I've been asked a few times over the last few days what I think the chances are that the "leopard spots and poppy seeds" on Mars will turn out to be actual evidence of life. People are naturally skeptical given the history of possible signs of life on other planets. Strap in: long thread ahead...

NPR wants to write about what makes travel difficult for people who use wheelchairs--with hotels. Tell us your stories. www.npr.org/2025/09/11/g...

Hey - That's me! Come see!

VOTE HEMATITE! #MinCup25 As an Fe-oxide researcher, I’m excited to advocate for this 🧲 mineral. Here we go: 🟥 Banded Iron Formations 🫐 Mars dust + “blueberry” spherules 🧲 Magnetic (helpful for easy separation!) 🎨 Ancient pigments & those awesome 80s/90s necklaces (you KNOW you had them!)

The IAGD is now accepting applications for our Student Pathways Scholarship for the Fall 2025 cycle with a deadline of September 30th. The one-time awards of $750 are meant to support students with disabilities studying any geoscience discipline. Learn more and apply at forms.gle/Sj4N5zmyk9ED...

🗣️ The invite to the IAGD's official Discord just dropped! ✨ Everyone who supports accessibility and inclusion in the geosciences is welcome in our community regardless of ability or disability. We'd love to have you join us! Use the QR code or go to discord.gg/sVpckvEw

To create and sustain equitable workplaces for people with disabilities, employers and coworkers should be aware of how the disability tax negatively impacts d/Disabled workers. Read William Harkness's new article on this phenomenon at tinyurl.com/y5u7stts

@go4know.com Thanks for following my Lego Periodic Table project. My project depends on SUPPORT VOTES submitted at the link If you haven't already please SUPPORT it and share it. SUPPORT here (it's free) ideas.lego.com/s/p:7ea5c858...

NEW: The White House wants to kill off Juno, NASA's mission to uncover Jupiter's secrets. Fortunately, its legacy is clear. Juno's a scientist, but also an artist: it revealed Jupiter as a living van Gogh painting hanging in the sky. Me @sciam.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-...

...and finally for today, made from Navcam images taken two days ago, a wonderful new view of Perseverance with the Big Country martian landscape stretched out behind her... This took ages to make so I hope you like it enough to Share it! Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/S Atkinson

Hey Mates! Free #spaceArt sticker. Just order here. There is an option to buy something, but you don’t have to. You can just get the free sticker. Missions selected at random. chopshopstore.myflodesk.com/freemission | #sciArt #Voyager #Cassini #MarsRover

Via #CSPAN and the NASA Johnson Spaceflight Center Oral History Project: Video of the James Lovell Interview (on YouTube) www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYcb...

Rest in peace, Jim Lovell www.nasa.gov/news-release...

Please consider submitting an abstract for the GSA session focused on perceptions, community, and identity for geoscientists with disabilities. Abstracts are due August 5th. Submit at connects.geosociety.org/.../technica...

🪐👁️ It’s here!! 🪐👁️ The inaugural issue of DiG is out in time for Disability Pride Month! PDF files are available on the project's Tumblr in full color and greyscale, and various sizes. digzinehq.tumblr.com/issues 1/4

NASA employees have released their own 'dissent' letter, joining NIH and EPA employees in protesting agency changes in the Trump administration. They call it the Voyager Declaration. Words by me: 🧪🛰️ www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Geo-professionals with disabilities will be leading a short course at GSA Connects this year about the experiences of people with disabilities in the geoscience workforce. Can’t get to San Antonio? You can attend virtually! Learn more and register at store.geosociety.org/products/sc2...

Today is the ten-year anniversary of New Horizon's closest approach to Pluto, when it changed our understanding of the (former) planet forever. It also changed my life, so I've written a retrospective of the last ten years I've spent with Pluto: medium.com/@adeene.dent...

Do you know someone who has made a positive impact on accessibility and inclusion of people with disabilities in the geosciences? Nominate them for the fall 2025 IGER Award cycle by August 1! Students, instructors, and geoscience professionals all qualify. Learn more at theiagd.org/iger/

Rolling Stone continues to teach a masterclass in headline writing www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Giving up the goal of exploring space and developing cutting edge technologies to enable exploration... in favor of... grants to companies to put tourists into low earth orbit? Is that the end game here?

and a letter informing her she had been nominated for a Nobel arrived after her death. This Disability Pride month let me point out that she had progressive hearing loss & repeated severe illness. She was described by colleagues as joyful & full of sunshine. #linocut #printmaking #DisabledInSTEM

Happy Disability Pride Month! Disability is diversity. Disability is identity for many. Disability is/can be a source of pride regardless of if society's values imply the opposite. 🖤💗💛🤍💙💚🖤

I attended an earlier version of this workshop a few years ago, and found it both engaging and informative. Highly recommend to any space scientist!

The details are not yet finalized, but the budget bill would devastate NASA science and the future of US exploration in space and astronomy. Among many other things. 🔭🧪 www.planetary.org/articles/nas...

NASA's science division is on life support. The President's budget request would cut science by 47%, basically ending American excellence in astro, #PlanetaryScience, Earth, and solar science. Funding would be at 1961 levels - BEFORE the Moon landings. 🔭🧪 TAKE ACTION HERE: linktr.ee/savespacesci...

