iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Harrison Nicholls

András Gáspár @andrasgaspar.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

This was posted on LinkedIn. Looks like a new record, possibly 3500 proposals. Good luck everyone on the JWST roulette. We really should have made two.

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Celeste Labedz @celestelabedz.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

I wouldn't call myself a cartoonist, but I had the vision and just needed it to be on paper to the best of my ability.

A hand drawn eight panel cartoon. First two panels are a colander sitting frowning on a shelf. Then the colander is frowning straining pasta, then three more panels of frowning sitting on a shelf. Then a big panel where it's projecting a bunch of crescent eclipse shapes and smiling with speech bubbles around saying "Wow! Look! Amazing! Beautiful!" And then one final panel where it's sitting on a shelf smiling.

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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 02/08/2026

The 30 July 2026 Astronomy Picture of the Day featured a remarkable shot of the Sun photographed through a wildfire smoke-filled sky that turned the star a deep red. So I tweaked it to look like we're orbiting an M-class red dwarf star with a close-in system of rocky planets, like TRAPPIST-1.

A blood-red star seen through thick clouds. Added to the original image is a transiting planet at upper left of the Sun's disk, and the illuminated crescent of a closer planet that occludes the lower right of the Sun.

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Forming Worlds Lab @formingworlds.space · 31/07/2026

New paper from Lorenzo Cesario 🔭 His third first-author paper, and he only finished his MSc this year. "Characterizing the oxidation state of rocky exoplanets with the Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE)" Read the paper: arxiv.org/abs/2607.28121 #Exoplanets #PlanetaryScience

Six panels of mid-infrared emission spectra from 6 to 16 microns, one per mantle oxidation state. A red line marks the true model spectrum, blue bands the one, two and three sigma retrieved ranges, grey the simulated instrument noise. The three reduced cases on the top row are smooth, sloping curves with few features; the three oxidised cases below carve deep, sharp absorption bands.

Portrait of Lorenzo Cesario, smiling, wearing a light blue shirt against a plain wall.

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Harrison Nicholls @nichollsh.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

New paper on arXiv today! On the efficacy of using novel Bayesian machine learning to dispatch 'expensive' forward models of planetary evolution. This connects with #PLATO ageing and can help solve degeneracies in current static-retrieval approaches which treat #exoplanets as snapshots.

arxiv.org

Constraining the lives and times of exoplanets through evolutionary Bayesian retrievals

Static retrieval frameworks are leading tools for interpreting exoplanet observations, yet time-independent modelling leaves them prone to degeneracy and unable to resolve exoplanets' histories. The c...

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Linn Boldt-Christmas @nplinnspace.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

🔭 Did you know that there is *silver* in the Sun? If yes: did you know we JUST found out there’s 55% more than previously thought?! +0.19 dex from ref values, which is a LOT! The culprit? (Scooby-Doo villain reveal) As always, those darn meddling 3D non-LTE effects!!! 👻 Press release & paper ⬇️

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The Sun contains more silver than previously estimated – Uppsala University

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Seven Machina Rasmussen @toomanyspectra.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

that uh… that sure is a lot of helium escape for a rocky planet, right?

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Harrison Nicholls @nichollsh.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

When are #exoplanets in equilibrium? Sulfur photochemistry has the answer to this, and to inform about planets' deep interior redox conditions directly from #JWST data. Ioannis' paper is based on his MSc project, jointly supervised by @timlichtenberg.bsky.social, @exoshami.bsky.social, and myself.

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Harrison Nicholls @nichollsh.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

New paper with @formingworlds.space colleagues. With planetary evolution models, we demonstrate that the combined physics of redox-sensitive degassing and escape can generate transient episodes of atmospheric re-inflation on super-Earths. "Reflation" is an observational marker of reducing interiors.

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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 13/07/2026

The small icy moon Mimas, floating in space above Saturn, the planet crossed by the shadows of its vast ring system. NASA Photojournal image PIA06176, taken by the Cassini spacecraft on 18 January 2005.

A blue backdrop, crossed by dark lines of varying thicknesses. A small icy moon is at upper right.

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Forming Worlds Lab @formingworlds.space · 03/07/2026

That's a wrap on #Exoplanets6 in Porto 🇵🇹 The Forming Worlds Lab brought four posters, all using our open PROTEUS model to link a rocky world's interior (magma ocean, redox, outgassing, escape) to what JWST can observe. Featuring @marianasastre.bsky.social, @nichollsh.bsky.social & team 👇

Emma Postolec, Imre Kisvárdai, Mariana Sastre and Harrison Nicholls of the Forming Worlds Lab stand smiling in front of a large orange exo6 sculpture outside the Alfândega do Porto, venue of the Exoplanets 6 conference.

