Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Johanna Teske @johannateske.bsky.social · 10h

Very interesting work!

Gijs D Mulders @gijsmulders.com · 14h

How do giant planets influence the type of #exoplanets that form in the habitable zone?

A thread 1/🧵

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Reposted by Johanna Teske

Laura Lopez @ohdearz.bsky.social · 11h

So far the astronomy PhD programs that have cancelled admissions are Washington, Michigan State, and Case Western.

Meg Schwamb @megschwamb.bsky.social · 1d

Sad to see the University of Washington Astronomy Department has suspended graduate admissions for the 2026-2027 Academic Year. astro.washington.edu/graduate-adm...

Graduate Admissions | Department of Astronomy | University of Washington

The Department of Astronomy has suspended graduate admissions for the 2026-2027 Academic Year. General Information for applying to UW Astronomy Graduate Program. Applications must be submitted using ...

astro.washington.edu

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Reposted by Johanna Teske

Sara Hastings-Simon 🇨🇦 @shastingssimon.bsky.social · 1d

My number one tip for researchers that do a significant amount of non peer reviewed paper publication/outreach:

Create an excel table, every time you give an interview, talk, write an oped or white paper, etc. take 5 seconds to immediately note it in the excel.

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Reposted by Johanna Teske

KOJAMF🤘🖤🤘 @kojamf.bsky.social · 4d

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.

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Reposted by Johanna Teske

Christina Toms @christinatoms.bsky.social · 7d

this is great - we’re not gonna scicomm our way out of this

Science Vs @sciencevs.bsky.social · 7d

This moment from our latest episode with science writer @edyong209.bsky.social is 🔥

We asked Ed — how do we talk up the benefits of science in the face of government cuts? He told us that's the wrong approach. 🧪

Listen wherever, or watch on Spotify 👇

open.spotify.com/episode/7Evh...

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Johanna Teske @johannateske.bsky.social · 8d

🔭

Alex Ji @alexji.bsky.social · 8d

For those frantically trying to submit their Gemini proposals tonight, it’s broken:
www.gemini.edu/news/science...

Gemini Proposal Server Offline

A network outage in Chile has caused a loss of connectivity to our backend servers for proposals for 2026A. We do not know at this stage how long it will take to restore the service. We will update he...

www.gemini.edu

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Reposted by Johanna Teske

Alex Ji @alexji.bsky.social · 8d

For those frantically trying to submit their Gemini proposals tonight, it’s broken:
www.gemini.edu/news/science...

Gemini Proposal Server Offline

A network outage in Chile has caused a loss of connectivity to our backend servers for proposals for 2026A. We do not know at this stage how long it will take to restore the service. We will update he...

www.gemini.edu

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Reposted by Johanna Teske

Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 9d

Cugno and Grant @sierragrant.bsky.social with “A Carbon-rich Disk Surrounding a Planetary-mass Companion” detected using #JWST - an impressive detection of several different carbon molecules that are very promising for #exomoon formation around the directly imaged #exoplanet CT Cha b ☄

An image of the planetary companion CT Cha b shown as a red dot next to its parent star, with a spectrum from 12 to 16 microns from JWST showing several rotational and vibrational bands in emission for several carbon molecules.

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Reposted by Johanna Teske

Sierra Grant @sierragrant.bsky.social · 9d

PRESS RELEASE DAY! Could not be prouder of this result and so happy that it's now out!!! 🤩✨

Thanks to the team at @stsci.edu for the wonderful write-up and image!

Space Telescope Science Institute @stsci.edu · 9d

#NASAWebb has found the first direct evidence of potential moon formation around a giant exoplanet. The discovery is shedding light on how such systems evolve and why moons could be potentially habitable worlds: https://bit.ly/46xGodN 🔭 🧪

An illustration of a young planet with a surrounding disk of dust and gas potentially forming moons. The planet, which appears dark red, is shown at lower right, circled by a cloudy, clumpy reddish orange-colored disk. The host star appears at upper left, and glows yellow, with its own reddish disk of debris. The disk that surrounds the planet takes up about half the illustration. The black background of space is speckled with stars. At the bottom of the illustration, graphics of molecules are listed in the following order: Acetylene, Carbon Dioxide, Ethane, Benzene, Hydrogen cyanide. The words Artist’s Concept appear at upper right.

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Johanna Teske @johannateske.bsky.social · 9d

Yay @sierragrant.bsky.social and team! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Space Telescope Science Institute @stsci.edu · 9d

#NASAWebb has found the first direct evidence of potential moon formation around a giant exoplanet. The discovery is shedding light on how such systems evolve and why moons could be potentially habitable worlds: https://bit.ly/46xGodN 🔭 🧪

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Reposted by Johanna Teske

Jonathan Fortney @jjfplanet.bsky.social · 13d

I'm really excited about this one! It's fantastic working with Dr. Yayaati Chachan:
arxiv.org/abs/2509.20428
"Revising the Giant Planet Mass-Metallicity Relation: Deciphering the Formation Sequence of Giant Planets"
Lots of great nuggets her, including that even super-Jupiters are very metal-rich.