MAVEN. Odyssey. Still working, doing science, acting as surface relays. No planned replacements. So much lost science. (Am not where I am today without ODY. Somewhere there are grad students who will leave science b/c the funding was cut to “save” a few pennies).

"To associate Mars exploration with the devastation of American space science...to tie it to the alienation of our allies and partners, is to doom the effort to failure. Mars deserves better." - @caseydreier.bsky.social Humans deserve better too. spacenews.com/the-administ...

Call your reps. I know you’re going to say “but mine don’t care” and let me tell you yes, they will actually care, because you don’t just call. After you call, you tell three friends who aren’t online, and ask them to call. Posting is useless. Pick up the phone and tell them not to sell your land.

CT Space Grant scholarships support multiple of our current students, and I likely wouldn't have finished grad school without support from the AZ and PA Space Grant programs. Eliminating Space Grant is going to reduce the number of scientists and engineers graduating US universities, period.

"Why do you love Mars so much? It's just red rocks!" Why? Because those red rocks were already ancient as we were inventing fire & now, 1000s of years later, a nuclear-powered robot scientist is studying them so we can learn their secrets. That's why. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/fredk/S Atkinson

Our NASA Briefing Webinar starts in 5 minutes! Register here: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

We're looking for volcano researchers who use drones to fill out a short(ish) survey on typical field practices and use of UAS. We'll present some preliminary results at IAVCEI in Geneva @iavcei.bsky.social next month. Survey here: forms.gle/TWLt2qq1XLZz... Thank you!!!

Planetary geo folks, consider proposing planetary sessions for your regional GSA meeting (and submit abstracts!). Regionals are small but also more affordable, esp. for students. Yeah, regions don’t usually have much planetary b/c spring is LPSC. Let’s change that. Session proposals due July 15.

Here's NASA astrophysics, if I read the president's proposed budget correctly. 🔭

The Presidents Budget Request for NASA is out. It’s a bloodbath Canceled are DAVINCI, VERITAS, Juno, OSIRIS-APEX, US participation in ExoMars and EnVision… Huge cut to R&A. No funding to begin development of the Uranus Orbiter. If you’ve ever cared about NASA, time to contact congress.

What strikes me about the NSF termination data is exactly this: the PIs *doing the work* of making science more inclusive are primarily women, people of color, people with disabilities, and all intersections of those identities.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin's work was important for planetary atmospheres, too. It showed that the reason Earth's atmosphere is depleted in Neon isn't that stars (hence protoplanetary disks) are low in Neon. Rather, it must have lost it along with the primordial atmosphere.

If you're a disabled student or researcher that has been impacted by the NSF/NIH grant terminations, I'd like to talk to you for a possible @cenmag.bsky.social article! Signal: kvasquez.12 Email: k_vasquez(at)acs.org Bsky DMs: Open! #DisabledInSTEM

Hey everybody, READ THIS! 👇🏻🧪🔭 Adeene has written a thoughtful and eloquent piece about why our national parks and our dark skies are important for our humanity and worth preserving. I endorse every word. Plus the photos are ❤️‍🔥!

Oh wow…. another weird asteroid. Why did I stop working with small bodies? They’re really neat.

HAPPY TAX DAY! How much would you spend on a year of tornado warnings? The average US taxpayer spends only $4 a year to help fund the NWS. It’s a smart investment—every $1 invested in NWS yields approx. $73 in social benefits. 🌪️❄️ Support science. Support the NWS. Stay tuned for more this #TaxDay

20% cut to NASA, save 0.01% of federal budget. -Mothball the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope -50% cut from Science Mission Directorate -Cancel Mars Sample Return and DAVINCI (return to Venus) -Close Goddard Space Flight Center This would destroy U.S. space science. arstechnica.com/space/2025/0...

@accessiblegeo.bsky.social Can we help out here? @skypeascientist.bsky.social is looking for a geologist who knows ASL.

Linkrination (LINK-rih-nay-shun) n. – The delusional belief that repeatedly reposting the same link on social media will eventually cause it to go viral through sheer persistence. bit.ly/BeyondEarth-... | #spaceArt #planets #voyager #mars @planetarysociety.bsky.social

Post #LPSC2025 thread: curious to hear from others: what did *you* get from meeting presentations? Do you prefer the “a year of work in one talk/poster” with lots of results or the “details on one small bit and how it fits into a larger project”? What do you remember, without checking notes?

And #LPSC2025 comes to a close. Thanks to everyone who did a talk/made a poster/made this conference all it could be. Y'all did amazing work ahead of a possibly weird, certainly uncertain future for planetary science. Y'all are the best of the best. Here's hoping for an even more amazing #LPSC2026.

BTW if you'd like to hear Adeene Denton @spacewhalerider.com speaking more about the Kiss-and-Capture hypothesis for Pluto-Charon, she gave an extended interview on the Planetary Society's Planetary Radio with Sarah Al-Ahmed, Feb. 5. Check that out here: www.planetary.org/planetary-ra... #LPSC2025