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 · last mo.

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

I don’t post much on here anymore - but tonight I am overjoyed I get to tell this story, one that seems especially important with the world as it is today. #comefromaway #welcometotherock

Very sad news. Mike was also Treasurer for some of my time on Council and he did it superbly. He was also very friendly and I had many enjoyable conversations with him over the years.

Royal Astronomical Society@royalastrosoc.bsky.social · 7mo ago

The RAS was saddened to hear of the passing of our former President, Professor Mike Cruise, who has died aged 78. "Kind, thoughtful and honourable", Mike was a "stalwart of the RAS". Our thoughts are with his family, friends and all who had the privilege to know him. ras.ac.uk/news-and-pre...

Me, on astronomy funding crisis, on the @ox.ac.uk website: www.ox.ac.uk/news/2026-02... 🔭🧪

Expert Comment: Cuts to fundamental research will hurt the UK’s

Chris Lintott, Professor of Astrophysics at Oxford’s Department of Physics, responds to the news that University funding for astronomy and physics research will be cut by almost a third.

ox.ac.uk

I’m in an amateur production of Beauty and the Beast and in rehearsals last week we got around to learning/setting the Mob Song (the one with repeated calls to ‘Kill the Beast!’) I confess I never paid much attention to the details of the lyrics in the film…

If you don't know what's going on with anti-trans stuff in the UK, read this. If you're similarly disgusted with the way anti-trans people have gotten away with demonising and assaulting an innocent minority, send this to your friends, family and MP to demand change. They won't stop with us.

Toby Buckle@polphilpod.bsky.social · 12mo ago

the UK's new anti-trans rules are indefensible & will make global fascism stronger my latest with @liberalcurrents.com www.liberalcurrents.com/britains-bat...

I had lots of fun last week recording a podcast episode for our OpenLearn team, which meant i got to wave my hands around a lot whilst talking about everything exoplanets - and of course, Habitable Worlds Observatory got an honourable mention. youtu.be/KXbo6OAKfoI?...

OpenLearn Podcast #3: Looking for life on exoplanets with Dr Jo Barstow

YouTube video by OpenLearn from The Open University

youtu.be

That's a wrap folks, #HWO25 is done! In 20 years I'll be posting on whatever social media platform then exists about Earthlike planet detections and maybe even signs of life 👀

Now our final talk, by Akash Gupta on the story of hydrogen and water - new insights into the interaction of planet atmospheres and interiors. Planet formation entails interaction of hydrogen envelope with interior - are these important? Yes - likely impact structure and thermal evolution #HWO25

Now we have Megan Gialluca on assessing the impact of stray light due to micrometeoroid damage. Micrometeoroid damage is unavoidable for space missions. JWST has seen a rate of a couple per month, consistent with pre-launch expectations - excepting the high energy event on the C3 mirror #HWO25

Now we have Nicole Wolff talking about impacts of correlated noise on retrievals of exo-Earth atmospheres. Direct images contain chromatic speckles that move radially outward with wavelength. They are a source of spectrally correlated noise coupling adjacent wavelength bins. #HWO25

Next we have Thomas Stuber, talking about hot exozodiacal dust and its effect on HWO's performance. Debris disks are circumstellar discs, gas poor, optically thin, composed of dust fragments left over from planetesimal fragmentation. Hot dust resides within ~1 au of the star, seen in near-IR #HWO25

Now we have Kara Brugman talking about goechemical habitability. Volcanoes are a crust factory for planets and also a mechanism for transporting volatiles from the interior to the surface and therefore atmosphere. Geochemical context is therefore critical for interpreting biosignatures. #HWO25

Now we have Martin Barstow, taking the opportunity to embarrass me slightly (parental prerogative I suppose?) before going on to talk about white dwarfs as probes of exoplanet compositions. White dwarfs eat exoplanets for breakfast - they are good probes of rocky exoplanet composition. #HWO25

Thanks Laura for posting about my presentation!

