Dr. Tanya Harrison

PSCW 2026

🚨🚀🚨 NEW SPACE CONFERENCE ALERT 🚨🚀🚨

The Planetary Science Community Workshop, organized by @theplanetaryguy.bsky.social & @millionconcepts.com, will be held in Louisville, KY on April 14-16 and is aimed at bringing together academia, industry & gov.

More here: planetaryworkshop.org

Dr. Tanya Harrison – Medium Read writing from Dr. Tanya Harrison on Medium. Professional Martian who's worked on rocks and robots on the Red Planet, now thinking about curiosity closer to home.

I went through all of my old Medium posts today & removed the paywall so they're free to read for anyone now! From nerding out over Mars to discussing the pyramid scheme of academia to what it's like being a queer+disabled scientist, check out the archives here:

tanyaofmars.medium.com

🤩

Reflections and Returning to Writing (Or, Another Post About Self-Exploration Rather Than Space… It’s been almost exactly two years since I last posted here.

"Friend link" for folks without a Medium account: tanyaofmars.medium.com/reflections-...

Reflections and Returning to Writing (Or, Another Post About Self-Exploration Rather Than Space… It’s been almost exactly two years since I last posted here.

After a 2-year hiatus, I finally posted on Medium again (and after like 4 months off Bluesky, hello again!).

My goal for 2026 is to write more, and this felt like a good impetus to restart the blog and also explain where my head was at during my time away:

tanyaofmars.medium.com/reflections-...

Title screen for 'Moonrise Sunrise' shows a moonlit Earth from ISS showing HTV-X1 cargo module and robotic arm in the foreground. Red light shines on ISS. Approaching dawn & zodiacal light illuminates the horizon and a star filled night sky.

'Moonrise Sunrise'

2,308 images photographed by Jonny Kim are repaired, remastered & retimed to create this 6x real time video footage.

Credit: Jonny Kim / ISS / NASA / ESRS / Seán Doran

youtu.be/PjMRIzXn-RU

Hey Martians, did I mention we now also have a video of epic Phobos passing over a Martian dust storm near Pavonis Mons? 🌪️🌋🥔

Video & full info: flic.kr/p/2rNN8wk
Credit: ESA/DLR/FUBerlin/AndreaLuck CC BY

@esa.int Mars Express HRSC
300 MP Photo quoted below
Easy zoom: easyzoom.com/image/674026

Episode 11: Mars Photography and Finding Your Way in Space with Dr. Tanya Harrison — Art Astra Podcast Join Emily and Alexa as they chat with planetary scientist and space industry strategist Dr. Tanya Harrison about Mars, science communication, and finding your path in the space industry.

In episode 11, Emily & Alexa chat with
planetary scientist and space industry strategist, Dr. Tanya Harrison @tanyaofmars.bsky.social, about Mars, science communication, and finding your path in the space industry. Available wherever you get your podcasts!

www.artastra.space/episodes/mar...

A serene celestial scene with soft and subtle blue clouds and a scattering of stars. The three brightest stars are nestled within a central hollow of the nebula. Their light gently reflects from the nearby cloud rim, shadowing into a vignette at the periphery. A few of the stars stand out with an orange glow. There is a tiny but noteworthy orange "hamburger" of an accreting star in the left half of the image. Looking closer, one can see the "buns" are actually broad cones of light and the "patty" is the shadow of the accreting disk of dust. The star itself is unseen. This is actually the subject of study for the image.

Worked on this yesterday with my new found free time with the kid starting school.

From HST Proposal 17067,
The diversity of protoplanetary disks: Imaging a complete sample of edge-on disks in four nearby star-forming regions

Principal Investigator: Gaspard Duchene

flic.kr/p/2rnisMm

I realize broad science-literacy problems cannot generally be solved just by shoving more facts at people but I really wish more people understood that the entire purpose and mechanism of a vaccine is to educate your OWN immune system, making it about the most "natural" medical intervention possible

Tanya Harrison: Roving on Mars - Eos This planetary geologist has worked on nearly every Mars rover while connecting government, universities, the private sector, and the public.

