“Never before has Hubble caught a fragmenting comet this close to when it actually fell apart. Most of the time, it's a few weeks to a month later. And in this case, we were able to see it just days after,” a scientist said. (6/6) 🔭 🧵

"The first is to treat the draft [of a research paper or thesis] as a thinking space rather than a performance space. Early drafts are places where you write as well as you can at the time."

For those interested, the research paper is quite impressive. [Open] www.nature.com/articles/s41... Modern analytical chemistry is very powerful. Nucleobases are remarkably easily synthesized.

Looking at the AAS jobregister lately, it seemed to me that there are less positions available in all categories than in previous years. Wanting to quantify, I used the wayback machine to check on the number of postings in the January-March window and it is quite depressing.

So I guess we at Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society support emojis now. ApJ would never! Please use this power carefully. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3... 🔭

Skill issue

Been a lovely day visiting Durham University. In a few minute I’m giving the Grubb Parson Lecture talking about how Rubin Observatory will change over view of the Solar System in the next few years

All packed up for a road trip to catch the shadow of Jupiter's moon Kallichore for @science.esa.int JUICE mission. 🇦🇨🔭

The future of UK Astronomy & Particle Physics is at risk from proposed 30% funding cuts that, if implemented, will be "genuinely catastrophic". Great to see this detailed BBC report on the issue by @pallabg.bsky.social 🔭🧪⚛️ #STFCcuts #SaveUKAstronomy 🗞️: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Hey #WomenInSTEM, please check out the qualifications and skills and DON'T WRITE YOURSELF OFF if you think you would be a good match. Throw your hat in the ring!

❌️ Stop the cuts! ❌️ We've been campaigning extensively for the reversal of proposed cuts to astronomy and space science. To help spread the word, we've also created some 'Save UK Astronomy' stickers! 🔭🪐 You can pick one up at any RAS event and show your support for the cause.

If you haven’t watched this before, you really should. The brilliant Dr. Carl Sagan testifying before the United States Congress in 1985 on #ClimateChange. We should have listened then. Will we now? Remember, climate change isn’t an on & off switch. It’s an exponential dial. We’re making it worse.

4-Year Elizabeth Gardner Fellowship in Physics/Astro @ Edinburgh! - early career - personal background currently under-represented in the School - Pay Grade: Lecturer (~Assoc. Prof.) - ***Deadline 20 April 2026*** 🔭🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🧪 elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Totally agree with all of this, _and_ the fact that demand for funding and JWST time so chronically swamp supply means that the dividing line between successful and unsuccessful proposals of equal actual merit is more arbitrary than we’d like but there is pressure to make it look qualitative.

I'm one of many professors quoted in this report from Alice Speri. I really appreciate The Guardian taking an angle which has basically eluded every other major outlet.

Something I’m genuinely curious about: can academic research financially afford to go all-in on AI? We used to have to pass the hat to cover buying a new laser printer.

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!

Oof, only an ~8% selection rate for JWST proposals (225 out of 2855 proposals!).

nearly a 50% cut in basic science, which underpins everything no Wright brothers, no Apollo mission

The Space Telescope Science Institute has announced the selection of 254 James Webb Space Telescope Cycle 5 General Observer programs: https://news.stsci.edu/4bneuDE 🔭 🧪 #NASAWebb

On the occasion of Chile’s Astronomy Day celebrations, we will launch the first public night visit tours at our La Silla and Paranal observatories — the first programme of this kind in Chile! Discover more: https://www.eso.org/public/announcements/annlang26003-es-cl/?nolang 🔭 🧪 📷 A. Trigo/ESO

"Galactic center" is misleading. I think the authors are *assuming* the Sun migrated from ~5 to 8 kpc.

Alright JWST friends, deep breaths before checking your inbox. 🔭

Today's group meeting with discussing David Hogg's musing on the use of AI in astronomy (ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2026arXi...) [a must read] and the importance of stupidity in scientific research (journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...)

🔭 Storytime! This paper consumed my soul for a month and it turns out that you have to look at your 2D spectroscopic data. Thread... ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2024OJAp...

