Chris Lintott
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chrislintott.bsky.social
Chris Lintott
@chrislintott.bsky.social
14K followers 1.3K following 2K posts
Astronomer, writer and zookeeper. Oxford, Gresham and the Zooniverse. The human half of the Dog Stars podcast. New book: 'Our Accidental Universe' (UK/rest of world) and 'Accidental Astronomy (US) now out.
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chrislintott.bsky.social
Chris Lintott @chrislintott.bsky.social · Jul 24
As a present for my 25th anniversary on #SkyatNight, the team made a montage for me, complete with dodgy hair, odd shirt choices and all the rest... Enjoy! 🔭 🛰️ 🧪
chrislintott.bsky.social
Preach. Stop talking about the Moon. Just look at it. Perfection.
theatlantic.com The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · 3h
The moon seems to have a dedicated PR team, with news outlets hyping Wolf Moons, Super Blood Moons, Cold Moons, and more, Kaitlyn Tiffany writes. She explores what's behind the moon hype:
Stop Talking About the Moon
Just look at it.
bit.ly
January 3, 2026 at 2:50 PM
Reposted by Chris Lintott
owengwynne.bsky.social
Two images, one taken near perihelion, and again near aphelion showing the difference in apparent size (about 3% difference between them). A fixed optical system (Seestar 50) means the image scale is constant.
A composite image of the Sun (with sunspots) - top half taken near perihelion, the bottom half near aphelion showing the difference in apparent size (about 3% difference between them)
January 3, 2026 at 12:28 PM
Reposted by Chris Lintott
captkarnstein.bsky.social
So the old orbit dies today?

Ahem ...

*drum roll*

Someone write an orbituary.
chrislintott.bsky.social Chris Lintott @chrislintott.bsky.social · 8h
At 5.15pm GMT today, the Earth will be at perihelion, the closest point to the Sun in our annual round.

This should be the start of the year. Happy new orbit, everyone!
January 3, 2026 at 10:52 AM
Reposted by Chris Lintott
oldenoughtosay.com
There may be snow on the ground but today we are closer to the sun than any other day! Here in the northern hemisphere it may be cold and dark, but remember, light and warmth are always closer than they appear
chrislintott.bsky.social Chris Lintott @chrislintott.bsky.social · 8h
At 5.15pm GMT today, the Earth will be at perihelion, the closest point to the Sun in our annual round.

This should be the start of the year. Happy new orbit, everyone!
January 3, 2026 at 9:52 AM
chrislintott.bsky.social
At 5.15pm GMT today, the Earth will be at perihelion, the closest point to the Sun in our annual round.

This should be the start of the year. Happy new orbit, everyone!
January 3, 2026 at 9:48 AM
chrislintott.bsky.social
Quietly proud that we published 351 Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society last year, a new record. Short, moderated contributions on topics from multiple star systems (Vol 9, No 1: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...) to SETI and 3I/ATLAS (iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...) cc @aas.org
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January 1, 2026 at 11:54 AM
chrislintott.bsky.social
Yikes.
pbarmby.bsky.social Pauline Barmby @pbarmby.bsky.social · 7d
Holy moly. That is not where you want half of your dome shutter to be. Glad no one was hurt.
dustinmulvaney.bsky.social Dustin Mulvaney @dustinmulvaney.bsky.social · 7d
Wow, xmas morning wind gusts up to 114 mph on Mount Hamilton, east of San Jose. Damaged the Lick Observatory. 🔭 🧪 bsky.app/profile/look...
December 26, 2025 at 9:52 PM
chrislintott.bsky.social
And it’s clear! (At least in Oxford)
chrislintott.bsky.social Chris Lintott @chrislintott.bsky.social · 10d
Parents & anyone else up early on Christmas morning: there’s a bright pass of the International Space Station over the UK, just after 6.15.

Well, I say it’s the ISS. Could be Santa heading home…

Exact timings for where you are at www.heavens-above.com/PassSummary....
ISS - Visible Passes
Satellite predictions and other astronomical data customised for your location.
www.heavens-above.com
December 25, 2025 at 5:48 AM
chrislintott.bsky.social
Americans and others who do not know: tonight is the night for #duvetknowitschristmas. Enjoy.
December 24, 2025 at 6:56 PM
chrislintott.bsky.social
Parents & anyone else up early on Christmas morning: there’s a bright pass of the International Space Station over the UK, just after 6.15.

