Adam Rains

@spectraltypos.bsky.social

astronomer & science communicator, 🇦🇺➡️🇸🇪➡️🇨🇱, he/him https://adrains.github.io/

🪐🔭 Our paper on everyone's favourite popcorn #exoplanet, WASP-107 b, has now been accepted for publication in A&A! Here is the updated arXiv version: arxiv.org/abs/2508.18964 The main science results are covered in the original thread below ⬇️ but since we added a bunch of cool new things... 🧪🧵

Linn Boldt-Christmas@nplinnspace.bsky.social · 12mo ago

Do you love WASP-107 b? Do you love making use of *both* ground VLT + space JWST obs to detect molecules in a "warm" (Teq<800K) #exoplanet in transmission, even in a crazy confusing cloudy atmosphere?! 🚨 It's PAPER* DAY! Which means #scicomm thread! 🧵⬇️🔭🪐🧪 *pre-print! arxiv.org/abs/2508.18964

<skeets into room at full speed> Hi astro bluesky—it's paper day! I dove into optical M/K dwarf spectra—rife with molecules as they are—& found success with a data-driven 🌈 model (i.e. ML) vs physical models. 1) 🟦🌈 recovery 😌 2) 🟥🌈 recovery 😌 3) Physical model vs ML 🙃 arxiv.org/abs/2402.14639 🔭

Observed low resolution blue spectra of benchmark M/K dwarfs ordered from warmest (top, smoothest) to coolest (bottom, most wiggly) as compared to a data-driven/machine learning (ML) model. The spectra match remarkably well!Observed medium resolution red spectra of benchmark M/K dwarfs ordered from warmest (top, smoothest) to coolest (bottom, most wiggly) as compared to a data-driven/machine learning (ML) model. The spectra match remarkably well!Observed blue+red spectra of benchmark M/K dwarfs ordered from warmest (top, smoothest) to coolest (bottom, most wiggly) as compared to theoretical spectra from physical models. The match is poor, pointing to missing physics or molecular data in the physical models.