John Debes
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johndebes.bsky.social
John Debes
@johndebes.bsky.social
1.3K followers 470 following 850 posts
ESA/AURA astronomer at STScI. Opinions my own. I study exoplanets and disks around stars.
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johndebes.bsky.social
John Debes @johndebes.bsky.social · Jan 16
I cracked 1000 followers on Blusky recently and excited to talk to folks about astronomy, exoplanets, being kind to your community, and of course furbabies
Reposted by John Debes
stsci.edu
↖️ The Space Telescope Science Institute is the Science Operations Center for NASA's Webb, Hubble, and the upcoming Roman space telescopes, and the Mission Operations Center for Webb. 🔭 We help humanity explore the universe with advanced space telescopes and a large data archive.
January 2, 2026 at 7:56 PM
Reposted by John Debes
astrodame.bsky.social
Happy new year everyone!
January 2, 2026 at 1:58 AM
Reposted by John Debes
melina-iras07572.bsky.social
Light echo of the #supernova Cassiopeia A with #JWST NIRCam. Latest image from 2024-12-30. 🔭

Filters: F300M, F360M, F444W from program: www.stsci.edu/jwst-program...
A slightly red light echo in front of green background clouds, stars and galaxies. The echo consists of parallel lines and clumps. It stretches from the bottom left to the top right.
December 31, 2025 at 4:57 AM
Reposted by John Debes
aplante.com
how it started vs. how it’s going
carbonara my sweet baby 2025 lemon pig on the day of his birth, plump, moisturized, sunshine yellow, eager to please. smiling with a delicious canadian loonie in his mouth. carbonara exactly one year later. he yearns for death, but won’t ask for it.
December 31, 2025 at 10:16 PM
Reposted by John Debes
apnews.com
High-level Department of Justice officials pushed to prosecute Kilmar Abrego Garcia after he fought a deportation error, judge’s order says.
DOJ pushed to prosecute Kilmar Abrego Garcia only after mistaken deportation, judge's order says
A newly unsealed order in the criminal case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia reveals that high level Justice Department officials pushed for his indictment only after he was mistakenly deported and then ordered returned to the U.S.
bit.ly
December 30, 2025 at 7:31 PM
Reposted by John Debes
startswithabang.bsky.social
Prove Einstein’s relativity for yourself for under $100

Einstein's relativity has been misunderstood by more people than almost any correct physical theory ever.

Here's how you can prove it for yourself, DIY-style, for cheap.
bigthink.com/starts-with-...
#physics #space #astro
Prove Einstein's relativity for yourself for under $100
Particles are everywhere, including particles from space that stream through the human body. Here's how they prove Einstein's relativity.
bigthink.com
December 30, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Reposted by John Debes
deschscoveries.bsky.social
Very cool! It should also break one Harvard astronomer’s heart to learn this is not a 20 km- diameter object. Since we’d expect to see thousands of smaller comets for each comet that big, this wouldn’t be an interstellar comet. But, turns out, it’s a smol, D=1 km, statistically likely what? COMET.
redshiftless.bsky.social John Forbes @redshiftless.bsky.social · 10d
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 3:35 PM
Reposted by John Debes
asrivkin.bsky.social
🔭
51st.news The 51st @51st.news · 4d
In Mount Pleasant, a tight-knit D.C. neighborhood where immigrants are deeply embedded into the social fabric, the Trump administration’s targeting of migrants has shaken the community.

