Mark Marley

I ended up having to pull a few strings ahead of my visit in a few hours.

It was 20 years ago today...

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter arrived at Mars with the best camera ever sent to another planet: HiRISE! A massive thanks to all our team @uarizona.bsky.social , JPL and @baesystems.com who keep this adventure going on strong. 😃 #uahirise

Running my home scope tonight. Bumped into Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 89830 up near Ursa Major. It was discovered in 2002 by the LINEAR survey. This is a huge PHA, with a diameter of ~5km. 🔭

a man with long hair and a beard holds a glass of milk ALT: a man with long hair and a beard holds a glass of milk

Being on vacation in Hawaii from Arizona while everyone complains about arrival of DST.

The undergraduate textbook:

An Introduction to Planetary Astrophysics: Exoplanets and the Solar System in Context,

has now been sent to my editor! 4+ years in the making so far. 270 pages (good for a 1-semester class). Now on to peer review! Hoping for the printing press in Spring/Summer 2027.

Nature Report, Killed by Trump, Is Released Independently

When the US govt terminated the National Nature Asst, @phillevin.bsky.social + the author team were determined not to let that stop them.

They re-organized, set up an advisory committee, found funding…and now the brand new Nature Record is open for public comment. 👏🌳👏🌲

Check it out (link below)!

Special event to be attacked by a quail!

We're hiring a Research Engineer at the U. Arizona's Imaging Technology Lab (ITL; itl.arizona.edu). If you have hands-on lab experience and are interested in working on cutting-edge tech development for astronomy / scientific sensors, I encourage you to apply!

arizona.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

New NASA Asteroid Observations Eliminate Chance of 2032 Lunar Impact - NASA Science Using data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope observations collected on Feb. 18 and 26, experts from NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at the

Hey, so, we have some news about something that won't be happening in 2032.

I poked an ice pick in my eye in 3rd grade. Every eye doctor exam since includes the phrase “you have no idea how lucky you were”.

Brown dwarfs.

My color observations of the Total Lunar Eclipse of March 3, 2026, painted in Photoshop. I used a 10 inch Dobsonian telescope to watch the shadow's progress and the colors that I saw inside the shadow. I furiously sketched on printed Moon images the areas where distinct colors appeared, writing them on the sketch within their borders. I also made some tonal sketches, and obtained telephoto photos to help establish the tonal values within the shadow. The idea is to preserve a visual impression, as most photography of these events is processed to make the shadow colors too saturated and bright compared to how they appear. This was even more true in the days of film, when virtually all Lunar eclipses photographed a saturated red orange. I was busy every moment, enjoying the view but dedicated to recording my visual impression. All the while I'm listening to WWV on a portable short wave radio, the digital voice of the Time God. Each sketch had the time noted, and after Totality ended the Moon proceeded to leave the round Earth shadow and steadily return to normal as dawn broke. After the telescope, chairs tripods etc were put away I then started reducing my sketches and photos to a set of digital paintings of the event. I worked in this digital painting for 11 hours. I have been paying attention to and making color records of Lunar eclipses since 1975, when I saw what is still the reddest bright totality I have ever seen. From oil paint to acrylic to digital painting I have carried on this tradition. #Sciart

This morning's Lunar Eclipse was fairly typical, with orange tan predominating in the shadow through binoculars and to the naked eye. Through the telescope the variety of regional colors could be examined as they came and went. This is my painted portrayal of the colors seen inside the Earth shadow.

My long largely hypothetical textbook manifests!

No path to purchase physical copies in the US yet unfortunately (these are author copies), but you can buy the e-book anywhere!

Worlds Next Door. III. Indirect Evidence for Enhanced Atmospheric Metallicity and/or the Presence of Water Clouds in the Nearest Jupiter-analog $ε$ Eri b We present the most sensitive direct imaging search for the nearest ($d = 3.2$ pc) Jupiter-analog exoplanet, $ε$ Eri b, with JWST/NIRCam coronagraphy between 4-5 $μ$m (F444W). We achieve a 5$σ$ contra...

Today's arXiv has a notable preprint: humanity's latest direct imaging attempt of the nearest Jupiter analogue exoplanet!

arxiv.org/abs/2602.23423

It's a non-detection. Which implies it may be similar to Jupiter (high-Z or water clouds)!

Also the star is expected to be older (1.1 ± 0.1 Ga) now.

I asked someone who knows Vought if he had ever been outside or to a National Park and basically got a shrug as an answer.

Coyote biting a garden hose.

Coyote sniffing a pipe fitting.

I’ve been surprised at how little interest the critters have shown in my Rube Goldberg watering hole equipment. Coyote today is first to check it out, including giving the hose a bite for good measure.

Great point! Going to use this.

Hey #sciart! This is "Punching Above (Normalized)". This piece is a view of the Earth from space through the lens of my plasma physics research. The piece reveals Earth's true intention is to become the next Jupiter. It won 2nd place at the Art of Planetary Science show, open this weekend!

'Fire in the Sky' reveals the core of Earth's ionosphere and the dynamics that result when unstoppable forces meet. Come check it out in person at the Art of Planetary Science show this weekend at the U. of Arizona! #sciart lpl.arizona.edu/art/

My daughter is a “climate change adaptation specialist” for an environmental consulting firm. She does things like tell counties what infrastructure will need to be rebuilt to handle bigger floods or sea level rise etc.

Oh boy. My friend is a fellow alum. How could it be otherwise?

I appreciate your support!

Mathematically inclined friend texts to congratulate me on upcoming "last ever" power of 2 birthday, "medical miracles not withstanding".

Art show flyer

OH DANG. Tonight is the night. See you at the Art of Planetary Science! Come say hi, I have stickers. 😎 #Tucson #Arizona

Mapping the Cloud-driven Atmospheric Dynamics and Chemistry of an Isolated Exoplanet Analog with Harmonic Signatures Mapping the Cloud-driven Atmospheric Dynamics and Chemistry of an Isolated Exoplanet Analog with Harmonic Signatures, Plummer, Michael K., Cocchini, Francis P., Kearns, Peter A., McCarthy, Allison M., Artigau, Étienne, Cowan, Nicolas B., Akhmetshyn, Roman, Vos, Johanna M., Nasedkin, Evert, Visscher, Channon, Benneke, Björn, Doyon, René, Metchev, Stanimir A., Rowe, Jason F., Suárez, Genaro

Publication day for our paper on the T2.5 brown dwarf/exoplanet analog SIMP0136! We find cloud formation appears to drive upper atmospheric temperature and chemical structure. We also debut a new, novel method for vertical mapping extrasolar atmospheric dynamics.

iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

In addition to the scammy conferences I get a lot of "I was browsing Wikipedia and was shocked to see that you don't have an entry. We can help you with that." and the salutation is "Dear Dr Martin".

It got to the point where I said to myself, “he must have been working with an exoplanet scientist”. And then I immediately leafed to the acknowledgments to find out that was true.

Physicist friend of mine said his first midterm last week was the worst student performance he had ever seen, likely because they had been having ChatGPT do all the homework

Big congrats to NOM group member, Elana Alevy, whose first paper with has been published in Applied Optics as of today! Elana led this work demonstrating how our multiphoton microscope can provide unparalleled 3D fluorescence images and spectral analysis of gemstones. doi.org/10.1364/AO.585412

Art show flyer

Not sure how many #Tucson followers I have here, but this Friday evening is a free art show called The Art of Planetary Science at University of Arizona. Come say hi if you see me! I’ll give you a sticker 😄