A. Suárez Mascareño
@asuarezmascareno.com
Astronomy postdoc at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC, Spain). Hunting low mass exoplanets. Member of the ESPRESSO, NIRPS, HARPS-3, ANDES, and CHORUS, science teams. Co-PI of the IACSAT-1.
Physics
87%
Engineering
10%
The visit continues. Today i'm back at the Observatory of Geneva after more than 6 years.
I'm visiting Geneva for a NIRPS project meeting and so far I've been indulging in some nostalgic vacation. I went to check on my old apartment, and visited two of the same restaurants I used to go when I lived here
Genetically Engineered Babies Are Banned. Tech Titans Are Trying to Make One Anyway.
Silicon Valley startups are pushing the boundaries of reproductive genetics, hoping to prevent diseases as well as improve chances for a high IQ and other traits.
www.wsj.com
It's a tough time for cautionary tales, as rich assholes have the means to see how they benefit and make them come true
I shouldn't need to hide stuff that opens a path to a future potentially important result because senior scientists cannot keep their cool for a while (or few years, in this case).
I would assume listening to me about the shortcomings of my own work would be a good idea. That should be considered a lower limit of shortcomings. They should assume more shortcomings than those I explicitly and preemptively explain, not less.
a man with a beard is touching his forehead with his hands
ALT: a man with a beard is touching his forehead with his hands
media.tenor.com
Ugg... I never learn... I do something potentially cool and send it to a collaborator saying "ok, so this are the results with the current data, but I have no control over biases. We need XX additional more data to be sure". And I always get the response of OMG WE SUBMIT TO NATURE RIGHT NOW
At outreach events, they take much better pictures than at most conferences. Maybe just add a couple € to the register fee to pay a photographer for three-four days.
Reposted by A. Suárez Mascareño, Aviel Roshwald
At least I like the presentation I've made lol now off to get dinner
Sometimes I say yes to stuff that seems exciting (e.g. presenting in an outreach festival) and then I realized really should have said no (e.g. when I'm preparing my presentation on a Saturday evening).
New article dropping today on a very important and timely topic — the potential planetary system of Zeta² Reticuli, and what it might mean for planetary security #exoplanets 🔭
In space there will be no need to scream - Limits to the presence of giant planets in the $ζ^2$ Ret system
The search for life beyond our Solar system has been a long and difficult endeavour. The majority of current efforts are focused on the potential detection of biosignatures. However, their detection a...
arxiv.org
Likely the silliest use of decades high precision radial velocity measurements
Soon, we will need to get high-schoolers to write the papers, to make sure they have 5-10 when they start their MsC...
At my institute we reached a point in which without a first-author paper it is almost impossible to enter the PhD program. I think it's absurd.
After analysing 29 years of RV observations, we find that Calpamos likely does not exist, which also means LV-426 probably doesn’t either. The reported transmission from Zeta² Reticuli never happened, and the Nostromo never picked it up. Meaning Ripley, finally, gets to go home #exoplanets 🔭
Can more massive planets still hide if the system? Only if it was face-on, which we find unlikely. Combining the measured v sin i (Santos et al. 2004) with our rotation period gives an inclination of ≈45°, which rules out planets more massive than 2.4–23 Me #exoplanets 🔭
What about other planets? We applied state of the art techniques to evaluate the presence of any additional signal in the data, finding nothing. In fact, we could establish that no planets with m sin i larger than 2-20 Me (depending on period) are present in the system. #exoplanets 🔭
We found no signal at the proposed period, but set a strong upper limit. An amplitude of ≤57 cm/s. For a 10 MJ planet to appear so small, it would need an inclination < 0.13°. Based on the statistics of the inclination of stellar axes, it has probability between 10⁻⁵ and 10⁻⁷. #exoplanets 🔭
The main challenge: could Calpamos really exist within this data? With data of such a low scatter it was clear that if the orbit was edge-on it cannot exist. But what about with less favorably alignments? #exoplanets 🔭
We first identified the known magnetic cycle and link it to a previously proposed ambiguous RV signal. The cycle in Zeta2 Reticuli has a period of 8.7 years. The star rotates every 20.8 days, slightly faster than the Sun. #exoplanets 🔭
We collected 322 nightly-binned radial velocity measurements from five different instruments, spanning 29 years. The data have an RMS of 8.1 m/s and a median uncertainty of 94 cm/s. In addition, we collected HARPS activity proxies to evaluate the effect of stellar activity. #exoplanets 🔭
Calpamos was described as a giant planet with a mass of 10 jupiter masses, orbiting with a period of 409 days (Brimmicombe-Wood et al. 1995). If favourably aligned, the RV signal of such a planet should have already been detected (Laliotis et al. 2023, Harada et al. 2024) #exoplanets 🔭
According to Scott et al. (1979), the system could include a giant planet orbiting the habitable zone, hosting at least three Earth-like exomoons. The planet was named Calpamos (Burleson et al. 2013), with two of its moons named LV-426 and LV-223. #exoplanets 🔭
In particular, Scott et al. (1979) proposed that a planetary system around Zeta² Reticuli, a nearby solar-type star, listed in the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) catalogue, might be the source of a mysterious transmission.Could such a system actually exist? #exoplanets 🔭
Still, the absence of evidence hasn’t stopped speculative interpretations of astrophysical data or even discussions about possible threats to Earth (Scott et al. 1979; Cameron et al. 1986; Loeb 2022; Hibberd et al. 2025). #exoplanets 🔭
An alternative path is the search for technosignatures. Several efforts (e.g. SETI) are ongoing, but no confirmed detection exists yet. Even the most suggestive signals have turned out to be astrophysical in nature (e.g. the Wow! signal; Méndez et al. 2024) #exoplanets 🔭
As many of you know, we’ve recently surpassed 6000 confirmed exoplanets. Much of this enormous effort focuses on finding worlds where we might one day detect signs of life. But biosignatures have proven elusive and often ambiguous (e.g. Madhusudhan 2025; Taylor 2025; Luque 2025) #exoplanets 🔭
In space there will be no need to scream - Limits to the presence of giant planets in the $ζ^2$ Ret system
The search for life beyond our Solar system has been a long and difficult endeavour. The majority of current efforts are focused on the potential detection of biosignatures. However, their detection a...
arxiv.org
New article dropping today on a very important and timely topic — the potential planetary system of Zeta² Reticuli, and what it might mean for planetary security #exoplanets 🔭
So... Silent Hill F... Not what I expected.
I think I will make it in time. This is ridiculous, I love it, and it might just be me lol
Reposted by A. Suárez Mascareño
A dawn delivery to the Isaac Newton Telescope this morning ... HARPS3 shipping containers arrive!!!