The National Academies literally exist so that scientists and engineers who understand science and engineering better than elected officials & their appointees do are available to report on those things. Yet again, USA: Require that Congress do its job, end all of this, and #ImpeachTrump.

Gas Station Price Sign Using Scientific Notation

“…hallucinated references disproportionately assign credit to already prominent and male scholars, suggesting that LLM-generated errors may reinforce existing inequities in scientific recognition…” 🧪 arxiv.org/abs/2605.07723

Fundamentally, the reason we do science is the same reason we make art. Both are creative expressions of our humanity and both are tools for us to explore and understand reality. To treat either as a commodity is to diminish ourselves.

Back to where it all began

Experimental 3D visualization of Io, created from a processed JunoCam image acquired by NASA’s Juno mission. Source image: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / JunoCam Image processing: Gerald Eichstädt / Thomas Thomopoulos 3D visualization: Thomas Thomopoulos.

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!! 🔭🧪

Earth eclipses the Sun as seen by Artemis II on Orion. Satellites showing off as usual...

#Artemis II Crew / NASA JSC / ESRS / j. Roger eol.jsc.nasa.gov

Spock visited JPL today 🖖🏻

Well, hello there little fella. Juno's Stellar Reference Unit captured this view of Thebe from a distance of 5,000 km on May 1, 2026 during PJ83. science.nasa.gov/photojournal...

DPS 2026 prize announcements! dps.aas.org/news/aas-div... LPL sweeps the scientist prizes! @markmarley.bsky.social, @planetneish.bsky.social, @alibramson.bsky.social, Tad Komacek

Trump's proposed NASA budget is a 'horrible threat to our future' in space, Planetary Society CEO says www.space.com/space-explor...

Less than 800 NSF grants awarded over the first half of the fiscal year for the entire country. Previous years were already over 2-3k awards by now. It is not particularly overdramatic to say we are seeing the death of federally funded science research in the United States.

The Planetary Society led a coalition letter with 23 organizational signatories calling for the rejection of draconian cuts to NASA and science in FY 2027 proposed by the White House. Coverage here, letter PDF in comments. www.nbcnews.com/science/spac...

As a Pluto scientist, it's wild to "make Pluto a planet again" while decimating the careers of those of us that study it! The idea of dominance in space and planetary science supersedes the actual practice of planetary science.

This is very similar to the 2026 cycle. House sets NASA Science at $6B, not great, but much better than the $3.9B proposed. Sets the floor going forward, Senate will likely come in higher.

This was us! APAC was an advisory to provide a connection between NASA and the astrophysics committee. It was an honor to serve. We were decommissioned last spring with the rest of the advisory committees. It's like closing the shades, or cutting the phone lines.

"GOP-dominated House Subcommittee proposes cutting NSF by 20% and NASA science by 17%" Be accurate in your headlines, @science.org. That Trump and those with him want to destroy US science is not a reason to excuse GOP Representatives trying to destroy parts of it. www.science.org/content/arti...

www.science.org/content/arti... House budget is out. 17% cut to NASA science 😭 🧪 🪐

I feel like we’re willing to make Pluto a planet again, at least provisionally, if they’re willing to fund astrophysics. I’d say $100 billion/year is reasonable But if you keep cutting our budgets, I swear we’ll keep eliminating them. Hope you like a three planet solar system!

As the Artemis II crew was rounding the Moon—the first crewed lunar mission in 54 years—the White House was proposing to cut NASA's budget and terminate FIFTY science missions. Here's a timely rundown of just *some* of what we'd lose if those cuts came to pass. www.planetary.org/articles/mee...

More details on the firing of the National Science Board. The NSF now has no director, deputy director, or board. They have issued almost no new awards in 2026. The plan appears to be to completely destroyed the agency. The details are horrifying and have Russ Vought written all over them.

I got to see Dragonfly in the APL cleanroom, and she’s beautiful! And BIG. No photos from the cleanroom, but here’s a full-scale test article in the lobby of Building 200 at APL. 😍

This week we had an *amazing* Io science workshop at APL. It was so great to get together (in person and online) to think about future directions for observations, models, and missions to our solar system is most volcanically active world. 🌋🌖

Kathrine de Kleer—Io has fast winds (100s of m/s). ALMA show that winds flow towards Io’s direction of motion. This is the same sense of motion as the Io plasma torus, which rams/overtakes Io at 1,000s of m/s. How is momentum being transferred, and what’s the role of the plumes? (Io Workshop 2026)

Rachel Maxwell—Io doesn’t have a dynamo, but could Io have remnant crustal magnetism? Maybe! Lava flows on Io may freeze in the magnetic field from Jupiter. A low flying spacecraft with a magnetometer might be able to see this. (Io Workshop 2026)

Francis Nimmo—Io and the Moon are both rocky worlds that have/had extensive melt. Why are they different? Maybe it’s because they have different origin stories. The Moon likely formed very hot; whereas Io could have formed more gently. (Io Workshop 2026)

From NASA Getting Dragonfly ready for Titan. 🪐 Engineers at JHUAPL are assembling the rotorcraft lander and preparing it for vibration testing, conducting parachute tests and completing a chemistry lab built by NASA Goddard to analyze Titan’s surface. go.nasa.gov/3QjmRcV

A number of space science organizations offered support for Isaacman's nomination because he is a proponent of space exploration and claimed he would support science. But now that science is on the chopping block -- and human spaceflight isn't -- he is volunteering to give NASA the DOGE treatment.