Well, I say it’s the ISS. Could be Santa heading home…

Exact timings for where you are at www.heavens-above.com/PassSummary....
ISS - Visible Passes
Satellite predictions and other astronomical data customised for your location.
www.heavens-above.com
December 24, 2025 at 7:53 AM
Reposted by Chris Lintott
redshiftless.bsky.social
A little 3I/ATLAS update building on @marshall-eubanks.bsky.social's nice RNAAS from last week. Given its non-grav acceleration and the rate at which it's losing mass, you can work out its size. The answer: a diameter around 1 km, very typical for comets. arxiv.org/abs/2512.18341 🔭 🧪
The figure from the linked paper (three panels, each a plot of some quantity vs time in days). Here's an expanded verision of the corresponding caption: Non-gravitational accelerations (NGAs) and their corresponding mass loss rates. Top panel: Non-gravitational acceleration from the JPL Small-Body Database or the final line of Table 1 in T. M. Eubanks et al. (2025). Reported errorbars are shown, and extrapolations into the future or prior to October are shown as dashed lines. The figure shows 5 lines, converging on an acceleration of order 10^-8 au per day^2 for 3I/ATLAS. Middle Panel: NGAs from the top panel are translated into mass loss rates assuming 1 km diameters, with ζ = 0.5 and ρ = 0.5 g cm^−3. Additionally the JPL Dec 17 solution for other diameters (0.5 km and 2 km) are shown as dotted lines. Data points are from JWST (M. A. Cordiner et al. 2025), SPHEREx (C. M. Lisse et al. 2025), ALMA (N. X. Roth et al. 2025), TRAPPIST-North (E. Jehin et al. 2025), and Swift (Z. Xing et al. 2025). The plot shows a variety of data points scattered around the lines, mostly of order 10^4-10^5 g/s, with the 1 km curves passing close to the data points that measure CO2, and mostly above the other datapoints, depending on the model. Bottom Panel: CO2 production rates measured by JWST are treated as upper and lower limits, and observations where CO2 is inaccessible are shown as lower limits. Given these constraints, the range of Mdot values and hence diameters for two different reported NGA solutions is shown. The JPL solution is unable to simultaneously fit the upper limit from JWST and the lower limit from TRAPPIST-North. The plot shows the same thing as the middle panel, but with some additional interpretation, namely that some points should be considered upper limits and some lower limits. A red shaded region labelled Eubanks+ Accel shows a range of diameters from 820 to 1050 meters. A gray region labeled JPL Accel shows a diameter of 1100 m.
December 23, 2025 at 1:05 PM
chrislintott.bsky.social
Heading into what's already looking like a, let's say, challenging 2026, this lovely little piece stands for science too. Do the work. It'll help.
dansinker.com dan sinker @dansinker.com · 13d
This year we've been told over and over that there are shortcuts to Doing The Work. But there aren't, not really.

Here on the shortest day of the longest year I wrote a little defense of Doing The Work. dansinker.com/posts/2025-1...
A note in defense of Doing The Work, written on the shortest day of the longest year | dansinker.com
dansinker.com
December 21, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Reposted by Chris Lintott
sarahkendrew.bsky.social
Great research opportunity at a world leading institute 🔭
mpi-astro.bsky.social Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie @mpi-astro.bsky.social · 16d
Are you a bachelor or master student anywhere in the world, and would like to come to us to work full-time on a supervised research project? Applications for the 2026 MPIA Summer Internship are open now!
Summer internships
www.mpia.de
December 21, 2025 at 3:08 PM
Reposted by Chris Lintott
statto.bsky.social
The days will start getting longer…

…wait for it…

…now!

Winter solstice 2025, December 21st, 15:03 UTC
December 21, 2025 at 3:03 PM
chrislintott.bsky.social
Anyone tuning in to see me talking about 3I/ATLAS on Sky News should know I’ve just managed to put my right foot into a bowl of mulligatawny soup while setting up.
December 19, 2025 at 1:31 PM
chrislintott.bsky.social
Always nice to hear from fans.
An email which has the subject line 3I/ATLAS and which says Will your ego ever allow you to admit you're FOS? Your miserable attempt to calm the masses with your sanctimonious doublespeak - is in vain. Will you crawl out from under your rock when it's proven to be undeniably NHI? Or, will you desperately try to save face? You Sir, are a Zealot. Wheeled out and paid for by the establishment to distract with a slight of hand. You fool only the foolish.
December 19, 2025 at 9:58 AM
Reposted by Chris Lintott
drfunkyspoon.bsky.social
Europa Clipper has imaged interstellar comet 3I/Atlas with its ultraviolet spectrometer!
This is only the 3rd interstellar object discovered so far: an icy wanderer from a distant planetary system, and now we’ll learn more about what it’s made of!!
🔭

www.swri.org/newsroom/pre...
A blurry blue image of an interstellar comet. A diagram showing the path of the comet and Clipper’s view, looking sunward from its vantage point out past Mars.
December 18, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Reposted by Chris Lintott
astrokiwi.bsky.social
Accepted papers thus far - several more still in peer review, or underway
December 17, 2025 at 9:49 PM
chrislintott.bsky.social
Just because you keep saying the same things doesn’t make you any more right. #NoNotHimTheOtherOne #WhatDoWeCallASubtweetOnBluesky
December 16, 2025 at 7:17 PM
Reposted by Chris Lintott
tkarispe.bsky.social
@chrislintott.bsky.social and I were talking about making cute cartoon versions of past spacecraft, and he mentioned encounters with the Great Galactic Ghoul, so here's what really happened to Mars Polar Lander, rest its motherboard. #space #Mars
December 15, 2025 at 9:29 PM
Reposted by Chris Lintott
cosmicshambles.com
Today would be a great day to sign up to become a Cosmic Shambles Patreon. No reason… patreon.com/cosmicshambles @robinince.bsky.social
Get more from The Cosmic Shambles Network on Patreon
Independent Creators of Content for the Curious
patreon.com
December 13, 2025 at 10:08 AM
chrislintott.bsky.social
All missions should have cartoon versions of their spacecraft, and these cartoons should be on all slides. These are the rules, as shown here by JAXA’s Go Murakami talking about BepiColombo.
December 12, 2025 at 4:47 PM
chrislintott.bsky.social
Louise Devoy presenting the tool every astronomer needs: a spider fork.
A woman in black trousers and grey jacket points at a slide with a metal object, like a fork with two tines.
December 12, 2025 at 4:16 PM
chrislintott.bsky.social
Wait, seismologists have a unit of slowness‽? s/km, apparently...
December 12, 2025 at 2:43 PM
chrislintott.bsky.social
Helen Grant (Kent) is now talking at @royalastrosoc.bsky.social on sample return from flying through the watery plumes of Enceladus and the volcanic plumes of Io. What missions those would be!
December 12, 2025 at 2:11 PM