Connor Rosenthal

This white paper about using LLMs in astronomy is making the rounds. It's very interesting, and while I can make some nitpicks, overall the point of the paper is to create a fundamental basis for tackling the issue, and that's something I'd love to hear arguments about…

arxiv.org/pdf/2602.10181

Bilbo looking at his phone top on bottom is ChatGPT After all, why not? Why shouldn't I keep it? You're absolutely right — you found it, it's been with you a long while, and it's only natural to feel fond of something that's served you so well, especially when someone like Gandalf suddenly seems to want it for himself.

…Well NOW I do

None of my to-do list items include scrolling the feed but I am nonetheless finding it difficult to ignore Events.

The “prosecute the former regime at every level” candidate has my vote in 2028.

A old advert that has the words What the heck is Electronic Mail? With a man looking very scared by a sparkling trail flying around his desk

The first two hours this morning

"are you enjoying duo mobile" does a hamburger enjoy being made of quarks. does a fish enjoy linear time. does the mountain enjoy the first taste of a cup of hot chocolate when you get back to the ski lodge. your question means nothing to me. i couldn't enjoy duo mobile even if i tried

A series of wispy, blue strands emanate from the centre of the image, which is glowing orangey–red with a little pink. The background is FESTOONED with stars, all set against a black backdrop.

Another STUNNING image from JWST, this time of the Red Spider Nebula—the vast, wispy, gaseous remains of a now-dead star, the white dwarf core still glowing in the centre.

“Calling genAI a “tool” has become the standard way of referring to what is, in fact, a political technology. Tools are seen as neutral and unaccountable. This notion rests on several false assumptions:”

OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limi...

"In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits."

www.computerworld.com/article/4059...

A rocky planet in its star’s ‘habitable zone’ could be the first known to have an atmosphere – here’s what we found The largest telescope in space has been trained on a rocky exoplanet.

We observed the habitable zone planet TRAPPIST-1e with JWST to search for an atmosphere.

You've seen the headlines, now let's dive into the science! 🧪

THREAD (1/N)

#Exoplanets 🔭

I need Democratic online types to understand that because of this, Newsom is dead to me. Dead. I'd sooner vote for an actual corpse. There is no hope, none, that he'll win me over, *because he has established he is a bad person*. There's no coming back from this. Take my advice and move the fuck on.

It is so funny to me that people have been wailing and gnashing their teeth about this game coming out for over half a decade and throwing absolute fits and meanwhile the devs were having about the healthiest work environment you could imagine and just enjoying life. RULES.

me rn

Here is M16, the Eagle Nebula! The photo was produced by three CAS members on June 25th, stacked from 184 x 30-second frames. 🔭

The exposures were taken using the 102-year-old f/15 Irving P. Church 12" Refractor at the Fuertes Observatory, stacked in Siril and post-processed in Photoshop.

Pluto at Fuertes Observatory 🔭

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

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

And after a finally clear evening (with no camera issues) of observing, here is the Cornell Astronomical Society's latest photo of M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy!

This is 11 3-minute exposures, stacked, taken through the Irving P. Church 12-inch refractor at the Cornell University Fuertes Observatory.

I expect that consumer-facing AI programs will continue to improve and they may become much more useful tools for everyday life in the future.

But I think it was a disastrous mistake that today’s models were taught to be convincing before they were taught to be right.

Yeah, our field does get a little creative with our 'classification' schemes (it helps with better paper and proposal titles 😅)

I've seen folks talk about how "in four years" they'll be able to get back to their planned projects and I really don't think that's going to work out. People & projects losing funding now will not be able to hit pause and come back once funding is restored. Hard-won progress & capacity will be lost

Astronomers double down on claim of strongest evidence for alien life Are there aliens living on the exoplanet K2-18b? Some astronomers believe they have evidence for molecules on the planet that must have a biological origin, but others disagree

Ready for the latest K2-18b drama?

Madhusudhan is claiming *even stronger* evidence of DMS after analysing both near-infrared and mid-infrared JWST data. But another study finds no evidence at all.

Read on for a quick update on everyone's f̶a̶v̶o̶u̶r̶i̶t̶e most newsworthy exoplanet. 🧵

#exoplanets 🔭

It was a very cool talk, talking about K2-18b has been such a good case study on responsible science communication!

Cecilia Payne, born in England, got her PhD in the U.S., showing the then controversial result that the vast majority of each star is composed of the simplest elements hydrogen and helium. This contradicted the widely held notion that the Sun and the Earth should have roughly the same composition. As a woman, she was not allowed to hold a professorship at Harvard for many year during her long career there.

Today is the birthday (in 1900) of Cecilia Payne, the astronomer who wrote what some historians call the most important PhD thesis in astronomy -- showing that stars were made mostly of hydrogen and helium.
#astronomy #astroedu #astronomyhistory #historyofscience #womenastronomers #womeninscience

The @science.org journalists have an update on the recent claim to have found DMS in the atmosphere of #exoplanet K2-18b - explaining some of the community backlash 🔭🧪

www.science.org/content/arti...

A Chicago Pope implies the existence of an MLA Pope and APA Pope

new pope bringing correct pizza opinions to the vatican -R

personally would like to see every store show what part of the price increase is due to tariffs bc if these tariffs ever come down, i need to see that price go right back down

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

Wondering about the "signature of life" found beyond our Solar System? I wrote a thread for the Carl Sagan Institute critiquing the evidence for exoplanet K2-18 b: