Fun fact: my ego is big enough to think I personally inspired both that xkcd comic and this one because a few weeks before they were published, I chatted with Randall Munroe at his book signing about my work on showing that some icy satellites might not actually have subsurface oceans.

Bonus: the art shop I got my poster printed in left a little surprise when they wrapped my poster

Despite being the most fabulous, Saturn is merely metrosexual. You can tell by how the magnetic axis aligns straight along the spin axis

Bro even with my meds I could not summon the will to do any work yesterday bc of this 😭

Hi, I’m a planetary geophysicist! (comparative planetologist?) If I remember right, you already had my friend Raquel and someone else on for the Moon and Mars, but if you need anyone that looks a lot at the icy satellites (cryoplanetology? 🤔), I can be that guy 👀

They truly do 🎷

Modeling heat generated within Eris’ ice shell and feedbacks with the evolving orbit of Dysnomia (generally, any change in orbital energy has to be accounted for by dissipation of tidal heat), they find Eris likely melted an ocean in the past; but it’s less likely to still be around. 3/3 #LPSC2025

In general, objects orbiting one another stretch each other into more oblong shapes. These raised tides stretch the rock/ice, leading to the generation of heat. Through Dysnomia & Eris’ history, was this heat enough to melt an ocean layer? 2/3 #LPSC2025