NASA internal watchdog warns next generation spacesuits for 2028 Moon landings will not be ready for in-space demonstrations until 2031 if testing follows historical timeframes. You can read the NASA Office of Inspector General report here: oig.nasa.gov/wp-content/u...

PS two NASA Missions to Venus, DAVINCI science.nasa.gov/mission/davi... and VERITAS science.nasa.gov/mission/veri..., are slated for cancellation under the President's and the Office of Management and Budget's 2027 NASA Budget.

Amazing turnout for our Day of Action to Save NASA Science! Truly inspired by the dedication of our members and advocates who are here with me in D.C.

Roddenberry Archive exhibit at RenderCon 2026 yesterday. Great display of costumes and the re-created TMP captain's chair, used in the RA's interview of William Shatner. On the screen: RA interviews and documentary shorts directed by Roger Lay, Jr, including our interview with George Takei.

Our new paper just dropped on the colorful outer "mu" and "nu" rings of Uranus, using Keck @keckobservatory.bsky.social, Hubble, and JWST 🔭 (LOTS of detail re observing faint rings next to a bright planet, and what the heck is tiny moon Mab doing in a blue ring?) keckobservatory.org/uranus-two-o...

Don't miss my new op-ed on how space science is getting demoted to hitchhiker status at NASA: spacenews.com/put-science-...

Astronomy grad students! The AAS is hiring TWO NEW AAS MEDIA FELLOWS. This is a paid (!), quarter-time position, one-year (possible one year extension), remote position. aas.org/jobregister/...

Beautiful Cinematic of the Artemis II mission by melodysheep. #Artemis www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGxz...

There is an interesting proposal to repurpose the jettisoned ESM for science after an Artemis mission, starting perhaps as early as Artemis 6. Plans are being proposed to use the ESM for asteroid and planetary flybys, even astronomical observations. ESM could be more than Artemis IF green-lighted.

I knew this was out there someplace, here is Jennifer Scully's presentation given to the Outer Planets Analysis Group in November of 2024 on the possible reuse of the Orion ESM AFTER its initial Artemis mission is completed - www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkcw...

The Total Solar Eclipse from Artemis II This image sequence was captured by a modified GoPro on the solar array of the Orion spacecraft while the Artemis II mission flew around the farside of the moon. Credit: NASA/Simeon Schmauß 🔭🧪 #Artemis

This morning I found out our community has lost someone I consider to be a giant. There just aren’t a lot of women senior to me in the field and though our interests only overlapped with “outer planets” she always went out of her way to support me. I’ve been hearing the same thing a lot today 💔

We have more details about NASA's planned Space Reactor-1, which will use nuclear-electric propulsion to travel to Mars. It will carry three Mars helicopters that will land via a novel "skyfall" technique. Science instruments on SR-1 are planned but TBD. 🔭🧪 www.science.org/content/arti...

I know Artemis II has been a great distraction, but everyone should be locking in on what the President’s Budget Request is calling for and making your opinions known… Thanks to a lot of work, we avoided this last year, but we can’t be complacent.

To be clear, these are what the presidential budget request is *trying* to terminate.... They tried this last year, and we fought and won. When we fight, we win.

The thing is that we are perfectly capable of having an extremely skilled a functional government. We have agencies that do it all the time. Imagine if we chose to have funding levels and priorities that allowed us to reach our full potential.

The AAS Policy team has published a detailed breakdown of the proposed FY27 budgets for NASA, NSF, and DOE. aas.org/posts/news/2... Take action now by asking your Senators to sign letters in support of NSF and NASA Science: 1️⃣ aas.org/urge-your-se... 2️⃣ aas.org/urge-your-se... @policy.aas.org 🔭

Amazing views of the Artemis II launch filmed from NASA's WB-57 high altitude aircraft 🔭🧪 #Artemis Full duration on YouTube: youtu.be/pa-dMk2VnUg

If you're wondering what the Artemis II astronauts will be experiencing during tomorrows reentry, I recently made this video showing the Artemis I reentry with a telemetry overlay. 🔭🧪 #Artemis Full video on YouTube: youtu.be/-QbYrs5SZ5M