George Zhou

Everyone go check out Ryan's paper on one of the coolest star systems in the galaxy (not biased)

Also I was glad to contribute to this work in an artistic and scientific scope by creating this false color composite image!

🔭🧪

Here's I3/ATLAS from the 0.8m at Mt Kent as of 1 hr ago. The clip is a 50-min sequence.

A high mutual inclination system around KOI-134 revealed by transit timing variations - Nature Astronomy Using Kepler, this study identifies a compact multiplanetary system that is not flat, where gravitational interactions cause its planets’ periods to change by nearly a day per cycle and their orbital ...

UniSQ PhD student Emma Nabbie has a cool paper about a Kepler system showing more than 24 hr of TTVs! They show that the system can be explained by a mutually inclined (15deg) non transiting interior planet at 2:1 resonance! See paper! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Expression of interest for Machine Learning in Planetary System Dynamics Please fill out this form to express your interest in attending the Machine Learning in Planetary System Dynamics workshop to be held at the Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute i...

Phil Armitage, Dan Tamayo @astrodan.bsky.social, and I will host a workshop April 22-25 at CCA @flatironinstitute.org in New York on methods and applications of ML for planetary dynamics and exoplanet population inference. Express your interest in attending by 3/3/25:
forms.gle/zgzkUDCs8Uzz...

I'm looking for a two year postdoc to work with me at Macquarie University building an Astrostatistics Research Group!

We're interested in diverse applicants with previous experience in applying stats/AI/ML in astronomy, especially in relation to exoplanets/stellar astrophysics/instrumentation.

Comet G3 ATLAS in dark skies over farm land in southern Queensland. The tail stretched 10s of degrees into the dark sky, showing structure including bands and striations

The tail of comet G3 is extraordinary! It was already visually stunning to me in dark skies, but in photographs there is so much detail in its striations and bands - the poor comet has been stripped apart. Taken over farmland in southern Queensland as thunderstorms rolled by.
50mm f2.2 36x10s 800D

Go work with Ben at Macquarie! A great opportunity to join one of the best research groups in Aus, and be part of the growing exoplanet community here!

PhD positions in exoplanets:

- with @georgezhouastro.bsky.social at the University of Southern Queensland bsky.app/profile/geor...

- with me at Macquarie in Sydney bsky.app/profile/frin...

Others - reply in thread?

Some team members may include

Come join the exoplanets team at UniSQ in Australia. Our team is seeking multiple PhD positions to understand the formation and evolution of planetary systems, involving ongoing programs on JWST, HST, and VLT. See AAS advert. Applications before March 07.

aas.org/jobregister/...

Sorry it's now a southern hemisphere only object

Comet G3 ATLAS over with broad tail, taken from my backyard over Toowoomba

Comet G3 is getting exciting! Here it is from my back porch overlooking Toowoomba just an hour after sunset.

110mm 26x4s

Comet G3 ATLAS soon after sunset, low over Toowoomba

I love comets - there are very few things visible to the naked eye that come and go in the night sky. Comet G3 low in the horizon soon after sunset, only 11deg from the sun. Hoping it will remain bright for a week or more.

A graph showing a purple line resembling a sine wave, with a label at the top saying "Alpha Pictoris Phase modulations"

My new paper is out today on searching for stellar companions with pulsation timing in TESS photometry!
arxiv.org/abs/2410.19729
Paper thread below ⬇️

Venus, Comet A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS), the Milky Way, and Zodiacal light (if you can spot it) all in one shot! Taken at Mount Kent observatory 🪐🔭

Comet tsuchinshan-atlas was over mt kent observatory

Comet tsuchinshan atlas over farmland

Comet Tsuchinshan Atlas has been quite a show over the last month. Some final shots before it fades away from us. One of the best comets I’ve see for a long time.

Green tree frog on tracking mount

We were joined by a special guest while setting up for comet photos. Joys of Queensland

From 27deg S, our part of Queensland is not well know for its Aurora displays

A General, Differentiable Transit Model for Ellipsoidal Occulters: Derivation, Application, and Forecast of Planetary Oblateness and Obliquity Constraints with JWST Increasingly precise space-based photometry uncovers higher-order effects in transits, eclipses and phase curves which can be used to characterize exoplanets in novel ways. The subtle signature induce...

My first PhD paper is on arxiv today!
Rotating planets are slightly wider at their equator compared to the poles. Saturn in our Solar System (below, minus the rings), is about 10% oblate! Can we detect this shape difference in transits from JWST? (1/N)

arxiv.org/abs/2410.03449

The tail of Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas stretching dozen degrees, amazing in dark skies :)

With @astroshishir.bsky.social

Comet Tsuchinshan Atlas, looking out from toowoomba

The long tail of Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas stretched over Toowoomba

70mm

Rising above the clouds in a Timelapse

Tsuchinshan-ATLAS growing a nice tail now. Still difficult to see without binoculars, so low to the horizon before sunrise.

Getting up at 4am to see Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS rising over the Toowoomba range

To kick off the group, we're recruiting a 2-year postdoc and have an international open PhD scholarship, plus domestic PhD students.

We're looking for people with strong experience & interest in stats, especially connecting differentiable physics models, HMC, GPs, NNs, and SVI.

Sydney also provided independent age estimates of the association with rotation and lithium measurements.

Looking forward to expanding the young planet population over the next few years as we look deeper into these new young associations!

The planets around TIC434398831 were identified by Sydney's independent planet search around pre-main sequence stars from TESS. With follow-up thanks to CHEOPS and many ground-based collaborators.

Excited about @sydneyvach.bsky.social 's discovery of a 60 million year old planet system in the Theia 116 association.
arxiv.org/pdf/2407.19680

Screenshot of the Dynamic Red listing of the Senate passing the ARC Review Response Bill.

🚨🚨🚨 IT’S DONE!

❗️The ARC Review Response Bill just passed parliament❗️

No more political interference in individual ARC grants!

The ARC will get a Board, who will approve individual grants.

It’s a wonderful day for Australian research!

My first PhD paper on "The occurrence of small, short-period planets younger than 200 Myr with TESS" has been accepted to AJ and is now available on arXiv! I'll also be presenting a poster on the paper at #ExSSV (607.02)!

arxiv.org/abs/2403.03261