Ilaria Pascucci

No Turnover Found in Giant-Planet Occurrence Within 3 au Around Low-mass Stars No Turnover Found in Giant-Planet Occurrence Within 3 au Around Low-mass Stars, Gonglewski, Katherine L., Bergsten, Galen J., Pascucci, Ilaria, Malhotra, Renu, Mulders, Gijs D., Dietrich, Jamie, Hardegree-Ullman, Kevin K., Fernandes, Rachel B., Burn, Remo, Mordasini, Christoph

Here is the link to the paper: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

Interesting and surprising result: Giant-planet occurrence around low-mass stars keeps rising out to 3 au! Check Gonglewski+ Looking forward to Gaia and Roman to put this to the test. #Astronomy #Exoplanets
@uarizonalpl.bsky.social @gaiamission.bsky.social @nancyromansci.bsky.social

Letter from the NASA Planetary Science Director: the Future of the Planetary Science Analysis and Assessment Groups (AGs) - NASA Science A Letter from the NASA Planetary Science Director, Dr. Louise M. Prockter: the Future of the Planetary Science Analysis and Assessment Groups (AGs)

Looks like the nasa AGs are no more science.nasa.gov/planetary-sc...

Amazing view of the SpaceX COSMO-SkyMed launch from my backyard! 🚀

A new 3D map of interstellar dust with Gaia! 🌌

A new study, led by Marie Barbillon, exploited the spectroscopic parametriser from Gaia DR3 to build a high-resolution extinction map! It extends up to 4 kpc from the Sun, with a finer version focused on the Local Bubble area.

#astro #galactic

How Alphafold Has Changed Biology Research, 5 Years On Google's tool for predicting how proteins “fold” turns 5 this year. How is it fitting into biological research—and where is it going?

In 2020, Google’s AI lab released a tool called Alphafold that could predict how amino acids would fold into proteins under many different scenarios. Here’s where it—and its Nobel-winning team—are five years later.

We need a reimagined LPSC flavored meeting and the locale should be Tucson in March, after the gem show. Plenty of hotel choices along the free tram line that goes to the convention center. Visit Tucson is onboard to support this. If anyone has the bandwidth to invent the meeting we've got the city.

Which exoplanets do we have atmospheric spectra for? Here’s an interesting plot created by Zafar Rustamkulov (@exoZafar), a PhD student at Johns Hopkins University. He has added up all the exoplanets for which we have either transmission spectr…

Question for the #exoplanets crowd:

Does any one know where to find an updated version of this plot?

I'm looking for the "standard" exoplanet mass vs. semi-major axis plot, but with an overlay of which planets have a spectroscopic measurement of their atmosphere

wasp-planets.net/2020/09/29/w...

Glad to have toured the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) at the Pima Air & Space Museum. Amazing to see the aircraft that carried infrared astronomy above the clouds, I almost got the chance to fly on it.
#spacescience #astronomy #NASA #DLR

A magnificent plot showing the equilibrium temperature as a proxy for distance from the Sun and two other stars, indicating the locations of debris belts, planets, and detected exocomets.

‘An Overview of Exocomets’ is a very comprehensive review led by Daniela Iglesias started at an @issibern.ch meeting. I worked on Figure 1 detailing comets around the Sun, Beta Pic and a white dwarf - I’m very proud of it, and it is available on @github.com: Exocomet systems #astrodon #exoplanet ☄

A bland view of Saturn, but with bright orange glows at both poles; these are the planet's aurorae seen in UV light.

Seeing some beautiful photos of aurorae tonight, so here's a reminder that other planets get them, too!

This is Saturn, with aurorae visible at both poles in this UV image from Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, taken in October 1997 when the planet was 1.3 billion km away.

Artist’s impression of a disc wind dispersing a planet-forming disc around a young star. Credit ESO / M. Kornmesser.

🔭🧪🎢 PhD Project focus: Understanding protoplanetary disc evolution

We're advertising this project with Prof Richard Alexander, making simulations of accretion of planet-forming discs onto their star.