This poignant story about the impact from @samdelgado.bsky.social was one of our team's favorites this year.
Mount Pleasant’s sidewalk astronomer might have to leave his home
But Gael Gomez wants people to keep looking up — at the sky and in life.
51st.news
December 29, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Reposted by John Debes
esa.int
📷 This NASA/ESA #Hubble Space Telescope image shows the N159 star-forming complex in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that is the largest of the small galaxies that orbit our Milky Way 🧪🔭

🔗 esahubble.org/images/potw2...
A field filled with stars and covered by clouds of gas and dust. In the centre, a thick column of dark black dust blocks light from stars that light it up from behind. More clouds behind those stars are illuminated in pale colours. Complex, layered filaments of red dust lie to the left and right. Blue, white and gold stars in various sizes can be seen around, within and through the colourful layers of dust.
December 29, 2025 at 9:02 PM
Reposted by John Debes
astroerika.bsky.social
Rumor has it that (me) discovering a super old, super massive and super active zombie planetary system made the list of the most exciting exoplanet (yes, exoplanet!!) discoveries of 2025! Yay white dwarfs! 🥹🔭
The most exciting exoplanet discoveries of 2025
New discoveries and fresh looks at familiar worlds show how far exoplanet science has come — and how much remains unknown.
www.space.com
December 30, 2025 at 3:21 AM
johndebes.bsky.social
My daughter field promoted me to Lt. Commander 😅
A man sitting dressed in the style of lower decks. He is a lieutenant commander
December 30, 2025 at 3:04 AM
johndebes.bsky.social
My family was trying to do thrift/handmade/local business gifts for Christmas this year and my youngest daughter made me in the style of #LowerDecks. Great show and great present!
A Star Trek science officer in the style of the show Lower Decks. He is seated in a conference room on a starship
December 29, 2025 at 6:18 PM
Reposted by John Debes
sandy174.bsky.social
MELIA is sleeping her days away in the shelter. She didn't get her Christmas wish. But we can make her New Years a great one. Shes a great dog just needs the right home. 💝

💻Adoption@hempsteadny.gov
🏠Town of Hempstead Animal Shelter
☎️(516) 785-5220
📍3320 Beltagh Avenue , Unit
Wantagh, NY 11793
December 26, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Reposted by John Debes
esa.int
🌟 Merry Christmas from a newborn star. Earlier this year the NASA/ESA/CSA #Webb Space Telescope took this stunning image of HH30, an edge-on protoplanetary disc. 🧪🔭

🔗 esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Webb/Webb_investigates_a_dusty_and_dynamic_disc
A close-in image of a protoplanetary disc around a newly formed star. Many different wavelengths of light are combined and represented by separate and various colours. A dark line across the centre is the disc, made of opaque dust: the star is hidden in here and creates a strong glow in the centre. A band going straight up is a jet, while other outflows form flares above and below the disc, and a tail coming off to one side.
December 25, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Reposted by John Debes
asrivkin.bsky.social
🧪 🛰️ 🔭
jhuapl.bsky.social Johns Hopkins APL @jhuapl.bsky.social · 9d
One year since NASA’s Parker Solar Probe survived its record-setting closest approach to the Sun on Dec. 24, 2024, coming within 3.8M miles of the solar surface. Designed, built, and operated by APL, the spacecraft continues delivering groundbreaking results. https://jhuapl.link/089
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Snaps Closest-Ever Images to Sun
On its record-breaking pass by the Sun late last year, the Johns Hopkins APL-built Parker Solar Probe captured stunning images from within the Sun’s atmosphere. Taken closer to the Sun than we’ve ever...
jhuapl.link
December 24, 2025 at 1:28 PM
Reposted by John Debes
czedwards.bsky.social
I see there’s a post about microplastics going around with a photo of drinking straws, so here is my semi-regular reminder that the 3 biggest sources of microplastics are tires (45%), synthetic clothing particles (35%) and paint (~10%).
Lay article attached:
One of the biggest microplastic pollution sources isn’t straws or grocery bags – it’s your tires
Every few years, the tires on your car wear thin and need to be replaced. But where does that lost tire material go? The answer, unfortunately, is often waterways, where the tiny microplastic particle...
www.pbs.org
December 24, 2025 at 4:49 AM
Reposted by John Debes
melina-iras07572.bsky.social
Ross 19B, a "cold" (127–342 °C; 260–647 °F) brown dwarf around a red dwarf. #browndwarf #reddwarfs #citsci