Driving a rover was a dream come true for @tanyaofmars.bsky.social. Story by @BowlerHatScience.org.

buff.ly/IhAhhKr

Read more in our August issue, out now: bit.ly/Eos-Aug2025

Thanks for sharing a bit of my career story! 🧡

In Conversation with Sian Proctor

I love my SpaceX Inspiration4 spacesuit & can’t believe she’ll be on display in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum next week in the new Futures in Space exhibit. I’ll be there Monday from 11-12 for a Q&A with Space History curator Emily Margolis. Come say hi! 👋🏾👩🏾‍🚀🚀🙏🏽

airandspace.si.edu/whats-on/eve...

Who is responsible for heritage in outer space? A new international agreement raises questions about what counts as cultural property in space, how it should be protected and who should do the protecting

It's International Moon Day! Since the 1950s, humans have been sending missions to the Moon. This rich archaeological record is under threat from proposed mining and settlement activities.
#InternationalMoonDay 🧪 🏺 #SpaceArchaeology

"i asked grok" "i asked chatgpt" yeah well i asked carl sagan and he said the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge 🧪

12 different ink and watercolor paintings in various science-related themes

Improve your surroundings with #sciart
Latest paintings: artologica.etsy.com

😊

I never used one when I lived there either for that very reason. 😂 But these days it comes in handy when I have to travel for work carrying around a bag with electronics gear in it. And with the annoyance of wearing glasses in the rain.

"...anyone who actually understands LLMs knows that it can’t achieve new ways of thinking. It’s just putting together words in the most statistically likely way, forming connections that may sound like a well-thought-out argument but are actually not...'intelligence' as humans would define it."

Creative work in general pays far less than people think it does, especially relative to the notability one can have. The correlation between "fame" and "income" is rather shaky, especially the further down you go on the fame power curve. Lots of "world famous" creators are broke as hell.

I got one of these the first time around and can say, being from the rainy Pacific Northwest, it's legit the best umbrella I've ever owned. 10/10 would recommend if you're in the market for an ultra-nerdy umbrella! ❤️

A large and long brown cloud system, sorta resembling Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo.

A large brown barge, a cyclonic region in the North Hemisphere, on Jupiter as it appeared to Juno on Perijove 18.

flic.kr/p/2iV5zCS

(I want to spread the word about this to as many folks as possible to get this data into the hands of researchers, so any reposts are greatly appreciated!)

Rendering showing GHGSat satellites orbiting Earth with visualizations of plumes in rainbow colour ramps. The GHGSat and NASA logos are visible with the text "Methane Data via NASA CSDA. Learn more on ghgsat.com".

🚨🚨🚨 FREE DATA ALERT! 🚨🚨🚨

If you're a federally funded researcher in the U.S., you can access GHGSat's high-resolution methane emissions data for free through NASA's Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition Program! 🌎

More info on how to apply here: bit.ly/3I4ldrs

New insights into the origin of ice: chronological implication from 14 permanently shadowed craters on Mercury The polar regions of Mercury are characterised by areas known as permanently shadowed regions (PSRs), which provide stable thermal conditions for wate…

Permanently shadowed craters on Mercury: amazing results!

• Older polar craters host more ice, suggesting steady-state processes drive long-term accumulation.
• Younger radar-bright craters imply recent resurfacing
• Two young, ice-rich craters suggest episodic delivery from comets or asteroids. 🧪

Under attack: How humanity is losing the night sky Losing the dark isn’t just about the stars. It has dire consequences for human health as well as the natural world.

Light pollution, both on the ground and from megaconstellations, is cutting us off from one of the only universal things humanity shares across the globe: Visual access to the night sky. And it has serious biological, scientific, and cultural consequences:

www.cbc.ca/newsinteract...

Another old 2018-ish piece

#pixelart #art

The administration’s anti-consensus Mars plan will fail The administration’s anti-consensus Mars plan will fail

"To associate Mars exploration with the devastation of American space science...to tie it to the alienation of our allies and partners, is to doom the effort to failure. Mars deserves better." - @caseydreier.bsky.social

Humans deserve better too.

spacenews.com/the-administ...

🌟🇪🇬 WITNESS HISTORY! Join Dr. Alfredo Carpineti on an 8-day Egypt expedition (July 29 - Aug 5, 2027) for the LONGEST solar eclipse of the century! ☀️🌑 Over 6 mins of totality near Luxor's ancient wonders! ✨
Do not miss it!
pastpreservers.com/witness-hist... #ancientEgypt @drcarpineti.bsky.social

I was a NASA Space Grant Student in my junior year of undergrad, it was through this program that I really started to see what a career in planetary science could look like and where I could fit within it.