Dr. Alison Duck

The average SNAP benefit per month is $177 a person.

The average ACA benefit per month is up to $550 a person.

People want us to hold the line for a reason. This is not a matter of appealing to a base. It’s about people’s lives.

And working people want leaders whose word means something to them.

Screenshot of the NASA Exoplanet Archive overview page for HD 4113, a triple star system with three differently coloured stars (one of which has a planet, HD 4113 b).

Hey you. YES YOU. Super persnickety astronomer. You know who you are.

NASA Exoplanet Archive just updated our overview pages so the stars are closer to their actual colours, as per Harre & Heller (2021) and Cranmer (2021).

You're welcome. 😎

(You can thank @kevinkhu.bsky.social!)

WOMEN IN PHYSICS DAY! In honor of the pioneering women in physics who broke down barriers to do what they love, we celebrate Women in Physics Day on November 7th, the birthdate of both Marie Curie and Lise Meitner. Marie Skrodowska-Curie (1867-1934) Radioactivity pioneer, two-time Nobel laureate A giant of science, Marie Sktodowska-Curie conducted pioneering research on radioactivity, a term she coined. She discovered two elements, founded two medical research centres, won two Nobels, and invented mobile X-ray units (dubbed petites Curies), saving countless lives in World War Lise Meitner (1878-1968) Nuclear physicist When Lise Meitner was a teen, Austria restricted female higher education. She pursued physics anyway, and 25 years later became the first woman in Germany to hold a professorship in physics. She helped discover nuclear fission, but was contentiously not awarded the 1944 Nobel alongside collaborator Otto Hahn. NOVEMBER 7TH

Dear Physicists and Physics fans,

I would like to encourage you to celebrate #WomenInPhysics Day this Friday, November 7th.

Why November 7th? Because it is the birthday of two of the most impactful women physicists of the 1900's: Marie Curie and Lise Meitner. 🎢 ⚛️ 🧪 👩‍🔬

Already registered for #AAS247, but didn’t sign up for any workshops? Here’s how to sign up:

aas.org/meetings/aas...

1) Click “Register for AAS 247” from the conference webpage
2) Scroll to the table with the section labeled “1. Workshops”
3) Scroll to the workshop you want , click “Add”

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HiRISE 3D: Fine Layer Deformation Redux

Today’s HiPOD doubles as our 3D post because it was just too good to pass up! (See the HiPOD for details.)

Full image: https://www.uahirise.org/anaglyph/ESP_089275_2270_ESP_088932_2270_RED
NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
#Mars #NASA #science

Comet Lemmon stretches across the sky over a dimly lit mountain ridge. The comet is relatively faint, but its teal core is easily visible, and its tail extends quite a ways up into the corner of the image.

Making Lemmonade 🍋

Couldn’t pass up a chance to go after Comet Lemmon given last night’s combination of clear skies and a new moon. Good way to replenish the soul after that heartbreaking ALCS finale. 😅

🏷️: 📸🌿🐡🔭

Growing list of astronomy PhD programs that are pausing admissions this year 🔭

aas.org/posts/news/2...

For this money, your tax dollars could have paid for a second TESS mission to find planets, but instead:

So proud of Phoenix! She’s amazing, does cool research and has done so much at an early stage in her career. She’s applying to grad programs too! So 👀. Y’all would be lucky to have her! #BlackInAstro

On The Orbital Evolution of Multiple Wide Super-Jupiters: How Disk Migration and Dispersal Shape the Stability of The PDS 70 System Direct imaging has revealed exoplanet systems hosting multiple wide-orbit Super-Jupiters, where planet-planet interactions can shape their long-term dynamical evolution. These strong perturbations may...

my last phd thesis paper is now accepted to ApJ and is on the arXiv today! arxiv.org/abs/2510.11021
We simulate the PDS 70 exoplanet system's future using hydrodynamic + n-body simulations involving the disk and the two planets to see how its orbital architecture evolves! 🪐🪐

Joseph Barranco posted on social media: Go Bears! Nobel Prize in Physics goes to 3 physicists studying mesoscopic quantum phenomena... Work was done in the 1980s in UC Berkeley Professor John Clarke's lab with his graduate student John Martinis and postdoctoral fellow Michel Devoret... all 3 share the Nobel Prize. Must also point out that both Clarke and Devoret are immigrants from the UK and France, respectively. All 3 are pioneers in the race to build the most powerful quantum supercomputers. California *public* education made this happen. Immigration made this happen.

Valuable info about the Physics Nobel Prize today from Prof. Joseph Barranco at SFSU on Martinis and Devoret being a grad student and postdoc in Clarke's lab at UC Berkeley & Clark and Devoret being immigrants. "California *public* education made this happen. Immigration made this happen." ⚛️

Finding Avatar’s Pandora: Exomoons with Astrometry Astrobites reports on how we might someday detect moons around planets outside our solar system by precisely tracking the positions of a star and a planet.

Kylee Carden reports for @astrobites.bsky.social on how we might someday detect moons around planets outside our solar system by precisely tracking the positions of a star and a planet. aasnova.org/2025/10/06/f... 🔭

These alien planets are astronomers’ favourites: here’s why Space scientists look back on 30 years of exoplanet discoveries — from rows of massive ‘super-Earths‘ to worlds with perfectly synchronized orbits.

This week (!) is the 30th anniversary of the announcement of 51 Pegasi b, the first exoplanet found orbiting a star like our Sun - since then, we've found over 6,000!

