Space artists: don’t forget to submit your work to The Art of Planetary Science exhibition by December 31st! The event is held in Tucson. Anyone can submit—all levels & types of human-made art. I’ll be submitting and attending again. 🐡🔭🧪 More details here: lpl.arizona.edu/art

Attn space artists, there’s still time to submit!* *I had grand plans to finish a piece in time to enter but, yaknow, it’s the 30th and I haven’t even unwrapped the cradled board I bought so prolly not submitting this year. 😑

I am at poster #2596 with a 3D-printed Pluto! Drop by and talk about the complex tectonics 🛰 #AGU2025

At my poster now! #AGU2025

I have been neglecting Uranus system for a long time now. So I decided to change that. Here's Uranus and Miranda visible above the canyons of Ariel. #SciArt #spaceart #astronomy #solarsystem #Uranus

Today in 1989, the Space Shuttle Atlantis launched the Galileo spacecraft, the first orbiter and entry probe at a giant planet. When I watch it recede from the shuttle, I can't help but want to scream to open the antenna first (it never opened). They were still able to salvage an amazing mission.

I zoomed in, added a bit of contrast, and went back and forth over the first few seconds to show how the ground around the vents bulges outward before the lava breaks through and blasts it apart. Remarkable stuff. Nature is neat. #Kilauea

It's over. Despite the fact that the academic council recommended against it, despite the fact that the program brought in more tuition than it cost, and despite the fact that Nebraskans need & deserve this expertise, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences will be cut. www.dailynebraskan.com/news/adminis...

Heartbreaking. The University of Nebraska will terminate its entire Earth science department. One of the country's most successful and respected geology & climate programs: gone. When ideologues & politicians are threatened by the very act of studying climate change, I wonder: who of us is next?

More evidence that Mars has a colorful history. In the past, the Red Planet probably had rings at certain times, and a larger moon (or moons) at others. In the future, Mars will probably have rings again. 🧪🔭 eos.org/articles/sed...

Reminder! My fantastic Department is hiring an Instructional Faculty position in Earth Surface Processes!!! ⚒️🧪🔭

Look at this image (and thread - use the translate service). This one reads along the lines of: "..Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) without cleaning. In just 15 minutes of acquisition, we counted 1,659 satellite trails (about 400 individual ones). Words cannot describe the pollution of near space." 🔭

Overseas guest? What you need is the children’s menu at the JAXA cafeteria that is served on a space shuttle dinner tray! (He did in fact agree that this was exactly what was required 😂)

Hi #planetaryScience folks, we have an open position for a *Professor in Planetary Sciences* at the Space Research & Planetary Sciences Division of the @unibe.ch. Application deadline: *Jan 31, 2026* Full ad: ohws.prospective.ch/public/v1/jo... Reach out to me if you have any questions! 🧵 1/5

I have a theory that the loss of color TV during Apollo 12 helped to kill Apollo. We wouldn't see new TV of astronauts on the Moon until Apollo 14 (31 January-9 February 1971), by which time crucial decisions about NASA's future had been taken.

'Light Fantastic' 21,837 images across 18 time-lapse sequences photographed by Don Pettit & Butch Wilmore are repaired, remastered and retimed to create 3x real time video footage. Credit: Butch Wilmore / Don Pettit / ISS / NASA / ESRS / Seán Doran www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cKk...

The organisers of the world's biggest planetary science conference are outlawing any DEI-related submissions because their lawyers are afraid they'll lose federal support. They're losing the support of the planetary science community fucking fast. www.science.org/content/arti...

Nope nope nope 🚫

Tonight!

Beer, Fossils, and the Moon! I’ll be one of the speakers at the next “Science & Suds” on Monday, November 17th, 7pm at Los Angeles Ale Works in Culver City 🍻⚒️🌔 www.scienceandsuds.com

Everything that actually made America great is being destroyed

This is particularly sad as Lowell has long been a centre for Solar System planetary astronomy, a rare field internationally 🔭

Also, queer representation is down right now, in a culture that’s increasingly hostile to us. So we need more stories beyond the pattern of “assimilated queer couple, likely where one dies”. We deserve a wider range of queer lives on screen.

