Just a quick note...

Above: A nice, blue-because-of-water-and-not-in-any-way-lethal, exoploanet like this one is what astronomers would've liked in their stocking. Not literally though, unless someone's granny has knitted a really over enthusiastically big stocking...

This week is the 225th meeting of the American Astronomical Society - if astronomy is your thing it's well worth following the link to the website and checking out some of the papers there. I'll be picking something ancient solar system related to comment on later in the week, but there're already interesting things coming out about exoplanets and water on them.

Above: The Martian desert, as painted by yours truly.

In news totally unrelated to that: I paint a bit (see above), and I got good feedback when I finally got the guts up to show them to folk. As a result I'm going to start a little blog so people can see what I paint - it's here and I hope you get a bit of pleasure out of it. The collection will grow, albeit slowly at first, as real life is a thing I have to deal with!