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Mark Marley @markmarley.bsky.social · 1d

The snake is found in the southern Baja Peninsula which is part of the Sonoran desert, thus qualifying for the moniker in our model naming scheme. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crotalu...

Crotalus ruber - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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Mark Marley @markmarley.bsky.social · 1d

Evan has extended our cloudy Diamondback evolution models to higher Teff with PHOENIX models at the high end. This permits all model tracks to start at the same young age. We call this model variation Red Diamondback.

arXiv astro-ph.SR Solar and Stellar Astrophysics @astrophsr-bot.bsky.social · 2d

Davis, Fortney, Iyer, Mukherjee, Morley, Marley, Line, Muirhead: The Sonora Substellar Atmosphere Models VI. Red Diamondback: Extending Diamondback with SPHINX for Brown Dwarf Early Evolution https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.08694 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.08694 https://arxiv.org/html/2510.08694

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Reposted by Mark Marley

Tim Steller @timsteller.bsky.social · 2d

80 of the University of Arizona's most elite faculty, all Regents professors, are calling for rejection of the Trump administration's proposed compact. They make a key point I hadn't really focused on: The compact's benefits are completely nebulous.
tucson.com/news/local/s...

About 80 top U of A professors urge rejection of Trump compact

There's no assurance the University of Arizona would actually get funding benefits for complying, the Regents professors warn.

tucson.com

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Reposted by Mark Marley

Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 2d

Shared courtesy of my Penn History colleague, Ben Nathans

Image: A variation on Benjamin Franklin’s “Join, or Die” engraving, originally published in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1754. Each segment of the snake has the name of a university sent Trump’s “compact”: Texas, AZ, Vanderbilt, USC, Dartmouth, UVA, Brown, Penn, MIT.

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Mark Marley @markmarley.bsky.social · 3d

A previous owner of our house installed industrial sized downspouts to handle peak monsoon. This tropical storm downpour we just had overwhelmed one of them. Quite impressive.

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Mark Marley @markmarley.bsky.social · 3d

One year since my best lifetime bobcat capture. The boy kit (must have been) splashed all the water out of the bowl to take a snooze.

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Reposted by Mark Marley

Heidi B. Hammel @hbhammel.bsky.social · 4d

New unified model of equatorial winds on giant planets helps to explain some of the zonal wind observations 🔭 I and my colleagues have made for Neptune and Uranus over the past few decades - www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

From gas to ice giants: A unified mechanism for equatorial jets

A bifurcation in equatorial jet formation can explain the differences between the gas and ice giants.

www.science.org

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Mark Marley @markmarley.bsky.social · 3d

Watch the visitor on the right.

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Reposted by Mark Marley

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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Mark Marley @markmarley.bsky.social · 5d

Wishing you all the best Gerard in your next chapter.

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Dr. Gerard van Belle @fringedoctor.bsky.social · 5d

Brief life update: On Monday I resigned from my appointment at Lowell Observatory. I wish my remaining friends and colleagues the best of luckin their endeavors in increasing new visitor center visitation, and continuing to pursue world-class research in the face of having ended tenure today.

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Mark Marley @markmarley.bsky.social · 5d

I picked “Starman Jones” off a library shelf in third grade. Great thread, really resonates with me.

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Mark Marley @markmarley.bsky.social · 5d

LPL and the U of A are grateful that APEX was identified specifically in the House and Senate budgets for ongoing funding.

Jennifer Ouellette @jenlucpiquant.bsky.social · 6d

One NASA science mission saved from Trump’s cuts, but others still in limbo arstechnica.com/space/2025/1...

One NASA science mission saved from Trump’s cuts, but others still in limbo

“Damage is being done already. Even if funding is reinstated, we have already lost people.”…

arstechnica.com

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Mark Marley @markmarley.bsky.social · 6d

TV episode set in current day has a 60-something woman named Marley. Nobody over 40 actually has first name Marley (ask me how I know). Writers must all be too young to know.

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Mark Marley @markmarley.bsky.social · 6d

NWS forecast discussion for Tucson: “Some of the ensemble members of the GEFS and EPS still showing insane higher QPF totals.” In other words some of the models are predicting > 7” of rain this weekend.

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Mark Marley @markmarley.bsky.social · 8d

I gave a homework assignment in my Exoplanets grad class to define what would be taught as “normal” architecture to grad students in the TRAPPIST-1 system.

David Grinspoon @drfunkyspoon.bsky.social · 9d

We were also taught that (2)
the “architecture” of other planetary systems would likely resemble ours- a few rocky worlds close in and a few gas giants farther out past the “snow line”. The processes that led to that were (we thought) understood. We expected the solar system to be “normal”.
WRONG!

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Mark Marley @markmarley.bsky.social · 9d

The joke that the only time you hear from your adult children is when they need the Netflix code is a bit too close for comfort.

