Day 3 of a 2 hour car/bus/train commute and I have apparently lost the ability to remember if I tapped my transit card on the way in to the bus or not (perhaps never gained that ability). Sorry, Translink. Hopefully I messed that up in the direction that gives you more money, because it is awesome how far I can go very easily on transit here in the lower mainland! But I am so grateful I don't have to do this every day normally (hoooowwww did I do this during my PhD??) #ProfSamLectureTour
Did a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation with a collaborator for AST SpaceMobile's fucking huge satellite launched last month and will unfurl soon.
We got mag -12. The full moon is -13, magnitudes are logarithmic. It's a little fainter than the moon, at least?
We made lots of assumptions, so this number is quite uncertain, but it's pretty clear that no matter what, it'll be eye-blazingly-bright. And they want 400 of them.
I hate AST SpaceMobile almost as much as I hate Reflect Orbital.
EVERYONE!! Fomalhaut is at it again!! Crashing its planetesimals together and making dust clouds!!!!
I am very excited because I and others wrote papers saying that this would happen: if Fomalhaut b (the first directly imaged "exoplanet" oops) was actually a dust cloud, it should fade away and another one should appear on ~decade timescales.
I love being right about science predictions that don't involve destroying the night sky or atmosphere or Kessler Syndrome!
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.15861
I learned about this from a planetary journal club at UBC that I had time to run to (while still mic'd) between filming. The journal club was led by my PhD supervisor, who I wrote a paper with on Fomalhaut planetesimal collisions back in 2015!
Damn it's fun to do some real science in between all the depressing stuff.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1412.1129
EVERYONE!! Fomalhaut is at it again!! Crashing its planetesimals together and making dust clouds!!!!
I am very excited because I and others wrote papers saying that this would happen: if Fomalhaut b (the first directly imaged "exoplanet" oops) was actually a dust cloud, it should fade away and another one should appear on ~decade timescales.
I love being right about science predictions that don't involve destroying the night sky or atmosphere or Kessler Syndrome!
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.15861
The physics department head at UBC (who is a lovely person and was on my PhD committee) brings his dog to work!! This has made my day 100x better! (Sorry I forgot to take a picture, I was too busy smooshing her floofy face)
Now film shoot for another documentary about space debris. (This is great, but I think I've been asked about 3 different documentaries about space debris in the last few months... hopefully this film shoot is fun and not just stressful and annoying)
#ProfSamLectureTour
Yesterday it took me an hour longer than I expected to get to UBC, so today I overcompensated and arrived 45 minutes early. Oops. I also realized most of the way to campus that I forgot to tap my transit card... I am even worse at transit commuting than I thought!
Also I got my first interview request that was 100% in French. (Very unfortunately, I don't speak French, and they probably don't want my French-immersion-educated children as translators)
#ProfSamLectureTour
"Oh my god why do people live in cities?!" I yell to myself as I sit here within walking distance of more restaurants than exist in the entire province of Saskatchewan and an easy bus ride to like 37 world-class museums.
(Yes, I survived the first commute. It was just... a lot... for me, who often works from home and lives half a km from my nearest neighbour.)
#ProfSamLectureTour
How is riding the bus so incredibly exhausting?!!
pops up for air briefly between amazing beaches and forests and research discussions and constant yelling about satellites and hanging out with friends
Sending peace!
(Wish me luck on an extremely long first Skytrain/bus commute I've done in over a decade tomorrow morning!)
#ProfSamLectureTour
"Oh my god why do people live in cities?!" I yell to myself as I sit here within walking distance of more restaurants than exist in the entire province of Saskatchewan and an easy bus ride to like 37 world-class museums.
(Yes, I survived the first commute. It was just... a lot... for me, who often works from home and lives half a km from my nearest neighbour.)
#ProfSamLectureTour
pops up for air briefly between amazing beaches and forests and research discussions and constant yelling about satellites and hanging out with friends
Sending peace!
(Wish me luck on an extremely long first Skytrain/bus commute I've done in over a decade tomorrow morning!)
#ProfSamLectureTour
Now I'm at a public library (wooo libraries!) because the observatory in Victoria doesn't have a functional guest network and it's a federal facility so there aren't other options. My phone is nearly out of data after tethering all week... so I'll do a couple of zoom meetings from here. (Was a little disappointed this library doesn't have a meeting room I can use, but it's not currently raining and it's not super cold so I can sit outside)
Very nice librarian saw me setting up on the floor in the hallway and said "Use the teens area! They're all in school right now"
Yay libraries!!
This particular library was the only place I could work on making my first faculty job talk (while keeping my 1yo somewhat happy), during an incredibly unstable, stressful period of my life.
So I love this library, but it's also definitely bringing up some bad memories. Trying to focus on being grateful that I'm in a very good place now personally.
Prof. Sam Lawler