(May 2026) Cool Star alum Roman Gerimasov has been awarded the prestigious Hubble Postdoctoral Fellowship! Roman was one of 24 recipients selected from a pool of 650, and he will be using his Fellowship to stay at Norte Dame, using the `Ōnohi`ula Prime Focus Spectrograph on the Subaru Telescope on Maunakea, Hawaii to measure the abundances of stars in dwarf galaxies. Congratulations Roman! (see the press release from Notre Dame)

(April 2026) Cool Star Lab PI Adam Burgasser was featured in a news story on recent images of the Moon transmitted by the Artemis II mission, currently heading back to Earth. Adam was asked about the science enabled by the first images taken by humans of the far side of the Moon in over 50 years, which includes a crater record that spans billions of years. Artemis returns to Earth, landing just off the coast of San Diego in Friday April 10th just after 5pm local time (see the KUSI news story).

(January 2026) Cool Star Lab PI Adam Burgasser has been named a Fellow of the American Astronomical Society. The AAS Fellows program was established in 2020 to recognize AAS members for original research and publications, innovative contributions to astronomical techniques or instrumentation, significant contributions to education and public outreach, and noteworthy service to astronomy and to the Society itself. It is an honor bestowed on less than 0.5% of AAS’s membership each year. Adam's citation noted his "foundational contributions to our understanding of the nature of the lowest-mass stars, brown dwarfs, and exoplanet host stars using space and ground-based facilities; for longstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion; and for extensive leadership roles in the astronomy community." (see the AAS press release).

(October 2025) Cool Star Lab researcher Marylin Loritsch has been awarded a USRA Distinguished Undergraduate Award Honorable Mention. USRA is an independent, nonprofit research corporation that advances space science and technology through industry, government, and university partnerships; UCSD is one of 121 participating universities. The annual USRA Award recognizes undergraduate students with a career interest in space science or engineering with a distinguished academic and research portfolio. Marylin's Honorable Mention recognizes her as among the top 10% of this year's applicant pool. Congratulations Marylin!

(October 2025) Cool Star Lab PI Adam Burgasser led a study in Science reporting the detection of abundant phosphine in the atmosphere of a cold brown dwarf named Wolf 1130C. Based on JWST observations, the study would phosphine at the level expected for vertical mixing chemistry, and reverses the pattern of "missing phosphine" in other brown dwarf and exoplanet atmospheres, and raises new questions about our understanding of phosphorous chemistry. The result was the subject of a press release and reported widely in the New York Times, the Conversation, and other venues (see the UCSD press release and the published Science article)

(August 2025) Cool Star Lab PI Adam Burgasser led spectral analysis of a rare "double-double" system composed of low-mass stars and brown dwarfs. Discovered by collaborator Prof. Zenghua Zhang at Nanjing University, the system is named UPM J1040−3551 AabBab and appears on the sky as a wide M dwarf + T dwarf binary. However, closer scrutiny reveals both components to be overluminous, are likely both comprised of two objects each in close orbits. This discovery adds new empirical insight into how low-mass multiple star systems form, and received wide press coverage including a story in the New York Times Science Section (read the MNRAS article by Zhang et al.).

(May 2026) Cool Star Lab researchers contributed observations and analysis in the detection of two new rocky worlds orbiting low-mass stars. The two systems, TOI-1080 and TOI-4616, are M4-type stars with 1.2 Earth-radius planets on 4-day and 1.6-day orbits. TOI-1080 is a quiet star while TOI-4616 is highly magnetically active. TOI-1080b is far enough from its star to have an equilibrium temperature of about 370ºK (200ºF), within the "habitable zone" range. Both syste,s are strong targets for atmospheric study with JWST (read the MNRAS paper by Gómez Maqueo Chew et al. and the preprint by Lang et al.).

(April 2026) The Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project has released a large trove of low-temperature star and brown dwarf discoveries made by citizen scientists. Over 3,000 L and T dwarfs are reported, based on multi-epoch observations with the WISE satellite. The sample includes new companions to massive stars, as well as candidate co-moving binaries, and greatly extends the census of our local low-mass neighbors (read the preprint for AJ by Schneider et al.).

(April 2026) The first ultracool dwarf discoveries from NASA's SPHEREx mission have been reported, based on full-sky, 0.8-5.0 µm low-resolution spectroscopy. Over 6,000 LTY dwarfs were identified, the largest spectral sample of ultracool dwarfs to date, and include large samples of L and early T dwarfs, young brown dwarfs, metal-poor subdwarfs, and other unique sources. The broad spectral coverage provides a new opportunity to explore the chemistry of low-temperature atmospheres (read the preprint by Gagne et al.).

