David Kipping

Hi BlueSky! I'm a Professor of Astronomy at Columbia University where I lead the Cool Worlds Lab, studying exoplanets, exomoons & exolife and sharing our passion for science over YouTube.com/CoolWorldsLab. I post about my team's research, spicy hot takes and whatever's going on in my life.

New paper! Allow me to introduce TARS = Torqued Accelerator using Radiation from the Sun. TARS (yes inspired by Interstellar!) is a rotating light sail that's capable of launching chip sats into interstellar space using only radiation from the Sun, so let's dive into how it works.

I am looking to commission some spacecraft CGI animations, professional quality on par with spacecraft deployment videos we often see in NASA/ESA videos. If you have the skills and are interested, reply below and I'll add you for DM follow up!

The principles of a university are anti-institutional. It’s a place which explores controversial ideas, challenges dogmatic thinking and celebrates academic free speech. No wonder institutions don’t like them.

statistically, we likely live on one of the planets with the highest population of observers in the universe

So who has read AI 2027 and what was your reaction?

I’d have a lot more respect for Republicans if they responded to the protests with whatever their argument is for authoritarianism. Instead, they don’t address the concerns of the protestors at all and just try to delegitimize their views through ad hominems, call them Hamas/Marxists/radicals/etc.

Contemplating existence in Amsterdam

“Carl… Carl…”

#26 Will Kinney - Before the Big Bang, Inflation, Infinity of Worlds youtu.be/HSZtn0yKPBI

Oh my God this made my day…

Quel surpris! As I suspected, the Navcam “cyclinder” image bombarding social media, and subject to Avi’s last blog post, is not 3I/ATLAS, it’s Phobos.

If we get through this, I predict that we’re going to look back at these days with confusion. How did anyone go along with all that? It will feel like a terrible and confusing nightmare, one we can hardly believe took hold as firmly as it did.

3I/ATLAS, a quick update. Be sure to follow @stim3on.bsky.social