As expected, it looks like NASA asked the historians to focus on a narrow question that's only part of the rationale for renaming JWST: Of course, being a "leader or proponent for firing LBGTQ+ employees" would be disqualifying. But the bar for putting a name on the most important telescope in a generation should be a bit higher than that, no?

sites.psu.edu/astrowright/20…

I know a lot of people want to identify parallels between SETI and UFOlogy. There are a few big differences, though:

1) SETI is based on the premise that alien tech follows the laws of physics as we know them. UFOlogy identifies alien tech from *violations* of those laws. 1 (cont) Asking me to consider UFOs as alien is asking me to believe *two* very unlikely things: that they are visiting and imperfectly hiding, *and* that it's possible to violate conservation of momentum! This is not a parsimonious explanation for these things.

I think the big missing piece about all the new breathless reporting about UFOs these days is that there's nothing new here.

Some people in the government and military are UFO true believers, and have been for a while. Suddenly, they're getting lots of mainstream press. But, judging from my timeline, the widespread perception is that there is something important driving this, like an imminent revelation or brand new evidence or something.

I'll believe it when I see it, but for now this just looks like a triumph of UFOlogy PR. They've made it!

A hearty congratulations to Michel Mayor & Didier Queloz, for kickstarting the field that I've built my career in! Their discovery of 51 Peg b happened in my senior year of high school, and I started working in exoplanets in 2000, when ~20 were known.

A thread: The Nobels serve a funny place in science: they are wonderful public outreach tools, and a chance for us all to reflect on the discoveries that shape science. The discussions they engender are, IMO, priceless.