planetary astronomer by day, also by night asst. prof. @ villanova, movie buff, he/they, 🏳️‍🌈 https://tkareta.github.io/, formerly lowell obs., uaz, umasshttps://bsky.app/profile/teddykareta.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/teddykareta.bsky.social/post/3mejoeqsyjk22found out that one of the hudson river school painters -- frederic edwin church -- painted what is probably one of the best depictions of a meteor precession because he saw it from his yard in 1860. this is the same thing that Walt Whitman wrote "Year of Meteors, 1859-1860" about, probably.10 Feb 2026 19:15 +0000at://did:plc:dccln6hu2g2wcc2nafnrevze/app.bsky.feed.post/3mejoeqsyjk22https://bsky.app/profile/teddykareta.bsky.social/post/3muz7k2roo227getting dangerously close to the level of professor-ing where the amount of people working with & for me has grown to the point where it's starting to merit building one of those "research group" websites08 Sep 2026 14:16 +0000at://did:plc:dccln6hu2g2wcc2nafnrevze/app.bsky.feed.post/3muz7k2roo227https://bsky.app/profile/teddykareta.bsky.social/post/3musiyt72ok2cjust had to admit to my wife I had a "they might be giants" phase and let me tell you it wasn't anything but embarrassing05 Sep 2026 22:16 +0000at://did:plc:dccln6hu2g2wcc2nafnrevze/app.bsky.feed.post/3musiyt72ok2chttps://bsky.app/profile/teddykareta.bsky.social/post/3mtyf467hm226bair, schleicher, kareta, knight, and kelley, "The Highly Unusual Behavior and Chemical Composition of Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov", accepted in PSJ and available on arxiv here: arxiv.org/abs/2608.23701 [contains quote post or other embedded content]26 Aug 2026 12:57 +0000at://did:plc:dccln6hu2g2wcc2nafnrevze/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtyf467hm226https://bsky.app/profile/teddykareta.bsky.social/post/3mtlkvp66ns27co-authored paper about 2I/Borisov: accepted!21 Aug 2026 10:36 +0000at://did:plc:dccln6hu2g2wcc2nafnrevze/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtlkvp66ns27https://bsky.app/profile/teddykareta.bsky.social/post/3mtjoo3fjyk2oturns out there's a small store down the street that sells nice japanese notebooks and pens, filed under "news that will absolutely drive my family to bankruptcy"20 Aug 2026 16:38 +0000at://did:plc:dccln6hu2g2wcc2nafnrevze/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtjoo3fjyk2ohttps://bsky.app/profile/teddykareta.bsky.social/post/3mtcur77vec2aobtained the official @realinfowars.bsky.social gay frog plushie, which is both much larger and much cuter than my wife and I originally estimated when we impulse ordered it last week, courtesy of @theonion.com17 Aug 2026 23:39 +0000at://did:plc:dccln6hu2g2wcc2nafnrevze/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtcur77vec2ahttps://bsky.app/profile/teddykareta.bsky.social/post/3mtc26swknc2qmy car makes a weird noise once and suddenly I'm out hundreds of dollars just to have the thing looked at. on the other hand, I could toss my bike out a second story window and it'd probably still be safe to ride to the repair shop and only like $30 to get fixed up.17 Aug 2026 15:43 +0000at://did:plc:dccln6hu2g2wcc2nafnrevze/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtc26swknc2qhttps://bsky.app/profile/teddykareta.bsky.social/post/3msvtpw4vus2pfound it the second I was about to give up: it's dessler and russell 1980, featuring both the extremely funny plot (attached) and the quote "The graph clearly illustrates that while Pluto was sighted in 1930, it was slighted in the 1970's." https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1980EOSTr..61..690D/abstract [contains quote post or other embedded content]12 Aug 2026 19:16 +0000at://did:plc:dccln6hu2g2wcc2nafnrevze/app.bsky.feed.post/3msvtpw4vus2phttps://bsky.app/profile/teddykareta.bsky.social/post/3msvthmf5r22prelated to my earlier post about older papers, I've been looking a nature or science commentary piece from sometime shortly after 1975 where the authors as a joke plot up mass estimates for Pluto from 1930 onwards and conclude it'll disappear by the mid-80s: if this rings a bell, lemme know12 Aug 2026 19:11 +0000at://did:plc:dccln6hu2g2wcc2nafnrevze/app.bsky.feed.post/3msvthmf5r22phttps://bsky.app/profile/teddykareta.bsky.social/post/3msvspct7422pI'm already a huge sucker for older astronomy papers and plots, but getting a chance to update our department's cosmology class has me really off the deep end. the early 70s are a real treasure-trove of people writing stuff like "we're the smartest ever: we told the computer about the error bars"12 Aug 2026 18:58 +0000at://did:plc:dccln6hu2g2wcc2nafnrevze/app.bsky.feed.post/3msvspct7422phttps://bsky.app/profile/teddykareta.bsky.social/post/3msebj3bz6s2u [contains quote post or other embedded content]05 Aug 2026 19:35 +0000at://did:plc:dccln6hu2g2wcc2nafnrevze/app.bsky.feed.post/3msebj3bz6s2uhttps://bsky.app/profile/teddykareta.bsky.social/post/3ms2o6eoyqs2jI'm gonna stop using any Hank-related content in any of my science classes. This is embarrassing and a detriment to science education. [contains quote post or other embedded content]01 Aug 2026 23:55 +0000at://did:plc:dccln6hu2g2wcc2nafnrevze/app.bsky.feed.post/3ms2o6eoyqs2jhttps://bsky.app/profile/teddykareta.bsky.social/post/3mrzn3trqik2ahttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10835-7#Sec401 Aug 2026 14:03 +0000at://did:plc:dccln6hu2g2wcc2nafnrevze/app.bsky.feed.post/3mrzn3trqik2ahttps://bsky.app/profile/teddykareta.bsky.social/post/3mrxob4uc422jmissing the southwest more than usual of late31 Jul 2026 19:18 +0000at://did:plc:dccln6hu2g2wcc2nafnrevze/app.bsky.feed.post/3mrxob4uc422j