Matthew Kenworthy

Associate professor at Leiden Observatory taking photos of planets around other stars and seeing the shadows of rings around other worlds.

Website: https://kenworthy.space/
Location: The Netherlands
Pronouns: He/him
Groove: is in the heart, ooooh yeah na na na na

Last Notes

2026-04-24 19:49:42 UTC

Just had this interaction with one of the Dutch students in my group.
This may well be the pinnacle of my professional career.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/116/461/415/981/442/870/original/ce656a55fe87f4a9.png

2026-04-24 04:55:26 UTC

My all-time favourite method of debugging is going to bed and looking at it again the next morning.

2025-11-26 08:52:11 UTC

A very exciting paper by Kral et al. on “Exomoon search with VLTI/GRAVITY around the substellar companion HD 206893 B” using astrometric measurements of the companion to search for a putative #exomoon. Half a Jupiter mass at 0.22 au maaaaybe? We’re getting closer! #astrodon #astrosci #exoplanets https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.20091
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/615/146/256/864/727/original/c6e4628843e18e90.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/615/146/363/434/950/original/082e040236d6e302.png

2025-09-30 08:01:27 UTC

Wolff, @andrasgaspar.bsky.social et al. with a beautiful analysis of “JWST/MIRI Imaging of the Warm Dust Component of the Epsilon Eridani Debris Disk”, the last of the “Big Four” circumstellar disks with #JWST - a smooth disk at all but the longer wavelengths and hosting an RV #exoplanet ☄️ http://andrasgaspar.bsky.social
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/292/195/199/167/172/original/2f5c4273cc1575ef.png

2025-08-24 10:31:16 UTC

Resorting to somewhat extreme methods to focus my easily distracted self in the last week of #astronomy grant writing #AcademicChatter
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/083/278/831/355/250/original/e8fba210ec423896.jpg

2025-07-17 06:36:57 UTC

Once again, don’t trust the output of any #AI assistant without verification. This is not the HR 8799 exoplanet system, it’s the YSES 1 exoplanet system. Source: my (then) grad student Alex Bohn took this image using VLT/SPHERE. #astrodon #astronomy #exoplanets https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso2011b/
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/867/189/646/757/065/original/787e8129c819070c.png

2025-03-03 09:08:53 UTC

A seriously impressive paper by Thompson+ on the “Revised Mass and Orbit of ε Eridani b: A 1 Jupiter-Mass Planet on a Near-Circular Orbit”. They’ve combined RV, direct imaging and absolute astrometry to revise the planet to ~1 M_Jup and e~0 - close to being a Solar System analogue. 🔭🪐 #astrodon https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.20561
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/097/712/771/899/136/original/0faee52a4b5ae692.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/097/712/832/759/401/original/351b8426a8cbaa76.png

2025-02-25 20:40:56 UTC

Sometimes several feelings can be conveyed in only a couple dozen words…
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/066/460/266/544/359/original/a4b0904ccae3cf80.jpg

2025-02-19 08:35:57 UTC

My heart goes out to all those affected by the federal purges in the US over the past month. It really feels like I’m watching spoiled rich brats kicking over sandcastles on a beach and they’re only doing it to enjoy the suffering of others. Years to build up, seconds to destroy. And for what?

2024-12-10 10:21:14 UTC

The tilt of the bulge is the thing: Poon et al. on “A potential exomoon from the predicted planet obliquity of β Pictoris b” showing that if upcoming JWST observations confirm a suspected obliquity then there may be a massive exomoon to detect! Keep calm and carry on observing…. 🔭🪐 #astrodon https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.05988
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/628/025/500/941/008/original/716e3b41b38af504.png

2024-09-16 09:18:27 UTC

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What convinced a physicist to keep endorsing/voting for Trump?

2024-09-16 08:58:13 UTC

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Okay, I'll bite - what convinced them?

2024-09-09 04:23:04 UTC

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Hi! Original author here :) The artwork is a reasonably good rendering, but the planet is too big, the rings are really HUGE. In our paper, I worked out what each ring should look like, but because we only have one wavelength, the colour of the rings is a guess, so we guess they're grey like Saturn's rings /1 https://kenworthy.space/projects/j1407b/