For details of all our PhD projects look here: le.ac.uk/study/resear... 🔭🧪🎢

A circular bronze disk, about 30 cm across, with a dark green patina from age. Gold leaf inlays form a night sky: scattered round dots represent stars, a tight cluster of seven marks the Pleiades, a full circle near the center is the Sun, and a thin crescent below it is the Moon. Two gold arcs curve along opposite edges, possibly horizons or solstice markers; a third arc at the bottom may indicate a boat or river. The surface shows faint hammer marks and corrosion.

🧵
Here is the Nebra sky disk, considered by some the oldest known illustration of the night sky.

The artifact was discovered near Nebra alongside several Bronze Age weapons and is linked to the Unetice culture, which thrived in parts of Europe...

➡️ apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap18031...

🔭 🧪 #histsci

1/4

Fall in full color on Mount Lemmon, Arizona 🍁
#SonoranDesert #DesertBeauty #nature

This weekend I read that the entire Breaking Bad franchise is estimated to have had $385M in economic impact for the state of NM and this is celebrated by a statue at the ABQ convention center. Meanwhile University of Arizona space science has an economic impact of $560M on our state every year.

3I/ATLAS #comet #3IATLAS

YouTube video by Origins Seminars Protoplanetary Disk Evolution in the ALMA–JWST Era (Ilaria Pascucci, UArizona/LPL)

Enjoyed giving a UofA Origins talk on how protoplanetary disks evolve – featuring new results from ALMA and JWST. The recording is available here 👇
youtu.be/mdgGgnjVbb0
@uarizonalpl.bsky.social @stewardobservatory.bsky.social

Paper in press: arxiv.org/pdf/2509.15487

Congrats to my student Dingshan Deng on a new paper! 🎉 A self-consistent thermochemical model to measure disk masses, fully consistent with dynamical estimates – no need for ×100 CO depletion! Enables reliable disk-mass estimates for many more stars. #ALMA #Astronomy @uarizonalpl.bsky.social

51 Pegasi b Guidelines and Application.pdf | Powered by Box

UArizona is eligible for the 51 Pegasi b Fellowship in Planetary Astronomy 🚀 Covering solar system & exoplanets. Apply to join us: heisingsimons.app.box.com/s/y8jg5tbsbd...

This is devastating, and part of a larger move to entirely push science out of NASA's mission. It is horrific betrayal of so much work, not to mention the fact that it violates NASA's charter.

Exoplanet Program: Registration NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program, the search for planets and life beyond our solar system.

🚀 Join us Tue Aug 19 for #ExoPAG32 — NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program Analysis Group meeting!

✅ Free & virtual
🗳️ Vote on a community finding
🌌 Mission updates
👩‍🔬 Early career talks
🛰️ NASA program updates from the Astrophysics Division Director

Register: go.nasa.gov/45r07LV

The chart shows the hemorrhage of NASA staff in recent months, with darker orange indicating mission-support staff (over 1000 people), and the lighter color other NASA staff. GSFC alone has lost over 800 people. NASA HQ lost over 400 people, as did Kennedy Space Center. Source: NASA, reported by Politico.

2019: "NASA is one of the most recognised, revered and iconic brands in the world" (davidsonbranding.com.au/nasa-modern-...). 2025: >1000 NASA mission-support staff (and 2800 other NASA employees) have left under the current administration.

It’s depressing how much faster it is to break a thing than it is to build it

Kevin Hardegree-Ullman In this profile, we feature Kevin Hardegree−Ullman, who supports the NASA Exoplanet Archive at IPAC.

@caltechipac.bsky.social is featuring me in their "Meet the Scientists" profiles! Check it out to learn more about how I became an astronomer, what I work on, and how I ended up at IPAC!

www.ipac.caltech.edu/meet-the-sta...

#exoplanets 🔭🧪

Male Costa’s Hummingbird

Parting shot of this rock star from last week… Costa’s Hummingbird on cholla skeleton 🪶☀️🌵 (sunrise reflection in bird’s eye)

Thank you Mitchell Anderson for your Letter to the Editor in today's Daily Star.

And there is absolutely nothing to celebrate today after the horrific bill that Congress passed yesterday 😞

Call it millennial cynicism if you like, but I truly believe nothing will turn the Republican base or leadership against Trump. Our only hope is getting young voters to turn out for elections, and every march/petition is useful only if it serves that goal.