It was discovered by volunteers and astronomers of the project "backyard worlds". #JWST MIRI 🔭 image of Ross 19B (without the red dwarf). program: www.stsci.edu/jwst-program...
The object in the circle is the brown dwarf.
December 20, 2025 at 10:50 AM
Reposted by John Debes
aas.org
The AAS is deeply concerned by the recent announcement that the NSF intends to “restructure” the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) by narrowing the scope of its scientific investigations and stripping it of key assets used in those investigations. aas.org/posts/news/2... 🔭
AAS Responds to Reported Dismantling of NCAR | American Astronomical Society
The AAS is deeply concerned by the recent announcement that the National Science Foundation (NSF) intends to “restructure” the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) by narrowing the scop...
aas.org
December 19, 2025 at 8:28 PM
Reposted by John Debes
megschwamb.bsky.social
First infrared map available from NASA's SPHEREx Satellite www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-s... 🔭
NASA’s SPHEREx Observatory Completes First Cosmic Map Like No Other
The telescope will help scientists answer big-picture questions about everything from water deposits in the Milky Way to what happened in the first second after the big bang.
www.jpl.nasa.gov
December 19, 2025 at 7:19 PM
johndebes.bsky.social
First step: no awkward high fives
forbes.com Forbes @forbes.com · 16d
How To Be The Manager Everyone Wants To Work For
www.forbes.com/sites/juliak... (Photo: Getty Images)
December 19, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Reposted by John Debes
science.esa.int
In a historical milestone, Hubble has witnessed the catastrophic collision of asteroids in the nearby Fomalhaut planetary system 🪨💥 

Observations also revealed that an object previously suspected to be a candidate planet was, in fact, a dust cloud. 
🔭 🧪
Image labeled Fomalhaut system, Hubble Space Telescope. A grainy orange oval ring tilts slightly from upper right to lower left. At two o’clock, a white box outlines the ring’s edge and white lines extend to a larger pullout at lower right. Two spots are labeled cs1 2013 and cs2 2023. Inside the ring is a black circle with a white star symbol in the middle.
December 18, 2025 at 7:15 PM
Reposted by John Debes
propublica.org
Today, ProPublica launched a first-of-its-kind app to help you find out where your generic drugs come from and what the factories that made them are like.

Here’s how to use it.
Rx Inspector: ProPublica’s New Tool Provides Drug Info the FDA Won’t
We’ve launched a first-of-its-kind app to help you find out where your generic drugs come from and see the track records of the factories that made them.
www.propublica.org
December 18, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Reposted by John Debes
astroerika.bsky.social
The search for planets around stellar remnants is a really interesting quest!! Glad to offer some tiny help to @mustaric.bsky.social and @johndebes.bsky.social on this project! 🔭🪐
mustaric.bsky.social Dr. Susan E. Mullally @mustaric.bsky.social · 16d
Remember those red spots next to two white dwarf stars that looked like possible planets in JWST images that we found?
We just had a paper accepted that continues to tell the story.
December 18, 2025 at 1:47 PM
Reposted by John Debes
npr.org
Mass firings, buyouts and heightened uncertainty led to an exodus of federal workers in 2025. More than 300,000 employees will be out of the government by the end of December. n.pr/4p0qEr6
These federal workers proudly served the American people. Then came Trump's upheaval
Mass firings, buyouts and heightened uncertainty led to an exodus of federal workers in 2025. More than 300,000 employees will be out of the government by the end of December.
n.pr
December 18, 2025 at 10:23 AM
Reposted by John Debes
science.esa.int
🐣 Found: newborn stars and planets

#ESAGaia & ALMA joined forces to study 31 baby star systems, finding hints of planets 👉 www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed...

The collage also shows our own Solar System for reference on the bottom right, as it is predicted to have looked at an age of 1 million years. 🔭 🧪
A collage of 32 glowing discs on a black background. Each disc shows concentric rings in vivid colours: purple, orange, and yellow, with bright cyan centres. The discs vary in size and orientation, creating a striking pattern of circular and elliptical shapes.
December 18, 2025 at 9:04 AM