Harrison Nicholls and colleagues suggest that exoplanet L 98-59 d could be entirely composed of molten lava: a magma ocean covering a mushy core. http://dlvr.it/TRWtfm ☄️@nichollsh.bsky.social

Very pleased to share that I have been awarded a Pass, with no corrections, following my DPhil defence at Oxford AOPP (@oxoplanets.bsky.social). My thanks go to Paolo Sossi and @tadkomacek.bsky.social for their valuable input on my thesis, and their thoughtful suggestions for future directions.

It's happening!!! Pandora is going to space in just over 16 hours (if all goes well). Pandora is going to help us study exoplanet atmospheres, even when their host stars are misbehaving. I am headed up to Vandenberg to watch the launch shortly, and will make a thread about the mission/launch here!

TLDR; The PSF has made the decision to put our community and our shared diversity, equity, and inclusion values ahead of seeking $1.5M in new revenue. Please read and share. pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-... 🧵

Success! @noaa.gov GOES-West full disk, without (left) the Rayleigh correction that 99% of the published imagery uses. I still need to tweak the settings, but I always thought the removal of atmospheric scattering makes Earth look too flat. Thanks to @stim3on.bsky.social & @simonsat.bsky.social

In our now-published paper we model the early history of three exoplanets to specifically study the role of tidal heating on their capacity to solidify. A physically robust feedback mechanism can keep them molten, even with relatively thin atmospheres, which may extend to lots of rocky exoplanets.

In our new paper we model the complete evolution of L 98-59 d from 'birth' up to the present day. We show that it cannot be a gas dwarf or a water world; it's a 'hybrid' planet with an H2-rich atmosphere containing H2S and SO2 (photochemistry!), and a deep magma ocean. @timlichtenberg.bsky.social

New paper on arXiv today: "Absence of a Runaway Greenhouse Limit on Lava Planets" by Iris Boer, @nichollsh.bsky.social, and me (arxiv.org/abs/2505.11149). The runaway greenhouse limit is non-existent on molten planets (which is how planets form), questioning the general "habitable zone" concept.

A time-lapse of some images of asteroid (52246) Donaldjohanson during the encounter by Lucy! Images taken on April 20, 2025, from a distance of 1,600 to 1,100 km. Credit: NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL science.nasa.gov/image-articl... #PlanetSci #SciComm 🧪

Planet Definitions xkcd.com/3063

Enceladus, by Cassini. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/Kevin M. Gill (@kevinmgill.bsky.social)

Skew-T Log-P xkcd.com/3032

Our new paper on atmospheric convection on lava worlds is now on arXiv (accepted in MNRAS). We model the early time-evolution of two terrestrial-mass planets, and find that their atmospheres are not always convective. However, they can still have permanent magma oceans! arxiv.org/abs/2412.11987

Excited to share that our paper on atmospheres on lava planets has been accepted in JGR: Planets! You can find it on arXiv here: arxiv.org/abs/2411.19137