Sarah E Moran
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offallingstars.bsky.social
Sarah E Moran
@offallingstars.bsky.social
1.4K followers 600 following 140 posts
she/her. (Exo)planetary clouds/hazes. Sagan Fellow at NASA GSFC/STScI --> Asst. Prof of Astro at UMD starting Fall 2026.
Opinions all me and only me.
Still screaming inside my heart.

https://tx.ag/moran
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offallingstars.bsky.social
Life news -- starting Fall 2026, I'll be an Assistant Prof in University of Maryland, College Park's Astronomy Department!

I'll be starting up a lab to measure all the substellar cloud things 🌤️🪐✨ and continuing alllllll the atmospheric model things

Lowkey obsessed with the mascot #FeartheTurtle
the seal of the University of Maryland. It has the red, white, black, and gold banners of the Maryland flag in a circle and with the year 1856 on either side.
September 23, 2025 at 5:28 PM
offallingstars.bsky.social
We. Do. Not. Have. To. Comply. With. Unethical. And. Illegal. Orders.
Additionally, your leaders continue to work through the incoming executive orders and guidance. As I shared last week, we are tracking several executive orders and guidance from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), one of which is titled, Defending Women. NASA intends to comply with this and all executive orders and guidance. Your leaders are working diligently to expeditiously interpret and align with these directives. There is ongoing, frequent communication between NASA and OPM through multiple channels to clarify the details. Some messages are coming directly from OPM to employees, while others are being coordinated at various levels. This week, the Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer (OCHCO) emailed guidance to all civil servants about returning to in-person work and deferred resignation. This information and resources, including frequently asked questions about the transition, are available on OneNASA. Please work with your supervisor on any next steps. Finally, I recognize we are all dealing with a lot of change, and that it may be uncomfortable. We encourage those who may need additional support to utilize the resources offered by the Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Please also continue to support and uplift each other as we work together to stay focused on and accomplish NASA's mission. On Wednesday, we announced the first major science results from a sample of asteroid Bennu, collected by our OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. The team found salty brines, 14 of the 20 amino acids used to make proteins, and all five DNA nucleobases – suggesting that the conditions and ingredients for life were widespread in our early solar system. And this is just the beginning – these results were from analysis of just 0.06% of the sample. [Additional useless and hollow platitudes] Embrace the Challenge, Janet
January 31, 2025 at 9:06 PM
offallingstars.bsky.social
another message from NASA acting admin.

Again. You don't have to do things just because you're told.
Update on Executive Orders As part of my message to you on Monday evening, I committed to transparent communication and sharing what I know. We have received several executive orders that apply to our agency. Specifically, we are tracking directives related to return to in-person work, a federal hiring freeze, reforming the federal hiring process, aligning agency programs with the policy of equal dignity and respect, Senior Executive Service (SES) performance plans, and others. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is issuing guidance for several of these directives, and we expect to receive additional guidance in the coming days and weeks. A full list of executive actions may be found at whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions, and OPM guidance on directives related to human resources can be found on the website for the Chief Human Capital Officers Council at chcoc.gov/transmittals. President Trump recently issued a Presidential Memorandum (PM) titled “Return to In-Person Work,” the text of which is included below. NASA intends to fully comply. “Heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of Government shall, as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis, provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary. This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with applicable law.” American citizens deserve an excellent and efficient federal workforce that attracts the highest caliber of civil servants. I know the NASA workforce already exceeds those expectations. As we work to fulfill these directives, NASA’s Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer will communicate a process to officials in charge. (continued in next screenshot) (continued from previous) As I said in my previous message, our commitment to NASA’s mission remains the same. We all share the aim of ensuring the government of the United States is responsive to the needs, policies, and goals of the nation. Please continue to remain focused on the mission. Right now, we have dozens of spacecraft studying different aspects of our solar system and the distant universe. We have four American astronauts living and working in space, with several crew members on Earth training for upcoming missions. And we have engineers and researchers working on technology development that will advance the future of flight and space exploration. Thank you for the work you do. I am proud to be part of the NASA team. I know we are capable of doing hard things, and we are ready to lean into the opportunity to grow. Embrace the Challenge. Janet Petro
January 24, 2025 at 9:48 PM
offallingstars.bsky.social
well. this is bad. bad bad bad.
January 22, 2025 at 11:09 PM
offallingstars.bsky.social
probably something like that! tridymite for example looks super snowflake-y to me
a close-up image of tridymite crystals, which are a polymorph of quartz. They look like translucent thin shards of glass in hexagon shapes
August 2, 2024 at 7:11 AM
offallingstars.bsky.social
Now. It fits "better". But it's not statistically significant. We need better SNR to really tell. (More obs to build SNR could help).
But...can you think of where silicate clouds exist AND we have better SNR and resolution?
Enter L dwarfs and directly imaged planets :)
9/n
spectral emission models of a brown dwarf with clouds made of quartz, amorphous silica, cristobalite, and tridymite in teal, gold, pink, and blue. Flux is on the y-axis and wavelength in microns is on the x-axis.
August 2, 2024 at 1:51 AM
offallingstars.bsky.social
With optical properties for our polymorphs, it was time to add them to the Virga cloud model and the PICASO radiative transfer suite. And...
They look different!! And cristobalite, the highest temperature polymorph of SiO2, fits better than quartz to the WASP-17b data!
8/n
graph from a scientific paper showing transmission spectra models for different clouds made of quartz, amorphous silica, cristobalite, and tridymite in teal, gold, pink, and blue. in grey are data points from JWST observations from the paper Grant et al., 2023. The peak near 8.6 microns is shifted for each model.
August 2, 2024 at 1:50 AM
offallingstars.bsky.social
I used lab measurements that DO exist for these materials and ...stitched a few together. Made a few extrapolations based on frustratingly brief methods from a paper published in 1958.
But now we had our data.
This is from a footnote I took out for "professionalism".
7/n
three graphs from a scientific paper showing the real and imaginary refractive indices and extinction coefficient of quartz, amorphous silica, cristobalite, and tridymite in teal, gold, pink, and blue. Each has a large peak near 10 microns. screenshot of a footnote that says "it was at this juncture in the calculation that the first author threw up her hands in despair"
August 2, 2024 at 1:48 AM
offallingstars.bsky.social
Instead, material that is usually quartz on Earth's surface -- SiO2 -- changes its crystal structure at high temp to become versions of itself called tridymite and cristobalite. We call these polymorphs.
If the crystal structure changes, the bond length & energy changes...
3/n
A graph from a scientific paper showing pressure on the y-axis and temperature on the x-axis. Different regions are highlighted to show where quartz, tridymite, and cristobalite are stable. Blue, gold, and teal lines show planetary profiles that cross the different regions.
August 2, 2024 at 1:43 AM
offallingstars.bsky.social
When you need to go into the office, but the kitties are being too adorable to leave 😭
A black cat and a grey tabby cat lie curled together on a gold armchair. The grey tabby's back leg is flung around the black cat. They are sleeping. A black cat and a grey tabby cat sit together on a gold armchair. The grey tabby has her front legs stretched way out in front of her. Her fluffy belly fur and neck ruff are sticking out. A black cat and a grey tabby sitting together on a gold armchair. The black cat is using the grey tabby's fluffy belly as a pillow.
September 19, 2023 at 5:57 PM