Revising the Giant Planet Mass-Metallicity Relation: Deciphering the Formation Sequence of Giant Planets

The rate at which giant planets accumulate solids and gas is a critical component of planet formation models, yet it is extremely challenging to predict from first principles. Characterizing the heavy...

arxiv.org

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Reposted by Johanna Teske

Evert Nasedkin @evertnasedkin.bsky.social · 13d

There's a lot to unpack from the paper; the main takeaway is that we're starting to really see these objects in 3D! In the future, we want to really look at how the atmosphere itself evolves over time, rather than just looking at the rotational modulation - this would really be the weather!

A poster entitled the weather report from SIMP-0136, summarizing the findings of the the paper "The JWST weather report: Retrieving temperature variations, auroral heating, and static cloud coverage on SIMP-0136".

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Reposted by Johanna Teske

Evert Nasedkin @evertnasedkin.bsky.social · 13d

🔭 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...

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Reposted by Johanna Teske

Science News @sciencenews.bsky.social · 14d

“We didn’t evolve in an environment with so much information, and now there is so much available. We just consume information all the time.”

People with ADHD may have an underappreciated advantage: Hypercuriosity

ADHD is officially a disorder of deficits in attention, behavior and focus. But patients point out upsides, like curiosity. Research is now catching up.

buff.ly

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Reposted by Johanna Teske

Carnegie Science @carnegiescience.bsky.social · 14d

TOMORROW: Two talks, one big night of discovery!

Join Earth & Planets Laboratory postdocs Sierra Grant & Shubham Kanodia as they reveal how planets are born—and the giants that defy the rules. #NeighborhoodLecture

📅 Sept 25 | 6:30 PM ET | DC & Online
🔗 RSVP: carnegiescience.edu/birth-worlds...

Birth of Worlds, Rise of Giants

Join Carnegie postdocs Shubham Kanodia and Sierra Grant as they explore the secrets of distant worlds—from the birth of new planets to giant rule-breakers that defy expectations—in a special double…

carnegiescience.edu

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Reposted by Johanna Teske

Elise Cutts @elisecutts.bsky.social · 15d

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin ✨ figured out what stars are made of ✨ when she was just 25. 🔭🧪

Her PhD thesis basically established the Harvard astro department — at a time when Harvard didn't officially allow woman students.

I wrote this little profile to mark the 100th anniversary of her thesis:

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Reposted by Johanna Teske

Dr. Caprice Phillips @capricephillips.bsky.social · 15d

Forgot to update that I made a new professional website. Had to add the .space ending because basic lol.

capricephillips.space

Dr. Caprice Phillips

Dr. Caprice Phillips, astronomer and NASA Sagan Fellow at UC Santa Cruz, specializes in exoplanet and brown dwarf atmospheric characterization and astronomy outreach. She also works with Black In Astr...

capricephillips.space

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Reposted by Johanna Teske

Erika Nesvold @erikanesvold.com · 15d

Some late commentary on the claim that we (the U.S.) need to send a nuclear reactor to “claim” a spot on the Moon before China does: NASA needs a better argument to convince me it’s worth it. And I would have thought I’d be easy to convince! open.substack.com/pub/makingne...

The Missing Argument for the Lunar Space Race

Why does America need to get there first?

open.substack.com

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Johanna Teske @johannateske.bsky.social · 15d

😂

Johanna Teske @johannateske.bsky.social · 15d

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Apple postpones Jessica Chastain series about domestic extremism

The Savant pulled from Apple TV+ release schedule ‘after careful consideration’

www.theguardian.com

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Johanna Teske @johannateske.bsky.social · 15d

Yesssss congratulations! Lucky them and the rest of us in the DMV 🥳

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Linn Boldt-Christmas @nplinnspace.bsky.social · 15d

We *absolutely* should celebrate it. Do your part by enjoying the 200+ page masterpiece in its entirety on ADS! ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1925PhDT... 🔭

Special shoutout to Figure 2, an incredible piece of art that I want on my wall (and suspect could even make an excellent tattoo if executed well?)

Figure caption:

Figure 2. The hydrogen atom. The ten innermost orbits possible for the single electron of the atom of hydrogen are diagrammatically represented. All possible quantum transitions are included as follows: — short dashes, Lyman series, terminating at a 1-quantum orbit; full lines, Balmer series, terminating at a 2-quantum orbit; long dashes, Paschen series, terminating at a 3-quantum orbit. Transfers are only possible between orbits with azimuthal quantum numbers differing by ±1.

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Johanna Teske @johannateske.bsky.social · 15d

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Tad Komacek @tadkomacek.bsky.social · 16d

Really enjoying Dr. Shreyas Vissapragada's @carnegiescience.bsky.social seminar on three population-level surveys of atmospheric escape @oxoplanets.bsky.social!

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Reposted by Johanna Teske

Michael Wong @miquai.bsky.social · 18d

The best part of my job is the people I get to work with 🪐💙

Three planeteers look through a mockup of a Curiosity rover wheel

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Reposted by Johanna Teske

Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 19d

Amid budget uncertainty, NASA gets some good news: Use House funding levels

The House budget still cuts science at NASA, but not as deeply as the White House sought.

arstechnica.com

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