This is a great summary of the potential for space interferometry of exoplanets.

Optical Long-Baseline Interferometry News (OLBIN)@olbin.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) released the final report for the 2022 Workshop "Exploring Exoplanets with Interferometry." Take a look at the how space interferometers could detect Earth-like planets and what technological hurdles still exist. tinyurl.com/5xp5crbd

Disturbing. Are accreditation agencies paying attention? www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

Students are speeding through their online degrees in weeks, alarming educators

Some online colleges allow students to take unlimited courses on their own time, leading to quick degrees and worries about devaluing credentials.

washingtonpost.com

But he didnt know about interferometry. The #chara Array is just down the road from these amazing solar towers continuing this legacy. We can now study quite a diverse range of stars in quite some detail with milliarcsecond resolution.

Mount Wilson Observatory@mtwilsonobs.bsky.social · 7mo ago

“It cannot too often be repeated that the Sun is the only star whose phenomena can be studied in detail.” With these words, George Ellery Hale set the vision for the Mount Wilson Solar Observatory - where solar research was central from the very beginning.

Happy New Years! I will be attending AAS Meeting in Phoenix to present a poster on our STARI Mission. Look me up to learn more or to catch up. starimission.space

Working on my first AAS "iPoster"... I hadn't realized the presenting screens are much smaller than a typical physical poster and so not sure this is really an upgrade for most people. What am I missing?

My STARI (starimission.space) Collaborators Simone D'Amico and Sam Low (Stanford) took time to make this image as we prepare for our System Requirements Review on Friday! tinyurl.com/4ett99wv #stari #nasa @jwcutler.bsky.social

Happy to announce a paper 20+ years in the making: arxiv.org/abs/2512.06066 In a huge group effort with new data from VLA, ATCA, Swift, Chandra, Keck aperture masking, and Keck adaptive optics, we report a "shocking" result about colliding wind WR112. Enjoy! Let me know if you have any questions!

Revealing the accelerating wind in the inner region of the colliding-wind binary WR 112

Colliding winds in massive binaries generate X-ray-bright shocks, synchrotron radio emission, and sometimes even dusty "pinwheel" spirals. We report the first X-ray detections of the dusty WC+O binary...

arxiv.org

BREAKING: No. 2 Indiana beats No. 1 Ohio State 13-10 for its first Big Ten championship since 1967 and likely lock up the top seed in the playoff.

No. 2 Indiana beats No. 1 Ohio St. 13-10 to end Big Ten title drought, lock up top playoff seed

Fernando Mendoza’s 17-yard touchdown pass to Elijah Sarratt gave No. 2 Indiana the lead midway through the third quarter and the Hoosiers' stingy defense pitched a shutout the rest of the way to beat No. 1 Ohio State 13-10 for their first Big Ten championship since 1967 while likely locking up the t

bit.ly

When I was a grad student, we dreamed of imaging nova (and supernova) explosions with our then-new infrared interferometers. And while we are still waiting for a Milky Way SUPERnova, we CAN now see novae go boom using CHARA with instruments built at U. Michigan! news.umich.edu/seeing-stell...

Seeing stellar explosions in high definition

An international team of astronomers, including researchers from the University of Michigan, has captured unprecedented images of two stellar explosions—known as novae—within days of their eruption.

news.umich.edu

Ha. The “Urban Experience Fee” unexpectedly cost us an extra $25 extra per night during our recent stay in Chicago. But look at what amenities were included:

Amazing work solving a tricky calibration problem with JWST aperture masking data! Any hope to improve ground-based systematics with this general approach? @benjaminpope.bsky.social arxiv.org/abs/2510.09806

AMIGO: a Data-Driven Calibration of the JWST Interferometer

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) hosts a non-redundant Aperture Masking Interferometer (AMI) in its Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) instrument, providing the only dedicate...

arxiv.org

Its much harder to help my kids with homework post-covid with no textbooks. Can’t help but wonder if the move to online resources is hurting learning across the board, but especially middle and high school.

Thanks @planet4589.bsky.social One ride to terminator every few years.... Check it out, @jwcutler.bsky.social !