(March 2026) Cool Star Lab member past and present were in attendance at the AAS Exoplanet Atmospheres conference in Denver, Colorado. PI Adam Burgasser gave a talk on metallicity features in brown dwarf spectra from JWST, and Masters student Julia Haynes presented her work using machine learning algorithms to generate models. CSL alumni Jackie Faherty and Dino Hsu also gave talks on their research into low temperature atmospheres.

(January 2026) Cool Star Lab PI Adam Burgasser has helped to wrap up one of the longest-running ground-based parallax programs focused on the low-mass stars and brown dwarfs. The USNO Infrared Parallax Program started in 2000 on the 1.55-m Kaj Strand Astrometric Reflector at the USNO Flagstaff Station, and over the past quarter-century has made precise astrometric measurements of some of the most compelling nearby brown dwarf systems, most of which are inaccessible to Gaia. This final study reports parallaxes and proper motions for 74 L-dwarfs and 99 T-dwarfs, and provides new insights into resolved and unresolved brown dwarf binaries, wide companions to more massive stars, young planetary-mass objects, and ancient subdwarfs (read the ApJ paper by Vrba et al.).

(January 2026) Cool Star Lab PI Adam Burgasser helped to characterize one of two low-mass stars hosting double planet systems, including close-in rocky worlds. The new planets, TOI-237c and TOI-4336Ac have radiii of 1.2 times that of the Earth, and short orbital periods of 1.7 days and 7.6 days. Adam used optical spectra to determine that TOI-4336Ac is a mid-type M dwarf lacking Halpha emission, suggesting it is an old system. The fours planets in these systems surround the so-called "radius valley", making them important targets for understanding the exoplanet evolution. These discoveries were made as part of the Hidden Gems project, which uses TESS data to search for additional planets transiting low-mass stars that have at least one confirmed world (read the MNRAS paper by Timmerman et al.).

(April 2026) Cool Star Lab undergraduate researchers Vivian Liu and Marylin Loritsch presented their research results at this years UCSD Undergraduate Research Conference. Vivian presented the spectra of several dozen previously unclassified cool stars found in the IRTF SpeX Archive, while Marylin presented new distant brown dwarf discoveries in deep JWST spectroscopy. Congratulations to both our students on their successful research outcomes! 

(April 2026) Members of the Cool Star Lab presented astronomy and physics demonstrations at the 2026 Barrio Logan Science and Art Expo.  This annual event, set in one of San Diego's most unique and vibrant neighborhoods, aims to engage the community in art, science, and culture. This year's demos included a model of the Earth-Moon distance to celebrate the recent Artemis II mission, and a hands-on gravity simulator build by UCSD research scientist Jarred Roberts. 

(February 2026) UCSD A&A participated in a career fair at the Horace Mann Middle School, joining organizations across the county to highlight careers in STEM. Volunteers, including CSL PI Adam Burgasser, demonstrated astronomical science with a solar telescope, a fresnel lens, and tabletop experiments, while describing the skills and careers astronomers have.

(January 2026) Cool Star Lab PI Adam Burgasser gave an interview with Astrobites ahead of his January 2025 AAS plenary talk. Adam talked about what excites him about brown dwarf science today, the pathway to his career, and advice for upcoming astronomers. (see the Astrobites article by Sarah Stevenson)

(December 2025) Cool Star Lab researcher Vivian Liu has been selected as part of the inaugural UCSD TRELS Cohort Experience. TRELS stands for Triton Research & Experiential Learning Scholars, and is a UCSD-wide program to support undergraduate research. The Cohort Experience is a new program that provides cohort meetings, professional events, engagement with faculty and guest speakers, and the opportunity to present at the Spring Mentored Undergraduate Research and Applied Learning Symposium (MURALS) event. Congratulations Vivian!

(December 2025) Cool Star Lab researcher Marylin Loritsch has been awarded the UCSD School of Physical Sciences Selma and Robert Silagi Award for Undergraduate Excellence. This annual award recognizes outstanding graduating seniors in Astronomy & Astrophysics, Biology, Chemistry & Biochemistry, Mathematics, and Physics who demonstrate exceptional academic merit, research, and future promise in their scientific fields. Marylin, a STARTastro scholar and recipient of a AAS Chambliss presentation award, is the first Astronomy & Astrophysics student to win this award. Congratulations Marylin!