“After completing the @ESO #ELT, the Earthlings would have to cross the mirror superstructure whilst avoiding the Vortex - if they were caught, they would have to walk all the way home.” #TheAdventureGame #astrodon #exoplanets

I never leave the music player on my computer in ‘pause’ mode because the mechanical tension applied to the tape in your audio cassette tape player could stretch or snap(!) your favourite album. I believe it gives the audio file on the computer time to rest, too. Old habits die hard. #audio

I got contacted by a journalist to comment on Avi Loeb's appointment to lead US research into UFOs. I told the unfiltered, inconvenient truth about what it means to the best of my knowledge. Scroll past Avi's bloviating and see if you agree: www.alternet.org/trump-ufos-m...

Sulphur chemistry and nucleation of dust species out of gasphase to kickstart cloud formation in hot Jupiters. Cloud formation NEEDS solid cloud condensation nuclei. On rocky planets it's easy. For very cold worlds in the outer system it's easier. But for hot Jupiters, it is REALLY difficult.

FINALLY the field has not only realized that planets are 3D (cite us, we predicted quite some stuff that you see), small planets are very diverse including bare rocks. This Solar System educated geoscientists is basically "d'oh!" all the time. #exoplanets6

Can we please stop having astro meetings in the middle of the European summer in venues with little/no AC?

Always worth revisiting The Chaser's piece on whether anyone would let in a Trojan horse: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjSh...

“I have done all of the things that one is supposed to do to earn a tenure-track position. And I have done approximately 85% of them by typing prompts into a large language model and then moderately editing the output.” 🤣🤣🤣 brilliant 👌🏽 open.substack.com/pub/inprepar...

I'm merely suggesting that a candidate that has seen six prime ministers and has a strong stance on mice and afternoon naps might be the leader we need right meow... #LarryForPM

You see, this is what frustrates me - this is an utterly amazing science result, genuinely an astonishing discovery about interstellar comets, yet this will never get the same press as someone yelling "ZOMG IT'S ALIENS!!!1!"

Finally worked out how to switch on multiprocessing in emcee for my Mac, and now it’s sounding like an airplane about to take off… Now to work out how to write COMPRESSED h5 files since emcee doesn’t seem to respect the ‘compressed’ option… #astrodon #exoplanets 🔭🧪☄️

Stars of physics are in Westminster right now to call on the Government to halt funding cuts to astronomy and particle physics research. Professor Brian Cox called them "inexplicable", urging the Government to instead "trust, inspire and continue to invest in the next generation of scientists".

Meet Roman experts to learn more about the mission, how to work with Roman data, and get some stickers! 👾 Come visit the IPAC and STScI booths in Pasadena Convention Center Exhibit Hall A throughout the week. #AAS248 #ExpandOurView #NASARoman

Anyone at #CoolStars #exoplanets know who will be posting/who to follow, please? I'd love to hear the results from there.... or if there's an official tag for it?

I love astroinstrumentation papers that really dig into the details - these instruments and detectors are amazing at what they do, but "know thy instrument" is so, so important when making bold science claims.

I have no idea what a basketball is, or how many wickets to a goal on the pitch it scores, but this is some fantastic and compelling writing right here:

González Picos+ on “The carbon isotope ratio of β Pic b with high-resolution spectroscopy” showing values consistent with the ISM and below Solar levels. Comparison with different exoplanets shows no significant trend with orbital distance or mass of the exoplanet. #astrodon #exoplanets 🔭

I only just realised that the original ANSI 8 colors (0=black, 1=red, 2=green, 3=yellow, 4=blue, magenta, cyan, white) are in that order because Cathode Ray Tubes had separate electron guns for the red, green, and blue phosphors… Red=001, Green=010, Blue=100…so magenta=red+blue=1+4=5! Mind. Blown.

Overleaf users: does anyone know how to generate an output PDF where the text is highlighted according to the contributor’s name? This is on Overleaf Premium and it feels like someone, somewhere has probably done this already…. #overleaf #git #astrodon #exoplanets #academicwriting

A beautiful pair of images, and sums up the challenges I have with my exoplanet research: "Well at least I can measure the proper motion of my candidate exoplanet using the distant background sta- uh oh...."

