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Steve Desch

@deschscoveries.bsky.social

4.6K followers 220 following 370 posts

Professor of astrophysics / planetary science / meteoritics at Arizona State University.

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Steve Desch @deschscoveries.bsky.social · Nov 24

Hi! I’m a Professor of astrophysics at ASU. I use meteorite data to model how stars and planets form. I lead a NASA-funded team to predict the diversity of exoplanet compositions. I work with realice.eco to explore ways to thicken arctic ice. I fight bad science. Let’s karaoke!

Steve Desch holding the meteorite Erg Chech 002 in the meteorite vault at Arizona State University.

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Reposted by Steve Desch

shauna @goldengateblond.bsky.social · 11d

everything is terrible so here's the Muppets channeling Hamilton and bringing me untold joy (via the brilliant brettevansmafrog on insta)

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Steve Desch @deschscoveries.bsky.social · 4d

Like we need more ICE ‘guards’.

Reposted by Steve Desch

Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · 5d

🎵 They did the Monster Slash 😭 @ellecordova.bsky.social

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imaginationasu.bsky.social @imaginationasu.bsky.social · 7d

Don't miss Mars Attacks! at 7 PM MST on Wednesday at Tempe's Majestic Neighborhood Cinema Grill! Prior to the film, join us for a discussion with @deschscoveries.bsky.social, a Professor of Astrophysics in the School of Earth and Space Exploration.

🔗 www.majesticphx.com/movie/Histor...

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Steve Desch @deschscoveries.bsky.social · 9d

Why is it U2 Still Haven’t Found What they’re Looking For? Because they’re Where The Streets Have No Name!
Yuk yuk yuk. Is this mic on?

Reposted by Steve Desch

Kara B @karabrug.bsky.social · 10d

The Tracing Rocky Exoplanet Compositions (TREC) workshop "Under the Atmospheric Hood: How Geochemical Cycles Affect Exoplanet Biosignatures" will be held at ASU in Tempe, AZ Jan. 12–14 (after the AAS meeting in Phoenix). Applications close 10/15 trec-nexss.org/workshop See the thread for more info!

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Steve Desch @deschscoveries.bsky.social · 11d

it’s normal in the sense that people have always accused nasa of some conspiracy or another, from the moon landings to the face on mars. that doesn’t make it right. all images are processed. i wouldn’t call that edited. nasa scientists are pretty open with all their science. i don’t “get”doubters.

Steve Desch @deschscoveries.bsky.social · 12d

Cool! I hadn’t seen this! Yes, this means iron has been detected as well as nickel. As expected for a comet, Ni is detected first, then Fe kicks in. We expect more Fe soon.

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imaginationasu.bsky.social @imaginationasu.bsky.social · 12d

Get ready for a night of Martian madness for the third showing of our History of the Future film series, "Mars Attacks!" Grab tickets from Majestic Theaters and dive into this stellar cult classic with @deschscoveries.bsky.social on Wednesday, October 8, at 7 PM!

www.majesticphx.com/movie/Histor...

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Steve Desch @deschscoveries.bsky.social · 14d

Loeb (and maybe only Loeb) is fixated on the size. He wants it to seem huge. The first reports gave upper limits of 56 km diameter (like, unless it’s bigger than this, we don’t know its size) and Loeb continues to double down like that’s the size, even as we can now say it’s probably < 1 km in size.

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Steve Desch @deschscoveries.bsky.social · 15d

Why are some people convinced the Earth is flat? Or the Moon landings are fake? Or the climate isn’t changing? Claiming to “know” something all the experts have missed (and are too groupthinky to even realize!) lets them pretend we don’t all need experts. But that’s the only way we got this far.

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Steve Desch @deschscoveries.bsky.social · 16d

wikipedia is very good.
it is updated as often as something needs updating, which honestly is every few weeks. it’s just a cool comet, don’t worry so much!

Steve Desch @deschscoveries.bsky.social · 17d

I wrote a few articles on Medium you might like then..

medium.com/@steve.desch...

