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

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

1 week ago 18 9 0 0

Is this F9 or Starship launches?

2 months ago 0 0 0 0
Two plots, the upper showing a light curve over several years staying flat, and then a very deep, very long u-shaped transit at the end. The bottom shows a zoom-in of the very deep, very long transit.

Two plots, the upper showing a light curve over several years staying flat, and then a very deep, very long u-shaped transit at the end. The bottom shows a zoom-in of the very deep, very long transit.

Hey, that's a neat transit! There's something weird with the x-axis though. Wait, how long was this transit?

*rubs eyes, cartoon style*

*looks again*

EIGHT MONTHS?!?!?!?

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

2 months ago 47 6 6 1
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Earth-size planet spotted with yearlong orbit Long-overlooked Kepler signal discovered by citizen scientists reveals promising world worth a closer look

New planet just dropped and it

1) is almost exactly Earth-sized

2) has a year that's almost exactly 1 Earth year.

3) orbits a star that is not a 💢temperamental little shit M-dwarf 💢but is instead a 🧡 good orange boi 🧡

Me for @science.org based on results presented at #RockyWorlds4: 🔭🧪

2 months ago 1523 430 49 103
Video

(announcement 1 of 2)
everyone, say hello to ...

HIP 54515 b: the 3rd planet jointly discovered from direct imaging and astrometry arxiv.org/abs/2512.02159
[Currie & Li et al. 2025, AJ in press]

Press releases to follow tomorrow

4 months ago 24 6 1 1
Post image

Fela Kuti was born on October 15, 1938 #Afrobeat #Felabration

6 months ago 190 28 1 2
A large cargo ship named VAARWEL, painted in blue and white, is sailing through a canal. The ship has a flag at its front and is passing under an open drawbridge in the background. The canal is lined with trees on both sides, and the sky above is bright blue with scattered white clouds. A few people are visible on the bridge and near the water’s edge. In the foreground, at the bottom right, a small boat with a single person inside floats near the ship.

A large cargo ship named VAARWEL, painted in blue and white, is sailing through a canal. The ship has a flag at its front and is passing under an open drawbridge in the background. The canal is lined with trees on both sides, and the sky above is bright blue with scattered white clouds. A few people are visible on the bridge and near the water’s edge. In the foreground, at the bottom right, a small boat with a single person inside floats near the ship.

A large green truck from Kübler Spedition is transporting a massive container wrapped in a protective tarp. The container displays several logos and text, including the logo of the European Space Agency (ESA), indicating it is part of a specialised transport operation. In the background, there is an industrial building with large metal silos under a blue sky.

A large green truck from Kübler Spedition is transporting a massive container wrapped in a protective tarp. The container displays several logos and text, including the logo of the European Space Agency (ESA), indicating it is part of a specialised transport operation. In the background, there is an industrial building with large metal silos under a blue sky.

In a cleanroom environment, two individuals wearing blue lab coats and hairnets are working around a large spacecraft. The spacecraft is covered in protective plastic sheeting and mounted on a white transport platform labelled with technical instructions.

In a cleanroom environment, two individuals wearing blue lab coats and hairnets are working around a large spacecraft. The spacecraft is covered in protective plastic sheeting and mounted on a white transport platform labelled with technical instructions.

In a cleanroom environment, a group of engineers wearing protective coats, gloves, and face masks are working on a large spacecraft component. The component is mounted on a white wheeled platform. The top of the spacecraft carries 26 cylindrical cameras. The workspace is surrounded by structural supports and white fabric walls, creating a clean and controlled environment.

In a cleanroom environment, a group of engineers wearing protective coats, gloves, and face masks are working on a large spacecraft component. The component is mounted on a white wheeled platform. The top of the spacecraft carries 26 cylindrical cameras. The workspace is surrounded by structural supports and white fabric walls, creating a clean and controlled environment.

Welcome, Plato! 🤗

On 1 September, the spacecraft arrived in the Netherlands by boat from Germany via the Rhine River.

In the coming weeks, engineers will add the sunshield & solar arrays and carry out tests to confirm Plato is ready for launch 🚀
www.esa.int/Science_Expl...

🔭 #Exoplanets

7 months ago 105 25 0 8
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Post image Post image Post image Post image

New in library. The chiarascuro full page portraits are iconic (see what I did 🙄) high Renaissance art. Goltzius 1557, German ed. bound in illuminated manuscript. Some empty roundels charmingly filled out with primitive portraits, notes or diagrams. Several hundred medallions with bios. Folio.

