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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net)

@planetplanet.bsky.social
627 followers 164 following 115 posts

Building crazy planetary systems on my blog planetplanet.net. Solar System formation. Exoplanets. Free-floating planets and interstellar objects. Astronomy poem book: amzn.to/3muytqo He/him.

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Reposted by Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net)
Nautilus Magazine @nautil.us · 09/12/2024
We've made a starter pack of Nautilus contributors! A great way to jumpstart your Bluesky experience with great science minds. go.bsky.app/RbETK5c
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
A couple of great talks coming at the @labastrobordeaux.bsky.social on Fri Oct 2. Make sure to sign up first! smr.u-bordeaux.fr/departement-...
smr.u-bordeaux.fr
Conférence SMR « De l'apparition de la vie sur Terre aux mondes habitables » - 2 Octobre 2026
Purificacion Lopez-Garcia (Membre de l'Académie des Sciences, DR CNRS Paris-Saclay) et Martin Turbet (LAB Université de Bordeaux). Amphithéâtre B18, 17h30
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Reposted by Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net)
Space Telescope Science Institute @stsci.edu · 28/08/2026
Named for NASA's first chief astronomer, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is expected to reveal new information about the expansion of the universe and discover multitudes of planets orbiting distant stars. #NASARoman 🔭
npr.org
NASA is about to launch a space telescope that could change how we see the universe
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launches Aug. 30 on a mission to explore some of the most pressing mysteries of the cosmos.
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Published version of our new review on planetary ejection (led by @malenarice.bsky.social, and with Will DeRocco) is out now! iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
iopscience.iop.org
The Dynamics of Planetary Ejection
The Dynamics of Planetary Ejection, Rice, Malena, DeRocco, William, Raymond, Sean N.
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Reposted by Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net)
Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
I needed something spectacular, and here it is: a view of the August 12 solar eclipse as seen from South Korea's Danuri satellite, in orbit around the Moon. You can see the lunar shadow sweeping across Greenland. 🔭🧪 www.mt.co.kr/amp/tech/202...
The Korean lunar orbiter Danuri succeeded in capturing the total eclipse observed on the European continent on the 12th (local time). The part of the shadow that touches the surface of the moon (top left) is a total solar eclipse. /Photo: Korea Aerospace Research Institute
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Reposted by Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net)
Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans @astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
This is a pleasing factoid: the Nancy Grace Roman space telescope is the same size and weight as a T-Rex! Countdown: 15 days to launch! 🚀 AUG 30, 2026 11:26 UTC ℹ️: science.nasa.gov/mission/roma...
A sketch of a T-Rex dinosaur (big feet, tiny hands) next to a sketch of the Roman telescope.
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
In an alternate Universe, maybe. If that setup ever happened, there would've been no rescuing the Solar System!
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
There is definitely some erosion of the Oort cloud during both encounters and generally while stars putz around in the Galaxy -- see for example Kaib et al ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011Icar... Hanse et al ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018MNRA...
ui.adsabs.harvard.edu
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
In this new paper we showed that interstellar objects can be captured as a byproduct of stars flying by each other in the Galaxy (no planets involved). It only works for strong-enough encounters, probably just a few for the Sun during its history. It means that all stars have (sparse) Oort clouds
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
I fell asleep and forgot my June 15th tradition of reminding the world that something amazing may have happened on June 15, 2014 -- but no one on Earth saw it.. planetplanet.net/2014/06/04/s...
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
For #AsteroidDay, here is a good ol' poem about, well, asteroids! planetplanet.net/2020/06/30/a...
planetplanet.net
Asteroids — the poem – planetplanet
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
A nice write-up of a new paper by Nate Kaib and myself by @starstryder.space. The punchline: the orbits of long-period comets appear to hold a signature of the flyby of the star HD 7977, which happened 2.5 million years ago! phys.org/news/2026-06...
phys.org
Ancient stellar flyby may still be steering long-period comets today
The Gaia mission has allowed researchers to understand the motions of stars like never before, even revealing possible interactions between our solar system and nearby stars. Planetary Science Institu...
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
There are no coincidences!
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
I never thought I'd get the chance to shake hands with the president and have a one-on-one chat -- for a solid 15 seconds, during which one subject of conversation was, indeed, my tie (thanks to Marisa for suggesting it!)
