Had a great time at #RockyWorlds4 this week - presenting my PhD work on magnetic field generation in planetesimals 🧲 and learning lots about magma oceans 🔥ready for my post doc project. Thanks to everyone for such great discussions and @rockyworlds.bsky.social for organising a fantastic meeting!
Poster discussions at #RockyWorlds4 has been amazing! Coffee breaks are on 🔥🔥🔥Super creative posters with incredible science, I think we are improving as a community to communicate our research to other colleagues 🧐 Looking forward for the poster competition ✨ @rockyworlds.bsky.social
My 25th (!) newsletter post shares my main takeaway from the #RockyWorlds4 conference: Hot rocks are what's cool in rocky exoplanet research right now.
Lava planets, especially look like they're about to teach us a *ton* about how rocky planets work.
So come on in, the lava's fine! 🧪🔭
Looks like Planet Earth is a fan of #RockyWorlds4 as it gifted us with a gorgeous conference souvenir last night! 🤩🔭🧪
Another cool result shared at #RockyWorlds4: Nearly all sub-Neptunes, if they are gas dwarfs (as opposed to water worlds), should have magma oceans beneath their hydrogen atmospheres.
That includes the notorious K2-18b — if it is indeed a gas dwarf and not an ocean planet.
Preprint:
You're welcome! 🔭😊 The LOC of #RockyWorlds4 (groningen2026.rockyworlds.org/organisers/loc) is doing everything they can to make the conference an unforgettable experience. 😁
✨Auroras✨ over Groningen,NL during the first after-conference day of @rockyworlds.bsky.social This planet is just so incredible! Looking forward for the talks, sessions and activities the rest of the week🌌
@johannateske.bsky.social's #RockyWorlds4 talk on TOI-561 b just reinforces my feeling that this weird little planet is one to keep an eye on.
It's among a handful of hot rocks challenging what we think we know about which planets have air.
I wrote about this last year for @sciam.bsky.social:
At #RockyWorlds4 in Groningen, scientists explore rocky planets with radically different chemistries and atmospheres. With the LIFE mission, they aim to study exoplanets directly and look for unexpected signs of life — not aliens, but subtle atmospheric clues. Read more: www.rug.nl/fse/news/mat...
Congratulations, @nichollsh.bsky.social! Your thesis was a joy to read, and it was great to get to know you over the past 1.5 years. I look forward to seeing the research that you and Oli get up to at Cambridge. Perhaps almost as impressive was your AOPP champagne cork shot! Video below.
Congratulations @nichollsh.bsky.social for your outstanding work and thesis results! 🔭🚀🌋 It has been and continues to be privilege to work with you, and all the very best for your new endeavour at Cambridge! 🌟💻
I'm excited to spend the week hearing and talking about rocky worlds! This is one of my favorite meeting series, I leave energized and with new ideas. 😁 You can follow along with the talks on YouTube if you aren't joining us in person or on Zoom: www.youtube.com/@rockyworlds...
P.S. Follow along on Bluesky with #RockyWorlds4 (h/t @nplinnspace.bsky.social 🙌🏻)
A view of the canal in the city of Groningen, Netherlands. The sky is blue and the trees lining the water are green, so it's *definitely* not taken in January. Credit: https://www.hanze.nl/en/study/living-in-the-netherlands-and-groningen/groningen-is-waiting-for-you
A screenshot from our conference website: https://groningen2026.rockyworlds.org/ The text reads: Rocky Worlds 4 19–23 January 2026, Groningen, Netherlands In-person registrations for the conference are booked up. Registration for virtual participation is open.
Wondering why we've been so quiet this month? That's because we're busy preparing to welcome everyone *next week* to Groningen 🇳🇱 for...
🌋✨🚀 The ROCKY WORLDS 4 Conference 2026! 🪐✨☄️
Updates will be posted throughout the week from this account & others using the #RockyWorlds4 hashtag – stay tuned! 🔭🧪
Hi all! If you are looking for a conference in exoplanet interiors in 2026, check out "Layers of Understanding: Model Intercomparisons of Exoplanet Interiors": layersofunderstanding2026.github.io
It will take place in MPIA's campus in April 13-17th. The registration deadline is 15 January 2026
Are you a grad student interested in writing for Astrobites, or do you know one? We're recruiting! Apply by November 26 :)
astrobites.org/2025/10/31/a...
TLDR; The PSF has made the decision to put our community and our shared diversity, equity, and inclusion values ahead of seeking $1.5M in new revenue. Please read and share. pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-...
🧵
Together with Kristina Kislyakova, Louis Müller, Anuja Raorane, and @exocytherean.bsky.social we are organising the session "Early Solar system: crucial timings for habitability" at @egu.eu 2026. Please consider submitting an abstract if you work on these issues. :)
Our group works at the interfaces between planetary geoscience, climate science, and exoplanet astronomy. 🌏🌋
More information on the MagmaWorlds positions in our group: www.formingworlds.space/erc-magmawor...
The application deadline will be 28 November 2025. Please share! ✉️ 🙂 🚀
Planetary-themed positions are spanning topics from protoplanetary disks/planet formation to the theory and observation of rocky and gaseous exoplanets.
My group seeks one PhD student (4 yrs) and one postdoctoral researcher (3 yrs) within the context of the ERC MagmaWorlds project.
Lava world in front of a star. Image credit: Mark A. Garlick
@kapteynastro.bsky.social of @rug.nl invites applications for in total 7 PhD and 4 ERC-funded postdoc positions in our annual call. ⭐🔭
PhD positions:
aas.org/jobregister/...
Postdoctoral positions:
aas.org/jobregister/...
#exoplanet #astronomy #geoscience 🧪🔭⭐
[Image credit: Mark A. Garlick.]
w/ Oli Shorttle, @johannateske.bsky.social & Eliza Kempton we reviewed our current understanding and prospects for peaking on the inside of small #exoplanets in "Constraining exoplanet interiors using observations of their atmospheres": www.science.org/stoken/autho... & arxiv.org/abs/2510.08844 🔭🧪⚒️☄️
How can we tell what's inside an #exoplanet? @timlichtenberg.bsky.social et al review how a planet's atmosphere interacts with its interior. Atmospheric observations can distinguish between lava worlds, water worlds, temperate surfaces or supercritical interiors. ☄️
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
The goal of this workshop is to define and implement a roadmap for a detailed intercomparison project between multiple leading computational frameworks of magma ocean evolution. bit.ly/3IZbJyn
@timlichtenberg.bsky.social @lavainspace.bsky.social @astroyami.bsky.social @meteodenny.bsky.social
📢 Don't forget to join us for this talk tomorrow (Thursday)!
13:00 UTC = 15:00 CEST = 09:00 EDT = 06:00 PDT = 22:00 JST
If you haven't signed up to our mailing list to access the Zoom-link, you can also watch it live on our YouTube channel 🔭☄️🧪 #exoplanet livestream: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMr2...
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin ✨ figured out what stars are made of ✨ when she was just 25. 🔭🧪
Her PhD thesis basically established the Harvard astro department — at a time when Harvard didn't officially allow woman students.
I wrote this little profile to mark the 100th anniversary of her thesis:
By the way, it's a pretty good theory, it is/was falsifiable: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifi.... Not many theories are these days.
The concept considers *cumulative* XUV irradiation, Fig. 4 in the paper, and suggests that this XUV-induced escape turns planets above the "shoreline" in the plot attached into bare-rock planets. If additional variables/processes are required it loses its predictive power.
A very nice article by @elisecutts.bsky.social in @sciam.bsky.social, highlighting the surprise of the discovery and the potential implications for our larger understanding of how atmospheres form and decay.
