iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by David R. Rice

Journal of Open Source Software @joss-openjournals.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Just published in JOSS: 'Magrathea v2: A planetary interior modeling platform in C++' doi.org/10.21105/joss.10692

David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Frankie mouse is at #Exoplanets6 this week. Come find me for a Magrathea v2 sticker, and check out my poster on the big mixing updates coming in v3. Poster: T3 #5 #exo6

Magrathea sticker in front of large Exo signed

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Making a short presentation on the challenges of astronomy software development. Quick compilation of logos:

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

📣 New paper day! 🔭🪐 When a civilization stops being afraid of the dark, do it's defense mechanisms leave detectable atmospheric signatures? Explore with @radplanets.com and I the garlic smell of DMS, silver-lined clouds, and specter-countable salt limits. arxiv.org/abs/2603.28895

arxiv.org

Plan 9: Detecting Atmospheric Deterrence Against Interstellar Monsters

Exoplanet atmospheres are usually discussed as tracers of climate, chemistry, and habitability, but they may also preserve signatures of planetary defense. We consider three folklore-motivated deterre...

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

That’s why the best ones do real science on a fake premise.

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Reposted by David R. Rice

Mike Lund @lowbacca.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

As it's now Wednesday in enough of the world - this is looking like a banner year for Acta Prima Aprilia, with a number of submissions in this year's issue: www.actaprimaaprilia.com/2026-issue Here's some highlights

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

Started writing it. @radplanets.com you have first dibs on co-authorship. Have time to write a section this month?

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

A memorable breakout session at #RockyWorlds4 someday we’ll answer this question; for now it’ll keep us up at night. (After we catch up on sleep from a busy conference week)

James Rogers and Greg Cooke presenting “how much water do sub-Neptunes contain?”

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

Best conference hack: take photos of your friends presenting. Great talk Hannah!

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

Frankie mouse made it to Groningen. Coming to #RockyWorlds4 tomorrow! And check out Magrathea for your MR relationship or planet composition needs: github.com/Huang-CL/Mag... v2 live now and v3 already on the horizon

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Reposted by David R. Rice

Rocky Worlds Meetings @rockyworlds.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

Wondering why we've been so quiet this month? That's because we're busy preparing to welcome everyone *next week* to Groningen 🇳🇱 for... 🌋✨🚀 The ROCKY WORLDS 4 Conference 2026! 🪐✨☄️ Updates will be posted throughout the week from this account & others using the #RockyWorlds4 hashtag – stay tuned! 🔭🧪

A view of the canal in the city of Groningen, Netherlands. The sky is blue and the trees lining the water are green, so it's *definitely* not taken in January. Credit: https://www.hanze.nl/en/study/living-in-the-netherlands-and-groningen/groningen-is-waiting-for-you

A screenshot from our conference website: https://groningen2026.rockyworlds.org/

The text reads:
Rocky Worlds 4
19–23 January 2026, Groningen, Netherlands
In-person registrations for the conference are booked up.
Registration for virtual participation is open.

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

I was looking for my folder of posters I like, and found the 2019 Sagan Workshop poster page. Wow blast from the past, crazy how well I remember so many of the faces even though many I've only seen once or twice. nexsci.caltech.edu/workshop/201...

nexsci.caltech.edu

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

Officially started my postdoctoral fellowship at UW-Madison! Collaborating with Prof. Juliette Becker funded by the university's AI initiative. I haven't watch Big-10 football in ~10 years, but I think I'll have to get back into it (Go Cats!)

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Reposted by David R. Rice

Lorena Acuña @astrolore.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

Hi all! If you are looking for a conference in exoplanet interiors in 2026, check out "Layers of Understanding: Model Intercomparisons of Exoplanet Interiors": layersofunderstanding2026.github.io It will take place in MPIA's campus in April 13-17th. The registration deadline is 15 January 2026

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

If you invite me to give a talk, I will bring my rock collection.