7 months ago 17 4 0 0
Figure from Squicciarini et al. showing three panels with a white dot on a black and blue stippled background, indicating the location of the planet in GPI and SPHERE IRDIS data.&10;

Figure from Squicciarini et al. showing three panels with a white dot on a black and blue stippled background, indicating the location of the planet in GPI and SPHERE IRDIS data.&10;

Three panel image from Jones et al. showing a white dot on a stippled background. The planet is in the 11 o'clock position in all three images.

Three panel image from Jones et al. showing a white dot on a stippled background. The planet is in the 11 o'clock position in all three images.

Two papers announcing the discovery of a directly imaged 6 Jupiter mass planet around binary system HD 143811 AB Squicciarini+ and Jones+ in Sco-Cen - Keck, Gemini and VLT all imaging this companion and confirmed with several years of common proper motion. #astrodon #exoplanet #exosci

7 months ago 45 8 0 1

ah okay, nice to see its been added to the Dysnomia page. Its a really nice photo, thanks for doing the post-processing😊

7 months ago 1 0 0 0
A bright point source in the center with a dim source on the right

A bright point source in the center with a dim source on the right

Dwarf planet #Quaoar with its moon #Weywot (small white point right side). The system orbits the sun in the #KuiperBelt beyond planet Neptune. Quaoar has rings (not seen here). 🪐🌕 🔭 #planetsci #dwarfplanet

My image with #JWST, processed today: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Qu...

8 months ago 38 9 2 1

Do you plan on adding this image to the wikipedia entry for Eris?

7 months ago 0 0 1 0
A series of concentric black and white ovals against a black background, with a dim red dot in the lower left of one of the paths of a black ring. The ovals are dust rings around a young star, and the red dot is a 5 Jupiter mass exoplanet called WISPIT 2b.

A series of concentric black and white ovals against a black background, with a dim red dot in the lower left of one of the paths of a black ring. The ovals are dust rings around a young star, and the red dot is a 5 Jupiter mass exoplanet called WISPIT 2b.

Proud supervisor moment: #LeidenObservatory graduate student Richelle van Capelleveen led one of two papers on our discovery of WISPIT 2b, a 5 Jupiter mass exoplanet clearing a path in a circumstellar disk. Laird Close and his team saw it in H-alpha, indicating gas accretion #astrodon 🔭 🧪

7 months ago 194 52 12 12
Earth and moon appearing as lonely dots in a vast darkness.

Earth and moon appearing as lonely dots in a vast darkness.

“A peaceful place, or so it looks from space…”
New image of the home world and our companion moon, captured last month from 180 million miles out by our Psyche spacecraft on its way toward the first rendezvous with a metallic asteroid in 2029.
🧪

www.nasa.gov/missions/psy...

8 months ago 137 41 3 3
Illustration of a planet silhouetted in front of a star. The star shows a large eruption on one side and more wisps of red coming from its southern hemisphere. Two more planets appear in the background.

Illustration of a planet silhouetted in front of a star. The star shows a large eruption on one side and more wisps of red coming from its southern hemisphere. Two more planets appear in the background.

The TRAPPIST-1 d exoplanet may be Earth-sized 🌍 but it has no Earth-like atmosphere.

Webb’s #NIRSpec has found no traces of molecules that are common in Earth’s atmosphere.

Read more 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl... 🔭 🧪

8 months ago 163 25 1 14
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A plot of planet occurrence rates in planets per 100 stars on the y-axis versus host star effective temperature in K on the x-axis between 3200 and 6900 K. Occurrence rates are computed separately for super-Earths (green) and sub-Neptunes (blue) with orbital periods between 1 and 40 days. A power law was fitted to the super-Earths and a double broken power law was fitted to the sub-Neptunes, showing breaks at 3750 K and 5758 K.

A plot of planet occurrence rates in planets per 100 stars on the y-axis versus host star effective temperature in K on the x-axis between 3200 and 6900 K. Occurrence rates are computed separately for super-Earths (green) and sub-Neptunes (blue) with orbital periods between 1 and 40 days. A power law was fitted to the super-Earths and a double broken power law was fitted to the sub-Neptunes, showing breaks at 3750 K and 5758 K.

We computed planet occurrence rates separately for super-Earth and sub-Neptune #exoplanets for host stars between 3200 K and 6900 K. The sub-Neptunes peak around 3750 K and drop toward cooler stars! However, the super-Earths do not drop off!

