Prof. Erika Hamden

NASA revealed they found some of the building blocks of life in a sample brought back from an asteroid (on a University of Arizona-led mission, by the way).

It raises some big questions about whether there’s other life somewhere out there in the universe. According to my math, probably.

A bright green shape at lower left, the coma of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, leaving a faint trail of gas from lower left to upper right right behind it. The background is a dense starfield, with some bright, nearby stars at upper centre.

The stanning of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS in this account continues

Image credit: Victor Sabet, Julien De Winter

The main problem is that space telescopes in Low Earth Orbit share the similar orbits as the telecommunication satellites.

Here we show a simplified representation of the increased orbital crowding between 1958 (Sputnik) and the projected satellite population at the end of the next decade.

It's that time of year again

Black Holes Reveal their Seeds Astronomers have spent decades searching for seeds of the earliest black holes. Did JWST just glimpse the very first ones?

From Ansh Gupta: Astronomers have spent decades searching for seeds of the earliest black holes. Did JWST just glimpse the very first ones? ⚛️🔭☄🧪
astrobites.org/2025/11/27/g...

The dinosaur extinction event is my personal unit for getting a sense of astronomical time. For instance, if the local bubble formed 1-2 Myr ago, that’s After Dinos = very recent!!

What does a giant cloud in space smell like? 🍓✨

Astrophysicist @erikahamden.bsky.social explains how a giant cloud called Sagittarius B2 smells like raspberries because it’s full of ethyl formate, the molecule behind the fruit’s sweet scent. Astronomers were searching for amino acids.

YouTube video by Museum of Science How Heavy Is a Teaspoon of Neutron Star?

How heavy is a teaspoon of neutron star? 🥄💥🧪

Astrophysicist @erikahamden.bsky.social explains how this stellar core remnant weighs more than a mountain because it’s packed with neutrons under crushing gravity.

Watch the video here:

i’m excited to announce that i am hiring (again)!

i am looking for a postdoc in computational astrophysics that’s excited about models of stellar transients and multi-messenger astronomy to join my group (star stuff @ steward) at @uarizona.bsky.social!

apply here ✨💥: aas.org/jobregister/...

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.

Some stars don’t just shine, they steal. 🧛⭐️🧪

@erikahamden.bsky.social ‬dives into how, in close binary star systems, one star nearing the end of its life can expand so much that its outer layers are pulled in by the gravity of its companion.

You might’ve heard the news: SpaceX just passed 10,000 Starlink satellites launched. And that number is already old news, as there’s now a new Starlink batch launched every other day. Here’s what that looks like in a short animation of Comet A6 Lemmon courtesy of Michael Jaeger:

There are tons of experimental results- go look on the internet to find them! It's an incredible resource!

A part of you has existed since almost the moment of creation. 🌌💥🧪

Astrophysicist @erikahamden.bsky.social ‬breaks down how the hydrogen in your body was formed within the first 20 minutes after the Big Bang.

#NASAWebb provides high-resolution details of Herbig-Haro 49/50—an outflow from a nearby still-forming star and background galaxies. Webb reveals the fuzzy object at the tip of the outflow in the Spitzer image is actually a distant spiral galaxy: https://bit.ly/4mXuQHW 🔭 🧪

YouTube video by Museum of Science How the Moon Formed in a Day

How did the Moon form? 🌕💥🧪

Astrophysicist @erikahamden.bsky.social breaks down the giant impact theory, which suggests an object the size of Mars collided with early Earth, liquefying the surface and launching debris that formed ...

Watch the full interview here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2Zl...

Juno is an AMAZING mission. The camera onboard was never supposed to last this long (the radiation around Big J should've zapped it a while back) but it just keeps on ticking. Killing this mission while it's still working and producing great science is a crime.

Which would you choose: 5 pounds of diamonds or 5 pounds of gold? 💎🪙

Astrophysicist @erikahamden.bsky.social breaks it down: Diamonds are made of carbon, one of the most common elements in the universe. Gold is forged in incredibly rare events like neutron star collisions.

NASA, JAXA XRISM Satellite X-rays Milky Way’s Sulfur - NASA Science An international team of scientists have provided an unprecedented tally of elemental sulfur spread between the stars using data from the Japan-led XRISM

My latest paper on interstellar sulfur was highlighted recently in a NASA press release 🥳

science.nasa.gov/centers-and-...

At the center is a comet that appears as a teardrop-shaped bluish cocoon of dust coming off the comet’s solid, icy nucleus, which is almost white, all against a black background. The comet appears to be heading to the bottom left corner. About a dozen short, light blue diagonal streaks are scattered across the view, which are from background stars that appeared to move during the exposure because the telescope was tracking the moving comet.

Hubble observations of interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS show that it looks like a comet. It has a teardrop-shaped cocoon of dust coming off a solid icy nucleus. The nucleus is roughly no wider than 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers): go.nasa.gov/3UenJhD 🔭 🧪

Hey, wanna see a weird Mars rock?

Here you go

A reminder that LPL, along with Steward Observatory, is a host for 51 Peg b Fellowships. Whether it's exoplanet or legacy planetary science you are interested in, be sure to contact me or our faculty!

‪On Venus, every day is your birthday, thanks to some wild planetary physics. 🪐🎉

As @erikahamden.bsky.social explains, the planet spins backward, and so slowly that one day lasts 243 Earth days. But a year on Venus? Just 225 Earth days. So its year finishes before a single day ends.

🧪

Okay I finished the @erikahamden.bsky.social book Weird Universe. I’m not sure I understood it all, especially the part about dark energy, but I definitely learned a ton. Get a copy. Read it. And then let’s go outside and stare at the wonder that is our universe.

LOL! It's easy to get scammed in intergalactic real estate, you should only work with reputable agents!

That's so awesome! Flew by I think is acceptable!

Congratulations on the book! 🥳 This article was so fun to read. Time to pick up a copy of Weird Universe! And I might have to bring it to the next SPIE conference you attend so that you can sign it, of course! 🪐 -Emily

YES! I would love to sign it!!

A red background with geometric patterns with text promoting the 2025 Michael Kidger Memorial Scholarship in Optical Design.

Chuan Luo, PhD candidate at the University of Arizona, has been awarded the 2025 Michael Kidger Memorial Scholarship in Optical Design. 🎊

The $7,500 award honors Kidger’s legacy + supports excellence in lens, illumination, and computational optical design.

spie.org/membership/...

An emissary from interstellar space Discovered only a week ago, comet 3I/ATLAS is only the third known visitor from outside the solar system. U of A astronomer Carson Fuls explains what makes the comet special – and why we can only gues...

A recently discovered extraterrestrial "visitor" is hurtling toward the inner solar system at 130,000 miles per hour and has quickly captured the attention of astronomers and space enthusiasts around the world, including here at LPL. news.arizona.edu/news/emissar...