L. C. Mayorga@mayorgalc.bsky.social · last yr.

Barstow is presenting work on behalf of all of us on the dynamics and chemistry of transiting exoplanets scdd #HWO25

We are back for the last session of #HWO25 with Michiel Min, describing the science case for observing cold gas giants via coronagraphy with HWO. The gas giants of our solar system have varied atmospheirc properties, clouds and chemistry. We need more targets to understand processes at work.

Next it's me! I'll be talking about observing transiting exoplanet phase curves with HWO 🙌 #HWO25

Now we have Kaz Gary, on masses of directly-imaged planets via ultra-high precision astrometry with HWO. Mass determination is important to correctly interpret spectra of potential biosignature host planets. Mass affects atmospheric structure, lack of knowledge hampers retrieval accuracy #HWO25

Next we have Marco Landoni, speaking about AI-assisted observation strategies for HWO. One of the things can that profitably be automated is scheduling, which can optimize the use of time. Bayesian inference and machine learning methods can both be used for this. #HWO25

Next we have Taro Matsuo speaking about the green sea hypothesis - the coevolution of Earth and life. The colour of the Earth is driven by the atmosphere but also the ocean. Cyanobacteria, the first organisms to use oxygen photosynthesis, used a range of pigments rather than chlorophyll. Why? #HWO25

Next is Anna Grace Ulses, talking about characterizing terrestrial exoplanet surfaces with reflected light spectroscopy. Oceans (habitability indicator), continents (oxygen false positive discriminator), vegetation and microbial mats are all important. #HWO25

Vanderburg: HWO will enable measurement of many many more contaminated white dwarf spectra and neural networks can be a big part of this. #HWO25

In the exoplanets/astrobiology parallel session this afternoon we start with Andrew Vanderburg, speaking about determining composition of rocky planets using AI. It's important to understand the range of rocky planet compositions in the solar neighbourhood to contextualise biosignatures #HWO25

Now we have the synthesis and vision discussion, led by Evgenya Shkolnik and John O'Meara. Shkolnik: HWO feels like a community-driven flagship mission. Aim is to keep that level of engagement throughout. Everyone here has been very excited, and despite challenging times the mood is hopeful. #HWO25

And, on that topic.... the next panel is on international partnerships. Panelists: Shawn-Domagal Goldman, Caroline Harper, Keigo Enya, Paul McNamara, Jean Dupuis; moderator Megan Ansdell. Representation from NASA, UKSA, JAXA, ESA and CSA. Long history of collaboration between all these. #HWO25

We now have an industry partnerships panel, panelists Jon Arenberg, Jeanette Domber, Matthew East and Alison Nordt; moderator Jim Oschman. Training the next generation of engineers and scientists is key because this is a long-duration mission. Advocacy for science (in general) also needed #HWO25

Now we have J. Scott Smith, discussing the road to mission concept review. We will be drawing on expertise and lessons learned from Hubble, JWST and Roman. MCR takes place prior to mission phase A. Traditionally, tech development happens in phase A, we are doing it early to mitigate risk #HWO25

We now have a second panel on emerging technologies, panelists Andrew Vanderburg, Tania Bedrax-Weiss, Dan Sirbu, Bernard Rauscher, Susan Redmond, John MacKenty; moderator Ruslan Belikov. AI technology is something that is emerging, could be used to speed up e.g. predictions/simulations. #HWO25

We now have a panel on astrophysics beyond 100 parsecs. Panelists: Sarah Tuttle, Eric Burns, Adam Smercina, Thaisa Storchi Bergmann, Allison Strom; moderator Janice Lee. First question is on the ideal lowest wavelength cutoff. 100 nm seems to be the consensus. #HWO25

Next we have Xinfeng Xu, talking about spatially resolving the fundamental elements of reionization in galaxies. Young, massive star clusters are fundamental to ionization. These have been observed in lensed galaxies at high redshift - strong lensing enables resolution of distant clusters. #HWO25