Another University of Arizona @catalinaskysurvey.bsky.social discovery. apple.news/Ade5Q1_1yTte...

Twelve years of this show ended tonight. I probably sat through half of them but it did lead to interesting places.

Please join us in congratulating Kiana McFadden, who today successfully defended her Ph.D. Dissertation, Thermal Modeling of Main Belt and Mars-Crossing Asteroids: Improved Constraints on Physical Properties from Extended WISE/NEOWISE Observations. Congratulations, Kiana!

Please join us in congratulating Kana Ishimaru, who today successfully defended her Ph.D. Dissertation, Probing the Alteration Histories of Primitive Carbonaceous Materials from the Asteroid to the Atomic Scale. 📸: Kana is pictured with her Ph.D. advisor, Dr. Jessica Barnes.

It feels like any name you search for on the ADS returns gravitational wave papers with 2000 authors.

Film crew from University marketing showed up unannounced to film a student walking down a hallway to illustrate the "we mapped the moon" theme of "Bear Down 100 years". I'm like, "you did look at our actual moon maps, yes?". The "no" answer about caused my first heart attack in this job.

Came across this gem in folder of random stuff I saved on my laptop.

Taking the kids out for a drink to start the day.

I haven’t posted a bobcat in a bit. From an hour ago.

Are you looking for an alternative to overwhelming AGU or complicit LPSC? Try DPS! It's right-sized, inclusive, and backed by an active professional society who lobbies hard for planetary science. We'd love for you to join us in expanding our meeting scope to encompass your science!! 🔭🧪

So LPLers (past and present) headed to Spokane, I managed to convince our fundraising folks today to host an LPL reception at DPS (probably everyone would get 1 drink and some stuffed mushrooms), but you'll have to listen to me ask you to donate to the field trip fund. lpl.arizona.edu/support

Also noting that Mark Marley is jointly responsible* for the Macintosh-Marley Cauliflower Boundary in exoplanet studies bsky.app/profile/bmac... *By which I mean "I added his name to the acronym because it makes it sound more science-y"

Ok LPL. I see you.

Honored to be recognized alongside this amazing group of LPL alums.

assuming it holds up to scrutiny, this paper by ko arimatsu et al. out yesterday reporting the discovery of an atmosphere around a kind of run-of-the-mill trans-neptunian object is genuinely one of the more surprising and exciting discoveries in years in my book www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Fire breaks out at University of South Florida marine science labs building in St. Petersburg; Hazmat situation declared https://www.newsbeep.com/us-fl/256029/ Firefighters from St. Petersburg Fire Rescue are responding to a major two-alarm fire at the University of South…

The building my daughter works in (as a lab manager) at the Univ. of South Florida is currently burning down from a lightning strike (everyone is reportedly safe). Anyone have experience with something like this? I wonder if the University will protect the jobs or say "sorry but come back in 4 yrs"?

At a Ray Harryhausen exhibit and everybody geeking out is guys my age+. This was the stuff of Saturday morning TV for a certain era.

Glad David Grinspoon was at the table developing the protocol for how this would be handled. Extra bonus having an LPL alum. www.theblackvault.com/documentarch...

We get about one Gila monster a year, kills me I’m not home right now.

My hot take: the NASA administrator shouldn't be weighing in on this ... ...and neither should the IAU. They should be defining *standards*, not *words*. Physics is different than metaphysics. The one true path forward here is the IAU revoking the 2006 resolution and leaving it to consensus

Rolling in the javelina smell.

Lots of quail chicks.

A research team at LPL demonstrated that ground-penetrating radar mounted on drones can map the thickness of rocky debris covering glaciers on Earth. These results could help future astronauts locate accessible water locked in buried ice on Mars. news.arizona.edu/news/drone-r...

This is my home -- and we've been watchdogging for years. Great reporting by @insideclimatenews.org! insideclimatenews.org/news/2904202...

The draft House CJS appropriations bill would keep overall NASA funding flat in FY27 (versus a $5.6 billion cut proposed by the administration) but moves some funding around compared to 2026: a little less for science, a little more for exploration. appropriations.house.gov/sites/evo-su...

