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Lorentz Center @lorentzcenter.bsky.social · 2d

The goal of this workshop is to define and implement a roadmap for a detailed intercomparison project between multiple leading computational frameworks of magma ocean evolution. bit.ly/3IZbJyn
@timlichtenberg.bsky.social @lavainspace.bsky.social @astroyami.bsky.social @meteodenny.bsky.social

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Reposted by Tim Lichtenberg

Rocky Worlds Meetings @rockyworlds.bsky.social · 7d

📢 Don't forget to join us for this talk tomorrow (Thursday)!

13:00 UTC = 15:00 CEST = 09:00 EDT = 06:00 PDT = 22:00 JST

If you haven't signed up to our mailing list to access the Zoom-link, you can also watch it live on our YouTube channel 🔭☄️🧪 #exoplanet livestream: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMr2...

Rocky Worlds Meetings @rockyworlds.bsky.social · 14d

Cloudy with a chance of... haze? Aerosol? Carbon dioxide?!🌦️

Next #RockyWorldsDiscussion on Thu 2 Oct @ 13:00 UTC will feature Kazumasa Ohno (NAOJ) and recent JWST results that lift the hazy veil on the composition of sub-Neptune #exoplanet GJ 1214 b 🪐🔭🧪

More: www.rockyworlds.org/event-detail...

An image of the speaker, Kazumasa Ohno. He is smiling and looking into the camera. He is wearing a navy blue cable-knit jumper with a checkered shirt, and glasses. He is against a background of what appears to be other people as the photo is seemingly cropped from a group photo.

$Artistic illustration of sub-Neptune TOI-421 b. A hypothetical exoplanet with similar banding to Jupiter, but in blue colours, is shown in the foreground. In the distant, the planet's host star is shown, which is a warm golden colour and shows diffraction spikes. Image credit: SciTechDaily.com$

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Reposted by Tim Lichtenberg

Elise Cutts @elisecutts.bsky.social · 14d

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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Tim Lichtenberg @timlichtenberg.bsky.social · 14d

By the way, it's a pretty good theory, it is/was falsifiable: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifi.... Not many theories are these days.

Tim Lichtenberg @timlichtenberg.bsky.social · 14d

The concept considers *cumulative* XUV irradiation, Fig. 4 in the paper, and suggests that this XUV-induced escape turns planets above the "shoreline" in the plot attached into bare-rock planets. If additional variables/processes are required it loses its predictive power.

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Tim Lichtenberg @timlichtenberg.bsky.social · 15d

A very nice article by @elisecutts.bsky.social in @sciam.bsky.social, highlighting the surprise of the discovery and the potential implications for our larger understanding of how atmospheres form and decay.

Elise Cutts @elisecutts.bsky.social · 15d

This is such a cool result!

TOI-561 b is basically the worst possible place to go looking for an atmosphere: too hot, too small, and too old.

But it looks like someone forgot to tell the planet that. Because it has air, anyways 🧪🔭

Me for @sciam.bsky.social:

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Reposted by Tim Lichtenberg

Elise Cutts @elisecutts.bsky.social · 15d

This is such a cool result!

TOI-561 b is basically the worst possible place to go looking for an atmosphere: too hot, too small, and too old.

But it looks like someone forgot to tell the planet that. Because it has air, anyways 🧪🔭

Me for @sciam.bsky.social:

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Tim Lichtenberg @timlichtenberg.bsky.social · 15d

And:
arxiv.org/abs/2306.10100

Tim Lichtenberg @timlichtenberg.bsky.social · 15d

[...] and instead evidence in favour of the idea that these planets host large scale magma oceans that lock substantial amounts of volatiles in the deep planetary interior:
arxiv.org/abs/2507.02656
arxiv.org/abs/2412.07285
arxiv.org/abs/2405.04057
arxiv.org/abs/2110.15069

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Tim Lichtenberg @timlichtenberg.bsky.social · 15d

Very exciting paper on arXiv today: arxiv.org/abs/2509.17231. The best evidence yet for a secondary atmosphere on an ultra-hot super-Earth. 🔭🌋 Very surprising given the theoretical predictions of rapid atmospheric escape ("cosmic shoreline") on these planets; [...]

A Thick Volatile Atmosphere on the Ultra-Hot Super-Earth TOI-561 b

Ultra-short period (USP) exoplanets -- with $R_p \leq 2~$R$_{\oplus}$ and periods $\leq$1 day -- are expected to be stripped of volatile atmospheres by intense host star irradiation, which is corrobor...

arxiv.org

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Reposted by Tim Lichtenberg

Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 23d

Climate science is the most significant scientific collaboration in history, and its lessons are a massive human achievement. “How We Came To Know Earth,” our new series, is a guide to the modern understanding of fundamental climate science. www.quantamagazine.org/series/clima...

How We Came To Know Earth | Quanta Magazine

Climate science is the most significant scientific collaboration in history. This series from Quanta Magazine guides you through basic climate science — from quantum effects to ancient hothouses, from...

www.quantamagazine.org

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Hannah Waters @hanner.bsky.social · 22d

Hi! Today @quantamagazine.bsky.social published a special issue on climate science, featuring stories about how Earth's climate fundamentally works that I needed to read after covering climate impacts for so many years. I hope you'll check it out! <3 www.quantamagazine.org/how-we-came-...

