The 2026 ESA Graduate Trainee positions are waiting for your applications! Step into a unique role where you’ll contribute to inspiring space missions and work alongside leading professionals from across Europe. Discover the available positions 👉 jobs.esa.int #ESArecruits 🔭 🧪

I have student projects available for all levels! Interested in simulating star formation and interactions with the star-forming cloud? Have a look at these! I work with students to align the project to their skills, interests, and academic level. 🔭✨#Astronomy rajikalk.github.io/html_pages/s...

Big opportunity to work with a great cosmologist! ⚛️🧪

Super interesting 🧵 on darkness and how we conceive of it (both legally and culturally). 🔭🧪

📢 Less than 1 hour left until this talk begins! 14:00 UTC = 15:00 CET = 09:00 EST = 06:00 PST = 23:00 JST If you haven't signed up to our mailing list to access the Zoom-link, you can also watch it live on our YouTube channel 🔭☄️🧪 Livestream: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t9B...

Published in #MNRAS: "Solar carbon abundance from 3D non-LTE modelling of the diagnostic lines of the CH molecule", Hoppe et al. This is Fig. 2: please visit academic.oup.com/mnras/articl... to read the paper. @royalastrosoc.bsky.social @academic.oup.com

Postdoc position in my team at CAB CSIC-INTA, Spain. We are hiring in the Milgatz project 🔭 to do TolTEC science on dusty star forming galaxies eas.unige.ch/jobs.jsp?typ... A description to be found also here (please make sure to use http instead of https): www.itziararetxaga.net/2025/06/atra...

Would you dare to stand up against the wrath of a star?! Brave little Venus does... and still has an atmosphere! ☀️💨🪐🧲 Next #RockyWorldsDiscussion on Thu 5 Feb @ 14:00 UTC features Moa Persson on "Venus: Defying the Solar Wind Without a Magnetic Shield" More: www.rockyworlds.org/event-detail... 🧪🔭

A HUGE thank you to all attendees of the #RockyWorlds4 conference in Groningen! We had an absolutely incredible time talking astronomy, geoscience, biology, and so much more 🚀🌋🌱🪐✨🔭🧪 Catch the recorded talks on www.youtube.com/@rockyworlds And see you in Berlin in 2028! berlin2028.rockyworlds.org

So they will do another WDR after fixing the issues seen and move the launch the March Full overview here: www.nasa.gov/blogs/missio... #ArtemisII

If you want to following along with the Artemis II WDR, i've created this little tool that displays the WDR timeline and live-streams, try it out here x37b.nl/artemis/ Note: it is total crappy code, things may break and I might update it "live" so you have been warned :) #ArtemisII

Bump on this - looking for an expert specifically on orbital data centres available in the next few hours. If that's you let me know!

Exclusive view into the heart of the ELT! 👀 This image captures the interior of our ELT, under construction in Chile's Atacama Desert. The main structure shown here will host the ELT’s five mirrors. Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2605a/ 🔭 🧪 📷 ESO/J. C. Muñoz-Mateos

We're recruiting international MRes and PhD students at Macquarie across stars & planets, galaxies, and instrumentation. Sign up here by February 8! In particular, I'm recruiting for exoplanet projects generally and have funding for RVs in particular. Submit your expressions of interest here!

”But for an Earthlike planet, the wobble is tinier and only completes approximately once a year. […] It’s like picking out a firefly in front of a campfire.” 🔥🪰 ⬇️ If you want to keep up with updates from the Terra Hunting Experiment, make sure to follow @terrahunting.bsky.social here on Bluesky! 🔭

Haha, that's some amazingly strong signal from the thermal emission of the Ultra-Hot Jupiter KELT-9b! It allows measuring winds and actual comparisons with circulation models. Zhang+ arxiv.org/abs/2601.20849 🧪🔭 #exoplanets

Tough times for the UK astronomy community 🔭

*taps mic* ahem May I interrupt the nonstop tidal wave of doom with a tidal wave of LAVA? They're as high as a skyscraper, ooze at the speed of a human sprinter, and are really, really hot. By me for @science.org, reported from the #RockyWorlds4 conference: 🔭🧪

Intriguing. 🔭 🧪

Uranus and Neptune are ice giant planets, right? Well...maybe. New models that make fewer initial assumptions (but still contain plenty of physics) suggest that these outer planet could be mostly made of rock, sparking fresh debate over how they formed. 🧪⚛️🔭 physicsworld.com/a/uranus-and...

LinkedIn probably wasn’t the best channel to post this, but I stand by it

This must be weird news to see if you’re one of the literally hundreds or even thousands of university administrators who preemptively censored faculty, scrubbed websites, changed the names of centers, etc.