Check out this podcast episode featuring LPL grad student Kayla Smith @astrokayla.bsky.social and Mike Wong @miquai.bsky.social chatting about the diversity of scientific thought that goes into astrobiology. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...

I also spoke last year to the Principal Investigator of OSIRIS-APEX during the '26 NASA Budget Fiasco. The '27 Budget is almost identical. My bet is that the '28 & '29 OMB NASA Budget requests will be the same. "OSIRIS-APEX and the 2026 NASA Budget:" … www.talkingspaceonline.com/osiris-apex-...

Today on the #arXiv : @elizabethtasker.bsky.social et al. 2026, "The science from asteroid sample return missions" - arxiv.org/abs/2604.22182 Reviewing what has been learned from bringing samples from Itokawa, Ryugu, and Bennu back to Earth.

Our agave, putting up a flower stalk, looks so alien. It just shoots up, a week ago was just clearing the top fronds.

Exceptional award lecture by Hydrology Professor Ty Ferré with live artist illustrating as he spoke. I didn’t think to get a photo with the hand.

I thought the crowd at Springsteen last week was as old as I was going to see. Then tonight we are at the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain...

Roadrunner appears to be pacing the snake (they eat baby rattlers) but I think this one is too big for him.

New book coming out concludes my relative Kemper Marley was not involved in murder of reporter Don Bolles 50 years ago. I was on the U of A campus for high school debate the day the giant headlines screamed “Marley Ordered Bolles Killing”. Kind of thing you remember.

In Phoenix to meet with the Boss. Not the Dean

🔭🧪 In addition to what Casey reports, this is happening as NASA has ended support of the community groups that have given formal and informal feedback to the agency for decades, and the process by which the space science community identifies NASA and NSF's scientific priorities is threatened.

I’m having a wonderful visit to CfA where I gave a talk yesterday. It’s funny that when I meet people they invariably say “oh you are the guy who posts wildlife”. Maybe should have shown a watering hole slide deck instead of brown dwarfs & exoplanets.

The HiRISE team notes the passing of two esteemed friends and colleagues: Deputy Principal Investigator emerita Candice Hansen-Koharcheck and Co-Investigator Paul Geissler. More about Candice: www.psi.edu/staff/profil... More about Paul: www.legacy.com/us/obituarie...

So sad to hear of Candy’s passing. Indeed a giant of planetary science.

Giving my first all new colloquium length talk on Tuesday after 5 years of Director-ing and I have to say it's a lot of work putting a talk together (who knew?) but fun exercising some atrophied science muscles. Even had an original (maybe) science idea.

Ring AI says it can identify javelina by name. Impressive if true.

I have to admit that before this mission I was a little jaded at what this would accomplish. Seeing the amazing crew and the desire for inspiration they touched—especially among young people—has been such a refreshing rejuvenator.

good bye, Moon

Remembering LPL alum Betty Pierazzo.

NASA's Barbara Cohen created this image of the Moon's Pierazzo crater, named after our late PSI colleague Betty Pierazzo. Betty was an expert in impact modeling and the astrobiological and environmental effects of impacts. She also passionately supported students and other teachers.

The FY 2027 NASA budget request hides its science cuts by omitting mission names instead of explicitly zeroing them out. We did the work and found 54 missions cancelled in this proposal. This is another extinction-level event for NASA science. Full list: planetary.org/save-nasa-science

You can see why the exo-zodiacal light becomes an issue in imaging exo-Earths. Imagine turning this background glow around another star up by say 10x and the pale blue dot getting lost in the glare.

I can't stop staring at these photos. This is what Earthset looks like—our homeworld setting behind the Moon. And compare the dark, cratered surface of the Moon to the blue oceans and swirling clouds on our own planet. If there's a starker illustration of our lifegiving world, I've yet to see it.

As we see Orientale face on check out this remembrance from William Hartmann on recognizing the multi-ring structure from his work rectifying ground based images of the moon.

Easter dinner was not cooperative.