To celebrate, @alexwitze.bsky.social and @nature.com collected some astronomers' favourite planets:

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

Outstanding new paper from Evert Nasedkin on the variable, isolated exoplanet analog, T dwarf, SIMP-0136! Time resolved atmospheric retrievals find temperature driving variability and potential auroral signatures (stratospheric temperature inversion)!

An illustration of a young planet with a surrounding disk of dust and gas potentially forming moons. The planet, which appears dark red, is shown at lower right, circled by a cloudy, clumpy reddish orange-colored disk. The host star appears at upper left, and glows yellow, with its own reddish disk of debris. The disk that surrounds the planet takes up about half the illustration. The black background of space is speckled with stars. At the bottom of the illustration, graphics of molecules are listed in the following order: Acetylene, Carbon Dioxide, Ethane, Benzene, Hydrogen cyanide. The words Artist’s Concept appear at upper right.

#NASAWebb has found the first direct evidence of potential moon formation around a giant exoplanet. The discovery is shedding light on how such systems evolve and why moons could be potentially habitable worlds: https://bit.ly/46xGodN 🔭 🧪

I was at The Ohio State University!

Astro-color alchemists Astronomers have a method for colorizing grayscale images from various space- and groundbased observatories.

STScI's Alyssa Pagan says that there is a methodology for dealing with the wider electromagnetic spectrum: “In terms of assigning color, we generally do some standard chromatic ordering because it has the most scientific value and meaning in it, and usually also gives you aesthetic images.” 🔭 🧪

Finding Avatar’s Pandora: Exomoons with Astrometry Though moons are ubiquitous in our Solar System, we have not yet found one elsewhere (an exomoon). Today’s paper investigates whether we could find moons by precisely tracking the positions of a star ...

From Kylee Carden: Though moons are ubiquitous in our Solar System, we have not yet found one elsewhere (an exomoon). Today’s paper investigates whether we could find moons by precisely tracking the positions of a star and planet. 🔭✨☄️
astrobites.org/2025/09/25/e...

For those who may not know ... the magnetic field of Uranus is tilted ~60 deg relative to its spin axis.

So it looks like the aurorae are occurring near the equator, because, in fact, they are! Within ~ 30deg of the equator.

Congratulations!!

We *absolutely* should celebrate it. Do your part by enjoying the 200+ page masterpiece in its entirety on ADS! ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1925PhDT... 🔭

Special shoutout to Figure 2, an incredible piece of art that I want on my wall (and suspect could even make an excellent tattoo if executed well?)

Today is a special paper day for me: for the first time we can do chemistry in a circumplanetary disk around a planetary-mass companion! Gabriele Cugno and I used JWST to tease out the signal of CT Cha b, finding a rich carbon chemistry (7 molecules + 1 isotopolog detected)! arxiv.org/abs/2509.15209

Some tidbits about the most recent 1,000 exoplanets:

- Nearly half (~490) were discovered with NASA's TESS mission
- As a result, their host stars are nearly *10 times brighter on average* than previous stars!
- We have found a lot more cool giant planets (Jupiter analogs), with RV and imaging

A close-up photo of a box of cupcakes with gold candles spelling out ‘6000’.

A group of smiling people - scientists, engineers, data analysts and writers - standing behind a table of goodies.

Sometimes 2025 just feels like a lot, and you need an excuse to celebrate your fabulous team (and the whole exoplanet community!) reaching a new milestone…

Happy 6,000 Confirmed Exoplanets Day, everybody!!!!

(You may recognize the narrator of the video at the link! 🫣)

www.nasa.gov/universe/exo...

Screenshot of research.gov after logging in, showing link for "Prepare and Submit Proposals" on the left in a red oval.

Screenshot of "Prepare New Full Proposal" on research.gov, with "add a new role" and "NSF 22-621" circled in red. In order to see the listing of the NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship, one must change role to "Proposed Postdoctoral Fellow"!

NSF Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoc Fellowship apps are OPEN! 🔭 However, app only appears on research.gov if your role "Proposed Postdoctoral Fellow"! Click "Proposals", "Prepare and Submit Proposals", then "Prepare New". If you do not see NSF 22-621, change role to "Proposed Postdoctoral Fellow"!

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! 🧪

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#Exoplanets 🔭

Okay, now that I can stop talking with all caps, why is this important?

So, we're looking for planets like Earth, right? It's the only place we've found with life so far.

What makes it "Earth"? Well, some things include being a rocky planet, and being the right temperature for liquid water. (1/N)

Screenshot of the NASA Exoplanet Archive homepage for the alpha Cen system.

WELCOME TO THE FAMILY, ALPHA CEN A b!!!

First hinted at in Wagner+21, now Chas Beichman, Aniket Sanghi and team have published new JWST images of alpha Cen A showing another hint of this Saturn-sized planet candidate!

exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/overview/alp...

What’s Going On Inside GJ 486b? Astrobites reports on a warm, rocky exoplanet and what might be hidden beneath its atmosphere.

Kaz Gary reports for @astrobites.bsky.social on a warm, rocky exoplanet and what might be hidden beneath its atmosphere. aasnova.org/2025/08/05/w... 🔭

Image from 2025 summer graduation at Ohio State with 5 people in PhD regalia in front of empty seats and a stage with the OSU seal. L to R: Laura Lopez, Joy Bhattacharyya, Caprice Phillips, Alison Duck, Scott Gaudi.

Honored to celebrate 3 new astro doctors yesterday @joybee8.bsky.social, @capricephillips.bsky.social, @astroalison.bsky.social with @scottgaudi.bsky.social! Thanks to @jajohnson.bsky.social for lending me UC Santa Cruz regalia & to the OSU French & Italian prof who fixed my own backwards hood. 😂