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Mark Marley @markmarley.bsky.social · 9d

Last night at 7PM, a little drama. First time we’ve had two since spring. I was outside around the to the right enjoying the sunset at the time.

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Mark Marley @markmarley.bsky.social · 10d

I happened to see this live. I’m not sure what was spooking him from the roof.

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Reposted by Mark Marley

Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.bsky.social · 11d

A few hours ago, Comet 3I/ATLAS passed about 28 million km from Mars.

This was the best opportunity we'll have to image the interstellar visitor from spacecraft.

When those data are available, I'll share them!

A screenshot from NASA's Eyes on the Solar System, showing the relative positions of 3I/ATLAS and Mars as of about 1700 Central time today.

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Reposted by Mark Marley

Kevin Hainline @kevinhainline.bsky.social · 13d

We find these cold brown dwarfs all over the place in the survey. Some of them are so cold that their surface is about the same as what Tucson can get to in the summer. This object, JADES-GS-BD-5, which we observe with NIRCam and MIRI, has a temperature of 322 K, or only 120° Fahrenheit (49° C)!

Another plot from the survey, showing JADES-GS-BD-5, with the observed data points plotted as black points, and the fit as a squiggly line that matches the observed data points well. The distance we predict from the fit is only 70 parsecs, and the temperature is 322 Kelvin. Beneath the fit plot, there are thumbnails showing the object as seen in different NIRCam and MIRI filters, out to 12.8 microns.

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Reposted by Mark Marley

Kevin Hainline @kevinhainline.bsky.social · 13d

I wrote another paper! And yes it's about brown dwarfs wait don't go anywhere they're really neat

arxiv.org/abs/2510.00111

JADES: An Abundance of Ultra-Distant T- and Y-Dwarfs in Deep Extragalactic Data

Ultra-cool T- (T$_{\mathrm{eff}} \approx$ 500 - 1200 K) and Y-dwarfs (T$_{\mathrm{eff}}$ $\lessapprox 500$ K) have historically been found only a few hundred parsecs from the Sun. The sensitivity and ...

arxiv.org

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Mark Marley @markmarley.bsky.social · 12d

My take on the nifty PH3 detection in a brown dwarf is quoted here. Still a mystery why we haven't found PH3 in more mainstream brown dwarfs. cen.acs.org/physical-che...

Phosphine found in brown dwarf’s atmosphere

The first-time finding of appreciable amounts of phosphine in a brown dwarf suggests it may be too soon to use the molecule as a sign of alien life

cen.acs.org

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Reposted by Mark Marley

Joshua J. Friedman @joshuajfriedman.com · 13d

One of my favorite anecdotes from THE PREHISTORY OF THE FAR SIDE: "That doesn't sound like the Jane Goodall we know."

A few days after this cartoon was published, my syndicate received a very indignant letter from someone representing the Jane Goodall Institute.
Not only did my syndicate and I both get read the Riot Act, there was a vague implication that litigation over this cartoon might be around the corner.
I was horrified. Not so much from a fear of being sued (I just couldn't see how this cartoon could be construed as anything but silly, but because of my deep respect for Jane Goodall and her well-known contributions to pri-matology. The last thing in the world I would have intentionally done was offend Dr. Goodall in any way.
Before I had a chance to write my apology, another complication arose.
The National Geographic Society contacted my syndicate and expressed a

desire to reprint the cartoon in a special centennial issue of their magazine. My editor, aware of what had just occurred, declined, explaining why.
Apparently, whoever it was that sent the inquiry from National Geographic was shocked. They told my editor that "that doesn't sound like the Jane Goodall we know." They did some checking themselves, and an interesting fact was eventually discovered: Jane Goodall loved the cartoon. Furthermore, she was totally unaware that any of this "stuff" was going on. Some phone calls were made, and the cartoon was not only reprinted in the centennial issue of National Geographic, but was also used by her Institute on a T-shirt for fund-raising purposes.
I've since had an opportunity to visit Dr. Goodall at her research facility in Gombe. It's a wonderful place (sort of like right out of National Geographic).
"To refer to Dr. Goodall as a tramp is inexcusable even by a self-described 'loony' as Larson. The cartoon was incredibly offensive and in such poor taste that readers might well question the editorial judgment of running such an atrocity in a newspaper that reputes to be supplying news to persons with a better than average intelligence. The cartoon and its message were absolutely stupid." —Excerpt from the above-mentioned letter that started the ruckus

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Reposted by Mark Marley

Katharine Hayhoe @katharinehayhoe.com · 13d

The world has lost its most powerful advocate for nature and hope. Yet many remain who will continue her legacy and I know she will continue to inspire generations more.

A screenshot of a post by the Jane Goodall Institute on LinkedIn stating that they learned that Dr. Goodall passed away due to natural causes in California while on her speaking to her current speaking tour there.

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