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Harrison Nicholls @nichollsh.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Delighted to share that I've been awarded two and complementary prizes for my PhD on magma ocean evolution and climate modelling. Firstly, Second Prize for computational physics by the Institute of Physics; secondly, part of the Early Career Medal by the UK Planetary Forum. Explainer below...

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Harrison Nicholls @nichollsh.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

Very pleased to share that I have been awarded a Pass, with no corrections, following my DPhil defence at Oxford AOPP (@oxoplanets.bsky.social). My thanks go to Paolo Sossi and @tadkomacek.bsky.social for their valuable input on my thesis, and their thoughtful suggestions for future directions.

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Dr. Emily Gilbert @emdwarf.bsky.social · 10/01/2026

It's happening!!! Pandora is going to space in just over 16 hours (if all goes well). Pandora is going to help us study exoplanet atmospheres, even when their host stars are misbehaving. I am headed up to Vandenberg to watch the launch shortly, and will make a thread about the mission/launch here!

Pandora spacecraft in front of an exoplanet

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Python Software Foundation @python.org · 27/10/2025

TLDR; The PSF has made the decision to put our community and our shared diversity, equity, and inclusion values ahead of seeking $1.5M in new revenue. Please read and share. pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-... 🧵

python.org

The official home of the Python Programming Language

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Reposted by Harrison Nicholls

Robert Simmon @rsimmon.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

Success! @noaa.gov GOES-West full disk, without (left) the Rayleigh correction that 99% of the published imagery uses. I still need to tweak the settings, but I always thought the removal of atmospheric scattering makes Earth look too flat. Thanks to @stim3on.bsky.social & @simonsat.bsky.social

True-color image of the Earth’s Western Hemisphere collected at about 2:00 PM Pacific Daylight Saving Time. There’s no atmospheric correction, so the atmosphere gets more opaque at the edges, and there’s a smooth fade from day to night.

True-color image of the Earth’s Western Hemisphere collected at about 2:00 PM Pacific Daylight Savings Time, corrected for Rayleigh scattering. The atmospheric correction enhances the appearance of the land and ocean, but flattens out the atmosphere and introduces a sharp transition between day and night.

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Harrison Nicholls @nichollsh.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

In our now-published paper we model the early history of three exoplanets to specifically study the role of tidal heating on their capacity to solidify. A physically robust feedback mechanism can keep them molten, even with relatively thin atmospheres, which may extend to lots of rocky exoplanets.

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Harrison Nicholls @nichollsh.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

In our new paper we model the complete evolution of L 98-59 d from 'birth' up to the present day. We show that it cannot be a gas dwarf or a water world; it's a 'hybrid' planet with an H2-rich atmosphere containing H2S and SO2 (photochemistry!), and a deep magma ocean. @timlichtenberg.bsky.social

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Tim Lichtenberg @timlichtenberg.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

New paper on arXiv today: "Absence of a Runaway Greenhouse Limit on Lava Planets" by Iris Boer, @nichollsh.bsky.social, and me (arxiv.org/abs/2505.11149). The runaway greenhouse limit is non-existent on molten planets (which is how planets form), questioning the general "habitable zone" concept.

arxiv.org

Absence of a Runaway Greenhouse Limit on Lava Planets

Climate transitions on exoplanets offer valuable insights into the atmospheric processes governing planetary habitability. Previous pure-steam atmospheric models show a thermal limit in outgoing long-...

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Dr. Raphael Marschall @spacemarschall.net · 21/04/2025

A time-lapse of some images of asteroid (52246) Donaldjohanson during the encounter by Lucy! Images taken on April 20, 2025, from a distance of 1,600 to 1,100 km. Credit: NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL science.nasa.gov/image-articl... #PlanetSci #SciComm 🧪

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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 14/03/2025

Planet Definitions xkcd.com/3063

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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 21/02/2025

Enceladus, by Cassini. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/Kevin M. Gill (@kevinmgill.bsky.social)

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Reposted by Harrison Nicholls

Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 02/01/2025

Skew-T Log-P xkcd.com/3032

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Harrison Nicholls @nichollsh.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Our new paper on atmospheric convection on lava worlds is now on arXiv (accepted in MNRAS). We model the early time-evolution of two terrestrial-mass planets, and find that their atmospheres are not always convective. However, they can still have permanent magma oceans! arxiv.org/abs/2412.11987

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Harrison Nicholls @nichollsh.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

Excited to share that our paper on atmospheres on lava planets has been accepted in JGR: Planets! You can find it on arXiv here: arxiv.org/abs/2411.19137

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