AGU petition to save NCAR. Please share widely! agu.quorum.us/campaign/151...

Busy solstice. I don’t think I’ve seen 3 adults before (did once see a mom and 3 offspring).

I just drove through SF with the blackout. The Waymo’s did ok treating no light as a stop sign but just failed on left turns like this. They should have parked them all.

"Marley's Ghost Appearing to Scrooge". Charles Green illustration for Dickens's A Christmas Carol, Pears' Christmas Annual 1892 (Day 3 of 7).

The AAS is deeply concerned by the recent announcement that the NSF intends to “restructure” the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) by narrowing the scope of its scientific investigations and stripping it of key assets used in those investigations. aas.org/posts/news/2... 🔭

While nature's resilience to natural disasters has long been recognized, not much is known about how organisms colonize brand-new habitats for the first time. A new study led by LPL scientists provides glimpses into a poorly understood process. news.arizona.edu/news/life-la...

I always post drinking clips. Here is a typical post hydration routine.

Every commencement I look at the freshly emailed platform party seating chart and puzzle about where LPL is supposed to sit. Then I remember, "oh, they still haven't fixed that yet".

HiPOD: 100,000 Images of Mars On 7 October 2025, the HiRiSE camera aboard MRO acquired this image of the Syrtis Major plains. This marks over 100,000 HiRISE images of Mars, which is a fabulous milestone! More: https://uahirise.org/ESP_089986_1980 NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona #Mars

HiRISE is an amazing camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) that has been mapping the surface of Mars since MRO arrived at Mars in 2006! That's two decades and 100,000 images of stunning views of the Red Planet.

Celebrating the 100,000th image taken by the HiRISE camera! www.nasa.gov/missions/mar...

Unsuccessful hunt yesterday for our friend. Note how he just vanishes onto the rock. Sound on.

Dr. Victoria Meadows leads the massively interdisciplinary NASA Virtual Planetary Laboratory, which she started in 2001 with the goal of developing a scientific foundation for the search for habitability and life beyond the Solar System. 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬 #Exoplanets #Space #Science #SETI #NotJustAliens

Sometime mid 70s (before any of the movies) I went to a Star Trek event at Grady Gammage (big venue at ASU). I think some TOS writers were speaking. At the end they showed the original pilot as film and I remember thinking “wow the Enterprise looks great on this giant screen”.

Hello Carol.

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)

Fun time doing and informal interview / discussion with Supercluster. Can read it here:

I'm a day late with this because I was at the National Academies for this briefing. The big takeaway is that the search for life should be the top science priority when we send humans to land on #Mars! 🪐🧪🔭 #Astrobiology www.nationalacademies.org/news/search-...

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

I know someone who helped produce this EPA climate change map w/ individual case examples for each state. I last checked it in the summer and it still worked fine but now almost all of the links are dead. NV used to link to the risk of Lake Tahoe turning green from algae. www.epa.gov/climateimpac...

Another interesting new BD paper. Implies that the hydrogen burning minimum mass may be a little bit too low in some new models (including our Sonora models). arxiv.org/abs/2512.06083

A remarkable old, low metallicity, transiting brown dwarf. arxiv.org/abs/2512.06069

A web page was forwarded to me for comment. About halfway through it says, "This distribution is provided courtesy of Mark Marley (private communication) with the following explanation.". I'm sure my younger self provided good numbers and I will defer to him, although I don't remember this at all.

Congratulations Dr. Hadland!

Really interesting analysis here on how claims get amplified by our current media environment (and a rebuttal of sorts to those who argue that Avi Loeb's alien spacecraft hype is good because any science engagement is good engagement): www.cip.uw.edu/2025/12/03/3...

Here, I wrote a couple of books once. If you’re not going to read something, make it these. bsky.app/profile/jetj...

12/7/41 This card was sent a couple of years earlier to one of my ancestors.

