David R. Rice

Scary how often “I do my own research” means “I am the research subject”

Wait! It smells very strongly of garlic! No stealing internet: who wants to write an April’s fools article about K2-18b keeping vampires away.

What how why

@astrojake.bsky.social your favorite molecule

99.9% pure DMSO in large 16 oz container.

My MIL handed me pharma-grade DMSO for mosquito bites. Not FDA approved, but my self-study found it more statistical significance than DMS on K2-18b. #exoplanets

Great discussion here, just wanted to pipe in that one thing people miss in Liu Cixin's presentation of the DF is the "technological explosion" axiom. That the timescale and degree of a civilization's technological advancement is completely unknowable. In 3BP universe, any prey may become a predator

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Effect of Galactic Chemical Evolution on Exoplanet Properties. Jason H. Steffen (UNLV) et. al. https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.10942

The core mass fraction of planets with stellar age. Old stars have planets with lower core mass fractions and newer stars have higher core mass fractions.

Our new preprint just hit the arXiv: arxiv.org/abs/2507.10942 💥 We take a look at how the core mass fraction of planets may change through galactic time. My largest contribution is this plot with the planets from Weeks et al. 2025 reanalyzed with our interior model. 🔭🪐

Me standing in front of Washburn Observatory

Preparing to trade salt for fresh water—can you guess where I’ll be working next?

Big move next summer, big science starting sooner. Excited for what’s ahead in 2026!

the woke mob killed SExtractor

Uncertainties in the Inference of Internal Structure: The Case of TRAPPIST-1 f - IOPscienceSearchopens in new tab Uncertainties in the Inference of Internal Structure: The Case of TRAPPIST-1 f, Rice, David R., Huang, Chenliang, Steffen, Jason H., Vazan, Allona

Officially published today if you missed the arXiv drop a month ago!
iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

A lot of words to circle back to "go around the Sun".

So neat, but seriously this is how we get multiple comments saying "the Sun orbits the Earth" which is an entirely unhelpful and wrong description of nature.

I did not realize astronomers had started posting over there as much as they have. Every professor use to have a blank profile picture, now they’re all posting away.

…the day I connect with you…

Plot of the % wt water with r-cmf of the 7 Trappist-1 planets with the 1-sigma bounds using matplotlibs hatching.

Plot of the % wt water with r-cmf of the 7 Trappist-1 planets with the 1-sigma bounds filled with a transparent color.

I get a bit carried away with @matplotlib.org's hatching. But it's so helpful! The left plot you can pick any point in the middle and pretty quickly tell which 4 hatch marks are overlapping.

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Uncertainties in the Inference of Internal Structure: The Case of TRAPPIST-1 f. David R. Rice et. al. https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.16201

%wt Water versus R-CMF for the 5 outer Trappist-1 planets. A transform of the previous plot.

...and how to transform the ternary to WMF - R-CMF plot.

I think we're up to at least 10 groups using MAGRATHEA, our interior modeling code, and we're always excited for new users! github.com/Huang-CL/Mag...

A water-mantle-core ternary diagram showing 1-sigma bounds of 5 outer

Our new planet interior paper is accepted and up on arXiv, arxiv.org/abs/2504.16201! Explore all the knobs you can twist when modeling an Earth-like planet, in this case Trappist-1 f.

Don't miss the appendix where I detail the "correct" way to plot a ternary diagram (below)....

#exoplanets 🔭🧪🪐

Kids are calling the em dash the “ChatGPT hyphen”

a correlation “corner” plot with the upper empty corner filled with logos of the companies that typically sponsor podcasts and YouTube videos: nordvpn, hello fresh, duolingo, better help, etc

don’t give Elsevier any ideas 😭😭😭😭😭😭

“PromoPlot: Covering open-access fees by filling wasted space in corner plots”
arxiv.org/abs/2503.24254

I really really shouldn’t say anything; amazing selections for NHFP. BUT gas giants, brown dwarfs, and free floating planets being selected for “Are we alone?” is objectively funny.

The answer for those “planets” is yes.

YouTube video by the hiker's mix Only 1% of people do this at the Grand Canyon! 🐴

The video is here! The hardest thing I've ever done: Rim to River to Rim of the Grand Canyon.
youtu.be/9SO7vJeIZ8c?...

Combination of cosmic processes shapes the size and location of sub-Neptunes | Penn State University Using a newly developed tool to sift through data from the NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, a team led by a Penn State astronomer has identified young sub-Neptune planets close to their s...

Our new exoplanet occurrence rate study, led by Penn State President's Postdoctoral Fellow Rachel Fernandes, gives us new insight into the evolution of young planets!

Paper: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

Press Release: www.psu.edu/news/eberly-...

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#exoplanets 🔭🧪🪐

My strong schadenfreude over the stock market crashing has just come crashing down itself when I remembered my parents are retiring soon.

Asteroid Launcher Design your own asteroid and launch it at Earth!

Have this link handy to send to people: neal.fun/asteroid-lau...

Having my first filtered coffee in 5 months since moving overseas. Spent a minute worried it was tea instead of coffee.

You are correct. And I don't think the word "orbit" should be dependent on the density of the thing being orbited.

This is: I'm fighting on Reddit with people LOL. Common interaction on astro reddits: Post: "does x orbit y?" Every comment: "No, they both orbit the barycenter"

Please, who is teaching people that Charon doesn’t orbit Pluto?? 🔭🪐

Please someone get this and find it funny