🚀 Rideshare reality check: @planet4589.bsky.social — is there a good source for CubeSat drop-off orbits from the past 5 years? I’m modeling #STARI (a LEO formation-flying mission) and need to know the most common insertion orbits. Dream case is SSO terminator—but I’m told those are unicorns 🦄.

Bravo to the organizers of the 2025 #smallsat Conference! Lively talks, great interactions, and flawless organization — plus free coffee, ice cream, lunches, and industry socials that set a high bar. Hope #AAS and #SPIE are taking notes! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Excited to attend my first SmallSat conference in Salt Lake City this week. Many cool CubeSat missions and innovative companies exhibiting. I’ll talk about our formation flying mission STARI later in week. #smallsat #stari

Really hate to see Stanford going back on its pledge to halt legacy admissions. stanforddaily.com/2025/08/06/s...

Stanford to continue legacy admissions, reinstate standardized test requirements

New admissions criteria announced a continuation of legacy consideration and a reinstatement of the standardized testing requirement for class of 2030 applicants

stanforddaily.com

Bravo.. “ — making “Harvard astronomer” the scientific equivalent of “Florida man” didn’t just happen; it took long-term dedication.”

Steve Desch@deschscoveries.bsky.social · last yr.

I have a complaint about Avi Loeb's latest work and I want to speak to management. medium.com/@steve.desch...

It is cool to see a movie about local Ann Arbor History funded by kickstarter! Congratulations to the filmakers! www.kickstarter.com/projects/196...

For those also waiting, I just got a late NSF-ATI rejection today. The letter says only 10% success rate, notably lower than historical practice. With MRI shutdown for next year, I suspect ATI (the only other NSF instrumentation programs) will be overwhelmed!

Ok. So NSF has officially cut funding for one of its largest instrumentation programs for next year. Hope this is temporary. www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

Changes to NSF Major Research Instrumentation Program for FY 2026

nsf.gov

Spent time to visit Copernicus in old Krakow. He worked at The Jagiellonian University in Krakow, the 4th oldest University in Europe, where they started out only teaching 3 disciplines: Law, Medicine, and Astronomy.

I’d like to advertise the Michigan Society of Fellows, a unique opportunity for recent PhDs to carry out cutting edge research while also developing their teaching skills. Any Interferometrists or ELT-METISians interested? Note early deadline Sep 15. societyoffellows.umich.edu/the-fellowsh...

Fellow Astronomers: With ApJ page charges running $3K these days, what are some alternate journals to submit to?

Ive also been disappointed by the silence of our National Academy of Sciences. Perhaps if the membership of the NAS itself was being cut by 50% we would hear more complaint. arstechnica.com/science/2025...

US science is being wrecked, and its leadership is fighting the last war

Facing an extreme budget, the National Academies hosted an event that ignored it.

arstechnica.com

Reasonable NSF budget cut: * Choose to support only one Extremely Large Telescope Project Unreasonable NSF budget cut: * Choose to support only one of the two essential LIGO Gravitational Wave Interferometer detector sites.

Space science is probably the only area in technology that the USA is the undisputed world leader. Squandered.

Stand Up for Science!@standupforscience.net · last yr.

Under Trump’s budget, NASA would face its lowest funding in over a decade, and its most ambitious science missions would be canceled. Davinci+, Veritas, Mars Sample Return? Gone. If Trump gets his way, the future of U.S. space science will die on the launchpad. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Maybe this has been written before, but one of explanations for the increased and more widespread administrative mayhem of the new govt compared to last must be chatgpt.

I could not disagree more with revoking student visas based on nationality. As the PhD advisor of multiple international students over past 20years, there is no doubt our Country is stronger and more prosperous with their contributions.

George Takei@georgetakei.bsky.social · last yr.

When you can’t outcompete, just ban them. Classic.

Potentially legit reasons to withdraw tax-exempt status for Universities: * increasing student tuition faster than inflation * paying U Presidents >$1M/yr Not legitimate reasons: * defending student and faculty academic freedom * pursuing DEI activities legally allowed by state and federal laws