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Reposted by Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net)
Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 01/06/2026
Left: the comet in Deep Impact (1998) Centre: the comet in Armageddon (1998) Right: an actual, real-life comet (2015)
Left: a comet that has weirdy blue/grey streamers coming out of it. Centre: a comet with weirdy blue/green streamers. Right: a real-life comet, in black and white, with hardly any streamers.
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
@elizabethtasker.bsky.social made an amazing and amazingly clear all about sample return mission from asteroids. Well worth your time!
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
I love this new paper about planets in AGN disks around supermassive black holes! arxiv.org/abs/2605.19241 Naturally, it also helps to motivate some of the crazy planetary systems I've built: planetplanet.net/2018/06/01/t...
arxiv.org
Active Galactic Nucleus Tori: Potential Birthplace to Millions of Planets
The outer regions of AGN disks have temperatures similar to those of circumstellar disks, permitting dust condensation. Therefore, planet formation and growth could be active in these dust tori throug...
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Reposted by Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net)
Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 11/05/2026
For your Monday, here's one of the JWST Deep Field images. This is a portion of the sky about one-fifth the size of a full Moon. And it contains THOUSANDS of galaxies—some of which extend back to when the Universe was a couple of billion years old. The redder a galaxy, the farther away it is.
My god. It's full of galaxies.
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Reposted by Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net)
Opinion Editor @ Bluesky @dly.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
how have I never seen this Georgia O'Keefe painting called "Ladder to the Moon" 😭
a ladder floating in the middle of a blueish green sky leading up the a half moon
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Reposted by Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net)
Stephen Kane @exocytherean.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
This week in my "Planets in Science Fiction" class, I will be discussing the amazing short story "Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov and its insights into the nature of scientific bias. Also be sure to check out the incredible work of @planetplanet.bsky.social at planetplanet.net.
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
It's official. I just took over as the new director of the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Bordeaux (@labastrobordeaux)! It's a whole new gig -- wish me luck!
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
Bummer! Reminds me of the Kepler-186 triple transit of 2014 that we didn't get time to observe planetplanet.net/2014/06/04/s...
planetplanet.net
Something amazing will happen on June 15th but no one on Earth will see it – planetplanet
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
Looks like the link's not working. You can access the paper here: arxiv.org/abs/2512.07979
arxiv.org
Was the Solar System's dynamical instability triggered by a (sub)stellar flyby?
An instability among the giant planets' orbits can match many aspects of the Solar System's current orbital architecture. We explore the possibility that this dynamical instability was triggered by th...
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
My new paper with Nate Kaib explores what triggered the dynamical instability that took place among the giant planets in the young Solar System. We show that the flyby of a low-mass brown dwarf or free-floating planet could have done it (probability ~5%). ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2025arXi...
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 14/12/2025
Last week, my son Zack shadowed me at my department for a week. I put him to work but I gave him a choice -- and he decided to simulate rings of planets and stars orbiting a black hole. And he wrote a blog post about it for your reading enjoyment (with gif!) planetplanet.net/2025/12/13/b...
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
About 100 billion humans have walked the Earth. About 100 billion stars roam the Milky Way galaxy. About 10,000 humans have ever been paid to study the stars (if anyone has better data let me know). So, modern astronomers are each lucky to the tune of 1 in 10 million!
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Here's a teaser: me on the beach showing how a basketball does not match 'Oumuamua's light curve! My favorite was the "making a comet" demo with dry ice, or maybe going to check out the Vera Rubin telescope in Chile.
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
If you live in France, a new documentary about 'Oumuamua comes out Thursday evening, starting at 9pm on the France 5. Replays on france.tv after I was scientific advisor (and I show up in several places), which was a great pleasure. www.francetvpro.fr/contenu-de-p...
france.tv
France TV - Replay et Direct tv des chaînes France Télévisions (ex Pluzz)
Retrouvez toutes les vidéos, articles et podcasts des programmes des chaînes de France Télévisions.
