I graduated in May with my degree in Physics with a concentration in Astrophysics and Optoelectronics. I am considering applying for a PhD program for next year and want to consider what type of industry roles I can get into with a PhD in observational astronomy.

I have plotted the orbital dynamics of the Solar System over three timescales in: 10,000 years, 100,000 years, and 1,000,000 years in Python and factoring in the gravitational interactions between the planets using the newtonian model of gravitation.
The metric plotted is eccentricity (e), which describes how elliptical an orbit is. A higher value indicates a more elliptical orbit, while e=0 represents a perfectly circular orbit.
In plots 2 and 3, Jupiter and Saturn's eccentricities oscillate almost periodically, largely out of phase with each other. As the two most massive planets, they exert strong gravitational perturbations on each other, influencing their orbital shapes over time.
At a given semimajor axis, higher eccentricity corresponds to a lower orbital angular momentum. Their gravitational interactions allow angular momentum to be exchanged between their orbits, so one planet's eccentricity can increase while the other's decreases. This exchange is constrained by the conservation of the Solar System's total angular momentum, with all the planets contributing to the overall dynamics of the solar system.
Images 2 and 3 are the eccentricity plots of the gas giants over timescales of 100,000 years and 2 million years. Note that the gas giant eccentricity plots are validated but the inner planet plots aren’t fully validated.

Sources:

Image 2: Overlong simulations of the solar system dynamics with two alternating step-lengths by Seppo Mikkola and Harry J Lehto

Image 3: The orbital evolution of the Sun–Jupiter–Saturn–Uranus–Neptune system on long time scales by Alexander Perminov and Eduard Kuznetsov (2020)

I found an open replication challenge for the First Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS-I) transients that might be a good project for students or anyone with access to plate data with prizes up to $75k.

The objective is to try to determine whether the short-lived star-like sources reported on 1950s Palomar plates show up on plates from other observatories. The primary search has to use non-Palomar plates exposed before October 4, 1957, so any real source on them can't be an artificial satellite. Proposed explanations range from reflections off flat objects in high orbit, supported by a reported deficit of transients inside Earth's shadow, to emulsion defects and scanning artifacts, while Watters et al. 2026 argue the Earth's shadow and nuclear-test statistics don't hold up once the plates' sky coverage and observing schedule are taken into account.

Teams or individuals can pre-register their transient definition, sample, controls and normalization, receive feedback from reviewers on the method only, and then have nine months to run it, with extra time for teams digitizing a new collection. Null and refuting results are eligible, and the strongest entries need to be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal.

I am in high school right now and i’m taking a physics class that has really piqued my interest about physics. I’ve always loved space and im in double advanced math. I know it’s lots of work and hard to get a job in(from what Ive heard), but it’s really something I think Id like to spend my life on. To the older members of this sub, is it worth it to pursue?

Exciting news for the astrophysics community around Houston!

From November 4th-6th, students, industry professionals, and enthusiasts across disciplines are invited to the nation's longest-running space interest conference, SpaceVision, hosted by SEDS USA.

There will be expert panels on a variety of fields from Artemis to planetary sciences, and even topics such as space medicine and science fiction. There are also thousands of dollars in competition prizes, exclusive networking events, and multi-day access to all of Space Center Houston.

I would definitely look up more information if you're nearby, even if you can only make it for one day I think it's super worth it!

You can submit your questions now: https://www.reddit.com/u/UCBerkeley/s/we4fFYuTje

so i was accepted into the faculty of astrophysics in my country which is located in the top university of said country i have also been accepted into nursing school

so the future is quite scary nurses have job security but very little pay and astrophysics have no job security (where i live) but great pay if i were to be appointed somewhere, however again no job security whatsoever i am fine with both majors i like both equally but i've always been obssesed with astronomy ever since i was a child i believe i can excel at it get a PHD hopefully and start teaching in some university however if i do not manage to do that i'll be unemployed most likely

i am very disoriented at the moment i don't know what to choose.

my original plan was to go to nursing school attempt a PHD and hopefully be a professor to teach nursing.

i applied to astrophysics on a whim just to satisfy that child inside me but now i am seriously considering it i have always been hesitant to be a nurse i don't know if i want to work 12 hour shifts around people having the worst days of their lives i don't know if i'll manage to get a PHD in either and i'm just asking for opinions here i would really like to hear every point of view i could find

very sorry for lack of proper gramma i am quite disoriented and english is not my first language

Astronomers may have caught a massive star at an unusually early stage of formation. Nicknamed the “dragon egg,” the compact source is surrounded by enough cold gas and dust to build a massive star, yet it shows no clear outflows or other strong signs that a protostar is already active. Could this be evidence that massive stars begin as large, dense cores—or is a smaller hidden seed simply feeding from the surrounding cloud?

hi I am about to graduate my Master Degree in June and have published a research paper as second author with my supervisor. Already submitted a second paper as first author waiting for approval. Third potential paper as second author is underway and there are potentially two more papers that I will be finishing up before I graduate hopefully.

Question remains what are the best options for me to apply for PhD either USA or Canada or should I look for within Europe.

Also I want to know how impactful my application gonna come out when I write in my CV about 3/5 published papers during Master’s Degree

I was just watching Shin Gojira (aka Shin Godzilla) and in the movie they said that it has previously unknown elements. That had me thinking it found islands of stability. Then I switched to non fiction..

