Dr. Jake Turner 📡🧲🪐

Photo taken with Pixel 8 Pro Phone (4 min exposure)

Milky Way near my house 🔭

“One small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.” Neil Armstrong on July 20, 1969 🔭

Exoclimes 2025 (@exoclimes.bsky.social) was an amazing week of science, meeting old friends, making new friends and colleagues, and having fun exploring Montreal! 😊

Thanks everyone!

#ExoClimesVII is done and that’s a wrap on a great week full of science🔭🛰️🪐! On behalf of the entire LOC, thank you to all participants for making this week so special and memerable 🥹. Can’t wait to see you guys all again at ExoClimes VIII 🛸🚀

MERCI À BIENTÔT!!

Same 😬

Exoclimes VII has officially begun!! 👽🧑‍🚀👩‍🚀🚀🚀 Things have kicked off with some welcoming words from our fearless leaders Lisa Dang @astrolisadang.bsky.social & Romain Allart! And now off to our first review talk from Nicolas Cowan about Exoplanet atmospheric Dynamics 🪐☄️

I'm in Montreal this week for Exoclimes 🇨🇦

Excited for a great week of exoplanet science! 😀

Pluto at Fuertes Observatory 🔭

Taken through the 102-year-old Irving Porter Church Refractor

Image taken by Ben Jacobson-Bell & The Cornell Astronomical Society

Today is my 7th PhD Anniversary!! 🥳🎓

Wow, how time flies 🤯

Picture from my PhD dinner 👇

0.05% of the 10 billion galaxies Rubin will discover in the next decade. Every corner of the sky holds a star or galaxy, some of which were simply too far away, too dim, to be seen before now. Rubin bridges the vastness.

Have you seen the Rubin Observatory's first images?

Rubin has the largest digital camera in the world, and it's ready to revolutionize astronomy! Over the next decade, it will discover 2000x MORE galaxies than the 10 million shown below.

Let's explore how its images compare to other telescopes 🔭

Today we show the power of the people ✊

Join the nationwide peaceful 'No Kings Day' protests in a city near you 👇

YouTube video by Linkin Park In The End [Official HD Music Video] - Linkin Park

Rejected from a dream job yesterday 😭

This one hurts 🤕

Mood today 👇
youtu.be/eVTXPUF4Oz4?...

My current research focuses on using TESS to study the changing orbits of exoplanets 🔭

See the epic trailer for the TESS mission below! 🤯

Take Action Now to Support Astronomical Science Programs 🔭
aas.org/advocacy/get...
#savescience

Urge Your Members of Congress To Support NASA Science 🔭
aas.org/urge-nasa-su...

A protest graphic titled “TRUMP’S FIRST 100 DAYS” with bold red blocks reading “SCIENCE UNDER SIEGE.” Black paint drips from the top, and a grayscale crowd of protestors hold signs like “Save Science,” “Keep Your Hands Off Our Pipettes,” and “No Science, No Future.” A U.S. flag waves on the right.

🚨SCIENCE UNDER SIEGE: TRUMP’S FIRST 100 DAYS 🚨

In his first 100 days, Trump has declared war on science—slashing budgets, censoring facts, and meddling in research. From climate to cancer care, real lives are at risk.

Here’s a thread on Trump’s assault on science so far—and why it matters: (🧵)

Happy 35th Birthday to the Hubble Space Telescope!! 🔭

I had pictures of Hubble on my wall as a kid. And now I'm an Astronomer. What a journey 🤯

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us... To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, & to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known." Carl Sagan #earthdayeveryday #EarthDay

Action Center Whether it's advocating, teaching, inspiring, or learning, you can do something for space, right now. Let's get to work.

*** If you’d like to support the search for life, take just one minute to urge American representatives to support NASA science. Slashing NASA’s budget in half would make these scientific discoveries near impossible. ***

www.planetary.org/action-center

Artist depiction of an exoplanet (Celestialobjects/Pablo Carlos Budassi) with the text "LIFE ON AN OCEAN WORLD? Do these 'hints of life' hold water?"

Has JWST found life on another world? 🔭

An analysis of exoplanet K2-18 b points to the existence of dimethyl sulfide, a molecule produced by photosynthesizing plankton on Earth—but proving that this sign is real, and that life is the only explanation, is a difficult task.

arxiv.org/abs/2504.12267

Artist's impression of the exoplanet K2-18b. Credit: A. Smith, University of Cambridge.

𝗡𝗼, 𝗮 𝗯𝗶𝗼𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝗞𝟮-𝟭𝟴𝗯'𝘀 𝗮𝘁𝗺𝗼𝘀𝗽𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲.

K2-18b is back in the news, now with a bold claim that biosignature molecules (DMS and/or DMDS) have been 'detected at 3σ'.

Most exoplanet astronomers are extremely sceptical about these claims, let's see why (1/n).

🔭🧪🪐 #exoplanet

Astronomers claim strongest evidence of alien life yet On a faraway planet, James Webb Space Telescope has picked up signs of molecules that, on Earth, are produced only by living organisms – but researchers say we must interpret the results cautiously

Other scientists are more sceptical about the findings. “These new JWST observations do not offer convincing evidence that DMS or DMDS are present in K2-18b’s atmosphere,” says Ryan MacDonald (@distantworlds.space) at the University of Michigan
www.newscientist.com/article/2477...

Ok one more thing. If it is DMS that’s really neat. We have a bunch of unanswered questions about DMS on Earth and being able to study it in another atmosphere might help us learn more about our own planet.

There. Write that story. No sensationalism needed.

Sarah’s rules of looking for life with only chemical signatures:

1) the smaller the molecule(s) the more likely they can also be produced by abiotic processes

2) one molecule, if it can be produced by any abiotic process, will never be enough to definitively claim detection of life

NASA begins mass firings of scientists ahead of Trump team’s deadline Top advisers in the Office of the Chief Scientist are among the first to go amid downsizing effort.

One of the employees fired from NASA told me how much their career meant to them: "Prior to everything happening today, NASA has been an incredible place to work — to dream big, to innovate, to do things that I never thought I could have done.”

Words by me. 🧪

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

a woman sitting at a desk with her hands on her head and the words what a day ALT: a woman sitting at a desk with her hands on her head and the words what a day

Only 1/16 of JWST proposals I was involved with were accepted 🔭

What a day (it is only 11am) 😥

Accepted proposal is co-I 😀

Advocacy Action Center The Planetary Society is organizing a new space constituency that is educated, empowered, and loud.

NASA's science budget might be cut 50% 🔭

This will effectively kill space science in the USA 🥲

And be disastrous for me personally (and might end my career) 😭

Please send a message to your local representatives to protest these cut 🙏

#standupforscience
www.planetary.org/advocacy-act...

The Day of Action Join us March 24th, 2025 for our Day of Action, which brings together The Planetary Society members and members of Congress during this premier space…

Join the 'The Day of Action' for space research on March 24th, 2025 🔭

The Day of Action is The Planetary Society's premier global advocacy event.

In-person & online events

Register here: www.planetary.org/advocacy/day...
#StandUpForScience

Write an op-ed to your hometown paper

Find more resources here:
sciencehomecoming.com
#StandUpForScience