Posts by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #B1ofOmTjjJgn5RCJNo by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-12-19T18:32:18Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
I look at https://spaceweather.com/ all the time to check for auroras. Pretty cool to see a paper I'm a co-author on featured there!!
(DIR) Post #B1xiy9MIhcq6T6upmK by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2026-01-05T03:06:20Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
I have not updated my Starlink numbers in a while, and great flying fuckballs, is it ever bad. We are now up to 9,422 Starlink satellites in orbit, out of 14,046 total active satellites. 1,446 Starlinks have reentered and added their 500-1500kg of computers, batteries, solar panels, and aluminum frame to the upper atmosphere (and at least one has hit the ground).
(DIR) Post #B1xiyAI5En3nMJwyqO by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2026-01-05T03:15:30Z
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Other megaconstellations are starting to catch up a bit now. Which is why the CRASH Clock (our team's measure of how long it would take for a collision if all satellite maneuvers suddenly stopped) is so ridiculously short: 5 days in our updated calculationOneWeb has 654 up out of 7,000 planned Kuiper has 180 out of 3,000 plannedXingwang has 160 out of 1,000 plannedSatellite numbers from https://planet4589.org/space/con/conlist.html
(DIR) Post #B1xiyCT98d687D8qMi by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2026-01-05T03:26:31Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@mcourcel @CStamp There's a book about this ("Who owns outer space?") freely available here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/who-owns-outer-space/960CCB0464744F845B09434D932699EC
(DIR) Post #B1xiyGnV2tktXUh9e4 by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2026-01-05T03:23:39Z
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Sorry that was depressing and everything is already terrible. I would normally post a photo of my goats, but they are far far away right now. So, here are some very happy goats in Victoria we found yesterday, happily eating Christmas trees.
(DIR) Post #B23AqXCccBu1f7f3RY by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-10-16T14:29:28Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
Adding to this Reflect Orbital thread: @startswithabang wrote a thorough analysis of all the ways that Reflect Orbital is a terrible idea. Have a read! https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/true-cost-solar-power-night-reflect-orbital/
(DIR) Post #B23Aqc7UKhlcueIWdU by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-10-22T13:58:42Z
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Have I mentioned how much I like Nicole Mortillaro? Great article, includes quotes from @JohnBarentine (there were various good reasons why she didn't interview me for this one, but fortunately a lot of other astronomers besides me are really worried about Reflect Orbital's thoughtless plan)https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/reflect-orbital-space-mirror-9.6947427Reflect Orbital is stupid and will cause countless problems with no measurable benefits.
(DIR) Post #B23AqhKQy05r4FOR0a by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-12-04T15:08:50Z
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New article from Smithsonian Magazine about how stupid Reflect Orbital's plans are: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/giant-mirrors-in-space-could-bring-sunlight-after-dark-one-startup-says-and-astronomers-are-concerned-180987781/Features interviews with me and several of my excellent astronomer colleagues on the American Astronomical Society Committee for the Protection of Astronomy and the Space Environment! Looks like Reflect Orbital has followed SpaceX's lead and stopped responding to journalist inquiries.
(DIR) Post #B23AqmbdLTp3R2Tk0m by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-12-04T15:21:29Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
I have doubts about whether or not change.org petitions actually do anything. But if you need to do something small right now against space mirrors, a DarkSky International member set up a petition here: https://www.change.org/p/stop-space-mirrors
(DIR) Post #B23AqsKq2px9CgfPfM by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-12-19T22:15:13Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
DarkSky International just posted their position letter on Reflect Orbital. It is direct and to the point: "Based on current scientific evidence, DarkSky does not see a viable pathway for such systems to align with responsible lighting principles or with our mission to protect natural darkness. These systems would introduce significant ecological, human health, safety, and astronomical risks at a global scale."Read their letter and add your name here:https://darksky.org/news/organizational-statement-reflect-orbital/
(DIR) Post #B23Au5EgXKH05EJoCe by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-10-09T23:09:41Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@HumanServitor That's even worse. A lethal, several km-wide microwave beam?