I just thought everyone should see this

new #preprint suggests neutron star crusts might behave in a “plate tectonic-like” way ... build up stress, snap and slip, then rearrange the surface and drag magnetic field lines. Claims that could possibly explain pulse profile changes and spin-down variations. hmmmm, I dunno bout this ... 🤔 🔭

Poster discussions at #RockyWorlds4 has been amazing! Coffee breaks are on 🔥🔥🔥Super creative posters with incredible science, I think we are improving as a community to communicate our research to other colleagues 🧐 Looking forward for the poster competition ✨ @rockyworlds.bsky.social

🔭 LDN 1622: Dark Nebula in Orion Image Credit & Copyright: Chris Fellows apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap26012...

There's such beauty in the cosmos. This is a view from #JWST of a portion of the Helix Nebula, an expanding shell of ionised gas moving away from a central star that shed most of its mass about 10,000 years ago. And these smaller structures are cometary knots... each larger than the Solar System.

The giant 8ft not-plants in the Devonian period of Earth are apparently not fungus either! A fun thread. 🧪

Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin’s autobiography is just amazing. Every astronomer should read it. Here she is talking about her memories of Annie Jump Cannon.

Are you looking for a postdoc position working on asteroids and comets? Would it help if it's in a beautiful place in southern France? If yes, then consider applying to the following position of my colleague Benoit Carry at the Observatory in Nice: euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/402212 #planetSci

That image just blows my mind

Another cool result shared at #RockyWorlds4: Nearly all sub-Neptunes, if they are gas dwarfs (as opposed to water worlds), should have magma oceans beneath their hydrogen atmospheres. That includes the notorious K2-18b — if it is indeed a gas dwarf and not an ocean planet. Preprint:

Looks like Planet Earth is a fan of #RockyWorlds4 as it gifted us with a gorgeous conference souvenir last night! 🤩🔭🧪

My visit to #RockyWorlds4 kicked off with a hot take from @nplinnspace.bsky.social's poster: Even in the best-case scenario, we couldn't tell how "Earth-like" an Earth-like planet is 🔥 She assumed TRAPPIST-1 e had Earth-like air and showed that vastly different climates would be indistinguishable.

Really enjoyed this awesome poster at #RockyWorlds4 by William Brilliant about @terrahunting.bsky.social — can’t believe we are so close to starting our hunt for Earth-like #exoplanets in our cosmic neighbourhood!! 🤩🌍🔭

Fascinating Astronomy.

P.S. Follow along on Bluesky with #RockyWorlds4 (h/t @nplinnspace.bsky.social 🙌🏻)

We used to do real science

China has suffered 2 launch failures within hours of each other. A Long March 3B lifted off from Xichang at 1655 UTC Jan. 16, but Shijian-32 satellite was lost after a 3rd stage anomaly. The debut launch of the solid Ceres-2 from Jiuquan at 0408 UTC Jan. 17 also failed.

Wondering why we've been so quiet this month? That's because we're busy preparing to welcome everyone *next week* to Groningen 🇳🇱 for... 🌋✨🚀 The ROCKY WORLDS 4 Conference 2026! 🪐✨☄️ Updates will be posted throughout the week from this account & others using the #RockyWorlds4 hashtag – stay tuned! 🔭🧪

See that larger white blob at lower left, and the smaller blob to its right? That's Earth and the Moon. Photographed from the orbit of Mercury.

Plato passes vibe check ✅ The spacecraft was vigorously shaken to mimic the powerful jolts and vibrations that Plato will experience during launch. The vibration tests are part of a series of tough exams that Plato has to pass to graduate for launch 👉 www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed... 🔭 #exoplanets

www.cnn.com/2026/01/13/s... www.nature.com/articles/s43...

It's "very unlikely" NASA will be able to recover the MAVEN Mars orbiter, NASA planetary science division director Louise Prockter says at the Small Bodies Assessment Group meeting this morning. Efforts to restore contact will resume Friday, after solar conjunction ends.

Have you met Astris? 🤔 It's an orbital transfer vehicle under development for Ariane 6. Astris will add on Ariane 6's capabilities, by allowing it to transport payloads between orbits and reach more destinations. Here's how it will look ↓

TIL There's more than 1 paper per day published using TESS data: 🔭🧪

Breaking: SKA-Mid achieved first fringes last month! This is the first step towards individual dishes becoming an interferometer. It's kind of a big deal. Congrats to the SKA Mid Commissioning Team! Looking forward to first SKA Mid image in 2026. 🔭 📡 🧪 www.skao.int/en/news/693/...

From the Smile mission launch and new data sets from Euclid, to Plato getting ready for launch, a total solar eclipse and BepiColombo's arrival at Mercury, 2026 is set to be a packed year for Science!

"Why astronomy needs a giant in the Canary Islands" phys.org/news/2026-01...

Sentinel-2 image of the fire to the East of Albury. It's big, about 10km across (roughly derived from scale). Second image from Himawari-9.