Assistant Research Professor at the University of Arizona. Focus on exoplanet studies with high-contrast imaging. https://xitter.cf/t.co/1KbsJ4D2AX
Joined January 2016
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Highlighting a new paper from UA/LPL Grad Student Arin Avsar that places some of the first constraints on the population of planetesimals (~30-100km asteroids) around young stars! arxiv.org/abs/2603.07376
This allows us to predict the next likely observed collision event in terms of time and separation from the star. With continued monitoring from HST, there's a ~50% chance of observing a third collision by the early 2030s. With JWST, those odds improve significantly.
Thanks for reading to the end! Please check out Arin's paper and let us know if you have any questions or comments. @danielapai
Alpha Centauri A might host a habitable-zone giant planet. If confirmed, any moons orbiting this planet could be among the most promising nearby locations to search for life. Can we detect those moons by carefully monitoring the position of the planet?
arxiv.org/abs/2509.13513
With access to space becoming cheaper, purpose-built observatories are becoming more feasible. For the same budget (or less) than @JimCameron's Avatar movies, which imagined a habited moon around a giant planet around Alpha Cen, this mission could become a reality.
Shout out to @e_douglas, @exoAS23b, @saturnaxis, and other co-authors for their help, ideas, and support in this study, and thanks to Pete Worden and @brkthroughprize for the motivation to explore this concept.
Please reply in the comments if you have any thoughts/questions.
Kevin Wagner retweeted
This was a very fun project! I’m happy to see the results published today (and now I can finally share this LBTI image!)
I'm happy to share this exciting result that @StewardAstro PhD student @ggdoubleu played a major role in! WISPIT-2b is one of the few known accreting protoplanets, allowing us to directly study how planets form. Read more in the paper from Close et al.: iopscience.iop.org/article/1…
I'm happy to share this exciting result that @StewardAstro PhD student @ggdoubleu played a major role in! WISPIT-2b is one of the few known accreting protoplanets, allowing us to directly study how planets form. Read more in the paper from Close et al.: iopscience.iop.org/article/1…
UA Press release on Alpha Centauri here:
news.arizona.edu/news/alpha-…
While not yet confirmation, the fact that JWST sees a planet candidate in Alpha Centauri consistent with the one we identified in 2019 with VLT is extremely encouraging!
Well done @exoAS23b, Chas, and team - this was a very fun project to be a part of!
science.nasa.gov/missions/we…
I'm happy to share this paper by @StewardAstro PhD student @ggdoubleu on an intriguing substellar companion in the Pleiades! Few such objects are known, and understanding the orbit of HII 1348B helps to piece together its method of formation.
arxiv.org/abs/2501.16429
With signal to noise of over 100, and the two independent telescopes of @LBTObs operating simultaneously, the constraints on HII 1348B are quite strong!
Finally, it's worth mentioning that Gabe did most of the work on this project as an undergraduate student at @StewardAstro. Stay tuned for more results in the Pleiades from @ggdoubleu!
Happy to share this paper led by UArizona/LPL grad student Arin Avsar on 2+ decades of HST/STIS imaging of Beta Pic!
arxiv.org/pdf/2408.12351
Some of the highlights: Beta Pic b does not seem to have a resonant dust cloud, the SW side of the disk appears to have gotten slightly brighter, and we can place limits on collisions down to ~Ceres masses. Check out the paper for more details!