Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 25/08/2026In Entebbe and headed home from Uganda today and thought I had posted my last wildlife picture, but no. My backyard camera caught a brand new mamma bear and cub. We have definitely not seen them before! I hope they decide they like the neighborhood and consider taking a swim. 3725
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 24/08/2026It is fun for my @scientificamerican.bsky.social piece to drop as I was literally hanging out with this guy 3521
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 19/08/2026As a reward here are some absolute queens from the safety of the handover 2623
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 19/08/2026They marched in a line down to the pool. Here are my 5 am pix from the lodge porch with a flashlight. There were many many lions, even if all you can see is fuzzy blobs past the pool. It was an interesting night I must say. 3242
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 18/08/2026Except if you look in the middle of those two “tents” there is something oddly red 2231
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 18/08/2026Drama in camp tonight. We are in a “tent” camp (aka cabins with canvas walls) and are not allowed to go from the main dining tent to our tent without a (spear) armed escort. Which seems a little over kill, right? Here is a “tent” with our daughter on the patio 11671
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 17/08/2026I have no pithy comments today except that I just saw baby cheetas sleeping with their mother in the shade of a tree in the Serengeti and now I might be ok for a long time 516912
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 16/08/2026I don’t remember the movies well but somehow this makes me think of some scene from Planet of the Apes and I fear it will not end well for us humans. Also this was the largest baboon troop I’ve ever seen. Slightly intimidating. 8492
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 15/08/2026I have not yet been eaten by the leopard who hangs around our camp at night but I might end up getting eaten by lions because I really think they need belly rubs 141169
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 13/08/2026The sun is setting and I am in one of the darkest spots on earth and I am not allowed to go outside at night because apparently there are leopards hanging around 🐈 91236
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 07/08/2026My updated class THE SCIENCE OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM is now LIVE and COMPLETELY FREE at www.coursera.com/learn/solar-system 27 hours of lectures, full quizzes, full exam. And free. You can’t even pay if you want to. Or you can just find the lectures on YouTube any time. 1110039
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 05/08/2026I already posted this yesterday but it is an extraordinary picture that I need to reshare. Tony Yap, a Caltech grad student, is showing Harrison Schmitt, Apollo 16 astronaut, a sample that he (Tony) is currently measuring zinc isotopes on. The sample was collected by Harrison Schmitt. From the moon. 518225
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 05/08/2026Some favorite pictures from Harrison Schmitt’s visit today. See alt text for details! 2536
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 29/07/2026Finally: me! I am proud to have received the Non-detection Lifetime Achievement Award for a sustained and distinguished record of not finding Planet Nine. It is a picture frame with a picture of Planet Nine (it is a picture frame with nothing in it) 6851
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 29/07/2026Swaroop Chandra received the Golden Lego Reconstruction Award for restoring order from a thermodynamically favored state. It is a pile of golden Lego, natch. Where did I find golden Lego, they asked. Did no one question the gold spray paint in the lab 1190
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 29/07/2026Matthew Belyakov received the Emergency Interstellar Response Prize for immediately abandoning all previous research save save an ISO from Loebification (ahem). It is an ambulance sporting important bumper stickers 1260
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 29/07/2026Ashma Pandya received the Chemistry Supremacy Award for believing that all planetary science is chemistry plus bookeeping. It is a perfect facsimile of a commercial box of sodium bicarbonate (actually it’s just a box of baking soda from Target) 1200
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 29/07/2026Merritt McDowell received the Periodic Table Starter Kit Award. Contents may become scientifically interesting when exposed to sufficient energy. It is a heroically mounted containers of Morton’s salt along with a CO2 canister and a pencil, obviously. 1230
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 29/07/2026Bella Mueller received the Sack of Troy Prize for once again making the Trojans do all the work. It is a gold horse because I didn’t have any wooden ones. 1260
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 29/07/2026Last night was the annual summer dinner and awards presentation for my research group. It was a nice dinner outside on the lawn, but the awards, of course, are the highlights. Follow along (I think the last one is the best though I am perhaps biased) 2613
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 25/07/2026You must bring me… a shrubbery! (With a baby bobcat inside) 715416
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 17/07/2026Utterly adorable tiny bob cat kittens in our back yard being watched very closely by indoor cats who are Not Pleased By The Visitors 711218
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 07/07/2026That was such and amazing trip to just walk and laugh and be silly together for 2 weeks across the Dolomites. I can't recommend it enough. But it's still no excuse for her to turn 21. 1380
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 07/07/2026One of my favorite pictures of the two of us (and now lives as my computer background), resting after a long climb in the dolomites before we head on to our rifugio and another week of hiking 1591
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 07/07/2026Happy birthday to this little bunny who is, inexplicably, 21 years old today. It is pretty hard for me to fathom. 101052
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 27/06/2026On a bike ride on a trail above Pasadena. [Bear appears in trail.] Friends: everyone get off your bike and stand behind it and try to look large Me: [rides straight towards bear] Hey buddy, are you new? I don’t think we’ve met before. [bear ambles down the hill and mostly ignores us] 7775
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 24/06/2026Virga. Rainbow. Waxing moon. Great blue heron. Sunset clouds. A beautiful evening display in Pasadena. 618323
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 23/06/2026I found an old camera SD full of pictures. They were mostly this mom and her cubs hanging out in our back yard. She just wanted a nap. They just wanted to play. 312218
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 12/06/2026I don’t buy gas much but next time I have to I am definitely going here 4361
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 24/05/2026We have lived here 20 years and I don’t ever remember seeing a fox in the backyard. Cute little buggers. 1328020
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 22/05/2026Paaaaaatch. First good look at him this season and he has got some serious chonk going on 921513
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 15/05/2026Weird new pool bears. Can’t quite figure these ones out. 5650
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 12/05/2026We are talking about dwarf planets in class today so this seemed like the right shirt to wear for the occasion 1321114
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 11/04/2026Ready for Artemis return! We’re dressing up right? I even have my iron meteorite cuff links! 21778
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 06/04/2026I just signed 190 books in 26 minutes, which I think is a new PR 7501
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 03/04/2026This is from a year or two ago but I just came across it and had to share again. This is Frank, our recently irradiated cat, meeting a few of his neighbors. He remains a good cat. They are all good cats (Frank is doing well!). 712820
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 01/04/2026I just do love the cameras on the rocket so we can watch as it goes to space 11007
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 02/03/2026Frank is a little sleepy post irradiation, but otherwise seems in good kitty spirits. 7931
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 02/03/2026This is Frank (Franklin C. Roosevelt, where C is for cat [obvs D was for dog]). He’s going on a trip today. He’s about to get radiation therapy for his just-discovered nasal lymphoma. Wish Frank luck and sweet anesthetized dreams. Wish me the ability to keep it together. Frank is a good boy. 211566
Mike Brown @plutokiller.com · 30/01/2026New paper just out from my soon-to-graduate Ph.D. student Matthew Belyakov. He got JWST to look at 3I/Atlas in the mid-infrared. And there is water! and CO2! and CH4! and Ni! It's just a beautiful spectrum (and I love a beautiful spectrum). arxiv.org/abs/2601.22034 🔭 310217