My ‘albatross’ paper is finally out! So much gratitude to @luiswel.bsky.social for helping me turn three years’ worth of hard-graft writing into something I am really proud of, and to the editorial team at Living Reviews in Computational Astrophysics team for their (substantial!) patience.

Astronomy, Astrophysics & Space Science | SpringerNature@astro.springernature.com · 11h ago

Living Reviews in Computational Astrophysics: Joanna K. Barstow, Luis Welbanks. Computational challenges in exoplanet atmospheric retrieval. #LivingRevComputAstrophys 12, 6 (2026) doi.org/10.1007/s411... #OpenAccess | @drjovian.bsky.social @luiswel.bsky.social

🔭 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

Admirable clarity @science.org

David Roberts@volts.wtf · 2w ago

Whew, the editors of @science.org are getting real.

Very happy to share that I got awarded the IAU PhD Prize of Division F for my thesis on “Transmission spectroscopy of hot gas giant #exoplanets ” 🪐 I’m incredibly proud and happy, but also immensely grateful for all the support from supervisors, collaborators, friends and family through all this! ❤️

ESO@eso.org · last mo.

Our congratulations to ESO fellows Maximilian Häberle & Bibiana Prinoth @bibianaprinoth.ch on receiving the 2025 IAU PhD Prize 👏 Assigned by each IAU Division, it acknowledges remarkable work carried out in the Division's subject area during the previous year. 1/4 🧵👇  🔭

and Cyril Gapp developed a new method to characterize the 3Dness of hot Jupiters, from asymmetries due to planet rotation during transit.

Good week on the arXiv for MPIA grad students :) Annie von Stauffenberg measured a spectacularly high S/N spectrum of Beta Pic b with the new and improved GRAVITY+ instrument - she detects 13CO and potential variability!

Very exciting to finally be measuring magnetic fields of exoplanets!

Bibiana Prinoth@handle.invalid · 2mo ago

Magnetic fields tend to be the running joke at #exoplanets conferences. You can be sure someone asks „what about magnetic fields?“. This is the answer ⬇️

"Someone, somewhere, has taken the decision to defund astrophysics research in the UK, but no-one seems quite sure who that was, or why." The latest on the impact of the catastrophic funding cuts to UK astrophysics, by me, in @natastron.nature.com 👩‍🔬🧪🔭 ✒️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Editorial Opportunity at the Journal of Open Source Software The Journal of Open Source Software - known to its friends as JOSS - is is a developer friendly, diamond open access journal for research software packages which has been running since 2016 and is enormously successful, publishing Open…

Editorial Opportunity at the Journal of Open Source Software

The Journal of Open Source Software - known to its friends as JOSS - is is a developer friendly, diamond open access journal for research software packages which has been running since 2016 and is enormously successful, publishing Open Source software across many fields of science. Its UR, joss.theoj.org, is a giveaway that it is a stablemate of astro.theoj.org…

telescoper.blog

There's actually a pretty big risk that that's not the case - reducing launch costs and increasing difficulty getting permission to build data centers in many places makes it already somewhat economically viable; and the cooling isn't such a huge problem either. Great video that does the maths:

Why Everyone Is Talking About Data Centers In Space

YouTube video by Scott Manley

youtu.be

Alexander Schmidt-Lebuhn@anschmidtlebuhn.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Orbital data centers are not feasible and never will be because physics, just like orbital solar power plants or Mars colonisation. Charitably, this is investment fraud. Less charitably, the tech geniuseses do not understand the problem of cooling in a vacuum and logistics in orbit.

1/3 🔭 Exciting discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope! Researchers from MPIA and CfA | Harvard & Smithsonian analysed the rocky exoplanet LHS 3844 b, revealing a dark, hot surface likely composed of basalt. We are beginning to do #exogeology. 🌌 #Exoplanets #JWST www.mpia.de/news/science...

Astronomers Explore the Surface Composition of a Nearby Super-Earth

Astronomers constrain the properties of a rocky exoplanet’s hot crust with JWST observations.

mpia.de

NASA just dropped more than 12,000 photos from the Artemis II mission. It'll take me a few days to go through them all, but so far it's one stunner after another. Link: eol.jsc.nasa.gov/SearchPhotos... Credit: NASA/Artemis II Crew (h/t @jonostrower.com)

Please join @astroyami.bsky.social, Keren Duer-Milner, and I for a session on Giant Planets Across the Solar System and Beyond! meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPSC2026/ses...

Europlanet@europlanetmedia.bsky.social · 3mo ago

☄️Planetary scientists are invited to submit an abstract for the #EPSC2026, which will take place in The Hague, 6–11 Sept 2026. 🗓️ Abstract deadline is 13 May 👉 www.europlanet.org/epsc2026-call-for-abstracts-now-open/

Interview done! Now time to dig in to this really thorough, horrifying paper by Olivier Hainaut about what the night sky will look like with future satellites https://arxiv.org/pdf/2604.09427 This is similar to the kind of modelling that I've done with my collaborators, but using totally […]

This Trans Day of Visibility, I want cis people to understand that we don't need "validation." We need *action.* Write to your representatives; call out transphobic language; write letters to the editor; campaign for gender-inclusive washrooms at your office, school, or business. *Do something.*🏳️‍⚧️

Nico Mara-McKay 🦇 (they/iel)@nicomaramckay.com · last yr.

