Ariane 5 now building up speed, with a slight, planned, decrease in altitude to 185 km. It's a good height - below where the space debris is, but safely higher than all the reindeer...

JWST is in space and has begun its month-long journey to its final observing location!! 🤩 25 years and thousands of folks in the making leading to revolutionary new astronomy that will unveil both exoplanet atmospheres and the birth of the first galaxies!

god i hate it when gunfire decides to unfold

Saturday Caturday #P4A2022

The line to see Hank Green at UT is already wrapped halfway around the building an hour before doors open.

Fun fact about this picture. Katie V and I were standing in front of @kerockcliffe @AstroMelRow and Danny Krolikowski - before we had even met! Couldn’t guess we would become friends during the conference ☺️ #exo4

Hi #CoolStars21 👋🏼 If you’re interested in L dwarfs, come visit me at poster 76 today or tomorrow to learn about how uniform abundance retrievals can bias your retrieved mass and metallicity values! #cs21

Love this figure #coolstars21 #browndwarfs

UT Astronomy graduate student Rebecca Larson chatted with Quanta Magazine about some of the amazing things JWST has already seen just a couple of weeks into its science mission:

In the 1st of our new Nexus Point video series, Texas Astronomy grad student Samuel Factor shares his excitement over the initial NASA Webb Telescope images & his own #JWST project. 🔭 Dr. Sam Factor UTCNS Grad Education #TexasScience

We celebrate the life of Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek actor, trailblazer, and role model, who symbolized to so many what was possible. She partnered with us to recruit some of the first women and minority astronauts, and inspired generations to reach for the stars.

Hey Astro Tweeps. I'm looking for input/advice on LGBTQIA friendly Astro grad programs in the US or abroad, especially those that are trans friendly. Happy to hear from anyone, but I'm particularly interested in hearing from grad students currently/recently at these programs.

Graphic design is my passion.

🚨 New DIRECTLY-IMAGED Planet AF Lep b 🚨 Check out Kyle Franson's awesome discovery paper on arXiv. The host star has significant astrometric acceleration, enabling a precise estimate of the planet's dynamical mass at 3.2 +/- 0.7 Jupiter Masses! 🪐 arxiv.org/abs/2302.05420

🚨Paper alert🚨 Interested in Brown Dwarf Research? Go and check out my new paper on ArXiv 🤓✨🤗 "Intercomparison of Brown Dwarf Model Grids and Atmospheric Retrieval Using Machine Learning" arxiv.org/abs/2305.07719

This is awesome...y'all could make one quite small choice that would do a whole lot of good here! #PatientsNotPatents

We found methane in emission on an isolated brown dwarf, which may indicate that it has an aurora! I'm so happy I got to be part of this team lead by Jackie Faherty. I learned a ton and it has me super excited for all of the unexpected discoveries yet to come with JWST!

New paper drop!!! The following might be for you if you: study atmospheres of brown dwarfs or giant exoplanets OR listen to podcasts about unsolved mysteries Find out more about oxygen sequestration in substellar mass atmospheres if you dare! arxiv.org/abs/2401.11038