Matthew Kenworthy

@mattkenworthy
1.4K Followers
364 Following
48 Posts
Associate professor at Leiden Observatory taking photos of planets around other stars and seeing the shadows of rings around other worlds.
Websitehttps://kenworthy.space/
LocationThe Netherlands
PronounsHe/him
Grooveis in the heart, ooooh yeah na na na na
Matthew Kenworthy3d ago
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 Kenworthy5d ago
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 KenworthyMar 18
Alan BoyleMar 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 KenworthyMar 18
Show threadjwzMar 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 KenworthyMar 17
ESOMar 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 KenworthyMar 6
Hanno ReinMar 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 KenworthyMar 4
Jef PoskanzerMar 4
Matthew KenworthyMar 2
Show threadProf. Sam LawlerMar 1

Ready for a horror show that is different than the current news cycle?

This is code that @hannorein, Aaron Boley, and I put together for modelling Starlinks. We scaled up the brightness based on what we think could be the size of these stupid new "AI datacenters" that SpaceX says they will launch a million of, and used the orbits posted on @planet4589.bsky.social's website

I'll walk you through this plot in the following posts.

Matthew KenworthyJun 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 KenworthyNov 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