Dr. Sammy Hasler

I like it! spooky because it’s ~elusive~

Poster from NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program of “The Roasted Planet” HD 80606b, showing the planet’s atmosphere being blasted away by its star. Caption: “Can you hear this exoplanet screaming? As HD 80606 b approaches its star from an extreme, elliptical orbit, it suffers star-grazing torture that causes howling, supersonic winds and shockwave storms across the planet. Its torturous journey boils its atmosphere to a hellish 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit every 111 days, roasting both its light and dark sides. HD 80606b will never escape this scorching nightmare.”

It’s Halloween week and I haven’t seen any talk about our favorite spooky #exoplanets yet this year!

Crowd-sourcing ideas for our exoplanet journal club this week — what’s your nomination for spookiest exoplanet? 👻

US Astronomy Graduate Admissions, AY 2025-2026

For anyone applying to grad school in the US this fall, the @aas.org has made a working group to monitor which programs have faced cuts - this spreadsheet contains all the info: 🔭☄️

New Max Planck Artificial Intelligence Network Starts Call for Applications for its Ph.D. Program The Max Planck Artificial Intelligence Network is a Ph.D. Program that provides doctoral researchers with fully funded Ph.D. fellowships and a pool of outstanding faculty comprising directors and inde...

Seeking PhD candidates that want to do a thesis on exoplanet atmosphere retrieval + machine learning inference. Please apply by 31 October to Dr. Max Dax's and my shared project here: is.mpg.de/news/new-max... . Abstract for the thesis project is attached to this thread below!

A lot of comments on Mars rovers or Moon landings, but it's important to remember that the planet NASA studies most is Earth. This is less about cutting flashy things like moonwalks and more about keeping communities in the dark on climate, weather, agriculture, pollution, natural hazards, and more.

Screenshot from the live Guardian US politics blog, with the following text highlighted "Trump added that he’s spoken to a donor who said he would be willing to supplement the shortfall for paying the troops."

It feels useless to point out but if we stop pointing it out that's definitely worse:

SURELY IT'S ILLEGAL FOR TRUMP TO ORGANIZE PRIVATE FINANCING FOR THE US MILITARY.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/live...

So many spectacular, kind, brave people who I've worked with for years being let go from JPL today. We will all be poorer for their absence from the forefront of human knowledge.

An NSF Graduate Research Fellowship helped launch my career - the next generation of scientists deserves the same opportunity, just as Americans deserve the benefits of a well-supported scientific pipeline. But this year's solicitation is MIA.

Please take a minute to speak up for the program👇

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.

Autism is not a "disease" or "epidemic".

Autism has a strong genetic component.

There is no evidence that vaccinees or Tylenol cause autism.

Access to autism diagnostics have dramatically increased as reported rates increased.

Neither Trump nor RFK Jr are scientists or medical professionals.

Trump announces $1m ‘golden visa’ and raises fees for H-1B visas to $100,000 – US politics live US president signs executive orders making it more expensive to get special skills visa while expediting process for those who can pay large sums

My first NASA position, as a contractor in the Kepler Science Office, was on a H-1b visa. NASA ended up giving me a medal and now I’m the Chief Scientist of NASA Exoplanet Science Institute and an American citizen to boot. Seems like a net win for the US, no? But now this:

pretty much! trojans are specific to the Lagrange points — over time, one could become the other if their orbit shifts

🪐🔭 JWST is letting us learn about disks around PLANETARY-MASS OBJECTS!!!

In case you didn't know, Jupiter totally has rings.

You can see them (faintly) in this #JWST image.

You are cordially invited to our next AoT Boston event at Aeronaut Brewing on Thursday, September 4!!! We're bringing you some exciting talks about the Rubin Observatory (@vrubinobs.bsky.social), which will capture the ultimate time-lapse movie of the universe in the next 10 years 🔭💫

As a resident of the Boston metro, I find it so interesting that narratives about the whiteness of Boston persist as the dominant national story even though it's a majority minority metro and the actual city is led by a Chinese-American woman.

Also, she's more presidential than Gavin Belson

I showed this to my fiancé who is a marine biologist. He thinks they’re most likely Salps! They’re jellyfish-like tunicates and can be found in Rhode Island.
He found some info from the RI Division of Marine Fisheries here: dem.ri.gov/sites/g/file...

So pleased to see these results published and get the attention they deserve! For the nerds, I do encourage you to read the Beichman paper, section 2 AND all the way to the end, as it details the technical challenges involved in performing these observations. Because holy sh*t, it was HARD 🔭

A planet for Alpha Centauri A? JWST spots what might be a Jupiter-sized world around the nearest Sun-like star

WHOA.

Astronomers may have found a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri A, the closest sun-like star to the Sun! It's a binary system, too, so if this is confirmed it'll be an AMAZING discovery!

badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/a-planet-f...

🔭🧪

Will I ever remember the emojis...history indicates no

🔭🧪

"ChatGPT is great for brainstorming!"

Actually we have a tool for that already! It's called thinking. We use our brain. It's called brainstorming! Clue is in the name.

I said this recently at #HWO2025, but I'll also say it here in light of the upcoming @nancyromansci.bsky.social call for white papers for the coronagraph: If you don't do planets and disks, please put a white paper in! I'm happy to give advice #astrosci 🔭

To reiterate: Chat GPT is not a search engine. Chat GPT is not a search engine. Chat GPT is not a search engine. Chat GPT is not a search engine. Chat GPT is not a search engine. Chat GPT is not a search engine. Chat GPT is not a search engine. Chat GPT is not a search engine. Chat GPT is not a sear

My brain has said "no."

I don't know what the question was.

But my brain has said "no."

UH Researchers Help Solve Uranus Heat Mystery A new study led by University of Houston researchers, in collaboration with planetary scientists worldwide, suggests Uranus does have its own internal heat. This advance that not only informs NASA’s f...

Uranus is hot. And I'm not just saying that because it is one of my fave planets despite its unfortunate name. uh.edu/news-events/...

Actual, Current, Real-World Cuts to NASA Planetary R&A
research.ssl.berkeley.edu/~mikewong/bl... "ROSES 2025 Research and analysis proposal opportunities were just announced yesterday. I did a graphical deep dive into how bad the situation is for soft money researchers working on NASA science."

Technicians installed solar panels onto #NASARoman, one of the final steps in assembling the observatory. Collectively called the Solar Array Sun Shield, these panels will power and shade the observatory, enabling all the mission’s observations and helping keep the instruments cool: bit.ly/453CTvd 🔭

It’s important to point out that many of the cuts at NASA are to astrophysics and earth science, not just the space program

Most of that does not involve anyone going to space but involves us learning things that help us live better on earth

YouTube video by NASA Goddard NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory Will Search for Life

My eyes are fixed on the future, even in volatile times.... 🚀🔭 🧪 🪐 www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJwD...

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