Hey folks - if you are interested in astronomy news, you should be following @caltechipac.bsky.social!!! IPAC hosts the NASA Exoplanet Archive, the NASA Extragalactic Database, the InfraRed Science Archive, as well as data from ongoing missions like Euclid, SPHEREx, and upcoming missions like Roman!

Paper day! What the difference between a giant planet and a brown dwarf? Maybe not so much. Read on to find out more. 1/ Paper I: arxiv.org/abs/2511.12816 Paper II: arxiv.org/abs/2511.11818

Paper day! What the difference between a giant planet and a brown dwarf? Maybe not so much. Read on to find out more. 1/ Paper I: arxiv.org/abs/2511.12816 Paper II: arxiv.org/abs/2511.11818

JESUS, MARY, AND JOSEPH! This gave me old Google back! It killed the AI results dead!

Kepler mission: smaller stars have more short-period, small #exoplanets. Theory: the smallest stars won’t have enough disk material to make small planets so there must be a turnover. Kepler+K2: We have found a turnover! Check out our newest Scaling K2 paper: arxiv.org/abs/2508.05734 🧵 1/9 🔭🧪☄️

Want to learn about the relationship between planet size and orbital eccentricity? Read this thread! 🧪 🔭 🪐

Astronomers may have just discovered the third interstellar object passing through the Solar System! ESA’s Planetary Defenders are observing the object, provisionally known as #A11pl3Z, right now using telescopes around the world.

First the rumour was a 20% budget cut. Then, 50%. Now the president's NASA budget is out and it's a 68% cut to astrophysics ($1.5B to $487M). Even if this gets reversed in four years, we will *never* recover the missions, partners, people who will be gone. www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...

Thanks for the write-up, @dtstarkid.bsky.social

I’m working on a piece about funding basic science and if you’ve never explored spinoff.nasa.gov, I would really encourage you to do so. Even though I’ve been doing this for 20 years, it really is humbling and informative to see the ways in which space science works its way into our daily lives.

The best dark sky in the world - the Atacama Desert in Chile, which hosts many @eso.org telescopes - is under threat from an industrial project. 🔭 Astronomers can sign a petition in favour of moving the planned industrial project: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

But more accurately... Physics major → existential crisis → the improv years (TM) → teaching high school → start grad school → get sick → in-and-out of the hospital for 3 years → finish grad school → astrophysics postdoc Just a reminder that winding paths can look straight when zoomed out

If you went to college... 1. what was your career goal when you started? 2. your initial major? 3. if you changed majors, what did you change to? 4. what do you do now, professionally? 1. Physics research 2. Physics 3. Physics 4. (Astro)physics research

The ESA #Gaia mission has delivered the best Milky Way maps to date and taken its last starlight before spacecraft retirement 🔭 www.esa.int/Science_Expl...

Astronomy friends, don't forget to give MAST @mast-news.bsky.social a follow.

My friend @gjgilbert.bsky.social has likened building a full colony on Mars to getting a flat tire and rebuilding your entire car from scratch, including mining the ore for all the metals yourself. We're so much better off fixing the problems here, where there's oxygen and lakes and normal sun.

Every university physics building in America looks like a rejected GoldenEye level on the inside. Immaculate vibes, no notes.

My favorite 2017 eclipse moment -- I watched from a farm in rural Missouri. As the twilight of totality set in, the crickets chirped and the barn animals fell asleep. Two and a half minutes later, the sky brightened and the geese began angrily honking for their breakfast. #goosenap2017

Observing on KPF tonight. AKA Friday Night Lights: Clear skies, full charts, can't snooze.