David Wilson

We're going to miss this one 😢 🔭 science.nasa.gov/missions/swi...

My phd office-mate Mark Hollands has spent years working out what colour some weird stars would appear as to the human eye, and finally has a paper out! Most notably... one is green! #astrosci 🔭 arxiv.org/abs/2610.18966

Made a plot, can't decide if it's pessimistic or optimistic 🔭

Excited to lead some Hubble and (hopefully, if HRC-S starts working again) Chandra observations of this system in the next year! 🔭

NEW: A surprising chemical clue has broken open a Hubble cold case from 1999. Astronomers now suspect the mystery signatures in the data are from a second-generation planet that formed from gas and dust ejected by a dying star: https://news.stsci.edu/46WpciV 🔭

SPRITE separation confirmed!

Go SPRITE!

My first thought when looking at this: very cool, but what planet is it? It's the Earth🤦‍♀️ Why does the Earth look smooth and featureless, other than the auroral ring? It's because Smile is an ultraviolet telescope, and Earth's atmosphere is opaque at ultraviolet wavelengths shorter than ~300 nm.

Brave/lazy bird on the feeder just now #birds

Swift proposal accepted --> boost mission fails Chandra proposal accepted --> instrument I need breaks Hubble proposal accepted 😬😬😬😬😬😬😬

Brb, just got to paint a face on my colander

#NASAWebb imaged the Lion Nebula in near- and mid-infrared light just in time for #WorldLionDay. The stellar core, looking like the lion’s “nose,” is responsible for sculpting the nebula’s complex gas and dust structures: https://news.stsci.edu/4x639kM

If any exoplanet astronomers need an idea for an April Fools paper, an analysis of this atmosphere could be an... explosive read 🔭 #exoplanet

Co-author paper day! Very happy to contribute to this work led by Mairi O'Brien, pointing Hubble and Swift at some cool binary stars arxiv.org/abs/2607.11320 🔭 lasp.colorado.edu/2026/07/13/h...

Co-author paper day! Very happy to contribute to this work led by Mairi O'Brien, pointing Hubble and Swift at some cool binary stars arxiv.org/abs/2607.11320 🔭 lasp.colorado.edu/2026/07/13/h...

Well, isn’t this a sight for sore eyes! 😍 Our beloved Hubble appears in this amazing image from one of Vantor's WorldView Legion satellites. It was 36 years ago today that Hubble was launched in the bay of the Space Shuttle Discovery from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Credit: Vantor.

#Artemis II - Photo 2 from yesterdays flyby ECLIPSE. April 6, 2026. Totality, beyond Earth. From lunar orbit, the Moon eclipses the Sun, revealing a view few in human history have ever witnessed. Photo: NASA 🚀🌕🌑

#Artemis II - We have the first image from yesterdays Lunar flyby captured by the crew on Orion EARTHSET. April 6, 2026. Humanity, from the other side. First photo from the far side of the Moon. Captured from Orion as Earth dips beyond the lunar horizon. 🚀🌕🌍

ok one more, for the Mass Effect 1 fans out there, I always consider this to be the Peak of Chill Vibing In Space Music

Just an incredible shot right here.

New HLSP: TESS-3I light curves of comet 3I/ATLAS in Jan 2026. Note: the animation is not astrometrically aligned across frames, so apparent "motion" side-to-side is not the absolute motion of the object. Residuals may be in some frames: these are not outburst events. archive.stsci.edu/hlsp/tess-3i

I'm going to expand this statement to say that astronomers should actually look at their data whatever the format. Yes pipelines and high level science products are great, but you learn a lot from just spending some time exploring the counts-on-pixels images, even for spectroscopy. 🔭

Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers is very good, actually.

Barddoniaeth ar gyfer Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Well, today is St David's Day so let me first offer a hearty "Dydd Gwŷl Dewi Sant hapus i chi gyd" (Happy St David's Day to you all). Here is a picture of some daffodils amid the undergrowth in my garden: Over the years, I seem to have established a tradition…

Happy No Sleep Ever Again Day to all the transient astronomers out there! 🔭

Super proud of my brilliant Honours student @katelynsmith.bsky.social with her first-author debut on arXiv today: arxiv.org/abs/2602.18085 Europeans - look out for her starting her PhD in Amsterdam!

Didn't tighten the screws of the tripod enough... 🔭

Saw Jupiter with my eyes through a 3.5 m telescope last night, was pretty good 🔭

Orion over Apache Point Observatory 🔭

Just saw the SDSS telescope in person! 🔭

Astronomers: highly recommend this thoughtful opinion piece by @hogg.bsky.social on how to think about our field in light of the development of large language models. whether you agree with him or not it’s vital to discuss the principles behind our science. 🔭 arxiv.org/abs/2602.10181

Binary Star xkcd.com/3203/

The Royal Astronomical Society is gravely concerned at the drastic cuts to support for UK astronomy outlined by the Science and Technology Facilities Council. Read our statement 👉 ras.ac.uk/news-and-pre...

*cough* A little bit of extra info to add here: There's only one transit, so the true period is unknown. It could be anywhere between 300 and 550 days. This is an exciting candidate! But (a) we don't know if it's real, and (b) we don't know what its temperature is if it IS real.

Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin’s autobiography is just amazing. Every astronomer should read it. Here she is talking about her memories of Annie Jump Cannon.

And we are up on arXiv! arxiv.org/abs/2601.01628 🔭

Yay go Pandora! 🔭

I'll share this again for 2026 and for any new influx--well over 100 planetary scientists here on Bluesky. Given <waves hands around> they may not necessarily be posting much about planetary science, but that's how it goes. If you're a planetary scientist and want to be on the list, DM me!

ok look

And we are up on arXiv! arxiv.org/abs/2601.01628 🔭

Three professional football players v. one enthusiastic space hopper owner, place your bets

Looking around my childhood bookshelves, wondering if just one book can really be said to be my origin st- oh that's it, that's the one