This is not the quality of pseudoscience infotainment to which I have grown accustomed

Teasing the public with fraudulent or self-deluded promises of aliens used to mean something. It took work. It meant slapping together…

medium.com

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Steve Desch @deschscoveries.bsky.social · 17d

interjecting doubt for attention. They drown out scientists’ voices. No one gets a platform to say “this comet looks normal”. But anyone claiming 3I/ATLAS is not understood get lots of press. We have more to learn, but it looks exactly like a comet. Claims to the contrary are disingenuous.

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Steve Desch @deschscoveries.bsky.social · 17d

But with 3I/ATLAS, it has only ever done comety things. Not a single observation has ruled out it being a normal comet on a hyperbolic orbit. There are those like Loeb who keep asking, but have you thought of THIS? And the answer every time has been, YES, we have, try to keep up! But they keep

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Steve Desch @deschscoveries.bsky.social · 17d

would be required for the Sun to not rise. We have argued and argued and argued until this is our understanding and nothing else would make sense. But science never ever offers proof of something. That (by design!) makes it vulnerable to hucksters who would say, yeah but have you thought of THIS?!

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Steve Desch @deschscoveries.bsky.social · 17d

The thing about scientists is that we are trained to disagree and be contrarian. Science doesn’t prove the sun rises… it notes that it does, and builds a model of the Earth spinning to explain why, then finds the most set of rules—physics—that all things follow, so we know what enormous changes

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Steve Desch @deschscoveries.bsky.social · 17d

I’m curious to know who you’re listening to. No scientist doubts this is a comet. There’s nothing uncomety about it.
I’m excited for various spacecraft to view it from different angles soon, and to see what gases escape when it’s heated at perihelion. It’s about as exciting as ice gets!

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Steve Desch @deschscoveries.bsky.social · 18d

Cero para mí también. ¿Hay otras opciones para hacer estas cosas? Tal vez estoy viejo…

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Steve Desch @deschscoveries.bsky.social · 18d

To be precise, I think it’s extortion. You know, like the Mafia does.

Dr. Jessie Christiansen @aussiastronomer.bsky.social · 18d

"OMB said its layoff notices could be avoided if Democrats decide to support the bill"

So, it's blackmail then.

White House threatens layoffs — not furloughs — if the government shuts down

In past government shutdowns, workers have been put on temporary furloughs until funding resumes. This time, the Trump White House is looking for bigger and more permanent cuts, a new memo shows.

www.npr.org

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Reposted by Steve Desch

Ele Willoughby @minouette.bsky.social · May 10

Happy birthday to astrophysicist Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (1900-1979), a trailblazer for women in #astronomy who discovered that hydrogen & helium are the most common elements in the universe.⁠ 🐡🧪👩🏼‍🔬🎢🔭
⁠
Born England, she won a scholarship to Newnham College at Cambridge in 1919 where she heard 🧵1/n

My linocut portrait of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin in a lace collar in front of the sun in oranges and black against the blackness of space. At the bottom of the print is the solar absorption spectrum (a rainbow style gradient of indigo at left through to red and black at the right with specific discrete thin black vertical lines at various places).

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Steve Desch @deschscoveries.bsky.social · 20d

😒

Steve Desch @deschscoveries.bsky.social · 22d

Technologically advance a band:
Huey Lewis and the Aggregator Website.

Jeff Baker @jwbee.bsky.social · 22d

Technologically advance a band:

The B-2s

Jesse Kriss @jklabs.net · 22d

Technologically advance a band:

OLED Soundsystem

Reposted by Steve Desch

Nereide @drnereide.bsky.social · 22d

🧵
WD 1647+375, a white dwarf just 260 ly away, is "snacking" on the remnants of a Pluto-like body from an alien Kuiper Belt.

Using Hubble's ultraviolet spectroscopy, an international team has revealed the chemical composition of this cosmic object,

➡️ warwick.ac.uk/news/pressre...

🔭 🧪 #science

This image is an illustration showing the early stages of an icy body that is torn apart by a white dwarf's intense gravity, leaving glowing trails of gas and dust as its fragments spiral inward.

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Steve Desch @deschscoveries.bsky.social · 23d

Sorry Adeene, it circles the Sun but it hasn’t cleared its orbit.