Peter Plavchan

Why haven't Rebecca Oppenheimer, Davy Kirkpatrick and Adam Burgasser been nominated and awarded a Nobel prize yet for discovering (1995) and then defining (2MASS) the brown dwarf spectral sequence? We've already done it for exoplanets, and their recognition is overdue.

This Space Telescope Will Search For Life On Distant Planets The Pandora Space Telescope will study 20 promising worlds that could host life

We're doing it! Go NASA Pandora team!

time.com/7335787/pand...

a man with a beard is singing into a microphone with his hair blowing in the wind . ALT: a man with a beard is singing into a microphone with his hair blowing in the wind .

All letter of recommendation requests received through 11/7 have been submitted... Kind of wild to write letters from everyone applying to summer high school programs to faculty positions. I'm old.

So…. Skynet?

Russell's teapot - Wikipedia

"Professor Says Mysterious Interstellar Object May Be Releasing Sentinels Around Jupiter". Is it also releasing a tea kettle? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell...

"3I/ATLAS may be revving an engine, Harvard professor suggests". As the comet starts its journey out of our Solar System as expected, paying us no special attention, I am reminded of the insignificance of humankind or any one individual in the grand scheme of the Universe.

Interesting. Didn’t haven’t any issues at IAD or Portland this weekend.

You just have to think non Euclidean geometry. Picasso toys have a curvature.

The Bosses of the Senate cartoon from 1889.

The thin veneer of the appearance of a two-party democracy for all is gone. This shutdown and list of the donors for the new ballroom destroying part of the people's house just shows the ruling class isn't even trying to maintain appearances any more.

Dr. Peter Plavchan interview | Light Pollution Dr. Peter Plavchan, professor at George Mason University, joins WUSA9 to discuss artificial light and it's impact on wildlife.

Talking about light pollution on CBS-DC - WUSA9:
www.wusa9.com/video/life/d...

OHP 1.93m telescope in southern France

At where it all started.

never had the time to learn how to write an iOS app, so trying to do it for the first time with some vibe-coding with AI... we'll see how it goes.

One of my favorite objects as a senior in HS to star hop to with my 8 inch Newtonian that I paid $500 for used after saving up my job $$ from working as a telemarketer. 30 years ago now.

High school student who volunteered at NASA-sponsored lab gets retraction An astronomical society journal has issued its first retraction in its 10-year history — for work done by a NASA researcher and a high school student. The duo set out to confirm an astrophysics law…

Retraction by social media critique on my part, apparently. I'm sorry the HS student (now a Caltech undergrad) had to have this research note retracted. retractionwatch.com/2025/08/12/h...

Is Chain-of-Thought Reasoning of LLMs a Mirage? A Data Distribution Lens Chain-of-Thought (CoT) prompting has been shown to improve Large Language Model (LLM) performance on various tasks. With this approach, LLMs appear to produce human-like reasoning steps before providi...

I don't know - are humans really that much better outside of their training data? Isn't this similar to making educated guesses and trial and error in problem-solving? Sometimes we get it wrong. arxiv.org/abs/2508.01191

I have now held professional employment or education at the same place for the longest in my career, starting my 9th year as faculty at Mason. Caltech/IPAC/NExScI was the previous record holder at 8 years. If you throw in my undergrad years though, Caltech is still on top.

. @davidkipping.bsky.social representing science and Astro really well on the Rogan experience.

Yeah could be a technological luminescent deflector shield. He is setting back SETI research at this point unfortunately.

Signs of the times in science.

New paper out! This is a review of the published JWST observations of rocky exoplanets so far: arxiv.org/abs/2507.00933

Quick summary of the key points:

Astronomers may have just discovered the third interstellar object passing through the Solar System!

ESA’s Planetary Defenders are observing the object, provisionally known as #A11pl3Z, right now using telescopes around the world.

Rumors or any sources yet?

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...

Critical mass of professional scientists? Seems that way.

Well, first

All Roads Lead to TrantorIs there a planet near the center of our galaxy like Trantor? Jessie shares what she's found in the NASA Exoplanet Archive, and Pete... Explore Exoplanets: The Discoverers; Ep. 8 Peter Plavchan (part 2)

Merry Christmas to YOU, you don't have to wait two weeks between Explore Exoplanets: The Discoverers episodes, we are pushing out a bonus one today (so we don't have to try to put one out between Christmas and New Year 😅)

It's the second part of my interview with @plavchanpeter.bsky.social!

All Roads Lead to AU Mic ⛔🔭🪐Despite denial, discouragement and telemarketing jobs, Dr. Peter Plavchan found a path to a career in astronomy...and a famous ... Explore Exoplanets: The Discoverers; Ep. 7 Peter Plavchan

IT'S EPISODE SEVEN!!!

Please join me as I chat with @plavchanpeter.bsky.social about his parents trying to scare him straight (away from astronomy) and his Official Twitter discovery of AU Mic b.

Paper describing exofast's transit only eccentricity parameterization out today: arxiv.org/abs/2309.14410

Informal astro-poll: who else is delinquent on grant reports besides me? One, it's not a fun activity but understandably necessary; two a lot of PIs/faculty are already overloaded with work; three the process is not entirely streamlined.

form.jotform.com/232251987986... A lot of astronomers (including educators) are not aware of this survey. Please spread the word!