Dr. Teddy Kareta
@teddykareta.bsky.social
planetary astronomer by day, also by night
asst. prof. @ villanova, movie buff, he/they, 🏳️🌈
https://tkareta.github.io/, formerly lowell obs., uaz
asst. prof. @ villanova, movie buff, he/they, 🏳️🌈
https://tkareta.github.io/, formerly lowell obs., uaz
asked my students about how they thought astronomers should search for aliens & after the discussion subsided I said "let me prove there's life outside this classroom" and turned on this radio I built that I had hidden under the podium as an intro to SETI. a stupid gag that went off really well.
November 21, 2025 at 5:50 PM
asked my students about how they thought astronomers should search for aliens & after the discussion subsided I said "let me prove there's life outside this classroom" and turned on this radio I built that I had hidden under the podium as an intro to SETI. a stupid gag that went off really well.
huge news for all of you comet composition nerds out there: according to this new ATel by Ganesh et al., C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) is another NH2-dominated comet like Machholz (!) or Yanaka (!!)
November 18, 2025 at 5:47 PM
huge news for all of you comet composition nerds out there: according to this new ATel by Ganesh et al., C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) is another NH2-dominated comet like Machholz (!) or Yanaka (!!)
talking about the challenges in identifying robust biosignatures on exoplanets today in my 'life in the universe' class
November 14, 2025 at 4:05 PM
talking about the challenges in identifying robust biosignatures on exoplanets today in my 'life in the universe' class
I won't stand for pavement-- er, uh, "sloshy" erasure
November 11, 2025 at 8:45 PM
I won't stand for pavement-- er, uh, "sloshy" erasure
wasn't jealous of their 100-hour runtime until I saw what "The Naval Ordinance Research Calculator" actually looked like and now I am actually Very Jealous
November 11, 2025 at 5:17 PM
wasn't jealous of their 100-hour runtime until I saw what "The Naval Ordinance Research Calculator" actually looked like and now I am actually Very Jealous
it's venus week in my "life in the universe" class so I'm getting ready to push this class fully off the rails (e.g., attempting to get a bunch of business majors to care about D/H ratios and phosphine and the weird ultraviolet absorbers in its atmosphere)
November 3, 2025 at 4:02 PM
it's venus week in my "life in the universe" class so I'm getting ready to push this class fully off the rails (e.g., attempting to get a bunch of business majors to care about D/H ratios and phosphine and the weird ultraviolet absorbers in its atmosphere)
happy slippery rail season to all regional rail riders who celebrate
October 31, 2025 at 1:40 PM
happy slippery rail season to all regional rail riders who celebrate
this new fun paper in Science calls the extinction of the dinosaurs "iconic" in the first sentence -- couldn't agree more
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
October 24, 2025 at 12:48 PM
this new fun paper in Science calls the extinction of the dinosaurs "iconic" in the first sentence -- couldn't agree more
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
something about the crispness of the air during the fall in the northeast keeps reminding me of early winter in the desert, so here's a picture I took a few thousand feet above and a few miles north of Tucson about five years ago minus a few weeks
October 17, 2025 at 2:06 PM
something about the crispness of the air during the fall in the northeast keeps reminding me of early winter in the desert, so here's a picture I took a few thousand feet above and a few miles north of Tucson about five years ago minus a few weeks
giving my students a fun lecture on what did in the dinosaurs tomorrow which means it's time to refresh myself on all the fun ideas which were super super wrong
October 7, 2025 at 8:08 PM
giving my students a fun lecture on what did in the dinosaurs tomorrow which means it's time to refresh myself on all the fun ideas which were super super wrong
got to see DEVO & the B-52s a couple nights ago as a belated birthday present from my fiancée -- really, really great.
October 4, 2025 at 8:47 PM
got to see DEVO & the B-52s a couple nights ago as a belated birthday present from my fiancée -- really, really great.
kind of shocking how this movie looks good both as a 4K restoration at a theater and also as seen on literal old tape
September 26, 2025 at 5:04 PM
kind of shocking how this movie looks good both as a 4K restoration at a theater and also as seen on literal old tape
I'm giving out an extra credit assignment this week for my gen-ed "Life in the Universe" class to watch "The Thing". the exciting thing about the thing is that the thing is available (the whole thing) on the internet archive as a scanned-in VHS, scan-lines and screwy audio and all -- it's amazing.
September 26, 2025 at 4:56 PM
I'm giving out an extra credit assignment this week for my gen-ed "Life in the Universe" class to watch "The Thing". the exciting thing about the thing is that the thing is available (the whole thing) on the internet archive as a scanned-in VHS, scan-lines and screwy audio and all -- it's amazing.
happy to have helped some with "Catastrophic disruption of asteroid 2023 CX1 and implications for planetary defence" by Auriane Egal et al., out today in Nature Astronomy (and here on ArXiV: arxiv.org/abs/2509.12362)
September 17, 2025 at 2:21 PM
happy to have helped some with "Catastrophic disruption of asteroid 2023 CX1 and implications for planetary defence" by Auriane Egal et al., out today in Nature Astronomy (and here on ArXiV: arxiv.org/abs/2509.12362)
in trying to dig up outdated (in an interesting way) movies, cartoons, and books about aliens for my classes this semester, I grabbed this screenshot from the Disneyland episode "Mars and Beyond" (1957) which summarizes my recent career move
August 26, 2025 at 3:29 PM
in trying to dig up outdated (in an interesting way) movies, cartoons, and books about aliens for my classes this semester, I grabbed this screenshot from the Disneyland episode "Mars and Beyond" (1957) which summarizes my recent career move
fellow notable arizonan of 2023, Alice Cooper, was a hell of an opener for My Chemical Romance tonight in Philly
August 15, 2025 at 11:56 PM
fellow notable arizonan of 2023, Alice Cooper, was a hell of an opener for My Chemical Romance tonight in Philly
student success alert: turns out modeling ice in cometary comae is super complex sometimes! probably all the time. firgard and kareta '25, out today in PSJ:
iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...
iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...
August 5, 2025 at 4:35 PM
student success alert: turns out modeling ice in cometary comae is super complex sometimes! probably all the time. firgard and kareta '25, out today in PSJ:
iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...
iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...