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

Fighting the intrusive thought of sending in "looks all good. QED." for a paper review.

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

It was so cool reading the work of high schoolers who tested out dark matter and machine learning astronomical classifications for themselves. JEI always needs more reviewers (I think I was/am the only astronomy reviewer); check it out: emerginginvestigators.org!

emerginginvestigators.org

Home | Journal of Emerging Investigators

JEI is a scientific journal for middle and high school scientists

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

Two of the first works I reviewed for the Journal of Emerging Investigators got published! Galaxy rotation curves: emerginginvestigators.org/articles/25-... X-ray binary classifications: emerginginvestigators.org/articles/24-...

emerginginvestigators.org

Examination of the rotation curve for the dark matter deficient relic galaxy NGC 1277 | Journal of Emerging Investigators

JEI is a scientific journal for middle and high school scientists

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

I made a travel map generator ✈️🌍 Drop in a list of country codes or names → see your visited & planned trips on a world map. Runs fully in-browser (GitHub Pages). Try it here: davidrrice.github.io/TravelMap/ #Travel #Maps

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

I think it says something that the "project's" prized fellowship went to a computer scientist. Although I try not to judge people for what postdoc they have to take nowadays.

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

Our new hydrosphere phase diagram is live for Magrathea: github.com/Huang-CL/Mag.... H2O ices, liquid, vapor, and supercritical. Largely inspired by the AQUA phase diagram from Haldemann et al. 2020, but with a couple of our own tweaks and ready to update with future EOS measurements.

A graph of pressure and temperature in the hydrosphere for a number of planets with varying surface temperatures. The curves go through the various regions of the phase diagram

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

Now if the eccentricity is greater than (1-q)/(1+q) where q is the mass ratio, the orbits are no longer nested, they form figure 8-like orbits with their ellipses rotated 180 degrees from each other. In this case, and only this case, does it make sense to say they both orbit each other. Rant over.

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

What does influence the geometry is the mass ratio and the eccentricity. In the barycentric frame, Pluto's apocenter is closer to the barycenter than Charon's pericenter. The orbits are nested, and we can easily say Charon orbits Pluto, and Pluto does not orbit Charon (and they both orbit the COM).

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

The barycenter’s position doesn’t change the geometry of the system; it’s just any systems center of mass. Inherent in the inside/outside central body definition is the central bodies density/radius something that has next to 0 to do with the orbital dynamics.

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

I'm not sure why I've decided to die on this hill radius, but Pluto & Charon are not a "binary planet" because the barycenter lies outside Pluto. That’s a misconception. Binary just means two bodies bound together: binary stars, binary black holes, binary asteroids, binary planet.

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

Once you have these it's easy to draw sillier reference frames like alpha Centauri A centric-frame or even better the Charon-centric frame.

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

There's a weird obsession with the barycenter being inside or outside the central body in astro-interested communities. I try to highlight here how the center of mass's location doesn't have an impact on the orbital configuration. The important quantity is actually the eccentricity.

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

Spent a day re-convincing myself that I know what an orbit is. Here are the barycentric orbits of Pluto-Charon and Alpha Centauri AB with correct proportions. Fun is that the radii of Pluto and Charon are even to scale with the orbit. #planetsci

The center of mass in the middle of the diagram with Pluto on a small circle and Charon on a larger circle. The eccentricity of near 0 is noted.

Alpha Centauri A and B on ellipses that are rotated 180 degrees to one another with center of mass at a focii. alpha Cen B is on larger ellipse. Makes a figure-8 like pattern.

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

Scary how often “I do my own research” means “I am the research subject”

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

Wait! It smells very strongly of garlic! No stealing internet: who wants to write an April’s fools article about K2-18b keeping vampires away.

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

My MIL handed me pharma-grade DMSO for mosquito bites. Not FDA approved, but my self-study found it more statistical significance than DMS on K2-18b. #exoplanets

99.9% pure DMSO in large 16 oz container.