Being out and visible as a trans person is more dangerous now than it used to be, but I'm still here. I continue to live my quiet little life with my partner and cats. I continue to advocate for our rights and freedoms. I will no longer diminish myself for the comfort of others. #tdov 🏳️‍⚧️🖤

Hey, I wrote a thing about AI in astrophysics ergosphere.blog/posts/the-ma...

🔭🪐 Open question for the exoplaneteers on here: what gripes do you have with current 1D atmospheric modelling and retrieval packages? Are there features you'd like to see, or ways we could make your life easier?

🔭 New paper day from the ExoAimser group at Trinity College Dublin! Not one, but two exciting papers from PhD students @astrotoole.bsky.social and @maddielam.bsky.social. 🪐

I defended my PhD 10 years ago today. That was the least remarkable thing that happened that day. Sharing something I wrote about it last year. Since then "the horrors persist but so do we." And with dignity.

OH GOD IT’S HAPPENING #JWSTCycle5

“Tehran is burning. And smoke has filled the streets. It’s impossible to drive out of the city right now and even with the windows closed, heavy smoke is making its way inside." Read every word.

‘Dark, like our future’: Iranians describe scenes of catastrophe after Tehran’s oil depots bombed

Residents report terror of smoke-filled city, from potentially toxic rain, air and water to food scarcity and difficulty of escape

theguardian.com

Fellow astronomers, please submit your name if you'd like to join the Astronomers for Planet Earth (@a4e.org) statement on the proposed megaconstellations 🔭

Emily Hunt@emily.space · 5mo ago

Astronomers for Planet Earth are submitting a statement about some of the proposed megaconstellations that would ruin ground-based astronomy to the FCC. You can read the statement below: 🔭☄️

Astronomers for Planet Earth are submitting a statement about some of the proposed megaconstellations that would ruin ground-based astronomy to the FCC. You can read the statement below: 🔭☄️

Protecting Planet Earth’s Skies: A4E's Statement on Proposed Large Satellite Constellations - a4e.org

Astronomers for Planet Earth (A4E) is an international grassroots movement of astronomy students, educators, amateurs and scientists, working to address the climate crisis from an astronomical perspec...

a4e.org

Publication day for our paper on the T2.5 brown dwarf/exoplanet analog SIMP0136! We find cloud formation appears to drive upper atmospheric temperature and chemical structure. We also debut a new, novel method for vertical mapping extrasolar atmospheric dynamics. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

Mapping the Cloud-driven Atmospheric Dynamics and Chemistry of an Isolated Exoplanet Analog with Harmonic Signatures

Mapping the Cloud-driven Atmospheric Dynamics and Chemistry of an Isolated Exoplanet Analog with Harmonic Signatures, Plummer, Michael K., Cocchini, Francis P., Kearns, Peter A., McCarthy, Allison M., Artigau, Étienne, Cowan, Nicolas B., Akhmetshyn, Roman, Vos, Johanna M., Nasedkin, Evert, Visscher, Channon, Benneke, Björn, Doyon, René, Metchev, Stanimir A., Rowe, Jason F., Suárez, Genaro

iopscience.iop.org

There are lots of aspects of silicate clouds in substellar objects that we don't often think about. Luckily, Sarah Moran (@offallingstars.bsky.social) and Elijah Mullens are here to fill us in on the interesting details. #exoplanets #astronomy www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYWZ...

Head in the Silicate Clouds - Sarah Moran and Elijah Mullens

YouTube video by BOWIE+ Seminars

youtube.com

bluesky, the canadian sports app

Astronomers: highly recommend this thoughtful opinion piece by @hogg.bsky.social on how to think about our field in light of the development of large language models. whether you agree with him or not it’s vital to discuss the principles behind our science. 🔭 arxiv.org/abs/2602.10181

Why do we do astrophysics?

At time of writing, large language models (LLMs) are beginning to obtain the ability to design, execute, write up, and referee scientific projects on the data-science side of astrophysics. What implic...

arxiv.org

Announcing the 8th Other Worlds Laboratory (OWL) Exoplanet Summer Program, Aug 10-27, 2026. We wish to foster new and existing research collaborations by outstanding visitors, with stays of 1 to 3 weeks at the beautiful UC Santa Cruz campus. Applications accepted Feb 5-March 5. owl.ucsc.edu/summer/

Summer 2026

The Other Worlds Laboratory (OWL) at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) will soon be accepting applications for the eighth annual Exoplanet Summer Program (ESP), from August 10 –…

owl.ucsc.edu

The Atlantic Magazine just dropped a tremendous story on the Minnesota Resistance. The author is a war correspondent & sees the echoes of leaderless community empowerment around the globe: www.theatlantic.com/politics/202... (supposed to be a gift link, might not work, it’s in Apple News, too.)

Welcome to the American Winter

In the frozen streets of Minneapolis, something profound is happening.

theatlantic.com

I am hiring a postdoc in exoplanet atmospheres! (ASIAA, 4yrs, funded through 2030) Job ad here. Feel free to reach out if there are any questions! aas.org/jobregister/... PS. There’s also another postdoc position in cosmology with an awesome colleague