A stick figure drawing of a person running through an airport and holding onto a roller bag. The person steps on a ketchup packet. The pressure causes ketchup to explode out of the casing on an arc trajectory over a mother on her phone, holding a baby with a sippy cup to splat on the back of my head on the other row of seats. The iconic "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada" sign is above the scene to illustrate that this was in the Las Vegas airport.

Addendum: A very poor illustration of what I think happened on that day.

On the flip side of the 2-hour plane ride, my sister is there to pick me up. As we get to the car, she asks, what’s on the back of your jacket? It was ketchup. That’s what I was smelling. That amused infant sure witnessed something incredible. 🤦

8/8

A modern-day magic bullet, if you will. On the plane, I enter the compact commode closet to wash away the grossness with water. In my seat, I still smell ketchup. Was I so traumatized by the incident that I now have phantosmia? 🪄

7/8

Somehow, in their haste to catch a plane no doubt, someone stepped on this crimson packet with enough force to cause an explosion of goo with an arc trajectory over 10 meters away and over a meter high, beyond the oblivious mother and now innocent infant, splat onto the back of my head. 🏃

6/8

In the corner of my eye is a squished ketchup packet on the floor about 10 meters from the back-to-back row of seats. 🍅

5/8

In the bathroom, I grab a stack of paper towels to wipe my head and pacify the bleeding. I rush back out to try to make my spot as people are getting on the plane, and glance in the direction of my previous seat to see if the woman and child are still there. 😒

4/8

Did this demon child smack me so hard to cause bleeding? Why wasn't the mother turning around to apologize for her child? Confused, I stand up as my section is being called to line up, and rush to find the nearest bathroom, which is just on the other side of the line of seats. 👹👶

3/8

I turn around in my seat to see an amused infant holding a sippy cup being carried over the shoulder by his oblivious mother. My head is wet. Okay, maybe this baby hit me with their cup and some liquid poured out. I reach back to feel the liquid. It isn't water. It is blood red. 🩸

2/8

Sorry, this needs a short story:

Sitting in the Las Vegas airport over a decade ago waiting for my connection, already miserable because I am traveling with a cold. Two minutes before being called up for boarding, I feel a *bonk* on the back of my head. 💥

🧵 1/8

They've done enough this week!

Webcam image looking toward the IRTF telescope on Maunakea. The observatory is completely covered in fog.

Hmm. I was looking forward to remotely observing tonight, but I don't think that's going to happen. 🔭😶‍🌫️

Congratulations! 🥳

Life Update: I am beyond excited to announce that this fall I will be joining the University of Georgia as an assistant professor!!!

Paper day!!! 🎉 arxiv.org/abs/2604.07447 ⬇️ #exoplanets #astronomy

It all starts with planets around really small stars (M dwarfs). There's some evidence that planets around these stars form fundamentally differently than around stars like our Sun. We think that planets around these stars may 1/

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 🔭

I also don't like the term AI 'skeptic' as a catch-all for anyone against AI.

Skepticism implies questioning or doubting something, which should be happening anyway with generative AI.

I still can't get past the ethical, climate, and (intentional) addictiveness issues associated with these tools.

The Gaia DR3 IDs for TESS Input Catalog Targets RNAAS article is now published! #exoplanets 🔭🧪

iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

Refusal to Review I wrote the below email, when invited to review a paper that was partially processed by ChatGPT. As I imagine the email could be useful inspiration for others, I decided to make it available. Feel …

“Feel free to adapt and reuse. No attribution needed (…) If you make an adaption that you also want to share, I’d love to know about it, too.”

irisvanrooijcogsci.com/2026/04/08/r...

The Gaia DR3 IDs for TESS Input Catalog Targets RNAAS article is now published! #exoplanets 🔭🧪

iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

A few months ago, we were in the car on the way to preschool and the radio was on and they were talking about Mars for some reason. My son said, "I want to go to Mars... with you. We go on rocket ship to Mars." It was so adorable! 🥹

The 1st PLATO Announcement of Opportunity for Guest Observers is out! #exoplanets 🔭

www.cosmos.esa.int/web/plato/ao-1

The 1st PLATO Announcement of Opportunity for Guest Observers is out! #exoplanets 🔭

www.cosmos.esa.int/web/plato/ao-1

Slack is great until it signs you out of all accounts and you spend 15 minutes cycling through your email addresses to figure out which ones sign into which. I wish Slack allowed you to change your email address or had account consolidation.

"They operate like slot machines": AI agents are scrambling power users' brains Work with these tools is starting to look less like a fun quirk and more like a pathology.

On the topic of AI: "There are elements of gambling and addiction in the way people are using these tools." I would also add that there is an element of peer-pressure, which maybe explains why I'm so bitter about it.

www.axios.com/2026/04/04/a...

A gorgeous picture of our home from #ArtemisII!

However, it also highlights that space imagery is often edited to accentuate certain features.

The original photo is probably more representative of the moonlit surface of Earth, and is beautiful in its own right. 🧪🔭☀️🌍🚀🌕

www.nasa.gov/image-detail...

Sorry, this wasn't meant to throw shade at anyone! A user panel drives priorities for the Exoplanet Archive, so other things have been more pressing. Though, now we'll be ready to identify DR4 IDs for the TIC very shortly after it is released!

a night sky filled with lots of stars and the words maximum works below it Alt: A field of glistening stars brightening and dimming.

As always, thanks to my superstar colleagues Melanie Swain, @aussiastronomer.bsky.social, @emdwarf.bsky.social, @marcyharbut.bsky.social, @aurorakess.bsky.social, @lowbacca.bsky.social, Meca Lynn, and Julian van Eyken!

We plan to do the same thing when Gaia DR4 comes out in December, and not let something like this sit for ~4 years again.

If you want to attempt to reproduce the catalog, see the Jupyter Notebook at github.com/kevinkhu/tic.... Note, this was done on a decent spec laptop running Linux with plenty of SSD storage space for both the catalog data and swap memory.

If you only need one or a small subset of targets, please use the Find TIC IDs service: exofop.ipac.caltech.edu/tess/find_ti.... You can search using a TIC, TOI, KIC, EPIC, Gaia DR2, or Gaia DR3 ID, or a standard planet host or star name.