UKRI being reserved is probably why we've not heard anything from the devolved govs.
But given the impact this could have on unis, particularly those with large astronomy groups (St Andrews, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Cardiff all spring to mind) - maybe they can try and wield some political pressure?
Signed - do we know if there are letters going in to the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and NI to ask them to take a stance against the cuts (sorry... cost reductions)?
🔊 Calling UK early career researches in astro, particle & nuclear physics. Please sign this open response to the proposed cuts at STFC ⚛️🧪🔭
"Protecting the UK's reputation as a science superpower requires not only investment, but continuity, confidence, and people"
✍️ ecr-openletter-stfc.github.io
Me, on astronomy funding crisis, on the @ox.ac.uk website: www.ox.ac.uk/news/2026-02... 🔭🧪
I'm currently learning C++ and I keep coming across defined and codified things in C++ that I've been doing for years in Python by accident
The latest one of these is using `del` in python to free up memory
That they bang on about affordability is utter insanity.
In Scotland, under 22s get free bus travel. There's discussion in about extending to under 30s.
To not provide free bus travel to young people, and fair concessionary travel to disabled people, is an entirely political decision.
OK we're back baby.
I'm not exactly well, but well *enough* to attempt a quiz stream tonight. I'll be joined by some creator friends playing quiz games from games.city... who are offering a donation match up to £2000 during the stream!
Tonight, 7:30PM GMT
www.twitch.tv/drsimonclark
Delighted to announce that the first paper of my PhD - "The role of magnetic fields in ram pressure stripping of satellite galaxies in the circumgalactic medium around massive galaxies" - has been published by MNRAS!
Check out the paper here: academic.oup.com/mnras/articl...
🧪🔭
What are the biggest pains with trying to make an introduction to astronomy video series is I know the things but I can't just be like "Trust me bro", I need references 😔
🔭🧪
Were I the president or chancellor of any institution subject to these demands, my response would be "make me, you fascist fuck."
And then I would sic university counsel on them and seek the support of the rest of the institutions in my university system to form a unified front against this shit.
Most of us don't want these morons in government. Unfortunately, our electoral system is almost as bad as the US so unless something changes, the next election could be a disaster pretty much across the board...
Today I pause my PhD to start an industry placement working with High Performance Computing in Bristol. Video coming on my channel soon talking about it!
It's with the Bristol supercomputing centre working on performance for the Isambard 3 and Isambard AI supercomputers.
Not far from Cardiff so not too disrupting to the rest of my life
6 months as required by my funding body. Should be fun!
I'm less than 2 weeks out from going on a placement and pausing my PhD research - I've got a lot to do but there's nothing more terrifyingly motivating than a deadline! 🔭🌌
For once, I haven't done a very simple silly error this morning. I'm reaping the benefits of past Thomas' effort. I set up my plot layouts in python in a very flexible way that's made making changes based on referee paper comments so much easier!
In today's episode of even allegedly smart people make very stupid errors...
I spent an hour trying to work out why my plots were well below the expected values... I had forgotten to change the units. 🔭🌌
Some days I think I've really grown as a scientist and what I do now is really cutting edge and interesting... then there are days where I'm triple checking every parameter in the simulations I need to re-run... again... 🔭
Does the apprehension around waiting for the reviewer report on a paper ever go away? Asking for a friend... 🔭
This week I presented my research on the "Role of magnetic fields in simulations of ram pressure stripping of satellite galaxies" at @nam25-durham.bsky.social
I also chaired a session at the conference which was a great experience to take on that responsibility as a PhD student!
#NAM2025 🔭🌌🧪
Two images of the magnetic field structure around simulated galaxies. Left shows a swept back structure to the field lines. This is highlighted with a dashed white line. Right shows an alignment of the field lines downwind of the satellite, again denoted with dashed lines. Text reads: "Stripping and mixing are less with magnetic fields because the field suppresses turbulence. It does this with a draping layer, reducing stripping, and by aligning with the tail. This matches the few observations we do have.
The ArXiV and Royal Astronomical Society logos. Text: What's next? My paper is now available on the arxiv pre-print server. This means anyone can read it, but it's still to go through "peer-review". Peer-Review is the process that happens after you submit to a journal where another scientist reads the paper and can suggest improvements. I have submitted my paper to the journal "The Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society", a major UK-based journal for Astro."
Image again of simulated galaxies. Text: "In the meantime though... it's back to work! Conference season is well underway though, so I'll be off to present this work in person soon enough! Follow for more!"
A screenshot of my new paper on the preprint arxiv titled "the role of magnetic fields in ram pressure stripping of satellite galaxies in the circumgalactic medium around massive galaxies. Text above reads "My first paper is out now". Below reads "this paper looks at how magentic fields affect how gas is removed from galaxies orbiting other galaxies. Swipe to read more."
An image of simulated galaxies surrounded by lower density gas. Some of the galaxies have bright tails of dense gas behind them. Text above: "Galaxies are surrounded by an atmosphere of hot gas called the Circumgalactic Medium or CGM" Text Below: "Orbiting within the CGM, we find many smaller satellite galaxies".
A plot showing the temperature of a satellite galaxy with a tail of gas, relative to the hot CGM surroundings. Text: Satellites feel a headwind from the gas in the CGM - which we call Ram Pressure. If this ram pressure can overcome gravity, it removes gas in a process called Ram Pressure Stripping"
An 8 panel plot showing a galaxy with magnetic fields (above) and without (below) for various properties. Text: In this paper, we run simulations with and without magnetic fields to see their effects. Without magnetic fields, more gas is stripped from the galaxies. There's also more mixing of hot and cool gas - this causes more gas to cool onto the stripped gas."
🌌🔭 Excited to announce my first paper is out now!
We use simulations to explore the effect of magnetic fields on satellite galaxies in the circumgalactic medium (CGM) - the reservoir of gas around galaxies.
Read the paper here: arxiv.org/abs/2506.18983
See thread for remaining images.
"Why should my tax dollars go to fund your astrophysics research?" A thread. 🔭🧪
Brushing aside how absurdly little of the federal budget goes to science (according to the Planetary Society NASA accounts for only 0.3% of federal spending), the benefits of funding astronomy fall into two camps. (1/n)
Reading more about this, I'm disappointed in the authors of this study & how they've turned a very marginal result into worldwide press releases.
In this climate, we as scientists have a responsibility to lead by example and represent our work accurately to the press. This is not that. ☄️🔭🧪
Yesterday went great! Today's off to a less great start... Went to go work on a project on my laptop in the office, to discover I had not uploaded the latest version to github from my desktop at home...
Guess I'll do that tonight and do this work tomorrow!
Something I'm really enjoying in my PhD in Astrophysics is that my actual work is presenting me all these opportunities to learn new skills for coding/software/data science/etc.
Today, my work has weaved its way to the point that I think it makes sense to learn CUDA so I can run my code on GPUs 🔭🧪
Congratulations!!
April Fools papers on ArXiV are always a good bit of fun, but this one from @sophienewman.bsky.social and Ana Sainz de Murieta on the Astrophysical implications of the Eras Tour is one of the best I've seen.
arxiv.org/abs/2503.24188
🔭
This is amazing! Thank you so much!
Working on a video about light pollution and dark skies, anyone know of any public datasets of light pollution maps?
Ideally worldwide but would settle for UK, Continental Europe and North America (ideally not just the US)
🔭🧪
Goodbye Gaia. Thanks for everything.
Gaia might never have been as flashy as Hubble or JWST, but it was one of the most amazing and most accessible missions. I worked with Gaia data in my undergrad and I hope we see more missions like it.
🔭🧪