5/9

8 months ago 11 2 2 1
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Scaling K2 VIII: Short-Period Sub-Neptune Occurrence Rates Peak Around Early-Type M Dwarfs We uniformly combined data from the NASA Kepler and K2 missions to compute planet occurrence rates across the entire FGK and M dwarf stellar range. The K2 mission, driven by targets selected by guest ...

Kepler mission: smaller stars have more short-period, small #exoplanets.

Theory: the smallest stars won’t have enough disk material to make small planets so there must be a turnover.

Kepler+K2: We have found a turnover!

Check out our newest Scaling K2 paper: arxiv.org/abs/2508.05734

🧵 1/9
🔭🧪☄️

8 months ago 52 18 2 3
Figure showing a the plausible orbits for Eps Eri b, and a panel showing the scale of the orbits relative to the outer debris disk model of Booth et al.

Figure showing a the plausible orbits for Eps Eri b, and a panel showing the scale of the orbits relative to the outer debris disk model of Booth et al.

A three panel figure showing the statistical distribution of inclination versus mass for the planet, broken down by seven different combinations of data. The scatter points follow an m*sin(i) curve, except for a series that does not include any RV data. A small black concentrated region shows the full model, with 1 and 3 sigma contours. The planet's mass is quoted at 0.98 +- 0.09 Mjup, and inclination as 41 +- 7 degrees.

A three panel figure showing the statistical distribution of inclination versus mass for the planet, broken down by seven different combinations of data. The scatter points follow an m*sin(i) curve, except for a series that does not include any RV data. A small black concentrated region shows the full model, with 1 and 3 sigma contours. The planet's mass is quoted at 0.98 +- 0.09 Mjup, and inclination as 41 +- 7 degrees.

Time for the promised thread on ε Eridani b!

I should emphasize this manuscript is a submitted draft—comments from the community are very welcome.

Bottom line: ε Eri b is likely a 1.0 Jupiter-mass planet, only 3.2pc away, on a 3.55 AU near-circular orbit, ~aligned with its debris disk. 🔭🪐🧪 [1/7]

1 year ago 82 23 9 4
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Requirements for Joint Orbital Characterization of Cold Giants and Habitable Worlds with Habitable Worlds Observatory We determine optimal requirements for the joint detection of habitable-zone planets and cold giant planets with the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO). Analysis of 164 nearby stars shows that a corona...

A timely paper for #HWO25: is it enough to find Earth-like planets around other nearby stars? No! We need their planetary system contexts. Does life on Earth depend on Jupiter?

@sabinastro.bsky.social led this nice analysis of HWO requirements to detect Earths + Jupiters.

arxiv.org/abs/2507.21443

8 months ago 22 10 0 0

Congrats

8 months ago 1 0 0 0

The counter explanation against a water-world explanation for TOI-270d from Benneke+ is on my mind here. Not apparent to me that the intepretation from Wogan+ remains a strong fit with the current abudance measurements? Keen to get your thoughts 3/n

9 months ago 1 0 0 0

The arguments for abiotic origins for organosulfuric compounds is compelling. I wonder if there is a compelling alternate explanation to the water worlds hypothesis based on current abudance estimates for CH4 and CO2 and non-detections of H2O, NH3, or CO + potential abiotic organic compounds. 2/n

9 months ago 0 0 1 0

I think its unlikely the new evidence + interpretation for a water world will get as much discussion (newer data from Greaves, Seager, Bain+ for PH3 on Venus is an example that comes to mind) and a lot of the early impressions of the data being a flat line may prove difficult to change. 1/n

9 months ago 0 0 1 0
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A water-rich interior in the temperate sub-Neptune K2-18 b revealed by JWST Temperate sub-Neptunes are compelling targets for detecting liquid-water oceans beyond the Solar System. If water-rich and lacking massive hydrogen-helium envelopes, these planets could sustain liquid...

Keen to get you and @luiswel.bsky.social thoughts on this expanded re-analysis from Hu et al. with additional NIRSpec data that still seem consistent with a water world arxiv.org/abs/2507.12622

9 months ago 0 0 1 0

Congrats 👏

9 months ago 1 0 0 0

Nice 👍

9 months ago 0 0 0 0

Congrats to Nora, she has done really well. How was the food?

9 months ago 1 0 1 0

Wonderful, good to know there is short to medium term follow up options for these exciting candidates

9 months ago 1 0 0 0

Congrats

9 months ago 0 0 0 0

Congrats John, great paper. Will repeat observations help here or is a far-IR scope the only way to break the degeneracy and confirm these planets?

9 months ago 1 0 1 0
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