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05.03.2026 15:42
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Want to take action on climate?
Want to find *your* climate superpowers?
Then check out SHIFT!
NEW ANALYSIS: UK emissions fell 2.4% in 2025 as coal fell to a 400-year low. Incredibly, we used less coal last year than than in 1600, when Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne and Shakespeare was writing Hamlet.
All the details in our article: www.carbonbrief.org/...
Long-winded title for a paper showing an extraordinary dataset - a 34-hr exposure of a redshift 14 (!) galaxy with MIRI LRS on #JWST. Beautiful >4-sigma detection of H-alpha in a galaxy observed when the Universe was only ~2% of its current age scixplorer.org/abs/2025arXi...
There are less than 48 hours for most U.S. residents to submit congressional spending requests to their House representative.
Support NASA Science and submit a request! Our handy online guide will walk you through the process: dashboards.planetary.org/appropriations-guide
So getting heliocentric distances, phase angles, and geocentric distances computed for the 1.7 million Rubin observations looks like it will take an hour on the linux box rather than 6 days on my laptop
Looks like multithreading changed with python 3.13 - upgrading to python 3.14 and possibly one or two other things has gotten jax to place nicely with the other multiprocessing on linux.
Gone on a deep dive on linux multi-threading and versions of python to try and get the multithreaded code that runs on my mac laptop to run on the group linux box because it has way more cores.
Hey, so, we have some news about something that won't be happening in 2032.
Today @astroroyalscot.bsky.social @jonbutterworth.bsky.social and I gave evidence to the Science & Technology Committee on the proposed #STFC cuts.
Chaired by @chionwurah.bsky.social the committee were clearly well briefed and asked strong questions of Prof Michele Dougherty. An excellent summary:
I'm going to spend some time watching tv and getting the recordings form the workshop online for those who couldn't participate in real time.
There have been MULTIPLE early leaks of scientific discoveries via DECORATED CAKE. Scientists are good at many things, but shutting up is definitely not one of them.
There's a lot going on the in the world these days that's wrong and horrible that this seems so small in comparison, but I'm still feeling sad about it tonight.
It's hard to be enthusiastic about science when there seems so many people turning away from it (ignoring the evidence that the climate crisis is caused by human-driven climate change/ widespread vaccination misinformation), lack of funding, etc.
I'm not funded anymore to work on this science with the cuts already in the astronomy small grants. My funding proposal I submitted last year wasn't funded even though it got high marks from the external (expert) reviewers. With a 19% acceptance rate lots of great research ideas weren't funded.
I've given three public talks in the past month about how the Rubin Observatory is going transform our view of the Solar System & how exciting this is & what questions we get to answer. But I've wondered will the UK be leading in astronomy when some of those kids in the audience get to grad school
One of the reasons I've been quiet on here lately is because I organized a workshop gathering the next generation leaders and current leaders in planetary astronomy together to start working with early data from Rubin Observatory and build tools to access/interrogate the Rubin solar system data.
Spent a good chunk of today thinking about options & scenarios for funding cuts big & small to UK astronomy projects & when the cuts make the project no longer viable. It makes me sad because I decided to come to the UK because it was one of the leading nations funding pure research & innovation.
Rows of people wearing orange lanyards in a House of Commons committee hearing. At the front is Catherine sporting her "I'm about to perform an appendectomy" mask and looking particularly snazzy.
Here is my run-down of today's Science, Information & Technology Committee hearing (House of Commons) where @jonbutterworth.bsky.social @si-wills.bsky.social & I argued for no funding cuts, & Prof. Michele Doughtery explained why they were needed. The public gallery again packed with physicists 🔭👩🔬⚛️
Thanks @scifri.bsky.social for having me on to talk about federal research budgets. TLDL: Congress voted to reject the president's big science cuts, but the White House is slow to release those approved funds. 🧪
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...
Starting at 9:30am "Following reports that the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) is facing significant cost pressures, the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee will hold a one-off evidence session exploring scientific research funding" 🔭 committees.parliament.uk/event/26683/...
Thank you for taking on the mantle as the emissary for the UK astronomy community to Parliament and taking the time and energy to advocate for the community. I have no doubt that you're going to do great job.
Five year Astro career development fellowship in Oxford open for applications, broadly in survey astronomy including transients and cosmology. College teaching and research. Do think about joining us. Happy to answer questions! 🔭
I'm sure we'll all agree that everything is now super clear 😵💫
High res version here: committees.parliament.uk/publications...
Astronomer Nevil Maskelyne racked up a £141 alcohol bill during his 18 month expedition to observe the 1761 Transit of Venus.
That’s over £26,000 ($35,000) in today’s money.
Or almost £50 per day.
He claimed it on expenses and would go on the become Astronomer Royal.
#astronomy #histsci 🧪
Rubin Observatory photograph with star trails in the background as a title slide for a talk titled “The View of the Centaur Region Through Wide-Field Surveys”
Nice to be back with the Northern Ireland Amateur Astronomy Society (NIAAS) tonight to talk about Rubin Observatory and Centaurs niaas.co.uk
This was an interesting chat. Come hear about why funding Astronomy can save the UK. (ish).
Here is a copy of the open letter from the heads of physics departments across the UK- worth reading as it makes a lot of excellent points
www.iop.org/about/news/o...
I have tea & chocolate: ready to start a day of prep for my Wed appearance at the UKGov Science, Information and Technology select committee.
I'll be making the case for the economic and scientific benefits of funding (not cutting) UK astronomy. Keen to hear your Sunday thoughts on the matter!🔭⚛️🎢👩🔬
Very happy to be involved looking at this data, as part of the JANUS team. It’s a cool dataset.