I had the pleasure of meeting fellow bobcat camera trap enthusiast @crytzerfry.bsky.social in person today and hear about her beloved Galiuro Mountains. I think her bobcat vibes summoned this visitor to our water station today.

Of the seven Earth-sized worlds orbiting the red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, one planet in particular has attracted the attention of scientists, including LPL Assistant Professor Sukrit Ranjan. news.arizona.edu/news/new-loo...

Thank you Senator Mark Kelly for supporting NASA projects, including the LPL-led OSIRIS-REx mission!

This was inspired by the long-running (SF) Bay Area exoplanet meetings (originally organized by Tom Greene at Ames and still going strong.) It's a lovely format - local and informal with a good balance of elderly but supportive curmudgeons like me and @markmarley.bsky.social and young people.

Former LPL advisory board member has some thoughts about life in the universe.

In memoriam: UC Santa Cruz honors the passing of physicist and cosmologist Joel Primack, co-developer of the cold dark matter theory and a leader in linking science with public policy. Please join us in honoring the life of a dedicated mentor and truly seminal scientist: bit.ly/4rDCZ7e

Big changes at NExScI! 🥲 www.ipac.caltech.edu/news/charles...

Tired: Dust storms on Mars Wired: Dust storms on a brown dwarf/giant planet www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... (feat. @markmarley.bsky.social)

In ApJ today! Understanding the Origins of Super-puff Planets iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3... Main parts: 1) First sub-Neptune thermal evolution models to self-consistently couple to a hydrodynamic mass loss code. 2) The finding of a new XUV-driven mass-loss regime, "TEMP," for all sub-Neptunes

Bennu samples have abundant supernova dust and clasts that are richer in presolar silicates & organics, suggesting the protolith sampled material with a unique mixture of primordial components before undergoing aqueous alteration. bit.ly/442ibvZ #planetaryscience

We are hiring at the University of Arizona libraries for a Data Science Specialist/Librarian. Expertise/experience in Python is a must. Not on the search committee, will be your colleague. arizona.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

On a “2 week old” Southwest 737-MAX8 complete with extra seat pitch 💺 in the front and the front galley barrier. Seats are ok not notably more comfortable except the head rest.

With a translation: This image shows the same star field as Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) without cleaning. In just 15 minutes of acquisition, we counted 1,659 satellite trails (about 400 individual ones). Words cannot describe the pollution of near space.

Relatives have an apt license plate for their copper colored car.

I kind of want to see an equally bad AI solar system science infographic. Like new cubical planets on highly inclined and intersecting orbits or something. Could submit to one of those predatory journals we all get emails from.

Years ago Adam Showman described to me his long term plan to better understand brown dwarf variability by adding more cloud physics to his GCM. Thankful today to be part of team led by his former student Xianyu Tan growing and expanding the vision with this new paper. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Looking for good news, I found this: If you were struck by a microscopic black hole, the mass of a small asteroid, it'd be no worse than a gunshot. And such black holes are definitely too rare to have "any observable effects on the human population." 🔭🧪 www.sciencealert.com/what-if-a-ti...

I once flew to Kona on a twin aisle aircraft the Sunday after T-day for a conference. Turns out they were flying it almost empty to bring back holiday travelers. Most of the few economy passengers were in the back section of the plane and FA's were strict about staying back for weight & balance. 1/n

LPLs HiRISE camera gets a close look at comet from interstellar space. news.arizona.edu/news/u-mars-...

The OSIRIS-APEX (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Apophis Explorer) spacecraft swung by Earth within 2,136 miles before heading into deep space for another trip around the sun. news.arizona.edu/news/osiris-...

In ApJ today, our paper on the early evolution of brown dwarfs, which combines the Sonora brown dwarf and SPHINX M dwarf atmosphere models. Check out this cool plot of giant planet, brown dwarf, and low-mass star radii over time. Work led by UCSC grad Evan Davis. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

There were also some excellent Earth as an exoplanet observations conducted. Stay tuned for those.