Exomoons in 2026 - close but no cigar (yet): https://kenworthy.micro.blog/2026/06/05/exomoons-in-close-but-no.html

I led a paper on “Upper limits on exosatellites around Beta Pictoris b” where we searched for exomoons/satellites around the closest known directly imaged exoplanet. We combined CRIRES+ radial velocity and astrometry showing nothing >150 Earth mass in the Hill sphere #astrodon #exoplanets 🔭 /1

It's true - I never put three astronomy journals next to each other on the library shelf, just in case they disappear in a burst of sparkles...

This is absolutely astonishing - it's rare in astronomy to see so much change on a human timescale, but this really shows how dynamic the gas and dust around a young star can be. Seeing the shadows from the inner regions cast out onto the outer spiral arms, amazing!

A stark warning:"The proposal threatens irreparable harm, not only to the University of Nottingham’s international standing, but more generally to the reputation of UK science for quality and stability, signalling that the national research base can be slashed by the stroke of an accountant’s pen."

An excellent article by the Astronomer Royal for Scotland that points out the excellence of British astronomy and what is going to be lost if these senseless cuts are carried out.

My chaotic attractor. Made with #python #numpy #matplotlib and #marimo (and also #wigglystuff)

Tony Blair's back with some fresh new ideas for the government I see.

Student paper day 2: Elina Kleisioti+ on “Interior-Atmosphere Coupling on TRAPPIST-1 f, g, and h: Cryovolcanic Water Exospheres and Infrared Detectability” where tidal heating between transiting exoplanets generates H2O vapour exospheres but too thin for JWST detections #astrodon #exoplanets 🪐🔭

Student paper day part 1: Michiel Darcis+ on “The spectral energy distribution of YSES 1 b and its circumplanetary disc” where it’s detected in optical wavelengths with MagAO-X: including the circumplanetary disk now revises the mass up to 26-41 Mjup depending on age #astrodon #exoplanets 🪐🔭

Yes, this.

Am scientist. Can confirm.

Gefeliciteerd!

Highly unimpressed with the #penguin print of a Terry #pratchett book I just bought… halfway through the font changes to low-res! Amazing that something so basic can get past a quality check. @penguinbooksusa.bsky.social @rhi.bsky.social @terrypratchett.bsky.social

Emails I got this weekend from a major astronomy journal: 🔭 - Saturday: request to review a paper - Sunday: a repeated request to review the paper - Monday (public holiday in most countries): email complaining that I never replied A great way to solve the shortage of reviewers is to piss them off!

still not quite over the fact that i watched 15 year olds get sued for millions of dollars for downloading twelve songs and now we all have to accept AI slop because every tech company in the known universe decided that IP laws don't exist now that they're inconvenient for them

56 of our wonderful colleagues at in the #Physics & #Astronomy department in Nottingham (UK) received “at risk of redundancy” letters. Their University is planning to reduce the size of the Physics department by a third. Consider sign the open letter: 🔭 nottinghamphysics.github.io/Open_Letter/

Masterstudent UvA ontdekt ‘amandelvormige’ exoplaneet op rand van uiteenvallen www.astronomie.nl/nieuws/maste...

This cursed plot is the astronomy equivalent of "The Backrooms". Don't stare at it too long... #astroNOmy #ThisIsFine #TheBackrooms #AIslop

Sorry for the rant but I feel like this only seems silly because it is about Pluto being a planet or not which — honestly — does not matter too much. But encouraging the norm of using popular consensus as a justification for "scientific" conclusions is BAD.

The outer Solar system is proving far more active than previously thought... interesting!

good morning planet, vier je vrijheid 🥳✔️🇳🇱

Utterly magnificent.

Pretty spectacular to see different isotopologues of water(!) in the spectra from Kühnle et al. in Oxygen and nitrogen isotopologues on cold COCONUTS-2b observed with MIRI/MRS just amazing details zooming in on the spectra. All absorption lines full of information. #astrodon #exoplanets

Casassus+ on Hourly radio variability of PDS70c from time-differential photometry using the ALMA array to see fluctuations around this exoplanet and circumplanetary disk. Very cool to see how quickly this flux can change! #astrodon #exoplanets

Oh now THAT is super cool!

Another place you can look is in the geysers around Enceladus - so we looked at CASSINI images to look for the glint there... and we saw something! (but not entirely sure what...) ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2025Icar...

Just had this interaction with one of the Dutch students in my group. This may well be the pinnacle of my professional career.

My all-time favourite method of debugging is going to bed and looking at it again the next morning.