iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by David Kipping

Nobel Prize @nobelprize.org · 06/10/2026

BREAKING NEWS The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2026 #NobelPrize in Physics to Francis Halzen “for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.”

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Ye and in fact if you use just moved Earth beyond the orbit of Neptune it would also change status into a dwarf planet by the current IAU definition. Crucially, the definition considers not just the intrinsic properties of the body but its environment.

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

New #CoolWorlds video about that DM claim! Thrilled to have a dark matter physicist, Kaliroe Pappas, help me write this one. youtu.be/FR-3cPMMEEQ?...

youtu.be

Did We Finally Detect Dark Matter Directly?

YouTube video by Cool Worlds

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

This makes sense to me since moons would then always be at least tier 3 in a nested hierarchy, not tier 2. But of course that alone isn’t enough to be a moon else Proxima b would be a moon already (we see hierarchies all over the place), surely they have to also orbit a “planet”. 🧐

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Of IPMOs aren’t planets, then it would seem that their companions wouldn’t classify as “moons”, although the IAU don’t define moons at all. But my reading would be that companions to a sub-brown dwarf below 1/25 mass ratio would most naturally be defined as planets.

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I think it’s very likely we’ll see companions to isolated planetary mass objects (IPMOs) in the coming years and it raises the question what the hell to call them. The current IAU definition makes it clear that IPMOs are not “planets” and suggest “sub-brown dwarfs” (arxiv.org/pdf/2203.09520)

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Reposted by David Kipping

Dave. Anti-Fascist As Feck. 🇺🇦 @daveafaf.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

This is an insightful and terrifying summary of where the tech-bros are leading us from @davidkipping.bsky.social. www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBpF...

youtube.com

Dissolved

YouTube video by Cool Worlds

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

22 years of Roman. It may outlast us all.

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

You probably see the headline 0.1 Earth radii and think to yourself, oh that's 10 times harder than 1 Earth radii, but it's actually 100x harder! Because the transit signal goes as radius^2.

static.klipy.com

Stunning Venus Transit Across the Sun

ALT: Stunning Venus Transit Across the Sun

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

The most sensitive search for exomoons ever - moons 2.5x smaller than Europa are excluded! And around a temperate Earth-sized planet to boot. What’s really neat is that, for the first time, we can confidently say another Earth does not enjoy total Solar eclipses. arxiv.org/abs/2609.05301

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Reposted by David Kipping

denkraumverzerrung @denkraumverzerrung.de · 24/08/2026

"However, no IAU definition of exomoon exists, but the need will likely grow as companions are inevitably found in conditions foreign to that observed in the solar system."

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

I get that 2TFA is useful but it's out of control. I'm under a constant siege of login challenges, messages and emailed codes in a typical day now.

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

I mean what is the best kernel, though?! Should I use a Matern-3/2 or a simple harmonic oscillator? Or what about a squared exponential? SO MANY OPTIONS!!! 🫨

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Reposted by David Kipping

Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

A particle made of force? Chinese researchers claim they've definitively detected a "glueball"--a particle of bound gluons, which carry the strong force. Gluons bind together protons & neutrons, but they can also stick to each other. No ordinary matter required. 🧪 www.science.org/content/arti...

The Beijing Spectrometer III has provided evidence for glueballs, which are made almost entirely of force-carrying particles.

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

New podcast (solo) episode: We Need to Talk About That "First Exomoon" Discovery. Featuring views of Alice Zurlo, Kevin Luhman, @chrislintott.bsky.social, @jradavenport.com and @trentdupuy.bsky.social youtu.be/YGKrb3FAdM0

youtu.be

We Need to Talk About That "First Exomoon" Discovery

YouTube video by Cool Worlds Podcast

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Academia is certainly willing to burn folks for plagiarism (eg Arday this week) but what about writing with AI? I don’t think we’re being completely consistent here and probably it’s because it’s just too widespread at this point to even contain.

