I've summarized the truth about Loeb's 10 "anomalies" about 3I/ATLAS in one post. Thanks to @deschscoveries.bsky.social @michael-w-busch.bsky.social @cometary.org and @marshall-eubanks.bsky.social for contributing their expertise!

Someone emailed me for a research opportunity and addressed it to the wrong exoplanet scientist, they did paste the correct title of one of my papers in the email though. Half points.

“My tea’s gone cold, I’m wondering why I got out of bed at all” is still the most iconic way to open a song, Dido did that.

Why? NASA is a crown jewel of US science and an international inspiration. Its logo adorns hoodies worn by young and old. The most famous telescopes could not have existed without Goddard and shutting down parts of it, even temporarily, cuts off the life blood for future missions. Why kill NASA?!?

One thing I love about LinkedIn people is that they will make a graphic to advertise their attendance to a conference. Like yes diva! It’s giving celebrity meet and greet at the club promo energy.

There’s now a generation of people who do not know the origin of the word “stan” even though it’s commonly used in culture. In a generation the origin has been lost. Stuff like this makes me question historical texts that are recorded decades or centuries are the event occurred.

Sir David Beckham is very slay

Having arthritis is like having a superpower because I can tell when the atmospheric pressure has changed.

There is a couple breaking up outside my house, they’ve been going at it for the past hour

There should be a website where you can watch all movies, it’s big 2025.

Horrified hearing about the mass stabbings that just happened on an LNER train

Middle class politicians have no clue about working class issues

Damn Halloween is barely cold in her grave and I’m already seeing Christmas adverts

We've collected 65 individual exoplanet atmosphere composition measurements to look for population-level trends 🔭 #exoplanets To do this, we had to create a toolkit to standardize between definitions of . We call it ExoComp. (Yes, that's a Star Trek reference 😀).

Cut to Mr Andrew Windsor getting a PhD just to have a title

I can’t find my favourite purple pen, I am beside myself

Absolutely floored to have received an award for "open and inclusive" #scicomm and outreach. I'm not usually one to broadcast such things, but I think highlighting this type of work is more important than ever. Please consider getting involved in your own communities! 🔭🧪 www.uu.se/institution/...

I heard there is an opening for a Prince x

☄️ Comet #3I/ATLAS is currently making its closest approach to the Sun. #ESAJuice might catch the best view of this comet in a very active state. Juice will attempt observations in November 2025, with data received on Earth in February 2026 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl... 🔭🧪

It’s now October 30th, Avi Loeb said October 29th is when something big was going to happen with 3I/ATLAS, did anything happen? He even warned people should take their vacations before this time just in case something happened…

Has anyone been keeping track of what confident % Avi Loeb is that 3I/ATLAS is alien tech? I feel like it has fluctuated a lot as a function of time, it would be nice to see that as a function of his theories compared to the published data at that time

Congratulations to Dr. Richard Chatterjee, my DPhil student who passed his viva on atmospheric escape today and is off to a position at Leeds. (Me on the left, his examiners Garcia-Muñoz and Tad Komacek on the right -- Tad and Richard are in the traditional subfusc, except should be white tie)

Congratulations to Dr Richard Chatterjee who just successfully defended his DPhil! I’m so proud of him! He is a rockstar and is revolutionising our understanding of atmospheric escape. Here’s to more science together 💜

Celebrating Jocelyn Bell Burnell’s appointment to Companion of Honour in the King’s Birthday Honours List

There are students starting their PhD’s this year who have had one constant throughout their lives, Tess Daly presenting Strictly Come Dancing. They must be devastated by the news of her leaving the show.

Life’s too short, order that pizza

Our department has a breakfast deal but it starts at 10am. So this tells me we shouldn't get to work before 10am.

Outlook have changed their icon... why? Do these companies sit in boardrooms bored and think "we haven't done much in a while, lets just change the icon again"

Delivery apps stop asking me to leave a tip challenge

I had a tub of ice cream for dinner, being an adult is great, you can truly live your dreams

Want to know more about my recent paper about this cool geriatric white dwarf eating its planets? 🤩 It’s all detailed in this news article by @stsci.edu ! 🔭

The Stephen Wolfram lighting up Oxford Physics @stephenwolfram.bsky.social @ox.ac.uk @oxfordphysics.bsky.social 🧪

If 3I/ATLAS is an alien spacecraft I feel bad for the crew onboard. It’s going so slow, the crew would be thousands of years old, or descendants of the beings that were initially on board.

People always recommend podcasts to me and I really appreciate it and the thought, but podcasts do not gel with my personality.

Seeking PhD candidates that want to do a thesis on exoplanet atmosphere retrieval + machine learning inference. Please apply by 31 October to Dr. Max Dax's and my shared project here: is.mpg.de/news/new-max... . Abstract for the thesis project is attached to this thread below!

🔊Announcing a new Physics/Astro PhD scholarship scheme in Edinburgh, for students from a Black heritage, inc mixed Black background. Please help me spread the word. The scholarship covers all tuition fees, living costs & research travel. #blackinSTEM 🔭👩‍🔬⚛️ ℹ️: www.ph.ed.ac.uk/studying/pos...

I open up this app and see people in the US are protesting about King Charles, what did he do now

Was doing some coding with ChatGPT and it told me to “copy+pasta” what has it been training on 👀

A thread mostly for astronomers, who have just submitted several thousand proposals to use the marvellous #JWST - the vast majority of which are marvellous and which are about to be rejected as the telescope is hugely oversubscribed. 🔭

So if LLMs/AI are being trained on the internet, and the internet is becoming filled with more AI slop, surely it will be training on the slop more than human made content, and will get worse as a function of time. When do you think we will hit that point? I think we are close.

New paper on the climate and habitability of Tergarden’s star b, led by Ryan Boukrouche and ft. Me! This planet is a promising target for characterisation by next generation observatories such as LIFE. Take a peak to see what we found out…. (or just read the title 🙃) arxiv.org/abs/2510.11940

Tomorrow: how did scientists get art on the Moon? 🌒 Join myself, plus representatives from the Interstellar Foundation + Space Pride, as we learn about their mission to improve LGBTQ+ visibility and advocacy within the space sector. 👉 Register here: egu.eu/8LKAQM

So, we are tracking well above Cycle 4. Figure by @mpudoka.bsky.social and Yongda Zhu. 🔭

Dear JWST peoples I would like to have one of my PI proposals accepted after 5 tries, as I would love the chance to stay in astronomy 💜

Lots of exoplanet detection papers put on the arxiv today, I wonder why a day before the JWST deadline 😝

w/ Oli Shorttle, @johannateske.bsky.social & Eliza Kempton we reviewed our current understanding and prospects for peaking on the inside of small #exoplanets in "Constraining exoplanet interiors using observations of their atmospheres": www.science.org/stoken/autho... & arxiv.org/abs/2510.08844 🔭🧪⚒️☄️

If you want to learn more about the solar cycle and its impact on our technological infrastructure – check out my new book ‘Space Hazards’! (Available now in Europe, and for pre-order in North America).

Whoever decided that “supercharge” is the verb to use in all new marketing campaigns needs to be dealt with

What will be the next bubble when the AI bubble bursts soon?