AI has already largely solved protein folding prediction (AlphaFold), and knowing this, I thought.. What if they use AI to predict islands of stability, the purported atomic numbers and specific isotopes that can yield long lived or stable nuclei? Well, I looked into it, and they are, which is pretty awesome.

If you're interested, look into:

Research on Stability and Decay Properties of Superheavy Nuclei Based on Neural Network Method

https://wulixb.iphy.ac.cn/en/article/doi/10.7498/aps.74.20250720?viewType=HTML

Nuclear Decay Networks Reveal Stability Patterns in Superheavy Nuclei

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42477423/

GLDM-BNN: Calculation of Alpha-Decay Half-Lives for New Superheavy Nuclei

https://journals.aps.org/prc/abstract/10.1103/nt1d-5848

Systematics of Alpha-Decay Half-Lives from Neural Network Modeling and Application to Superheavy Nuclei

https://journals.aps.org/prc/abstract/10.1103/9gv5-kx6q

Physics-Guided Residual Correction of Alpha-Decay Half-Lives Based on the Effective Liquid Drop Model

https://journals.aps.org/prc/accepted/10.1103/7gm3-2y7f

Machine Learning Orbital-Free Density Functional Theory Resolves Shell Effects in Deformed Nuclei

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42005-025-02234-7

Nuclear_DNA: Interpretable AI for Nuclear Binding Energies and Structure

https://github.com/strifinopoulos/Nuclear_DNA

GSI/FAIR: Experiments Reveal the Shoreline of the Island of Stability

https://press.uni-mainz.de/experiments-at-gsi-fair-reveal-the-shoreline-of-the-island-of-stability-of-superheavy-elements/

I was reading 'Our Mathematical Universe' by Max Tegmark

He referenced this curve to explain several things.

But I'm not able to understand the significance of this curve, apart from the fact that it shows the temperature fluctuations at different scales in the early universe.

But what is the theoretical significance of these fluctuations. Why do some theories predict the fluctuations better??

Do you regret the path you took? What are the best and the worst aspects of the job? Would you recommend the others to pursue it?

While I love space, it would really help me figure out if astrophysics is the path for me, so I would like to hear your experiences and possibly some advice. Thanks!

I’m an astrophysics undergrad student, currently at community college, and I’m looking to transfer to a university where there is research in light, photons etc being done specifically for use in astronomy/astrophysics. I’ve been doing some cursory research but figured I’d put out a beacon here to see if anyone has some good recs. Thank you.

I'm not a physicist. I work in IT, and I've been playing with an idea for a year or two. I even used ChatGPT to help structure my thoughts, and for that I apologize in advance.

Suppose space, time, and matter are all information that needs to be declared and described in some way.

In computing, storing information requires a physical representation. For example, flash memory stores information by trapping electrical charge. The information itself doesn't "know" how or where it is stored, or what physical resources are required to represent it.

What if something similar applies to the universe?

What if representing space, time, and matter comes with an allocation cost—energy deposited to store that information?

I'm not talking about continuous energy consumption to maintain the universe, but rather energy associated with establishing the physical states in which information exists.

This makes me wonder whether phenomena we currently explain through dark matter and dark energy might have an entirely different underlying explanation, potentially connected to this allocation cost.

I realize that the energy used to write information into physical memory is not necessarily stored in that memory, and that gravitational effects depend on more than simply the existence of energy.

I've also learned that concepts such as emergent gravity and information-based approaches to spacetime already exist, although I don't know how closely they relate to this particular idea.

Could the hidden energy cost of representing space, time, and matter as information offer an alternative explanation for dark matter and dark energy, or is there a fundamental flaw in this reasoning?

I like everything about the space how it makes me very curious,but I'm very weak In science due to which I did not opt for science and maths but, i would like to work in the field of science

Any advice?

Science has no answer to this or was it god?

As someone who loves physics, but has always been terrible at math, so I never sought higher education within the discipline. I was hoping to find someone or a group that would be willing to help me figure out or understand a few things on the cosmic/planetary scale.

I'm writing a story that involves a solar system that I would like to figure out a few things for scale and if some things would even be plausible.

If possible I would like to get as much as I can to a point that any astrophysicist, mathematician, hard sci-fi reader, really any science minded person reading it would say, "yeah, I'll accept that. It's close enough." So that the smaller things based more on sci-fi adventure that are a little more tropey and break reality are just fun additions, instead of everything breaking reality and moving into fantasy.

Questions I will be asking:

1. Can a solar system exist with a black whole in the center? Like a binary start system with a star and a black hole?

Or is it possible to have it in the center with the planets rotaing around it, while all of that simultaneously rotates around a large star? Providing heat at light? I know this is is most likely impossible but it's they're any more of this that would exist where a black hole would be "visible" from the planets, for at least 100 years or longer?

1. Can you help me calculate, or teach me how to calculate planetary distances, orbit speeds, time dilation, etc.

Among others, and I'm sure more will come up once getting into it.

I dont know how much I will be able to grasp through comments or DMs but will try! But if possible a zoom/teams call would be very helpful. Or even a video explaining certain things.

I'm trying to learn things from YouTube and any other resources but without the ability to ask questions, I struggle.

Any help or resources would so greatly appreciated!!!

TLDR - Anyone willing to help a dummy learn some physics and answer dumb sci-fi questions through DMs and possibly video chat?