Alejandro Soto

@soto

Planetary scientist and aerospace engineer. He/him. My writing represents me alone and not my employer nor anyone else.

1.004 Folgt2.722 Follower1.337 Posts

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Alejandro Soto@soto· 28d

Thanks to both Colorado and Federal EV credits and incentives, I leased my current 2025 Leaf for $26 per month. Trump ruined that for any future EV I might buy. Right now Nissan is offering me $459 per month. No way. Either I buy my current car 😀 or give up on having an electric vehicle ☹️.

The image is mostly text. The text is below.

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$459/MO Lease4

$3,739 initial payment ‑ Lease 48 Months

2026 LEAF SV+ 75 kWh lithium-ion battery with Floor Mat Package (SV+) and Splash Guards (4-piece set) Lease $459 per month / 48 months / $3,739 initial payment excludes taxes, title, and license (TTL). (Monthly payment includes: $325 manufacturers rebate). For Well-Qualified Lessees. VEHICLE SHOWN PRICED HIGHER.

Alejandro Soto@soto· Apr 28

Fundamentally, this administration, at least parts of it, want to push investment and risk onto commercial and non-profit organizations. Just see the wording in the Lunar Science and Technology Payloads request for information. They are interested in "self-funded" payloads.

Alejandro Soto@soto· Apr 9

I missed that the President's 2027 Budget Request includes a statement about not paying for the publication of science results. 🤦‍♂️ That's some serious Orwellian pretzel logic. Somehow publication costs are double-dipping and an extra expense to taxpayers? 🤦‍♂️ Screenshot from: aas.org/posts/news/2...

The image has text that has a statement from the AAS followed by a quote from the President's 2027 Budget Request:

The budget request also adopts a policy prohibiting the use of federal funds to pay for journal subscriptions and the publication of research results unless required or pre-approved:

“In accordance with administration policy announced in the budget, NASA will follow new governmentwide grants guidance prohibiting the use of federal funds to pay for subscriptions to academic journals, as well as for the publication of research results that are not specifically required by federal statute or approved in advance by a federal agency. This policy preserves funds to support actual research by ensuring that the American taxpayer does not pay for the research, publication, and access to that research, essentially triple charging the public for the same product.”

Alejandro Soto@soto· Mar 27

Thanks to CloudFlare's gatekeeping, about half the links that I click on each day involve me verifying that I am human. This plus websites being grumpy about Apple's private relay will slowly drive me away from using the web unless I absolutely have to.

Alejandro Soto@soto· Feb 6

We've seen this before and it didn't end well.

Alejandro Soto@soto· Dec 17

It's probably also because the OMB director (and Project 2025 author) Russell Vought wants to break up NCAR because of claims of "climate alarmism" (🙄). It has Vought's fingerprints all over it. This is in line with his gutting of GFDL funding and his theft of the GISS building.

A tweet from Russell Vought, OMB director: "The National Science Foundation will be breaking up the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. This facility is one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country. A comprehensive review is underway & any vital activities such as weather research will be moved to another entity or location."

Alejandro Soto@soto· Dec 12

A cloudy, mountainy sunset to kick-off your weekend. Happy weekend everyone!!

An image of a hill/small mountain, mostly in dark silhouette. Above that, the sky is mostly cloudy, and the clouds are in orange hues, reflecting the light from the sunset. There is wavy and streaky structure in the clouds.

Alejandro Soto@soto· Oct 10

Tell me about it. I was so paranoid about getting the wiring wrong and shorting the entire system. Still, a pretty cool and totally inexpensive tool in the lab.

An acoustic levitator. There's a white frame that is two spherical "caps" separated by some struts. Each cap is covered with acoustic transducers, point at the transducers in the other cap. There are wires and some electronic hardware (an oscilloscope) in the background. All of this on a white surface.

Alejandro Soto@soto· Sep 9

So, the Dailywire is arguing that Trump was too stupid to have written it?

A snippet from the article posted by Ryan.

Alejandro Soto@soto· Aug 19

Here's the JWST NIRCam image, annotated, showing the new moon, 12 other moons, the rings, and Uranus itself. #planetsci 🧪

Caption from NASA: Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope discovered a new moon orbiting Uranus in images taken by Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). This image shows the moon, designated S/2025 U1, as well as 13 of the 28 other known moons orbiting the planet. (The small moon Cordelia orbits just inside the outermost ring, but is not visible in these views due to glare from the rings.) Due to the drastic differences in brightness levels, the image is a composite of three different treatments of the data, allowing the viewer to see details in the planetary atmosphere, the surrounding rings, and the orbiting moons. The data was taken with NIRCam’s wide band F150W2 filter that transmits infrared wavelengths from about 1.0 to 2.4 microns.
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. El Moutamid (SwRI), M. Hedman (University of Idaho)

Alejandro Soto@soto· Jul 30

It’s the second box in this picture of a page in an intro orbital mechanics book (by Bate, Mueller, and White). I am pretty sure you saw trickier algorithm and sorting problems in undergrad.

