Duncan Christie
@astroduncan.bsky.social
290 followers 100 following 84 posts
Astrophysicist. Postdoctoral researcher at the MPIA. Exoplanet atmospheres. (he/him/his) www.duncanchristie.net
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astroduncan.bsky.social
Normalize submitting to arXiv after acceptance instead of on submission.
Reposted by Duncan Christie
danvalentine.bsky.social
New paper alert 🔔 If you like eclipse mapping and are excited for the future opportunities that Ariel will provide, then check it out!

(Bonus: writing an eclipse mapping proposal? We've ranked all the best eclipse mapping targets for both Ariel and JWST!)

arxiv.org/abs/2510.03147
Eclipse Mapping with Ariel: Future Prospects for a Population-Level Mapping Survey
Eclipse mapping is a powerful tool for measuring 3D profiles of exoplanet atmospheres. To date, only JWST has been capable of widely applying this technique, but as a general observatory, it is too ti...
arxiv.org
Reposted by Duncan Christie
meredithmeredith.bsky.social
📣 Germany's close to reversing its opposition to mass surveillance & private message scanning, & backing the Chat Control bill. This could end private comms-& Signal-in the EU.

Time's short and they're counting on obscurity: please let German politicians know how horrifying their reversal would be.
signal.org
We are alarmed by reports that Germany is on the verge of a catastrophic about-face, reversing its longstanding and principled opposition to the EU’s Chat Control proposal which, if passed, could spell the end of the right to privacy in Europe. signal.org/blog/pdfs/ge...
signal.org
Reposted by Duncan Christie
chanda.blacksky.app
🚨🚨 My dear friend and fellow academic, the Palestinian American sociologist @emanabdelhadi.bsky.social has been taken by the Cook County Sheriff near Chicago. They have not mirandized her. Please signal boost. All eyes on Broadview for Eman and the community she was defending 🚨🚨
astroduncan.bsky.social
It also provides an opportunity to catch obvious errors, and to force authors to actually provide details of what they are doing in their models. The last one frustrates me the most, as people cite arXiv postings with limited explanation of how they arrived at their results.
astroduncan.bsky.social
Within my field, I think the some of the papers that get posted to arXiv on submission are lacking in a lot of details and occasionally change a lot by the time they are accepted, but it is the posted version that everyone reads and presumably has in their mind when they are citing the paper.
Reposted by Duncan Christie
ohdearz.bsky.social
Ohio State just advised all staff and students not to attend the SACNAS (Society for the advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science) annual meeting of 6000+ scientists -- which is in Columbus, OH this year! -- saying it may be exclusionary, even though it is open to all.
astroduncan.bsky.social
As this is my work account where I post about exoplanetary science, that is the community which I am concerned with, and the community to which I was referring. I completely agree that other fields may have reasons to do things differently, but why would not think that I am referring to my field?
astroduncan.bsky.social
I'm not sure how the definitive 'No' is aligned with doing what works best for my community.
astroduncan.bsky.social
Normalize submitting to arXiv after acceptance instead of on submission.
Reposted by Duncan Christie
evertnasedkin.bsky.social
🔭 It's paper day! Today I'm sharing the latest in a series of papers looking at the weather on other worlds, in this case bringing you the weather report from a nearby T-dwarf, SIMP-0136. 🪐

🧵 to follow...
astroduncan.bsky.social
Dr. Anjali Piette of the University of Birmingham gave a wonderful talk on connecting sub-Neptune atmospheres to their interiors as a part of the BOWIE+ Seminar Series. The video is now available on Youtube. #exoplanets #astronomy

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHrT...
Demystifying the Sub-Neptune Frontier with JWST by Anjali Piette
YouTube video by BOWIE+ Seminars
www.youtube.com
astroduncan.bsky.social
As a part of the soft launch of the BOWIE+ Seminar Series in July, Dr. Michael Radica gave a talk on how we discern the three dimensional structure of exoplanet atmospheres from observations. The video is now available. #exoplanets #astronomy

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOw7...
How to Observe 3D Atmospheres for Impatient Exoplaneteers by Michael Radica
YouTube video by BOWIE+ Seminars
www.youtube.com
astroduncan.bsky.social
We are slowly building up the Youtube presence, but details about the seminar series can be found on our website.

bowiecollaboration.github.io/seminars.html
BOWIE Collaboration
bowiecollaboration.github.io
astroduncan.bsky.social
The answer is always to publicly claim you chose work-life balance by taking a nap while actually working on your grant proposal the entire time.
astroduncan.bsky.social
As a part of the launch of the BOWIE+ Seminar Series, Dr. Ryan MacDonald (@distantworlds.space) gave a great overview of our current understanding of rocky worlds thanks to JWST. The talk is now up on Youtube if you're interested. #exoplanets #astronomy

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN3y...
Atmospheres on Rocky Exoplanets by Ryan Macdonald
YouTube video by BOWIE+ Seminars
www.youtube.com
Reposted by Duncan Christie
distantworlds.space
We observed the habitable zone planet TRAPPIST-1e with JWST to search for an atmosphere.

You've seen the headlines, now let's dive into the science! 🧪

THREAD (1/N)

#Exoplanets 🔭
A rocky planet in its star’s ‘habitable zone’ could be the first known to have an atmosphere – here’s what we found
The largest telescope in space has been trained on a rocky exoplanet.
theconversation.com
Reposted by Duncan Christie
emily.space
For the last two years, I've been paying for the Astronomy feeds hosting myself.

It has been a privilege to grow our community here, but I also shouldn't keep doing it for free 😅

That's why I'm delighted to announce that we now have a donations page on Open Collective! 🔭☄️ #astrophotography
The Astrosky Ecosystem - Open Collective
We're building an open-source ecosystem of social media tools for the space science & astronomy communities.
opencollective.com
astroduncan.bsky.social
It also excuses a lack of creativity on the part of conference organizers. We should be looking to find venues/locations that satisfy the priorities you listed while still offering a good experience for the participants.
astroduncan.bsky.social
I completely agree that conferences should prioritize sustainability, affordability, as well as inclusivity, but I'm not sure that describing the solution as "the most boring possible venues & places" helps. Boring means different things to different people.
astroduncan.bsky.social
Most importantly, it looks like this release gets rid of the "consult your local theorist" message for non-solar metallicities.
Reposted by Duncan Christie
emily.space
I really dislike how science has started calling almost any fancy computational technique AI. 🧪

The framing of this entire article makes it sound like a benevolent AI independently made these drugs.

That is *pure fantasy*.

Instead: a team of scientists made a machine learning model for a study.

Article on BBC news. 
Title: AI designs antibiotics for gonorrhoea and MRSA superbugs
Description: Two new potential drugs have been designed by AI to kill drug-resistant bacteria, in a major Massachusetts Institute of Technology study.
astroduncan.bsky.social
I am a professional astrophysicist working on exoplanets.