love doing required lab safety modules bc it’s an hour of unskippable videos followed by a quiz with questions like
“You should drink hydrofluoric acid.
⚪️TRUE
⚪️FALSE”
astro: no one I know applying this cycle, including myself, has gotten an offer in the US. people coming out of grad school with 5+ papers are getting waitlisted
Wooooo congrats!!!!
I have some cross-correlation cartoon animations on my website! petercbsmith.github.io/gallery.html
for sale:
mines,
never swept
for sale:
crypt,
never kept
In fantastic 4 Galactus passes by Jupiter without notice, finally giving us a much awaited confirmation that there is no life on MCU Europa
Hello World! A new chapter of Astronomy on Tap just dropped in sunny Tempe, AZ ☀️. We’re so excited to announce that starting this August, we’ll be hosting FREE monthly events at Four Peaks Brewing with professional astronomers who love talking about space! Follow for event details and sneak peaks 👀
I did a lot of Vibe Physics in undergrad, especially during exams. I also failed a lot of exams
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
exoplanet lottery - everybody gets assigned a random hydrocarbon and if you can show it fits K2-18 b MIRI data at 4 sigma you get a faculty job offer
as it turns out the trans service people were in charge of putting on the parking brakes for the jets
as an exoplanet astronomer I feel uniquely qualified to remind everyone this Earth Day that Earth is literally the best planet in the universe. every other planet is a shithole. its true.
nice. these posteriors imply K2-18 b's atmosphere could be anywhere from 0 to 100% DMDS (and same for the other molecules)
second case - when comparing models with DMS+DMDS+CH4+CO2 to models with only CH4 and CO2. interesting choice however to not compare to a model including other sulfur bearing molecules 3/3
first case - when comparing a simpler model including only DMS, DMDS, CH4, and CO2 to a flat line (i.e., is there an atmosphere at all). However, the model preference here is correlated with the size of the prior on a vertical offset. offset from what other instrument? who's to say... 2/3
3 "sigma" is quoted in the abstract and press releases. However a model including DMS and DMDS is only preferred by ~2 sigma compared to a complicated model including many other gases except these two. the 3 sigma shows up in two other cases.. 1/3
will read this in more detail in the morning but a quick thread of some technical quirks:
for context, "sigma"/confidence intervals here describe the preference of one model/hypothesis over another, not a signal strength over noise as in most types of "detections"
0/3
arxiv.org/abs/2504.12267
unfortunately due to tariffs we had to pay 2 sigmas on that DMS detection
you’re telling me this data is based?
we’re speedrunning the Cultural Revolution which famously went Extremely Well for China
if I don’t publish again soon They will Take me
Just announced: 10% tariff on spectra from K2-18b
returning to all the neglected projects and responsibilities after submitting proposals
I know it’s pi day because you’re spinning my head right round
I got 11 unconstrained hyperparameters call that kernel sanders
hey astronomers while slack is down we can use this google doc instead :) docs.google.com/document/d/1...
slack is down
while you were writing a finesst proposal I was studying the blade
when the world (me) needed him (my windows laptop) most, he vanished (restarted for no reason)