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
I just realized that a couple weeks ago was the fifth anniversary of the release of my astronomy poem book: Black Holes, Stars, Earth and Mars. www.amazon.com/dp/B08LFZZWGZ
amazon.com
Black Holes, Stars, Earth and Mars: Astronomy poems for all ages
Black Holes, Stars, Earth and Mars: Astronomy poems for all ages [Raymond, Sean, Raymond, Owen, Tyson, Neil deGrasse] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Black Holes, Stars, Earth and Mars: Astronomy poems for all ages
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
Here is a link to the original article, by Ozsvart et al: arxiv.org/pdf/2509.04165
arxiv.org
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
Here's a new article I wrote for @nautil.us about a new result hinting that variations in the cosmic ray flux hitting the Earth, which itself varies as the Sun oscillates vertically within the Galaxy, have a strong link to the diversity of microplankton. nautil.us/could-the-su...
nautil.us
Could the Sun’s Orbit Shape Evolution?
Could the Sun’s Orbit Shape Evolution? The connection between our massive star and the tiniest microplankton.
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
nautil.us/the-nautilus...
nautil.us
The Nautilus Reading List About the Cosmos
The Nautilus Reading List About the Cosmos: Our writers have read a universe of books on the cosmos. Here are their favorites.
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
The main challenge is the alternating prograde and retrograde rings of planets. To build a single ring, I think you's need to pass through a horseshoe constellation phase (see planetplanet.net/2023/04/20/c...) and then damp out the librations. Obviously not feasible for humanity at the moment....
planetplanet.net
Constellations of co-orbital planets – planetplanet
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
I guess it would be transits, not eclipses, but if the planets had moons they would also be blocking the light from the other planets all the time. A very astronomically-engaging place to be!
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
New animation of the ultimate engineered solar system for a talk I'm giving tomorrow at a sci-fi convention in Lithuania. It has 400 rocky planets in the habitable zone of a single Sun-like star It's perfectly stable (I simulated it out to about a billion years) planetplanet.net/2017/05/03/t...
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Reposted by Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net)
American Astronomical Society (AAS) @aas.org · 06/10/2025
AAS members are on the Hill today to #SaveNASAScience and advocate for sustained funding for NASA, NSF, and our nation's other science agencies! Help us amplify their voices by calling and writing to your Congressional offices today: aas.org/action-alert...
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
See for example this paper : ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009ApJ....
ui.adsabs.harvard.edu
Tidal Limits to Planetary Habitability
The habitable zones (HZs) of main-sequence stars have traditionally been defined as the range of orbits that intercept the appropriate amount of stellar flux to permit surface water on a planet. Terrestrial exoplanets discovered to orbit M stars in these zones, which are close-in due to decreased stellar luminosity, may also undergo significant tidal heating. Tidal heating may span a wide range for terrestrial exoplanets and may significantly affect conditions near the surface. For example, if heating rates on an exoplanet are near or greater than that on Io (where tides drive volcanism that resurfaces the planet at least every 1 Myr) and produce similar surface conditions, then the development of life seems unlikely. On the other hand, if the tidal heating rate is less than the minimum to initiate plate tectonics, then CO<SUB>2</SUB> may not be recycled through subduction, leading to a runaway greenhouse that sterilizes the planet. These two cases represent potential boundaries to habitability and are presented along with the range of the traditional HZ for main-sequence, low-mass stars. We propose a revised HZ that incorporates both stellar insolation and tidal heating. We apply these criteria to GJ 581 d and find that it is in the traditional HZ, but its tidal heating alone may be insufficient for plate tectonics.
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
Thanks! If there was a very large amount of internal heat flux from tidal dissipation, it would likely be bad for habitability if the planet is close to the inner edge of the habitable zone, or good if it's beyond (colder). The planet's orbit would also change (slowly) due to tidal dissipation.
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
In my new @nautil.us article, I use a lot of recent research to argue that rocky exoplanets on eccentric orbits are often very good candidates for life. (At least, eccentric/inclined orbits should not be used as a negative for habitability) nautil.us/wild-orbits-...
nautil.us
Wild Orbits Prime Planets for Life
Looking for habitable worlds? Check the ones with extreme swings.
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
It would be interesting to see what the mass ratio threshold is for stability -- does it have to be 1.000000 or could it be 1.01, 1.1, 2., ...?