LEGO trying to bankrupt me.

Hey planetary scientists! I don’t know about y’all, but ADS makes my life so much easier.

it’s giving Jupiter south polar vortex tbh

Saturn as seen from Titan's polar regions. During winter season in south hemisphere a big, high altitude cloud hangs above south pole. #Sciart #space #illustration #astronomy

Astronomers have discovered rings forming around a Centaur. For real: Chiron (a comet-asteroid hybrid orbiting beyond Saturn) has set of rings that seem to be changing by the year. Regardless of what's happening on Earth, space continues to be amazing. 🧪🔭 iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

My old painting of a brown dwarf. This view represents a moon of a brown dwarf being lit up by the sun-like star, which is second component of this star-brown dwarf system. #Sciart #space #illustration #astronomy #Exoplanets

Looks like the comic con is over, which is a bummer because I was hoping I could get the Riddler to come to my Mimas talk this morning 😔

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory laid off 11% of its staff today, including many people working on an active Mars rover mission. “There’s no whitewashing the ‘doomsday-eve’ feeling that's looming over all our heads,” wrote one JPL’er. eos.org/research-and...

The search for life's building blocks on Enceladus just got more complicated. Experiments show that radiation can also produce organics from ingredients found on the icy moon. 🔭 🧪 eos.org/articles/spa...

The application portal for the next wave of @carnegiescience.bsky.social postdoctoral fellows is open through November 3. I hope you’ll consider joining us 🚀

A dark day is coming.

Watching Starship test, and they just mentioned Starship will start lunar landings in 2028. Is that just a casual statement about (an unsurprising) Artemis III slip?

A message from JPL Director Dave Gallagher announces a JPL layoff of 500 people has been announced that is "not related to the current government shutdown". www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/jpl-wor...

New paper out! Let’s do a gravity science mission to Mars!

The government may be shut down, but that won't stop our Save NASA Science Day of Action. Nearly 300 advocates are joining me here in D.C. on Monday to #SaveNASAScience More: planetary.org/dayofaction

US’s trajectory in space science leadership in a nutshell

"ESA plans to release imagery by next week. NASA will not be able to release any of its data, or even comment on it, until the U.S. federal government ends the shutdown."

Looking up how to apply for funding to put a TV screen outside my office just so that I can have the Kilauea stream going at all times.

CNSA has released an image of Tianwen-2 in deep space using a robotic arm, giving us a proper look at the spacecraft and return capsule for delivering samples from near Earth asteroid 469219 Kamoʻoalewa. Tianwen-2 has been in space for 125 days, is 45 million km from Kamoʻoalewa.

Pretty cool photo

Against my better instincts, I have written some notes on how human probability judgements work and what you should expect from surveys that ask people to guess what proportion of the population is transgender. I hope never to speak of this matter again

In the last 6 days, 9 asteroids passed inside the Moon’s orbit. Estimated sizes: ~1–38 m. All were discovered this month, a reminder that countless small, faint NEOs slip by unnoticed until they make a close pass.

This also works for planetary science…

Lately, photographer Ragnar Visage started sharing video footage of past Iceland eruptions and I feel like no one sees it. Check out this video and his channel. So mesmerizing! ⚒️🧪 #Geology 🌋 youtu.be/aSOdrS2R3jA?...

Everyone writing about Perseverance today should be asking how many of the scientists and engineers who were involved in this discovery no longer work for NASA bc of Trump.

If folks at #EPSCDPS enjoyed my talk about Mimas, its giant impact basin, and how it connects to its young ocean, the paper JUST came out at Earth and Planetary Science Letters: kwnsfk27.r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me/L0/https:%2F...

This is disgusting and insulting to the entire astronaut corp and NASA as an institution. Attitudes like this are why Challenger happened. This regime doesn't value human life, only the illusion of progress. We're also not in a space race, and even if we were, that doesn't justify risking safety.