Text from an old textbook showing the delta-v calculation.

Alejandro Soto@soto· Jul 13

And they say there’s no arguing in the Blue Sky echo chamber.

A screenshot of Tom Nicholls and Popehat arguing about national foods. It’s the posts right before this one.

Alejandro Soto@soto· Jul 6

Done! (It’s no snow covered mountains so I can’t compete with @paulowennberg.bsky.social but, well, I never could.)

A dirt road heading into the distance with a lake on the right and trees in the distance. Beautiful clouds fill the sky.

Alejandro Soto@soto· Jun 20

I see stealth bombers.

An image of a stealth bomber in flight. From: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_B-2_Spirit

Alejandro Soto@soto· Jun 1

I will return to stressing about the end of science in America on Monday. For now, i am going to rest and enjoy this view.

Alejandro Soto@soto· May 30

Here's their justification for Planetary Science cuts. It's all focused on the human spaceflight to the Moon and Mars. There is no interest in science. This will be devastating if enacted.

Within Planetary Science, increased funding is requested for a new Mars initiative to provide lower-cost, competitively selected missions and instruments that address both human exploration and science objectives. These payloads will take advantage of the new Commercial Mars Payload Services established within ESDMD. The Lunar Discovery and Exploration Program will continue to develop scientific instruments for Artemis II and III missions and payloads for commercial delivery to the Moon via the Commercial Lunar Payload Services project, which has been transferred to ESDMD. NASA will terminate the Mars Sample Return mission and will further reduce the portfolio by halting progress on several other missions. Activities within Planetary Science Research, Venus and Mars Technology, and Radioisotope Power Systems are reduced, and will focus on high priority science investigations and technologies relevant to planned missions.

Alejandro Soto@soto· May 16

And the clouds are pretty cool too. As an atmospheric scientist, I am totally loving these cloud images. The images here show clouds as a function of height and location on Titan. Caption details are in the alt text. 10/n assets.science.nasa.gov/dynamicimage...

From NASA: These images of Titan were taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope on July 11, 2023 (top row) and the ground-based W.M. Keck Observatories on July 14, 2023 (bottom row). They show methane clouds (denoted by the white arrows) appearing at different altitudes in Titan’s northern hemisphere.

Alejandro Soto@soto· May 16

The plot on the right in this figure shows how much more coronae Veritas will find, compared to Magellan, which will help us figure out how these coronae formed. 4/n www.science.org/cms/10.1126/...

The left side shows to maps of Venusian gravity. The top left is gravity measured by the Magellan mission while the bottom is a simulation of gravity measured by the future Veritas mission. The right plot shows how Veritas will see more and smaller coronae than Magellan.

Figure caption:

Fig. 5. Resolvable coronae in the Magellan and VERITAS gravity datasets.
(A and B) Distribution of (broadly/finely) resolved coronae superimposed over the Magellan global gravity degree strength (A) and the predicted VERITAS global gravity degree strength (B). For a definition and discussion of degree strength, see Methods. The maps are in Mollweide projection centered at 130°E. White features indicate broadly resolved coronae (one to three independent data points within the radius), while green features mark finely resolved coronae (four or more data points within the radius). See Methods for further details. (C) Histogram illustrating the distribution of coronae diameters [from (5)]. The purple solid line represents the cumulative count of coronae smaller than the specific diameter. The blue and red vertical dashed lines mark the average resolutions of VERITAS and Magellan of l = 190 and l = 80, respectively. The gray shaded area highlights coronae smaller than the best possible global average resolution that VERITAS can achieve.

Alejandro Soto@soto· Feb 27

God I wish. These spammers always promise that it's "one last time" but they always break their promise.

A snippet of a text message that says, "We are reaching out to you one last time as we approved your".

Alejandro Soto@soto· Feb 13

These two articles show how broken our vaccination programs already are and how much more broken they may get. Vaccines are probably the most amazing and successful scientific discovery by humans ever. To ignore this amazing tool for saving lives is a tragedy.

A screenshot of an Ars Technica article with the title and subtitle of '“A sicker America”: Senate confirms Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary. In Senate hearings, Kennedy continued to express anti-vaccine views.' There is also a picture of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy.

A screenshot of an Ars Technica article with the title and subtitle of 'Nine unvaccinated people hospitalized as Texas measles outbreak doubles.
All 24 cases are in unvaccinated people, 22 of which are under age 17.' There's also a picture of a small child with signs of measles on their face. The child has a pacific in its mouth.

Alejandro Soto@soto· Feb 11

Musk in the video: "We post our actions to the DOGE handle on X and the DOGE website." This is what doge.gov looks like right now (2:45 pm, 2/11/25). Nothing. A few meaningless words and no links. No actions posted here. Musk doesn't even try to make his lies look true.

