iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Congratulations @mmacgreg.bsky.social — excited for some far-IR science coming down the pipeline 🔭

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

So excited to see even these first test images from the Wide Field Instrument knowing our surveys are only months away — go #NASARoman 🔭 💫

050

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

It was such a fun privilege getting to work with Jaime et al. exploring the roles of repeated flaring and flare temperatures in young terrestrial atmospheres!

010

Reposted by Ward Howard

Eric Bellm @ebellm.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

The Swift reboost mission failing is a huge loss for astronomy. The powerful, flexible operations model the Swift team demonstrated has unfortunately not yet influenced the design and selection of other 🔭 missions. www.nasa.gov/news-release...

urldefense.com

NASA Updates Next Steps for Commercial Swift Boost Mission - NASA

Due to an ongoing commercial spacecraft attitude control issue, NASA and Katalyst Space announced Wednesday the LINK spacecraft will not capture or boost an

1204

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Excited to be back on the Caltech campus this morning to share about infrared observations of stellar flares at the Shifting Landscapes in Astrophysics: New Frontiers to Explore with Roman” science conference! 🔭🧪 #Roman2026

Standing in front of the conference poster

050

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Check out this amazing result by @distantworlds.space! 🔭🧪

030

Reposted by Ward Howard

Emily Lakdawalla 🏳️‍⚧️ Uranus Expert @elakdawalla.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

To be clear, this isn’t an AI tool, it’s a form with prompts that breaks the process of composing a comment into smaller pieces with specific guidance on each piece on how to make it an effective comment. Useful!

04020

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

No one informed me when our 10 month old started talking she’d sound exactly like Donald Duck

static.klipy.com

Donald Duck's Moment of Peace

Alt: Donald Duck's Moment of Peace

040

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Important find! Will be seeing how this impacts our flare spectral extractions.

030

Reposted by Ward Howard

Dr./Prof. Meredith MacGregor @mmacgreg.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Now seems like a great moment to share this awesome new paper explaining how the Early eVolution Explorer (EVE) - a NASA SMEX mission concept - will transform our understanding of young planets (<50 Myr old): arxiv.org/pdf/2606.04283

arxiv.org

031

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Excellent thread on multiple levels of absurdity impacting ECRs without citizenship. @gmduvvuri.bsky.social and others like him deserve better:

021

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

I am so excited to get started on wide field time domain astronomy in the near-infrared. Just like TESS did in the optical, we’ll launch to find planets in the bulge and learn so much about stellar astrophysics along the way 🪐🔭💫

0100

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

The link was somehow corrupted. The correct link is docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

docs.google.com

020

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

🚨🚨🚨 Now accepting 2026/2027 applications🔭 🪐🚨🚨🚨 AMP-UP provides mentorship to senior grad students/postdocs: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... Please forward to anyone who might be interested/share with institution listservs. The application deadline is *June 26*. -On behalf of the 2026 AMP-UP leads

docs.google.com

111

Reposted by Ward Howard

Phil Plait @philplait.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Whoa. The alleged fireball shock wave registered on seismometers!

618234

Reposted by Ward Howard

elizabethginexi.bsky.social @elizabethginexi.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Summary of Key Changes in OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule. Russell Vought is going destroy American Science. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of...

elizabethginexi.substack.com

Summary of Key Changes in OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule

Russell Vought is going destroy American Science

1251397827

Reposted by Ward Howard

Tara Murphy @taramurphy.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

The final version of our Dawes Review on the Dynamic Radio Sky is now published! doi.org/10.1017/pasa... Everything you need to know about what causes radio transients: how we detect them, the history of radio transient surveys, and what new widefield radio telescopes will do. #RadioAstronomy 🔭☄️🧪

Transient phase space showing radio luminosity versus the product of timescale and observing frequency for different transient source classes, following Cordes et al. (2004).

This is a figure from Murphy & Kaplan (2025) published in PASA. See the paper text (Figure 1 caption) for a full description.

04517

Reposted by Ward Howard

Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

Two things have happened: the community hasn't reassembled to the same degree here, and that lots of astro groups are now internally using Slack and Discord for discussions instead of social media. That's pretty much killed it off, IMHO.

1112

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 25/12/2025

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. And that light is true life 🎄✨

051

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

1/ It's press day!🔭🧪 We apply a grid of time-dependent physical models to explain TRAPPIST-1 flares, predicting the X-ray & UV flux driving escape and photochemistry in planetary atmospheres, and correcting flare contamination in transit spectroscopy down to ~60 ppm: www.colorado.edu/today/2025/1...

colorado.edu

New research on flares from a hot-tempered star could inform search for habitable planets

A new study takes a close look at TRAPPIST-1, a little star roughly 40 light-years from our sun that hosts seven Earth-sized planets.

1122

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

Voyager needs to avoid Vidiian space? Problematic phage gap.

010

Reposted by Ward Howard

American Astronomical Society (AAS) @aas.org · 19/11/2025

✨ Exoplanet Atmospheres 2026 registration & abstract submission are officially open! Join us in Denver (16-20 March 2026) for an unforgettable AAS Topical Conference Series! 👉 Abstracts due 19 December: aas.org/meetings/exo... 👉 Early registration ends 13 January: aas.org/meetings/exo...

