Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Duncan Christie

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 12h

One of the terrible things about the conservative elites’ attacks on higher education is that they are giving their constituents the impression that the universe isn’t big, complicated, and fascinating — that it really does take this many people to work out how even a small fraction of it works

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Reposted by Duncan Christie

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 12h

Fascism is such a fundamental attack on wonder and the human imagination and I think everyone should have the opportunity to let their imagination wonder as it wanders — doesn’t matter what you do for a living. Your mind matters! Your relationship with the universe is meaningful!

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Reposted by Duncan Christie

Nikkolas Smith @4nikkolas.bsky.social · 4d

after millions of views and shares of my Portland Frog art. (thank you all🙏🏾) I got requests to highlight priests, and chickens, and Chicagoans, and T-Rexes, and more… all of us who refuse to bend the knee. so this is for US.
𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚃𝚊𝚕𝚕.
𝚆𝚎 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚆𝚒𝚗.

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Reposted by Duncan Christie

Sarah Tuttle @niais.bsky.social · 4d

Are you someone who is interested in astronomy graduate school? This is a list of many/most departments and their expectations for admissions this year. Please feel free to spread it far and wide. If you are doing admissions and you'd like to update your entry, reach out as per the form!

US Astronomy Graduate Admissions, AY 2025-2026

docs.google.com

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Reposted by Duncan Christie

Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 11d

I think for me the most compelling answer for "why fund basic research?" (and the one most relevant to the people doing the work) is that humans are curious and finding stuff out makes us happy and fulfilled. Science is a thing humans like. Life would be more dull and sad if we didn't do it.

end/🧵

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Reposted by Duncan Christie

Dan Valentine @danvalentine.bsky.social · 8d

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

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Reposted by Duncan Christie

Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · 9d

📣 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 @signal.org · 11d

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

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Reposted by Duncan Christie

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 12d

🚨🚨 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 🚨🚨

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Duncan Christie @astroduncan.bsky.social · 13d

You know, this might be important.

"Bayesian Model Comparison and Significance: Widespread Errors and how to Correct Them"

www.arxiv.org/abs/2510.00169

Bayesian Model Comparison and Significance: Widespread Errors and how to Correct Them

Bayes factors have become a popular tool in exoplanet spectroscopy for testing atmosphere models against one another. We show that the commonly used method for converting these values into significanc...

www.arxiv.org

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Duncan Christie @astroduncan.bsky.social · 15d

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.

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Duncan Christie @astroduncan.bsky.social · 15d

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.

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Reposted by Duncan Christie

Laura Lopez @ohdearz.bsky.social · 15d

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.

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Duncan Christie @astroduncan.bsky.social · 15d

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?

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Duncan Christie @astroduncan.bsky.social · 15d

I'm not sure how the definitive 'No' is aligned with doing what works best for my community.

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Duncan Christie @astroduncan.bsky.social · 17d

Normalize submitting to arXiv after acceptance instead of on submission.

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Reposted by Duncan Christie

Evert Nasedkin @evertnasedkin.bsky.social · 19d

🔭 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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Duncan Christie @astroduncan.bsky.social · 19d

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

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Duncan Christie @astroduncan.bsky.social · 28d

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

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Duncan Christie @astroduncan.bsky.social · Sep 14

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

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Duncan Christie @astroduncan.bsky.social · Sep 14

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.

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Duncan Christie @astroduncan.bsky.social · Sep 14

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

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Reposted by Duncan Christie

Dr Ryan MacDonald @distantworlds.space · Sep 9

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

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Reposted by Duncan Christie

Emily Hunt @emily.space · Sep 8

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

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Duncan Christie @astroduncan.bsky.social · Aug 25

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.

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Duncan Christie @astroduncan.bsky.social · Aug 25

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.

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