New paper led by University of Wisconsin-Madison undergrad alum Coleman Nelson finds TOI-700d is robustly habitable, while TOI-700e sits on the edge: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

New ApJ paper: Can inner planets survive when a giant becomes a hot/warm Jupiter via high-eccentricity tidal migration? Usually no. Survival requires the giant’s periastron to stay >14 mutual Hill radii away. Observed systems with hot Jupiters + inner planets are inconsistent...

AbSciCon will be in Madison, WI in May 2026! Please consider submitting an abstract to session 39, Dynamical Environments of Habitable Worlds, led by Joseph Livesey. Hope to see you all there!

Interested in coming to UW-Madison and working with WiCOR on questions related to the origin of life? Apply for this new postdoctoral fellowship opportunity. Applications due November 15th!

Mean motion resonances (familiar from planetary systems) also govern how stellar-mass BHs migrate and merge in AGN disks. Marguerite Epstein-Martin (applying to postdocs THIS FALL) has a new paper “Mean Motion Resonances in AGN Disks” (arxiv.org/abs/2510.128...). #exoplanets

Some hot Jupiters might not have traveled far. New simulations by UW-Madison recent undergrad alum Devansh Mathur show that if enough solid material is funneled inward, both a hot Jupiter and its inner companions could form in situ. Accepted to PASP: arxiv.org/abs/2510.135... #exoplanets

Published this week in ApJ by UW-Madison undergraduate Eva Stafne: General relativity might save life on planets orbiting white dwarfs. GR-driven orbital precession can suppress tidal heating that would otherwise trigger a runaway greenhouse. arxiv.org/abs/2509.26421 #exoplanets

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When stars die, could life begin? White dwarfs could possibly host planets with oceans, making them worth considering in the search for life. I wrote about the science (and surprises) of white dwarf planets at The Conversation. theconversation.com/earth-size-s...

Two weeks until abstracts (and requests for travel support) are due for this fall's GLEAM! gleam.astro.wisc.edu/overview/ I hope to see you here!

We’re so happy to host GLEAM 2025 at UW–Madison this Fall, Nov 6–7! gleam.astro.wisc.edu Join us for two days of exoplanets & community with a view of the shores of Lake Mendota. No registration fee. Travel support available. Abstracts & Travel Support Requests due Sept 5th. #exoplanets

Definition question: Everyone in the field seems to use P~10 days as the boundary between "Hot" and "Warm" Jupiters in the literature. Does anyone know where this boundary actually came from (did a single person come up with it, and if so who / what paper)?

#AAS246 Chambliss Student Award Winners The AAS is pleased to announce the Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Award winners from the 246th AAS meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, in June 2025. Congratulations, all! aas.org/posts/news/2... 🔭

AOS Prof. Hannah Zanowski studies polar oceanography, and she's now bringing that expertise to WiCOR, where she focuses on planetary oceanography by modeling early Earth and exoplanet conditions to understand what ultimately makes a planet habitable after it forms. ls.wisc.edu/news/from-ea...

Congratulations, Irene, on this excellent (and very complete) paper!!

'Baby' stars are typically surrounded by disks loaded with gas, but it isn't long before that mass starts to drift away. #UWMadison astronomers say that might mean gas giants like Jupiter need to form earlier than rocky planets like ours. news.wisc.edu/measuring-ga...

Hycean planets (ocean worlds with H-rich atmospheres) are thought to be promising spots for life, particularly around M-dwarfs, with the habitable zone being much wider than it is for terrestrial planets. But there's a twist...

Check out this 12-paper series out today from the AGE-PRO collaboration. Congrats to everyone (including Coco Zhang from UW Madison) on the huge amount of work that went into this interesting result!! It might take me a while to read all 12 papers though! public.nrao.edu/news/alma-pl...

Ready to roll at #AAS246! I’ll be giving a talk on Tuesday afternoon in the AGN session and two of my students will be presenting in other AGN sessions as well!

Check out our new paper in PASP!

A recent open-access @paspjournal.bsky.social article assesses the impact of episodic FU Orionis outbursts on the evolution and migration of planetary systems, providing an avenue for the observed prevalence of low-mass, iron-rich ultra short-period planets. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1....

Why do some Hot Jupiters have nearby companions while others appear alone? Our new paper led by Thomas MacLean (senior UG off to Stanford) explores how stellar spin-down and system architectures affect the visibility of inner & outer companions. Read more: arxiv.org/abs/2505.11637

Jim Lattis and I will be on Madison's local NPR affiliate tomorrow afternoon from noon - 1pm, as a part of the Larry Meiller Show. We'll talk about exoplanets, the search for life, and the new WiCOR center at UW. Locals can listen on FM 88.7, or online www.wpr.org/shows/larry-...

Can FU Orionis outbursts scorch planets into becoming iron-rich and ultra-short-period? We model how extreme heat & turbulence during these events can strip planetary mantles — reshaping planetary composition & sizes forever. arxiv.org/abs/2504.16772

I would like to highlight that this work was led by UW-Madison Astronomy post-bac student Alyssa Jankowski, and also featured contributions by Zijun He, a high school student at Madison West High School. Congratulations to both of them on their accomplishments!

Check out Alyssa Jankowski’s first first-author paper (just accepted to PASP) on TOI-1937 Ab—a massive ultra-hot Jupiter that could be inspiraling due to tidal forces! arxiv.org/abs/2503.158... For those hiring - Alyssa is applying to grad schools and post-bac positions now. #exoplanets

Join WiCOR on March 3 & 4 for seminars from Dr. Jon Arenberg: NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope March 3 @ 12 pm, 6515 Sterling Hall The Importance of Communication March 4 @ 10 am, 4421 Sterling Hall

I am super excited to be a part of WiCOR at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Stay tuned for interdisciplinary results on the origin of life (and planets!)!

2024/2025 51 Pegasi b Fellowship Applications open July 9th (hsfoundation.org/programs/sci...) offering up to 4 years of support for postdocs in planetary astronomy!! UW-Madison is a host institution, so message if you have questions about applying!

The DDA is forming an IDEA Prioritization Committee and we need you!  We're looking for members who represent the rich diversity of our community to shape our efforts in inclusion, diversity, equity, and access. Interested? Self-nominate here: t.co/duJR8Be5Sr