Duncan Christie

I'm sharing this again since I neglected to add #astronomy and #exoplanets, and I don't want you to miss out on the great work done by final-year PhD student Cyril Gapp.

It was great getting to share these exciting results as part of the BOWIE+ seminar series. Ariel has the potential to revolutionise our 3D understanding of exoplanet atmospheres, with a phase curve survey of ~100 targets within its reach. Let’s push to make it happen!

YouTube video by BOWIE+ Seminars Eclipse Mapping with Ariel: Future Prospects for a Population-Level Mapping Survey

Dan Valentine (@danvalentine.bsky.social) has done some great work looking at using ARIEL to eclipse map exoplanet atmospheres. #exoplanets #astronomy

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrtL...

My family are useful canaries of what news the public actually sees from astro, and only yesterday did my mum ask me about a study (one article of many linked below) who said they "trained an AI" to simulate the Milky Way.

This was NOT AI as how the public sees "AI", and this is disingenuous.

Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean machine learning and “LLM” when you mean LLM. Ditch “AI” as a catch-all term, it’s not useful for readers and it helps companies trying to confuse the public by obscuring the roles played by different technologies. 🧪

As we are in the midst of job season, and as hiring committees no doubt ask themselves if applicants looked at the departmental webpage to see who works at their institution and what they do, it's a great time to make sure those websites are up to date. #astronomy

Lorena Acuna @astrolore.bsky.social combined beautiful JWST spectra with mass and radius measurements for a warm Saturn, finding evidence for either a hot interior or a very small core - both unexpected! arxiv.org/abs/2511.13483

and Evie Ahrer @eahrer.bsky.social wrote a Nature comment on the JWST revolution for exoplanet atmospheres, from CO2 and photochemistry on gas giants to the push to smaller/cooler worlds www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Lots of fun work out from APEx postdocs in the past week! first up was Sophia Vaughan @sophiavaughan.bsky.social on a deep search for reflected light from a hot Neptune w/ the VLT. This summed up light from ALL FOUR 8m telescopes over 2 nights- a preview of ELT-like data! arxiv.org/abs/2511.08691

If women are underrepresented in STEM, it's at least partly because men like this offer mentoring, then embarrass themselves by assuming their mentees must be into them, then decide the best solution is to cut ties, which sends the signal to other faculty that the mentee must not be good enough.

How clear are the skies of WASP-80b?: 3D Cloud feedback on the atmosphere and spectra of the warm Jupiter Close-in warm Jupiters orbiting M-dwarf stars are expected to exhibit diverse atmospheric chemistry, with clouds playing a key role in shaping their albedo, heat distribution, and spectral properties....

Nishil has a paper up on the arXiv about this, if you want to read more about it.

"How clear are the skies of WASP-80b?: 3D Cloud feedback on the atmosphere and spectra of the warm Jupiter"
Mehta et al. (2025)
arxiv.org/abs/2509.23406

YouTube video by BOWIE+ Seminars Combining JWST Data and General Circulation Models for a 3D Study of the Clouds on Warm Jupiters

Interested in hearing about the 3D structure of silicate, chloride, and sulfide clouds on warm Jupiters? Nishil Mehta has you covered 👇 #exoplanets
www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5Mf...

WASP-121b's transmission spectrum observed with JWST/NIRSpec G395H reveals thermal dissociation and SiO in the atmosphere WASP-121b has been established as a benchmark ultrahot Jupiter, serving as a laboratory for the atmospheric chemistry and dynamics of strongly irradiated extrasolar gas giants. Here, we present and an...

Cyril published a paper about this a few months ago. If you missed it, it is here:

"WASP-121b's transmission spectrum observed with JWST/NIRSpec G395H reveals thermal dissociation and SiO in the atmosphere"
Gapp et al. 2025
arxiv.org/abs/2506.02199

YouTube video by BOWIE+ Seminars Thermal Dissociation and SiO in the Ultra-Hot Jupiter WASP-121b

The care that has to be taken when analyzing transmission spectra of ultra-hot Jupiters due to 3D effects is always really fascinating. Here is Cyril Gapp's recent talk on his work on the ultra-hot WASP-121b and the cool things going on in its atmosphere.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuZU...