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

Great discussion here, just wanted to pipe in that one thing people miss in Liu Cixin's presentation of the DF is the "technological explosion" axiom. That the timescale and degree of a civilization's technological advancement is completely unknowable. In 3BP universe, any prey may become a predator

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Reposted by David R. Rice

AstroArxiv @astroarxiv.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

Effect of Galactic Chemical Evolution on Exoplanet Properties. Jason H. Steffen (UNLV) et. al. arxiv.org/abs/2507.10942

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

Our new preprint just hit the arXiv: arxiv.org/abs/2507.10942 💥 We take a look at how the core mass fraction of planets may change through galactic time. My largest contribution is this plot with the planets from Weeks et al. 2025 reanalyzed with our interior model. 🔭🪐

$The core mass fraction of planets with stellar age. Old stars have planets with lower core mass fractions and newer stars have higher core mass fractions.$

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 12/07/2025

Preparing to trade salt for fresh water—can you guess where I’ll be working next? Big move next summer, big science starting sooner. Excited for what’s ahead in 2026!

Me standing in front of Washburn Observatory

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Reposted by David R. Rice

Catherine 🌌 @catieslaughts.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

the woke mob killed SExtractor

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

A lot of words to circle back to "go around the Sun". So neat, but seriously this is how we get multiple comments saying "the Sun orbits the Earth" which is an entirely unhelpful and wrong description of nature.

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

I did not realize astronomers had started posting over there as much as they have. Every professor use to have a blank profile picture, now they’re all posting away.

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

…the day I connect with you…

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

I get a bit carried away with @matplotlib.org's hatching. But it's so helpful! The left plot you can pick any point in the middle and pretty quickly tell which 4 hatch marks are overlapping.

Plot of the % wt water with r-cmf of the 7 Trappist-1 planets with the 1-sigma bounds using matplotlibs hatching.

Plot of the % wt water with r-cmf of the 7 Trappist-1 planets with the 1-sigma bounds filled with a transparent color.

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Reposted by David R. Rice

AstroArxiv @astroarxiv.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Uncertainties in the Inference of Internal Structure: The Case of TRAPPIST-1 f. David R. Rice et. al. arxiv.org/abs/2504.16201

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

...and how to transform the ternary to WMF - R-CMF plot. I think we're up to at least 10 groups using MAGRATHEA, our interior modeling code, and we're always excited for new users! github.com/Huang-CL/Mag...

%wt Water versus R-CMF for the 5 outer Trappist-1 planets. A transform of the previous plot.

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Our new planet interior paper is accepted and up on arXiv, arxiv.org/abs/2504.16201! Explore all the knobs you can twist when modeling an Earth-like planet, in this case Trappist-1 f. Don't miss the appendix where I detail the "correct" way to plot a ternary diagram (below).... #exoplanets 🔭🧪🪐

A water-mantle-core ternary diagram showing 1-sigma bounds of 5 outer

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Kids are calling the em dash the “ChatGPT hyphen”

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Reposted by David R. Rice

fright-chael 👻 @radplanets.com · 01/04/2025

don’t give Elsevier any ideas 😭😭😭😭😭😭 “PromoPlot: Covering open-access fees by filling wasted space in corner plots” arxiv.org/abs/2503.24254

a correlation “corner” plot with the upper empty corner filled with logos of the companies that typically sponsor podcasts and YouTube videos: nordvpn, hello fresh, duolingo, better help, etc

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

I really really shouldn’t say anything; amazing selections for NHFP. BUT gas giants, brown dwarfs, and free floating planets being selected for “Are we alone?” is objectively funny. The answer for those “planets” is yes.

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David R. Rice @davidrrice.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

The video is here! The hardest thing I've ever done: Rim to River to Rim of the Grand Canyon. youtu.be/9SO7vJeIZ8c?...

youtu.be

Only 1% of people do this at the Grand Canyon! 🐴

YouTube video by the hiker's mix

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