How We Came To Know Earth | Quanta Magazine

Climate science is the most significant scientific collaboration in history. This series from Quanta Magazine guides you through basic climate science — from quantum effects to ancient hothouses, from...

www.quantamagazine.org

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Tim Lichtenberg @timlichtenberg.bsky.social · 26d

Two days left to submit abstract to Rocky Words 4 Groningen in January 2026: groningen2026.rockyworlds.org @rockyworlds.bsky.social #exoplanets #astronomy #geoscience #planetaryscience

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Tim Lichtenberg @timlichtenberg.bsky.social · 27d

Thank you! 😊

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Hans Huybrighs @hanshuybrighs.bsky.social · Sep 3

Exoplanets 🔭 and Planetary Science 🪐 : Two Different Worlds 🌍 ?

What can planetary scientists learn from exoplanet research? Read all about it in our interview with @timlichtenberg.bsky.social

www.europlanet.org/exoplanets-a...

@europlanetmedia.bsky.social

Exoplanets and Planetary Science: Two Different Worlds? – Europlanet

www.europlanet.org

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Europlanet @europlanetmedia.bsky.social · Sep 3

📣 +++ ANNOUNCEMENT! +++
They are the winners of the Europlanet Career Medals!

🥇 Early-Career Medal Winner, @timlichtenberg.bsky.social
🥇 Mid-Career Medal Winner, Benoit Carry
🥇 Lifetime Achievement Winner, Jean Schnieder

👉 Discover more: www.europlanet.org/tim-lichtenb...

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Reposted by Tim Lichtenberg

Rocky Worlds Meetings @rockyworlds.bsky.social · Sep 2

#RockyWorldsDiscussion is back from our summer break! 🔭🧪

Our next speaker is Laura Schaefer from Stanford University, who will tell us about redox gradients in planet formation simulations of terrestrial planets 🌍🌕🪨 Join us on Zoom on Thu 4 Sep @ 16:00 UTC

More: www.rockyworlds.org/event-detail...

An image of the speaker, Laura Schaefer. She is smiling and looking into the camera. She is wearing a purple-grey zip-up jumper and sunglasses on her head. She is against a background of a large rock with some grass visible near the bottom, clearly outdoors.

An artistic conception of early Earth showing the planet's surface impacted by asteroids. Earth is shown with partial oceans and the land that is visible is covered in clear craters. Part of the Earth (bottom left) is also shown as covered by lava or a magma ocean.

Image credit: Simone Marchi, NASA. Taken from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/early-earth-s-atmosphere-was-surprisingly-thin/

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bmcarthur17 @bmcarthur17.bsky.social · Aug 16

This Brit nails it.

#Immigration

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Tim Lichtenberg @timlichtenberg.bsky.social · Aug 5

@marattia.bsky.social, postdoc in our group, won the Edith Alice Müller Award 2025 of the Swiss Society for Astrophysics and Astronomy for their outstanding PhD thesis in the fields of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Great achievement @marattia.bsky.social, congratulations! 🥳🎉 @kapteynastro.bsky.social

ssaa.ch

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Harrison Nicholls @nichollsh.bsky.social · Jul 25

In our now-published paper we model the early history of three exoplanets to specifically study the role of tidal heating on their capacity to solidify. A physically robust feedback mechanism can keep them molten, even with relatively thin atmospheres, which may extend to lots of rocky exoplanets.

RAS Journals @rasjournals.bsky.social · Jul 25

Published in #MNRAS: "Self-limited tidal heating and prolonged magma oceans in the L 98-59 system", Nicholls et al. This is Fig. 1: for the caption & to read the paper please visit academic.oup.com/mnras/articl... @oxfordacademic.bsky.social @royalastrosoc.bsky.social

Log-scaled surface tidal heat flux calculated by LOVEPY using a Maxwell viscoelastic rheology for a range of shear viscosities, orbital eccentricities, and orbital periods. Please see the paper for the full caption.

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Reposted by Tim Lichtenberg

RAS Journals @rasjournals.bsky.social · Jul 25

Published in #MNRAS: "Self-limited tidal heating and prolonged magma oceans in the L 98-59 system", Nicholls et al. This is Fig. 1: for the caption & to read the paper please visit academic.oup.com/mnras/articl... @oxfordacademic.bsky.social @royalastrosoc.bsky.social

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The New Yorker @newyorker.com · Jul 19

Globally, roughly a third more power is being generated from the sun this spring than last. If this exponential rate of growth can continue, we will soon live in a very different world, @billmckibben.bsky.social‬ writes.

4.6 Billion Years On, the Sun Is Having a Moment

In the past two years, without much notice, solar power has begun to truly transform the world’s energy system.

www.newyorker.com

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APNet - Assistant Professor Network Netherlands @apnet.bsky.social · Jul 18

We performed an analysis of the 2024 NWO VIDI awardees. Conceived to support researchers transitioning from
postdoc positions into independent scientific leadership, the VIDI has become more of a mid-career consolidation grant.
Read our full analysis and recommendations: ap-net.nl/wp-content/u...

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Tim Lichtenberg @timlichtenberg.bsky.social · Jul 9

Iris' paper is now published in ApJ at doi.org/10.3847/1538...! @nichollsh.bsky.social

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Mariana Sastre @marianasastre.bsky.social · Jun 26

Hola Astro/Geo/Photo/Documentary- BlueSky community! This is my first post soooo: I’m Mariana, I’m a 2nd year PhD Student researching the geophysical evolution of Magma Ocean Exoplanets! I’m in love with volcanoes of this and other planets 🌋👑🌍

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