The Science, Innovation & Tech committee have written the most amazing letter to DSIT/UKRI/STFC: "What is clear is that, despite your assertions to the contrary... widespread cuts have been proposed before adequate consultation with those affected was undertaken. This is wholly unacceptable" 💪🔭⚛️🧪

The @aas.org is conducting a search for the AAS Editor in Chief, who is responsible for developing and implementing a long-term editorial strategy for the Society’s journals portfolio. See this link for more details of this full-time position and the application process. journals.aas.org/eicsearch

Hopeful news about the STFC Crisis I've just got time this evening to pass on news that the Chair of the Parliamentary Select Committee looking at he current STFC debacle (see this account), Chi Onwurah, has responded to the events in extremely frank terms. Here is an excerpt: The full response -…

arXiv is being spun out from Cornell University and is looking for an inaugural CEO. jobs.chronicle.com/job/37961678...

I may have leveled up in my data processing - I've now added a status bar to my loop to show its progress rather than printing out the number of iterations of the loop.

And given that we’re kind of near tornado season, I thought it would be smart to use this time to go over what is a watch and what is a warning. The first photo is a waffle watch: Conditions are ripe for a possible waffle. The second is a waffle warning: We have a verified waffle in the area.

Just before I retired, the public affairs team at the Center for Astrophysics did a sort of exit interview with me that is now available as a podcast... www.youtube.com/watch?v=S19c...

OK, and ending this particular flurry of activity (I think), here's our Research Note of the AAS giving some more details about our work on #2024YR4. This publication is word-limited and figure-limited, but hopefully will hold folks until we publish a fuller paper in coming weeks! 🔭🧪

People haven't changed much. Cat ring from 1390 BC Egypt.

New book day!

This is amazing work, especially in dealing with the systematics. Definitely something I'll be looking at from now on.

In 1787, the first paper by a woman was read to a meeting of the Royal Society, Caroline Herschel's 'Account of a new comet'. See more on our interactive timeline: #WomenInSTEM #WomensHistoryMonth https://royalsociety.org/news-resources/women-in-stem/publications-timeline/

#heliophysics 😂

Hello beasties - long time since I've made a heliocentric distance versus inclination plot.

For reference, without AXIS, the earliest that a high-resolution X-ray imaging mission can launch -- the successor to the Chandra X-ray Observatory -- is 2050s or 2060s. 🔭

The @axisprobe.bsky.social team learned that the phase A concept study report of AXIS (the Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite) will not be reviewed because the lost personnel at NASA Goddard and government shutdown impacted our schedule and budget. 🔭 Here is the PI's e-mail with the explanation.

Gladsaxe replaced its standard white LED fixtures with specialized red LED streetlights along Frederiksborgvej. The installation was strategically placed near a known bat colony to mitigate the impact of artificial light on the nocturnal ecosystem. dailygalaxy.com/2026/03/denm...

Revealed: UK’s multibillion AI drive is built on ‘phantom investments’ www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Fun fact: people googling ‘Solar Flare’ is a great measure of the Sun’s 11-year solar cycle!

Open Lecturer in Planetary Science position at UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory (Dorking) The successful applicant will be expected to perform research using data from the Rosalind Franklin Mission, but also other planetary bodies, such as the Moon and the Outer Planets icy moons. ☄️🔭🧪

I hope everyone who checked out @hogg.bsky.social’s white paper on the implications of LLMs in astronomy and shared it across slack channels similarly perused and amplified this white paper of best practices for broadening participation in astronomy!

Recommended watch: A new film, narrated by actor Michael Sheen and titled You Told Us To Talk About the Weather, aimed to promote conversation about climate change with a blend of “poetry, folk horror and climate storytelling”.

Some thoughts after two parliamentary committee hearings lifeandphysics.com/2026/03/08/s... #LifeAndPhysics

Applications are open for our visiting grad student pre-doctoral program at the CCA @flatironinstitute.org ! More info here: www.simonsfoundation.org/2023-flatiro...

Humanity heating planet faster than ever before, study finds