Erika Dunning
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astrodunning.bsky.social
Erika Dunning
@astrodunning.bsky.social
(She/her)
Astrophysicist, grad student, teaching associate, and explorer of our beautiful universe. My expertise is in circumbinary transiting exoplanets, moons, and astronomy education/outreach.
Reposted by Erika Dunning
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March 19, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Oh my Kepler, I might be getting HARPS data on my circumbinary planet system 🤯
March 20, 2025 at 2:08 AM
Reposted by Erika Dunning
if you see this post, your actions are:
- if you have a spare buck, give it to Wikipedia, then repost this
- if you don't have a spare buck, just repost

your action is mandatory for the world's best source of information to survive
I’ve never donated to Wikipedia before but I set up a small monthly donation as a fuck you to the world’s richest psychopath.
Elon Musk takes aim at Wikipedia
Musk has denounced Wikipedia as "Wokepedia" on X and urged people not to donate to the platform.
www.newsweek.com
December 26, 2024 at 12:03 PM
#RivertheAstronomer has been working hard. She’s only a year and a half, and while she’s had some challenges, she’s a (starship) trooper. She’s doing her part. Are you?

#disabledinstem
January 15, 2025 at 6:33 PM
#AAS245 is at the Gaylord National Convention center this year, and the big atrium makes me think about what a futuristic Mars colony could look like, sans the blue sky. Lots of space, plants, and an open-air feeling.
January 15, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Reposted by Erika Dunning
lovely beasties
January 14, 2025 at 3:21 AM
River and I were thrilled to share our circumbinary planet poster with all of you at #AAS245. Come and say hi if you see us!
January 14, 2025 at 2:00 AM
Presenting my poster on our two new circumbinary exoplanet candidates at #aas245. Come say hi!
January 13, 2025 at 10:16 PM
Service dog #RivertheAstronomer is very intent on watching the planery talks at #AAS245. Come say hi if you see us!

#disabledinstem
#astronomyaccessibility
January 13, 2025 at 9:12 PM
(2/2) Gaia is a high-resolution, spectroscopic survey of stars while TESS is a low-resolution survey of bright stars with the predominant aim of finding planets. Both telescopes are excellent but produce different data for different purposes.

#Astronomy #LearnAstronomy #DisabledinSTEM
It's a scary world right now, so here is a fun plot I made. This is the star field around one of my research targets from #TESS. Here, you can see stars from the Gaia survey over-plotted on the TESS field. This is a great way to see the range of precision in modern #telescopes. (1/2)
January 9, 2025 at 2:16 AM
It's a scary world right now, so here is a fun plot I made. This is the star field around one of my research targets from #TESS. Here, you can see stars from the Gaia survey over-plotted on the TESS field. This is a great way to see the range of precision in modern #telescopes. (1/2)
January 9, 2025 at 2:14 AM
What do circumbinary planet transits look like?

As the planet crosses each star, it creates a dip in the light curve (brightness of the system plotted versus time). These dips (transits) have different depths and lengths which are dependent on many different factors.

#LearnAstronomy
#Astronomy
December 27, 2024 at 7:54 PM
Today’s #AstronomyFactoftheDay is that Uranus (and no, this isn’t a joke) is one of the most mysterious planets in our solar system. It orbits the Sun on its side, its interior generates far less heat than a gas giant of its size should, and its magnetic field is offset from its rotational.
December 17, 2024 at 3:17 AM
Make an academic poster is difficult because you have so much to say, but so little space.

Let me sing the praises of circumbinary planets with fanciful prose pulled from the depths of literature. Let me emblazon the skies with the glory of the CBP research empire!
December 16, 2024 at 6:15 PM
Here we can see the joy of modern science. The posters of yesteryear have been replaced with iPosters. Now grad students and researchers everywhere can deal with a poor UI and not nearly enough formatting options. All modern creations come with their own issues, but at least we can use videos now.
December 16, 2024 at 3:54 AM
The Pleiades cluster in Taurus is known as a bright, young star cluster, but did you know that up to 25% of the cluster’s population are brown dwarfs? These are objects with insufficient mass to be a star but are far more massive than planets.

#Astronomy Fact of the Day
December 14, 2024 at 6:53 PM
Did you know that Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, has lakes of ethane and methane? Larger lakes, called Maria, are named after mythical sea creatures, and the smaller lakes (lacūs) are named after lakes on Earth of a similar size and shape.
December 13, 2024 at 11:57 PM
Excellent question!

Circumbinary exoplanets (CBPs) are planets that orbit two stars instead of just one. While we have discovered around 6,000 exoplanets around single stars, only 16 have been discovered around binary stars even though half of all stars are in binary or higher order systems. (1/3)
@astrodunning.bsky.social What do I need to know about circumbinary exoplanets as a non-scientist who listens to astronomy podcasts?
December 7, 2024 at 3:00 AM
Let’s get this Bluesky account star-ted
December 7, 2024 at 12:04 AM