My soul frowns whenever I see an AI-generated figure in a science.

Excited at our paper just out in PNAS. We used JWST to detect frozen deuterated water ("heavy water") on the moons of Uranus. There is **much more** on the moons than on Uranus itself, showing that Uranus and the moons formed from separate reservoirs of water. Fun lab work in the supplement, too.🔭🪐

Deuterated water and the formation of the satellites of Uranus | PNAS

The satellites of Uranus orbit in a low-eccentricity, equatorial plane that is tilted by 98° relative to the solar system—a geometry that mirrors U...

pnas.org

New paper on icy moon dynamos, led by @ltilke.bsky.social !

Joe O'Rourke@geojgo.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Icy satellite dynamos >> oceans 😈 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Icy satellite dynamos >> oceans 😈 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A modern dynamo at Triton as a consequence of its capture by Neptune - Nature Astronomy

Triton, Neptune’s largest moon, is presumed to be a trans-Neptunian object that was later captured by the ice giant. Thermal evolution modelling shows that the capture may have provided energy to gene...

nature.com

Looking through conference abstracts... it feels like a weirdly addicting form of procrastination. Regardless, excited about the upcoming #JpGU-AGU joint meeting in Chiba, Japan!

📢 🧲 🌕 Out of 300+ moons in our solar system, only Jupiter's Ganymede is known to produce a core-hosted magnetic field (i.e., dynamo) today. Why? Published today in #ScienceAdvances, we propose a new explanation: Ganymede might still be forming its bulk metal core today. Link: shorturl.at/QwYVk

Powering Ganymede’s dynamo with protracted core formation

Jupiter’s moon Ganymede might still be forming its metal core today, which no other planetary body is known to do.

shorturl.at

Not at #LPSC2026 myself — but my group has 7 talks! Psyche, Venus, Venus, Venus, Venus, Triton, and Io! 📣🧑‍🔬

Do you know of an undergrad who would be a good fit for icy moons or geophysics research? If so, encourage them to apply here: stemgateway.nasa.gov/s/course-off...

Coding is fun, but I really enjoy the occasions where most of my day is spent with just pen, paper, and doing math 🖊️📄🧠

📣 JOB: ASU SESE is hiring a (open rank, TT) professor in—you guessed it—Geoscience of Critical Minerals: apply.interfolio.com/179443

“Is Europa truly dead?” a planetary scientist asked himself after some disheartening results for the moon. “Or should we broaden our perspective on other mechanisms that can sustain life?” (Spoiler: he chose the latter)🌱🦠 Read my last #AGU2025 story (for now!) at @science.org: tinyurl.com/4dd67hhw

Life in Europa’s ocean could feed on rocks’ radioactive decay

After series of bleak findings, theory sparks hope for alternative energy source within Jupiter’s intriguing moon

tinyurl.com

Nature research paper: Titan’s strong tidal dissipation precludes a subsurface ocean go.nature.com/4s061hm

Titan’s strong tidal dissipation precludes a subsurface ocean - Nature

Reanalysis of radiometric data from Cassini indicates that Titan does not contain a subsurface ocean, as strong tidal dissipation observed in its gravity field is not consistent with the presence of a liquid layer.

go.nature.com

📢 Session announcement for #AbSciCon26! Are you doing work in geophysics and astrobiology? Do you ever combine the two? If yes, then consider submitting an abstract to this session, led by Dr. Natalie Wolfenbarger! Link: agu.confex.com/agu/abscicon...

Want a great job? Think I deserve raises and promotions? Please apply to be Director of ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration 🚀🥺 apply.interfolio.com/176991

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

Our new survey of parabolas on Venus, and evidence for True Polar Wander at ~1°/Myr is now published! (TLDR @jtuttlekeane.bsky.social was right. nananana BAT region) agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

Hey planetary science PhD graduaters: I know thinking about applying to postdocs this year seems daunting, so I am here to remind you that we have some REALLY GOOD prize fellowship at Caltech. Come work with me. Or Katherine. Or Heather. Or Konstantin. Or someone. Seriously. These are good. 🔭🪐

Postdoctoral Positions

From the Caltech Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences

gps.caltech.edu

Had a great time kicking off the academic year by giving a talk at Caltech’s Planetary Science Seminar!

📣 PAPER ALERT. Title says it all. I've been super excited about this project for years 🌋😍https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adw1621

The importance of carbonatite lavas in outgassing Venus’ modern-day atmosphere

The erosion of canali on Venus by carbonatite lavas transformed Venus’ atmosphere within the recent past.

science.org

I am community sourcing a list of people who are actively in search of MS/PhD students in planetary science/astrobiology/exoplanets for Fall 2026. If you are such a person, please fill out the following google form: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Planetary Science MS/PhD Positions for Fall 2026

Crowd sourced list of people who are looking for MS/PhD students to help connect prospective students with advisors so we can do even more fabulous planetary science! (Submitting a response indicates ...

docs.google.com

ASU SESE is hiring an Assistant Teaching Professor in Astrophysics: apply.interfolio.com/170951 🧑‍🏫 🔭

Planning to submit an abstract to hashtag#AGU25? If you're working on ocean worlds, then please consider submitting to our annual and crossdisciplinary session 🌊 Title: "Ice and Ocean Worlds: Geology, Oceanography, Chemistry, and Habitability" Link: agu.confex.com/agu/agu25/pr...

The "Cython" library in Python is phenomenal. My old thermal evolution code in C++ took ~10 minutes to run. Now, in Python, I can run the code in ~6 seconds. Granted, my C++ code was far from perfect, but it's nice being able to code primarily in Python while having the performance of C.

Hundreds of policies across China have been designed to lure researchers and new graduates to settle there https://go.nature.com/3HvZQiq

How China is vying to attract the world’s top scientific talent

Hundreds of policies across the country have been designed to lure researchers and new graduates to settle there.

go.nature.com

Perks of attending a conference in Japan 🇯🇵 #JpGU

It was nice visiting the Earth Life Science Institute (ELSI) at the Institute of Science Tokyo (formerly Tokyo Tech)! Lots of great planetary scientists and astrobiologists here.

This is insane, and sabotages the future of US science—and it’s so easy to see why… AI, quantum, etc., all started as niche research 10, 20, 50 years ago. They’re “trendy” science of national importance today because of decades of investments in broad, fundamental research. (🧵1/3)

Dustin Rubenstein@dustinrubenstein.com · last yr.

NSF to ONLY fund research in five areas: artificial intelligence, quantum information science, biotechnology, nuclear energy, and translational science. Can this be happening? www.science.org/content/arti...

After serving as Director of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and VP of Caltech for three years, I have decided to step down, effective June 1. Though not an easy decision, I strongly believe it is the right one for me, my family, and the Lab. www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/dave-ga...

Forever a Sun Devil 🔱

NASA Announces Bold Plan To Still Exist By 2045

NASA Announces Bold Plan To Still Exist By 2045

WASHINGTON—In what is being described as the most ambitious mission ever undertaken in the space agency’s history, NASA officials announced at a press conference Tuesday their bold new plan to still e...

theonion.com