044

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

An attempt to stitch together my images of the aurorae above Longs Peak last night to show their dynamic and changing nature. Images are spaced about 10 seconds apart 🔭🧪

1260

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

So uh, the sky above Boulder got better. A lot better, including some beautiful columnar structure 🧪🔭

47013

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

Just took these of the sky above Boulder right now. Longs Peak in the foreground🧪🔭

Red and green aurorae above longs peak near Boulder

Green and yellow red skies above Longs Peak

0160

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

And it's a wrap: one PI and six co-I proposals submitted (and then a nice Boulder autumn run!) #JWSTCycle5

150

Reposted by Ward Howard

Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

Gibson et al. “TESS Discovers a Second System of Transiting Exocomets in the Extreme Debris Disk of RZ Psc” showing 24 exocomet transits and the existence of a broken power law for the sizes of these exocomets, unlike Beta Pic’s exocomet distribution #exoplanet #astrodon #astrosci

TESS light curve of RZ Psc, showing several dog tooth-like dips indicating exocomet transits.

Plot os radius of exocomet versus cumulative number count - the RZ Psc shows a distinct change in slope at 2.5km, whilst the Beta Pic distribution from des Etangs shows a single straight power law.

13914

Reposted by Ward Howard

Daniel Bolnick @danielbolnick.bsky.social · 26/09/2025

The GRFP announcement from NSF cuts out an entire cohort of 2nd year students from consideration, without warning. This is so deeply unfair that it warrants a formal protest from the scientific community. If someone wants to work with me to craft an open letter and solicit signatures, LMK.

917286

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

Great breakdown of the new T1e results:

010

Reposted by Ward Howard

Brett Morris @brettmorr.is · 29/07/2025

Neat! @flarelord.bsky.social used ground-based photometry to measure the flare temperature on an M7 dwarf. How do you measure temperature without spectroscopy? Trick question! You use the Earth's atmosphere as a prism and watch the star appear to jump across the sky. 🔭🧪 arxiv.org/abs/2507.19584

Figure 1. Panel A: Light curve of the DWF030225.574-
545707.45 flare expressed as g magnitudes in excess of the
quiescent stellar brightness. As noted in Webb et al. (2021),
the lightcurve does not return to pre-flare brightness before
the end of the observing period. Panel B: Raw d∥ measured
on the images, relative to source position at t0. The weighted
average d ∥ of 91 reference stars, weighted by the stars’ astrometric standard deviation across the entire time series,
is shown as a grey line and the standard deviation of their
relative position itself is shown as a filled region. Panel C:
detrended d∥ of the flare star generated by subtracting the
weighted average d∥ of the reference stars shown in Panel B.
A 9-point rolling median is shown by the dashed black line.
Panel D: Rolling median over an 9-point window of the detrended data shown in Panel C, and the time series used for
subsequent analysis in this work.

1251

Reposted by Ward Howard

💀Adina Feinstein PhD 💀 @afeinstein20.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

summer project presentations from Ryan and @adalyngibson.bsky.social at the @michiganstateu.bsky.social MidSURE conference today!

Undergraduate student talking to three people at their research poster

Undergraduate student talking to someone at their research poster

0134

Reposted by Ward Howard

Jeff Foust @jfoust.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

Sixty-four House members have signed a letter to NASA's acting administrator, Sean Duffy, asking him to "ensure no actions are taken at NASA to implement the proposed funding cuts" to science in the FY26 proposal until Congress passes a spending bill. foushee.house.gov/imo/media/do...

foushee.house.gov

16711

Reposted by Ward Howard

Michele Bannister @astrokiwi.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

It has coma. No large telescope has seen anything but coma. Paper after paper on the arXiv with this

2392

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

Is the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS alien technology? No, but it is an exciting addition to the population of exocomets that come to us, enabling a better understanding of these objects usually observed from afar. We should focus our efforts on what these objects really are, not what they aren't.

030

Reposted by Ward Howard

Cynthia Froning @astra2.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

Here once again for all your exoplanet host star emission spectrum needs.

041

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

Enjoyed the “Let Freedom Run” 10k in Louisville, CO this morning! Too hot for PRs, but lots of fun.

030

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

STScI just sent out approvals for NHFP budgets. I hope this means the likelihood of continued funding for STScI guest observer programs on JWST and HST just went up.

020

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

🧪🔭 1/ AU Mic is the very best early M-dwarf. It's got everything: it's bright, nearby, has strongly-observable planets, a debris disk, spots, and flares. Since the system is basically Disneyland for astronomers, I propose renaming it AU Micky, "Oh boy!"

560

Reposted by Ward Howard

Jonathan Fortney @jjfplanet.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

....meanwhile, in Chile....the 39-meter (128-feet) Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) project is humming along. Note the white pickup truck in the upper left, for scale. Amazing.

722656

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

The cool, rainy conditions helped me finally break the 49 minute 10k time (48:59 min) yesterday in the #BolderBoulder10k -- a Boulder classic and lots of fun!

Standing in the rain front of the finish line at the 2025 BolderBoulder 10K yesterday.

050

Reposted by Ward Howard

American Astronomical Society (AAS) @aas.org · 23/05/2025

AAS JOURNALS AUTHOR SERIES Meredith MacGregor @mmacgreg.bsky.social (Johns Hopkins University) chats with Frank Timmes about her article on Proxima Centauri: youtu.be/sf_hA1u0fUE This series connects authors with their article, their human story & the larger #astronomy community. #TheGoodStuff 🔭

youtu.be

AAS Journal Author Series: Meredith MacGregor on 2025ApJ...982...43B

YouTube video by AAS

1154

Ward Howard @wardhoward.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Got to see Kate hooded this week, and got an unexpected visit with my former thesis advisor Nick Law and to meet old and new members of his group, and hear lots of exciting updates on Argus Array!

Kate Howard in regalia on front of the UNC bell tower.

030

Reposted by Ward Howard

Dra. Lupita TM @astroxicana.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

#NSF funded a critical 3 years of my grad studies (at a time when I was almost forced out of the field). It is the reason I was able to finish my PhD.

19212