Alejandro Soto@soto· Jan 31

NASA is stopping all assessment groups (e.g., MEPAG announcement below). This looks like the first step in a lot of disruption for planetary science and exploration. I worry that the Trump administration may be planning to permanently remove the input from scientists in future planning. #planetsci

Open letter from the Chair to members of the MEPAG community:

We have received the message below from HQ, which impacts our ability to conduct MEPAG activities. As a result, I am pausing planning for the hybrid meeting in April/May, and the SFL-SAG and Goals committee will be stopping work until further notice. We will let everyone know as soon as we are able to resume work.

Vicky Hamilton, Chair

“As NASA continues to review and ensure compliance with presidential actions, we are requesting that you please pause all meetings and activities of Planetary Science Analysis/Assessment Groups. This includes ExMAG, LEAG, MAPSIT, MEPAG, MExAG, OPAG, OWWG, SBAG, VEXAG, the cross-AG EDIA Working Group, and any other groups or activities that have been developed by the AGs. Please make your communities aware of this request.”

These presidential actions may include, but are not limited to, the following Executive Orders and Presidential memoranda:
Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing
Initial Guidance Regarding DEIA Executive Orders
Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions
Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government
Initial Guidance Regarding President Trump’s Executive Order Defending Women
Unleashing American Energy

Thank you and we will reach out regarding next steps.

Alejandro Soto@soto· Dec 23

It's annoying that the spell check on my computer keeps trying to correct the word "heliophysics". 🧪 #HeliophysicsIsAWord

A photo of a sticker that says "# Heliophysics Is A Word". There are also small logos on the sticker, presumably from scientific sponsors. The logos are for: National Solar Observatory, COFFIES, CGS, SHIELD, Southwest Research Institute, and Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society.

Alejandro Soto@soto· Nov 21

Who does love an image of Saturn? Here’s one from Voyager 1 mission. The narrow angle visible camera caught this stunning view. You can see some of the ring structure that we later explored in more detail using the Cassini mission. #planetaryscience 🧪 photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpegMod/PIA0...

Voyager 1 looked back at Saturn on Nov. 16, 1980, four days after the spacecraft flew past the planet, to observe the appearance of Saturn and its rings from this unique perspective. A few of the spokelike ring features discovered by Voyager appear in the rings as bright patches in this image, taken at a distance of 5.3 million kilometers (3.3 million miles) from the planet. Saturn's shadow falls upon the rings, and the bright Saturn crescent is seen through all but the densest portion of the rings. From Saturn, Voyager 1 is on a trajectory taking the spacecraft out of the ecliptic plane, away from the Sun and eventually out of the solar system (by about 1990). Although its mission to Jupiter and Saturn is nearly over (the Saturn encounter ends Dec. 18, 1980), Voyager 1 will be tracked by the Deep Space Network as far as possible in an effort to determine where the influence of the Sun ends and interstellar space begins. Voyager 1's flight path through interstellar space is in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus. Voyager 2 will reach Saturn on August 25, 1981, and is targeted to encounter Uranus in 1986 and possibly Neptune in 1989. The Voyager project is managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

Alejandro Soto@soto· Nov 15

Nice!! Love the aliens. Personally I am rocking my Mars 2020 rover socks.

Photo of a Mars rover themed sock on a left foot. Lots of read, black, and white.

Alejandro Soto@soto· Nov 8

Doesn't he understand that to Trump et al., he's the bad guy. He, the undocumented immigrant from Mexico, is the one "who isn't supposed to be here", according to Trump and Trump followers? 🤦 I don't understand this person's perspective.

A screenshot with text that says, 'Javier Flores, a 23-year-old undocumented immigrant from Puebla, Mexico, who’s lived in Castle Hill for four years while working as a butcher, said that “I couldn’t vote but if I could, I would choose him.”

“They should remove everyone who isn’t supposed to be here — the bad people,” Flores told THE CITY in Spanish. “The people who have a bad record, you know, who have a criminal history.” '

Alejandro Soto@soto· Oct 24

Hmm, classic mistake on my part due to aversion to reading press releases. Sorry about that. So, it's subscriptions, which to me is better than ads or data mining. Thanks!

Alejandro Soto@soto· Oct 24

Here's where those 67 storms landed on the west coast of the USA: cw3e.ucsd.edu/wp-content/u...

A slide from the CW3E organization. On the left, there's statistics on the number of atmospheric rivers as a function of strength and the number of atmospheric rivers as a function of the state in which the storm landed. On the right is a map of the trajectories of these atmospheric rivers, right up to land fall.

Alejandro Soto@soto· Sep 27

Oh hell! Look at that storm. Hopeful thoughts for everyone affected by this storm. satlib.cira.colostate.edu/wp-content/u...

A satellite image of the eastern seaboard with most of the image filled with Hurricane Helene.

Alejandro Soto@soto· Sep 14

Finally some clouds!!!