Working on the formal obituary for Uwe Fink and came across this in his phot collection. From when our building had a more open floor plan.

These marbles at the gem show would make a good scale model of the solar system.

Me: “I’ve seen enough artistic dancers, I’ll be in the other room.” Spouse a few minutes later: “you need to come back”

To make it even better, a certain alien focused astronomer had been invited to speak at this now canceled event. We did manage to get the invitation rescinded. www.azcentral.com/story/news/p...

it amuses me that my last bobcat video got >3x number of engagements than the self promotion "I was recognized with an exoplanet award" post. I feel like "Mr. Market" has voted and I should go into bobcat posting full time.

Interesting paper on requirements for undergraduate astronomy degrees and how non-uniform they are, and how this impacts students with these degrees: arxiv.org/abs/2602.03959

Galaxy Slam takes place February 14-21 and features LPL Associate Professors Kris Klein and Ty Robinson! www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhxf...

A rim walk. Thought you would appreciate @natickbobcat.bsky.social

Oh. My. Stars. I ❤️ this so much. Proud to be a Wildcat! #beardown

The University wrote up a little piece on my receipt of the Lecar Prize from CfA. I appreciate the recognition which of course is truly for all of my wonderful collaborators over the years. science.arizona.edu/news/lunar-p...

You HAVE to watch this 55 second video. When the muscle of University sports marketing meets the expertise of space science. Features LPL's Ty Robinson and Kris Klein. youtu.be/fhxf4XpescY

LPL’s Bill Hubbard (thesis advisor for both me and @jjfplanet.bsky.social ) played a big role in this work.

First flight on the new Southwest. I miss the old style plastic numeric boarding passes and “turn and burn”. On the other hand with assigned seats the “avoid eye contact to save the empty middle seat” gambit is gone.

Instead of doom scrolling how about taking a moment to vote for Flandrau Planetarium in USA Today's online poll? No registration or personal info needed. Thanks! 10best.usatoday.com/awards/fland...

New paper just out from my soon-to-graduate Ph.D. student Matthew Belyakov. He got JWST to look at 3I/Atlas in the mid-infrared. And there is water! and CO2! and CH4! and Ni! It's just a beautiful spectrum (and I love a beautiful spectrum). arxiv.org/abs/2601.22034 🔭

I am sorry to share the news of the passing of LPL Professor Emeritus Uwe Fink. Uwe was a stalwart member of LPL, joining the lab back in 1967. He worked on many topics, especially spectroscopic studies of planets, satellites, nebulae, asteroids, and comets.

An important part of our atmospheric and evolutionary modeling is to benchmark against objects and learn from what the models do and do not do well. This new paper by Mader et al. takes a current look at our cloudy models. arxiv.org/abs/2601.18866 🔭

The bobcat does not need to explain the path it chooses.

My ideal image of AI is like a wood shop. It has powerful dangerous machines that can cut your hands off, but do fantastic things at your control and direction if you know what you're doing. The machines have no idea of what you want and your skills. You are in charge of being damn sure of both.

I have rotated off the Science and Security Board, but the Board was amongst the most deep-thinking bunch of people I have ever worked with. Take them seriously. Very seriously. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

The University's AI czar is going to present to us at LPL on AI and big data at today's colloquium. Beyond the obvious (and many) concerns, do you think there are real opportunities in this space for planetary science?

Wow. This is devastating. www.science.org/content/arti...

Crazy that 60% of the people living in AZ weren’t born here. My paternal grandmother was born here around 1890 and so the oral history has pretty much seen it all.

My high school debate partner Jonathan Rauch was always a smart guy. apple.news/AMtfw5KteSqK...

🔭🧪#exoplanets

LPL is excited to be the home for one of the selected PRISM instruments. www.nasa.gov/news-release...

Rod Serling was a genius. There's that. But as someone who allegedly does this for a living what boggles my mind is he wrote 92 episodes of the show. 92. While producing. And writing & performing the narration. And managing the other scripts. And promoting it. 92!!!

Gas giants are dead! Long live ice giants! (at a bus stop in Edinburgh) @jjfplanet.bsky.social @markmarley.bsky.social

You know you are old when a pay phone is “for display only”.

In important news I installed a WiFi hose valve to make sure I can step in if the water gets too low. Can’t have any thirsty bobcats. (Before it was on a fixed timer)

Great article on the cosmic shoreline. I was fortunate to have an office near Kevin’s for my 20 years at NASA Ames. He is the most creative planetary scientist I know.

This is Mesquite mistletoe, here growing on a Palo Verde instead of a Mesquite. It’s an important part of the ecosystem and some birds specialize in eating the berries from these.

CVS drive through. Giving Star Trek vibes.

This is a great summer program where undergraduates learn about laboratory work through the lens of studying meteorites.

Pandora is up in orbit! But how did the launch feel, up close and personal? Read my blog about my experience: distantearths.com/how-did-the-...

Our NASA’s Pandora space telescope is on orbit!! Congrats to the team and NASA, LSP, SpaceX, and everyone who helped to get to this exciting point! What will Pandora do and why is it important for exoplanet science? Read my short article on this: theconversation.com/nasas-pandor...

Saw the SpaceX launch from Vandenberg this AM. It was too early to get sunlight on the exhaust trail so just the rocket flames. Second stage on the left, booster doing boost back burn on right. This carried the Pandora mission in the Pioneer program of NASA plus many other satellites.

I got to see the Falcon 9 carrying Pandora travel across the LA basin from Redlands a few minutes ago. Exciting and a great start for Pandora which will be controlled from the U of A, led by our Daniel Apai.

🚨🚀🚨 NEW SPACE CONFERENCE ALERT 🚨🚀🚨 The Planetary Science Community Workshop, organized by @theplanetaryguy.bsky.social & @millionconcepts.com, will be held in Louisville, KY on April 14-16 and is aimed at bringing together academia, industry & gov. More here: planetaryworkshop.org

Standing room only for the Schmidt Sciences presentation at AAS.

New paper day! arxiv.org/abs/2601.02556 🔭🧪

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 🔭

At the #AAS247 Fred Kavli Plenary Lecture, Dr. Daniella “Dani” Mendoza DellaGiustina of the University of Arizona shared new insights from OSIRIS-REx, including what Bennu’s samples are revealing about the early Solar System. A great start to the meeting! #KavliAstro #NASA #OSIRISREx #Bennu

Coming back to Phoenix for AAS is a bit odd as I was born and raised here (as was my father, born here in 1917 not far from the convention center site). Those places are now over the waterfall, replaced by a very different place.

Somehow the University dropped the ball on shipping our AAS tables and branded backdrops so our booth is pretty bare. But at least we are across the way from Startorialist. Come by for some mission posters.

Cover story on APEX Earth flyby in today’s paper. arizonadailystar-az.newsmemory.com?publink=0ad7...

Sonogram of Great Horned Owl hoots look like little owl ear tufts. App is Cornell’s BirdNET.

LPL grad student Kayla Smith and I submitted our first paper together today on brown dwarf habitable zones. The literature on this topic is surprisingly thin and no one has really done it right yet. We move the ball forward and look forward to sharing more in the future.

On 3/17/23 daughters were randomly visiting Tucson and said, “today is 1st day of Taylor Swift’s new tour in Phoenix and we can get tickets for not crazy prices, we want to drive up, can we take the car?”. Of course we said yes and my wife also went up. I passed and thus missed seeing a phenomenon.

It’s a tourism photo day in SF.