) - two WISPIT-2 programs Will be drowning in data.

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)

Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Cycle 1 Call for Proposals is Open! roman-docs.ipac.caltech.edu/roman-propos... Proposal Deadline: March 17, 2026 www.nasa.gov/missions/rom... "Roman is slated to launch by May 2027, but the team is on track for launch as early as fall 2026." #NASA #astronomy #AAS

NASA revealed they found some of the building blocks of life in a sample brought back from an asteroid (on a University of Arizona-led mission, by the way). It raises some big questions about whether there’s other life somewhere out there in the universe. According to my math, probably.

... and HIP 71618 B the first and (currently) only companion demonstrably suitable for the Roman Coronagraph Technology Demonstration arxiv.org/abs/2512.02126 [El Morsy et al. 2025, ApJ Letters in press]

(announcement 1 of 2) everyone, say hello to ... HIP 54515 b: the 3rd planet jointly discovered from direct imaging and astrometry arxiv.org/abs/2512.02159 [Currie & Li et al. 2025, AJ in press] Press releases to follow tomorrow

Subaru/SCExAO observing to look for more planets. 0.25" seeing right now giving us a nice looking PSF