Mastodawn

@sundogplanets

You're on the front page of the Dutch news. Well, your pet peeve is. It's working!

https://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2608321-kritiek-op-plan-om-aarde-vanuit-ruimte-met-spiegels-te-verlichten

Kritiek op plan om aarde vanuit ruimte met spiegels te verlichten

Een Amerikaanse startup wil vijftigduizend megaspiegels in een baan om de aarde brengen die 's nachts - tegen betaling - zonlicht naar de aarde reflecteren. Maar er is kritiek uit astronomische en ecologische hoek.

Matthew Kenworthy Mar 26

If you haven’t seen 3Blue1Brown videos yet, you are missing out! His latest one is on M.C. Escher’s picture frame distortion is absolutely breathtaking, using visuals to introduce complex analysis in what feels a very intuitive way. All his videos are excellent and well worth a browse. https://www.youtube.com/@3blue1brown

Matthew Kenworthy Mar 24

Delighted to see our WISPIT team announce the second directly imaged exoplanet from the WISPIT 2 system! Led by Chloe Lawlor (Galway) with Richelle van Capelleveen (Leiden), we also have a spectrum of the inner, more massive planet, showing carbon monoxide features. ☄ #exoplanet #astrodon https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2604/

Matthew Kenworthy Mar 18

Alan Boyle Mar 18

Astronomers say unusual readings from a star system 11,000 light-years away suggest that two of the #planets circling the star collided, creating a huge, light-obscuring cloud of rocks and dust. https://cosmiclog.com/2026/03/12/scientists-find-evidence-of-faraway-worlds-colliding/ #Space

Scientists find evidence of faraway worlds colliding

Astronomers say unusual readings from a star system 11,000 light-years away suggest that two of the planets circling the star crashed into each other, creating a huge, light-obscuring cloud of rock…

Cosmic Log

Matthew Kenworthy Mar 18

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jwz Mar 17

"It's like having a reference librarian!"

My Brother in Taxonomy, it is the farthest thing from that.

A reference librarian is a person with feelings, motivations and ethics, who has a goal of helping you find the answer to your question.

The chatbot is a clockwork mechanism that extrudes text optimized to make you *think* your question has been answered.

It is also a machine built by fascists with the goal of creating a dependent, de-skilled, submissive populace and ending Democracy. HTH.

Matthew Kenworthy Mar 17

ESO Mar 16

Reflect Orbital and SpaceX have filed proposals with the US Federal Communications Commission that threaten ground-based astronomy. We submitted replies and collaborated with the UK Royal Astronomical Society & the International Astronomical Union for their responses. 1/

#astrodon #astronomy #astrophysics #space #science

Matthew Kenworthy Mar 6

Hanno Rein Mar 6

Pro-tip for the genAI users out there. If you use genAI to write an e-mail to your professor, remove the prompt from the e-mail before sending it.

Matthew Kenworthy Jun 4, 2025

Together with Sebastiaan Haffert our review on “High-Contrast Coronagraphy” is out - writing an ARA&A review has been on my academic bucket list, and I’m very proud of the result. It uses the showyourwork! framework, making it a completely reproducible paper. #FAIR #astrodon #exoplanets https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.02907

Matthew Kenworthy Nov 3, 2022

#Introduction

I'm Matt, and I'm an associate professor of astronomy ✨ at #Leiden observatory. I study #exoplanets by Direct Imaging 📸 - my group has discovered three exoplanets 🪐🪐🪐 to date, and two of these have been imaged by the #JWST!

I also look for giant ring systems around other planets 🪐 by seeing the shadows they cast towards the Earth.

I post about recent #astronomy research and enjoy doing #outreach.

#Astrodon

Website	https://kenworthy.space/
Location	The Netherlands
Pronouns	He/him
Groove	is in the heart, ooooh yeah na na na na