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
Ask away. In terms of stability, eccentric rings are clearly stable for billions of years if left undisturbed. I wrote a paper about the dynamical stability of the circular-orbit case when it's perturbed -- it's more robust than you might think. ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023MNRA...
ui.adsabs.harvard.edu
Survival and dynamics of rings of co-orbital planets under perturbations
In co-orbital planetary systems, two or more planets share the same orbit around their star. Here we test the dynamical stability of co-orbital rings of planets perturbed by outside forces. We test tw...
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
I haven't studied that carefully for eccentric rings. For circular rings of planets, I wrote a paper about it. The punchline is that they're pretty robust. When kicked, these systems often transition to a horseshoe state, unless they're kicked really hard... ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023MNRA...
ui.adsabs.harvard.edu
Survival and dynamics of rings of co-orbital planets under perturbations
In co-orbital planetary systems, two or more planets share the same orbit around their star. Here we test the dynamical stability of co-orbital rings of planets perturbed by outside forces. We test tw...
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
That's a great idea to check!
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
Here's something new and weird -- eccentric rings of co-orbital planets. They are stable indefinitely, from an orbital point of view. Could they actually form and exist? planetplanet.net/2025/09/02/e...
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Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net) @planetplanet.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
Flashback to 2012 when I ate the Sun (Photo from the top of Vulcano in Sicily)
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Reposted by Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net)
Dorothy Berry @dorothyjberry.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
Imagine the complicated and precious genius of the girl who made this embroidery sampler in 1811 The Solar System, sampler, unknown maker, 1811, England. Museum no. T.92-1939. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
a 19th century embroidery sampler showing the solar system, the distance of the planets from the sun, and the length of time it takes each planet to circle the sun
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Reposted by Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net)
Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
Sigh. sites.psu.edu/astrowright/...
sites.psu.edu
HST Has Conclusively Shown that Avi Loeb is Wrong About 3I/ATLAS
The recent JWST observations have firmly shown that 3I/ATLAS is a comet—an interesting and anomalous one in some ways, but definitely not a spacecraft. This has not stopped Avi Loeb from continuing to...
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Reposted by Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net)
Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
Still can't get over @deschscoveries.bsky.social parodying Loeb, and Loeb straight-up playing out the parody a 3 days later. Is Desch a clairvoyant, or did Loeb read this mockery of him and think—hey, that's actually a great idea!—and just plagiarize him?!
Next comes a by-now routine dismissal of astronomical observations, in order to claim 3I/ATLAS’s dusty coma (which does exist: de la Fuente Marcos et al.; Seligman et al.; Bolin et al.) does not exist and is just photographic fuzz. What would be bold and novel would be to lean in to the observations of dust and assert that any spaceship coming in hot from the interstellar medium would be very dirty and in need of a wash.Impacts by interstellar dust particles and interstellar gas particles can easily create a thin layer of dust on the surface of 3I/ATLAS, with no accompanying ices if 3I/ATLAS is not a comet. The interstellar speed of 3I/ATLAS is ~60 kilometers per second relative to the local interstellar medium. Any impacting matter would deliver ten times more energy per impacting proton than required to break a single chemical bond within the solid surface. The microscopic breakup of the surface to super-micron fragments by interstellar impactors, such as dust, gas and cosmic-ray particles, might have led over billions of years to the formation of large dust particles that are released close to the Sun and account for the glow ahead of 3I/ATLAS in its Hubble image.
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Reposted by Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net)
Steve Desch @deschscoveries.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
My complaints have not yet been resolved. medium.com/@steve.desch...
medium.com
There’s No “I” in Team. But There Is One in “ALIENS”
Yelling “Tarantulas!” in a crowded movie theater has its time and place. If you’re enduring Madame Web, everyone will be relieved you…
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Reposted by Sean Raymond (planetplanet.net)
Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
Loeb’s bad science flies out faster than any one of us should have to deal with it. For a nice explanation of what’s wrong with many of his claims I have not addressed, see @hectorsocas.bsky.social ’s work here: tinieblasyestrellas.blogspot.com/2025/08/3iat...
tinieblasyestrellas.blogspot.com
3I/ATLAS. A cat on my balcony
(En español  aquí )  S ummary      Recently, a new interstellar object passing through our solar system has been discovered: 3I/ATLAS. Thi...
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