(DIR) Post #B2FmVQAJiCcnuWSg88 by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2026-01-13T20:13:27Z
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EVERYONE!! Fomalhaut is at it again!! Crashing its planetesimals together and making dust clouds!!!!I am very excited because I and others wrote papers saying that this would happen: if Fomalhaut b (the first directly imaged "exoplanet" oops) was actually a dust cloud, it should fade away and another one should appear on ~decade timescales.I love being right about science predictions that don't involve destroying the night sky or atmosphere or Kessler Syndrome!https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.15861
(DIR) Post #B2FmVVfLGHPeyC11gO by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2026-01-13T20:16:24Z
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I learned about this from a planetary journal club at UBC that I had time to run to (while still mic'd) between filming. The journal club was led by my PhD supervisor, who I wrote a paper with on Fomalhaut planetesimal collisions back in 2015! Damn it's fun to do some real science in between all the depressing stuff. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1412.1129
(DIR) Post #B2SxIprSDBM47vrxT6 by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2026-01-20T04:47:41Z
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My talk at UBC went SO WELL!! I am extremely pleased. I managed to cram a LOT into that hour long talk, I had great audience engagement from professors and students alike, and I had excellent discussions with lots of different people afterwards. My one major regret: there's a huge solar storm happening and it's foggy and light polluted here in Vancouver! Now time to figure out how I'm getting over to Victoria tomorrow for my talk at UVic on Wednesday #ProfSamLectureTour
(DIR) Post #B2U0EO3q7lhvlhC1ia by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2026-01-20T15:22:49Z
0 likes, 2 repeats
I'm sorry to see obituaries for Dr. Gladys West this morning: https://thezebra.org/2026/01/18/dr-gladys-west-mathematician-whose-work-made-gps-possible-dies-at-95/She was brilliant and did a lot of incredibly important scientific work, a lot of which was hidden/uncredited early on, because she was a mathematician in a time when "computer" was a job description.
(DIR) Post #B2U0ETQ0CnPGNsbISO by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2026-01-20T15:27:56Z
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A paper from a few years ago by Dung et al. looked at how often programmers were not credited as authors in genetics research papers from the 1970s and 1980s, but were acknowledged as programmers who ran the code for the analysis, and how often those uncredited scientists were women https://academic.oup.com/genetics/article/211/2/363/5931132?login=falseIt used to be very common practice to have a programmer do your analysis for you, and they weren't considered a co-author (probably because many were women)
(DIR) Post #B2U0EZ3XFF03rw8RGq by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2026-01-20T15:37:32Z
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In 1964, the first simulation showing that Pluto is in a mean-motion resonance with Neptune was published: https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1965Obs....85...43CThey ran a 120,000 year simulation that showed libration of the resonant angle for the first time. This must have been terrifyingly hard to do. Punch cards, vacuum tubes, FORTRAN? I don't even know how they did this, but it was run on the Naval Ordnance Research CalculatorThis was the first time Pluto's orbital stability was explained.
(DIR) Post #B2U0EeaKgjCp16WCaO by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2026-01-20T15:41:47Z
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You know who did a lot of programming on the Naval Ordnance Research Computer and was brilliant and good at orbits? Gladys West! This archived Air Force bio says she was involved in the Pluto study https://web.archive.org/web/20190603171222/https://www.afspc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1707464/mathematician-inducted-into-space-and-missiles-pioneers-hall-of-fame/But the paper is credited as Cohen & Hubbard 1964. Because she was "just" a programmer, and the research note linked above starts and ends with "gentlemen", so yeah, they definitely didn't want to put her as a co-author.
(DIR) Post #B2U0EkPZ1g9n5RWgdM by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2026-01-20T15:44:04Z
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Thanks for all the math, Dr. West! I see your work all over the Solar System.
(DIR) Post #B2cauk0u2veJd7zgzg by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2026-01-24T20:34:09Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
I got to visit some cows at a friend's farm! The internet needs some fuzzy animals right now