PhD, occasional astronomer, talking head, science geek, cynic. Senior Editor at @Science.org, responsible for research papers in astronomy and planetary science. Views own, duh. Bio: https://www.science.org/content/author/keith-t-smith
An Editorial in @science.org discusses the recent reorganisation of the UK science ministry, and plans to improve commercialisation of British science. @profgeraintrees.bsky.social & @jameswilsdon.bsky.social argue that capital investment is the main limitation. 🔭🧪⚛️ www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Editor's choice: Will the Sun destroy Earth? Esseldeurs et al. simulate the fate of the inner Solar System when the Sun evolves into a red giant star. ☄️🔭🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
I am sorry to hear that Ralph Wijers has died aged 62. We were colleagues at MNRAS, where Ralph was a long-standing editor, and he was a great help to me at Science. We both enjoyed swapping opinions on peer review, open access, preprints (he was scientific director of arXiv), and open science. ☄️🔭
Michael MerrifieldSad to learn that astronomy has lost one of its great characters. A thoroughly lovely person, and an excellent scientist. 🔭 www.astronomie.nl/nieuws/en/in...
A great illustration of how wide-field astronomical surveys have improved over the last three decades. The first image here used photographic plates on 1-m class telescopes. The last one is from an 8 m diameter telescope equipped with a digital camera the size of a small car. ☄️🔭🧪⚛️
NSF–DOE Rubin ObservatoryTalk about a cosmic glow-up✨📸 This progression of images of galaxy group RSCG 55 shows the evolution of ground-based sky surveys spanning more than three decades🤯, ending with NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory's view. 🔭🧪
Observing an atmosphere on a rocky #exoplanet orbiting in the habitable zone: Cherubim et al. use transit spectroscopy to identify helium absorption by LHS 1140b. The results indicate a helium-dominated atmosphere that is undergoing transient escape. ☄️🔭🧪 #Exo6 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Are Neptune and Uranus really 'ice giants'? @hannah-richter.bsky.social speaks to researchers who have proposed alternative interior compositions. Current data cannot distinguish between them - a spacecraft mission to Uranus is required. ☄️🔭 #planetsci #exoplanets www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Uranus and Neptune may not be ‘ice giants’ after allA growing number of theories propose Uranus and Neptune are rocky worldswww.science.orgThe Curiosity rover has found stones composed of near-pure sulphur in an ancient river canyon on #Mars, report VanBommel et al. There's no sign of nearby volcanism, so they propose formation was by decompression of sulphur-rich clathrates. ☄️🔭 #planetsci www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Why did Springer Nature retract two papers by Max Planck, ~70 years after they were published? Any why were they selling blank PDFs for $40? The answer seems to involve a misbehaving unsupervised algorithm. Because of course it does. 🧪⚛️🔭 www.science.org/content/arti...
Why have papers by one of history’s most famous physicists been retracted?Springer Nature has removed two studies by Max Planck. A bot may be to blamewww.science.orgEditor's choice: Is it possible to focus neutrinos? Britzen et al. demonstrate a lens that does the job. ☄️🔭⚛️ #highenergyastro www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Stellar activity affects #exoplanets, but how about the other way around? Revilla et al. identify periodic stellar activity induced by a Neptune-mass exoplanet orbiting a red dwarf star. The strength of the interaction constrains the exoplanet's magnetic field. ☄️🔭 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
A high-risk mission will soon attempt to save the Swift observatory. A rescue spacecraft, designed & built in just 7 months, will rendezvous with the space telescope, grab on, then boost it to a higher orbit. If it works. Report by @danclery.bsky.social 🛰️☄️🔭🧪 www.science.org/content/arti...
A space telescope is falling to Earth. NASA is racing to rescue itVehicle will attempt a daring capture-and-boost mission to extend the life of the Swift observatorywww.science.orgMarchi et al. report results from the the flyby of asteroid Donaldjohanson (DJ) by the Lucy spacecraft. They find DJ has a bi-lobed shape and is in a tumbling spin. The crater density is consistent with an age of about 150 million years. ☄️🔭 #planetsci www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
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Science Magazine"Ten years ago, the Brexit referendum began the United Kingdom’s departure from the EU, forcing British science to confront a serious question: What place should the UK occupy in European research?" writes Ben Johnson and Will Stone in a new #ScienceEditorial. https://scim.ag/4xvL4hf
☄️🔭 #planetsci #instrumentation
Science MagazineThe Japanese lunar lander SLIM successfully deployed a compact spherical robot that transformed into a wheeled rover and explored the lunar surface, highlighting the promise of small-scale robots for space exploration. Learn more in #ScienceRobotics: https://scim.ag/4eCZX9K