Scouting possible future names for model grids in our Sonora series (following Bobcat, Cholla, Diamondback, Elf Owl, Flameskimmer). G and H look good, I is a tough one, J and K are covered, and then we come to Lesser long-nosed bat...
Mark Marley
@markmarley.bsky.social
Personal account. Substellar science since the 80s.
My heart is so full! The “Charting Substellar Worlds” conference was a great success. Amazing science talks and community building. Conference organizing was so stressful, but so worth it in the end. Along with talks and we had s’mores, karaoke, and even some folks surfing 🏄🏾♂️.
Me: “Now that I’ve armored the water station the javelina won’t be able to disrupt it”. Javelina: “hold my garbage bin”
It was great to see LPL grads and alums bringing planetary science perspective to brown dwarfs at the Charting Substellar Worlds workshop this week. Wonderful science and great setting.
🔭 New paper day! 🪐 This time from Merle Schrader, a PhD student in the brown dwarf group at Trinity College Dublin. Today, they're publishing a fresh look at SIMP-0136, using principal component analysis, identifying the mechanisms driving its atmospheric variability. arxiv.org/abs/2607.26182
The JWST weather report: Unravelling the atmospheric variability of isolated worlds using principal component analysis
Brown dwarf variability directly probes atmospheric dynamics beyond the Solar System, and recent JWST time-resolved spectroscopy has opened a new window into these processes. Principal component analy...
arxiv.org
Read about LPL-led Snow4Flow, which seeks to measure and model how far and fast glaciers are retreating in the far north. science.nasa.gov/earth/new-na...
New NASA Earth Missions Gear Up to Start Science Flights - NASA Science
The first of six new airborne campaigns will hit the skies this summer.
science.nasa.gov
Getting hydrated before heading off to this week’s brown dwarf workshop in Monterey.
The Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex at Robledo de Chavela municipality in the Community of Madrid, Spain on fire. Burgohondo wildfire. 📷 via Infues Avila
Not only is Kayla investigating brown dwarf atmospheres with me, she also developed a program for students in juvenile detention in Tucson.
LPL graduate student Kayla Smith is taking planetary sciences lessons to Pima County Juvenile Detention Center! www.kold.com/2026/07/23/j...
On the contrary, this object is not just a moon, it is a moonmoon! Specifically, it is the moonmoon brown degenerate "star" CD-35 2722 Bb. The system is dynamically equivalent to the system in Figure 2 here: arxiv.org/abs/2303.18217
A Unified Nomenclature and Taxonomy for Planets, Stars, and Moons
I solve the problem of nomenclature of planets, stars, and moons, and in doing so repair two of the IAU's blunders. Drawing and improving upon foundational work by Chen & Kipping, I describe a single,...
arxiv.org
I find myself confused here. The new object is in orbit around a star. It’s a planet, not a moon. The fact that that star is in orbit around another star seems neither here nor there. 🔭
European Southern Observatory: New “Exomoon” Detection Challenges Cosmic Labels www.eso.org/public/news/...
New ‘exomoon’ detection challenges cosmic labels
Observations made with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) have revealed evidence for a moon-like object in the CD-35 2722 system. Unlike moons in our Solar System, th...
eso.org
Super cool paper on variability observed by JWST in beta Pic b on the arXiv. arxiv.org/pdf/2607.13133 Ages ago Chris Gelino and I worked out the rotational variability of Jupiter as observed at 5um for just such a day, so 26 years later we have a comparison. ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2000ASPC...
ui.adsabs.harvard.edu
I remember watching live as the image appeared one vertical line after another.
Jul 20, 2026: On July 20, 1976, Viking 1 became NASA's first robot to explore Mars, sending back images of its surface and marking a milestone in space exploration. www.nasa.gov/image-article/our-first-view-of-the-surface-of-mars
The first glimpse of the Martian surface was long anticipated. Bonestell's art dominated ideas of what Mars was like, basically the desert Southwest with most air absent. The idea of a dark blue sky on Mars persisted in space art until that morning. Here are those first looks at the Martian surface.
Forget the World Cup, I found the cable I needed in my box of old cables.
Haven’t seen any bobcats for a while but I guess Mom was busy.
There is an Arizona resident flex on introductions of saying how long your family has been here. I never initiate this but if someone else starts I always drop our 1885 arrival. In a very rare case I was beat by the initiator yesterday who goes back to 1870.
Today in 1959, a clogged coolant channel led to the meltdown of 30 percent of the fuel elements in the core of the uncontained 20-Megawatt Sodium Reactor Experiment nuclear reactor at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, located about 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles above Simi Valley.
Hear @offallingstars.bsky.social and LPL's Lori Huseby talk about our recent paper on UV irradiation of exoplanet haze analogs.
#ICYMI: On this week's #SETILive, @goastromo.bsky.social and her guests discussed the effects of UV radiation on an exoplanet's atmosphere, using both observations and lab testing, and why this work is important for the search for life. Watch the full interview: youtube.com/live/_Rnj_C7... 🧪 🔭 👩🔬
Fire near my friends we are visiting. CalFire in the job.
The biggest Saturn ring seismology contribution has been the fuzzy Saturn core.
it turns out that what we know about the solar system changes in 12 years! Mars: much new. Exoplanets: um, yeah. Giant planets: can you say fuzzy? Dwarf planets? [oh well, yeah, Pluto remains very much not a planet so that didn't need to change]
DPS has approved an LPL alumni and friends reception one evening. I asked for Tuesday or Thursday. I'll soon ask alums for photos we can show during the reception (finger food and a drink). The theme is celebrating 50 years since our first degree award to Wayne Slattery in 1976.
Never used these plates I inherited from someone. Decided today’s the day.
It was vastly different vibe. I won an essay context and got to go see the bicentennial train when it came through Phoenix.
It's hard to convey to someone who didn't experience it how culturally ubiquitous the bicentennial was at the time. Kids had red-white-and-blue SHEETS on their beds. Like many, many, many kids.
It would be interesting, if sad, to hear from the mother quail who lost most of their chicks as to what happened. “The Gila monster came”.
I need to know what the AZ exhibit is at the “state fair” on the Mall. From the Atlantic article, “Arizona is an immersive experience involving darkness, birdsong, and the scent of pine.” Is there an astronomy theme?
Finally had a chance to rebuild and re-armor our wildlife watering station after a very very bad javelina tore it apart and broke the bowl. The quail are appreciative.