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

YouTube is really having a moment about AI. There is enormous anti-AI sentiment and yet simultaneously widespread AI use at various levels. I don’t think academia has quite had that moment yet, but it mirrors YT with AI-slop papers, reviews, proposals, etc and anecdotally ubiquitous use.

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Truly. I find this personally frustrating as I’m the kind of OCD person that likes to know my exact carbon footprint each year but it’s very opaque what my AI use is adding.

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

A common argument I hear amongst the public is: why would anyone need that much energy? I always think this is silly. It’s like asking why does a billionaire not just chill, why do they hunger for more and more money? (I don’t actually understand why but I empirically observe it to be true!)

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

If the companion to CD 35B has, itself, a companion, is that a moonmoonmoon?

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

IAU Commission F2 “Working Definition of an Exoplanet” makes this unambiguously an exoplanet - arxiv.org/abs/2203.09520 The authors seem to be calling it a “satellite” as a workaround, but to me a moon = a natural satellite, and thus if this is a satellite then it’s also a moon.

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Reposted by David Kipping

Chris Lintott @chrislintott.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

I find myself confused here. The new object is in orbit around a star. It’s a planet, not a moon. The fact that that star is in orbit around another star seems neither here nor there. 🔭

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Why I don't think CD-35 2722B has an "exomoon"...

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

I don’t want to subtract anything from the technical achievement but the media seems to be once again going too overboard on this

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Don’t you think it’s a stretch to call this an “Earth-sized” planet, Corey? It’s 1.73 Earth radii. I don’t think we’d call a star 1.73 Solar radii “Sun-sized” with a straight face. And it’s not like the composition is Earth-like either, even the authors concede that

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

The irony is that Tolkien hated the industrial complex

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Prices keeps rising. When will this AI-driven age of abundance manifest? The problem I see is that heavily indebted governments (basically all of them) would oppose abundance as it’s deflationary. They want to inflate away their debt. Because we borrowed so much, we’re trapped with rising prices.

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

A fun conversation with my colleague Janna Levin!

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

We don’t need to politicize astronomical bodies

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

It’s like a health influencer.

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Are folks excited about SpudCell? Whilst an impressive technical feat, I have to question how much precisely engineered cells reveal about the natural propensity for abiogenesis. Of course it does guide us about the minimal set needed for life, but that feels like a much smaller prize.

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David Kipping @davidkipping.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

It would be interesting to see whether the relative radiative forcing between these has shifted over time, for example it looks like methane has some nonlinear behavior

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Reposted by David Kipping

Zack Labe @zacklabe.com · 27/06/2026

At the end of the day, this visualization shows what's driving the rising risk of these dangerous heat waves. It's the human-caused burning of fossil fuels and the resulting increase in greenhouse gases. That's it. More climate change indicators: zacklabe.com/climate-chan...

This graphic shows four line graph time series and each are monthly from January 1984 through May 2026. The first graph is a 12-month running mean of global mean surface temperature anomalies. Anomalies are computed relative to a 1991-2020 baseline using ERA5 data. The second graph is monthly carbon dioxide abundance. The CO2 graph is the Keeling Curve. Current levels are 432 ppm. The third graph is monthly global methane abundance. Current levels are 1940 ppb. The fourth graph is monthly global nitrous oxide abundance. Current levels are 340 ppb. The three greenhouse gases show seasonal cycles and long-term increasing trends using data from NOAA GML. The global mean surface temperature anomaly record also exhibits decadal variability and a long-term increasing trend. All graphs are rising and shown in four different colors, including white, yellow, orange, and pink.

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Reposted by David Kipping

Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans @astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Sarah Rugheimer is the bee's knees when it comes to explaining the realities, prospects, hopes and dreams of searching for life out there in the cosmos. This one will be worth a watch for sure. #FellowEdinburghFaculty 🔭👩‍🔬

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