Picture looking up at the sky, with the Royal Observatory Edinburgh East Tower in the lower right-hand corner and stars overhead surrounded by the pink/purple glow of the Northern Lights.

Astro PhD applications for Edinburgh are open! Deadlines are:
* 24 Nov: Career Development Scholarship (for students of Black heritage)
* 5 Dec: Bell Burnell Scholarship (for all URM students)
* 5 Jan: all applications
Come to beautiful Scotland! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
Applying is free! 🔭🧪
ifa.roe.ac.uk/phds-jobs-fe...

Loeb’s 3I/ATLAS “Anomalies” Explained Avi Loeb continues to claim that 3I/ATLAS has many anomalous behaviors that lead to the conclusion that it “might” be an alien spacecraft.  He carefully hedges the probability that it is a spacecraft ...

Great piece by astronomer and SETI leader Jason Wright on the endless, exhausting claims about 3I/Atlas by Avi Loeb.

"zero planetary scientists give Avi’s claims any credence... because he’s demonstrably wrong"

sites.psu.edu/astrowright/...

Looking to start a PhD in Physics & Astronomy in 2026? The team @physicsuol.bsky.social have announced their STFC-funded projects on offer next year, spanning astrophysics, planetary science, and space instrumentation. Deadline: Jan 18th, contact us to learn more!

le.ac.uk/study/resear...

The agency has already been irreparably damaged, capacity and culture destroyed, decades worth of experience shown the door. "NASA" is the strongest name brand in the world, a metonymy for our highest ideals as humans. It is being bulldozed by people who don't understand (or care) what we're losing.

I will also just remind you that NASA used to have a bunch of advisory committees that all would have raised the red flag on this... But we were all disbanded, along with most advisory panels, in the spring.

You might ask why... It seems to be two things. One, Project 2025 makes it clear the authors do not believe that government scientific capacity should exist. They are doing everything they can do to make that happen.
And Goddard is in a blue state. They are making an example.

NASA is sinking its flagship science center during the government shutdown — and may be breaking the law in the process, critics say "There is just a general acknowledgement that a lot of what is happening is illegal…"

This is how you incinerate a field of science. 🔭🧪

We’re now watching the murder of space sciences in America. Unless someone can stop this, this is the beginning of the end.

The brain drain will accelerate until there’s nothing left to stay for. 🧪🔭

EXPEDITIOUSLY AT LOUD VOLUME

It's motivated by AI slop being posted, but I would like to see this extended to other arXiv categories.

blog.arxiv.org/2025/10/31/a...

“We are told that AI is inevitable, that we must adapt or be left behind. But universities are not tech companies. Our role is to foster critical thinking, not to follow industry trends uncritically.”

Last chance to turn it off.

On Monday, November 3rd, Microsoft will start using your LinkedIn data for AI training. And remember, you're opted in by default.

To toggle it off 👉 Account - Settings & Privacy > Data privacy > Data for Generative AI Improvement.

A logo with text "ExoComp" with a robot scanning the "O".

We've collected 65 individual exoplanet atmosphere composition measurements to look for population-level trends 🔭 #exoplanets

To do this, we had to create a toolkit to standardize between definitions of . We call it ExoComp. (Yes, that's a Star Trek reference 😀).

The official home of the Python Programming Language

TLDR; The PSF has made the decision to put our community and our shared diversity, equity, and inclusion values ahead of seeking $1.5M in new revenue. Please read and share. pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-...
🧵

YouTube video by BOWIE+ Seminars Chemistry and Aerosols of Temperate Jupiters

Alastair Claringbold ( @exoarcturus.bsky.social ) gave a great talk this week on Temperate Jupiters as a part of the BOWIE+ ECR Highlight Series.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmCD...

SAVE THE DATE! The 11th AAS Topical Conference Series (AASTCS): Exoplanet Atmospheres 2026 will take place in Denver. Join astronomers, planetary scientists & researchers from around the world for an in-depth exploration of one of the most dynamic fields in science today. More details soon 🔭