iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans @astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

It's been 7 months since I gave evidence at the UKGov select committee hearing, on the policy changes at UKRI which have had a catastrophic impact on funding for UK astronomy and particle physics. When asked if we thought we were the "canary in the coal mine", we said yes..... we weren't wrong. 🧪🔭⚛️

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Michelle Collins @runningastronomer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Our latest episode is live! I joined Dr Nicole Buckley 🎉🎉🎉 for our first episode since she passed her PhD viva to talk about some great recent papers from the astro arxiv 🔭🧪☄️

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Michelle Collins @runningastronomer.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

ALMOST DARK GALAXIES ARE JUST CLASSICAL DWARF SPHEROIDAL GALAXIES. WE EXPECT TO FIND THEM EVERYWHERE. THEY DON'T NEED A NEW NAME. ALSO THEY'RE ACTUALLY QUITE BRIGHT. This has been a public service announcement. 🔭🧪☄️

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Markus Pössel @mpoessel.de · 10/09/2026

When we do outreach or education, astronomers frequently claim that public and student interest in astronomy is greater than in other sciences, making it an ideal entry way for science. My article analyzing Wikipedia page views which (somewhat) supports this claim is out in the CAP Journal. 🔭⚛️🧪🎢

capjournal.org

English-speaking Wikipedia users’ interest in astronomy

Wikipedia users’ interest in astronomy is examined using data available for pageviews over the period 2016–2025. Interest, as measured by the level of engagement, is gauged by examining the top 30 ast...

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Elle Cordova @ellecordova.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Rough Draft vs Final Draft

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Michelle Collins @runningastronomer.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Our not entirely sanctioned event became a wholly sanctioned success 🤩🔭🌍🌕☀️. It was amazing thanks to the support of all our Surrey astro team 🥰

Here we see the moon eclipsing most of the sun using our seestar telescope. Only a Cheshire smile remains of the sun

Am image of the crowd on campus. Many people looking up to the sun which is on the right hand side. In the background you can just make out the Guildford cathedral

Here we gaze upon a group of runners. They have their back to us as they look up at the eclipse

Another photo of the crowd as they wait for the eclipse

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Oliver Newton @musicalneutron.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Finding myself on a train in northern France during the eclipse and with no professional equipment for safe viewing, I had to improvise

A hat with holes illuminated from behind by the sun

A hat with holes supported against a train window by a sandal

A projection of a partial solar eclipse on a hand

Four projected images of a partial solar eclipse on a hand

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Michelle Collins @runningastronomer.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

So excited for tonight! I organised a small eclipse work event for a few people. Which has spiralled into something massive! 😂I should not have mentioned my eclipse glasses stash... 😎🔭🌍🌕☀️

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Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans @astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Just off #BBCR4 World at One, arguing the importance of discovery science (like Jodrell) for long-term economic growth. I said I was heartbroken at the news: evidence just look at how exceptionally excited me & @mamaphysikerin.bsky.social were when we got to stand inside Lovell back in 2017 🥰 🔭🧪

Two blonde women with absolutely massive grins on their faces, in hard hats, inside a massive white radio telescope!

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Michelle Collins @runningastronomer.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

No! Jodrell Bank is such an important site for UK astronomy and has such history. I remember well my visits and experiments there as a Manchester undergraduate. These cuts are short-sighted and I hate them. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... 🔭☄️🧪

bbc.co.uk

Jodrell Bank's Lovell telescope faces axe in science cuts, BBC understands

Astronomers warn it would tear the heart out of UK science, and leave a generation untrained.

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Oliver Newton @musicalneutron.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

From experience I can say they're a great bunch of people to work with at Surrey Astro! 😀

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Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans @astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

On display this morning, parliamentary scrutiny at its very best with @chionwurah.bsky.social and her committee questioning Secretary of State Liz Kendall about the STFC funding cuts. Worth watching in full, but here are some of the highlights! 1: Doctoring the minutes!

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Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans @astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

If this leaked info is to be trusted, we'll soon be adding #SaveJodrellBank to #SaveUKAstronomy🔭. I fear this is UKRI "rolling the pitch" to prepare us for the official announcement of unpleasant news😔 There is still a little glimmer hope though: A DSIT spokesperson said: "This is speculation".

A gorgeous sunset image of the iconic Lovell radio telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory.

The prioritisation decisions approved by Dsit are also likely to include the scaling back of several UK-based research facilities supported by STFC, RPN understands.

These include e-Merlin, an array of seven radio telescopes, of which the Lovell is one, headquartered at the Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire.

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Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans @astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

At today's UKRI board meeting, the fate of UK particle physics and astronomy will likely be decided. Have we done enough to convince the powers-that-be to halt the proposed funding cuts? 🤞 Read Prof. Hiranya Peiris in Nature today eloquently explaining why these cuts are wrong.🧪🔭⚛️ 📖: rdcu.be/friwM

Restructuring research funding as a choice between discovery and application gets the economics wrong, the evidence wrong and the people wrong.

A premise is gaining traction in science policy on both sides of the Atlantic: that fundamental and applied research are competing claims on the same budget, and that the balance must shift towards application. In the USA, the current administration has proposed cuts of billions of dollars to the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. In the UK, the national funding agency UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is restructuring its portfolio around government growth priorities, with curiosity-driven research nominally protected but the grant lines that actually fund investigators under severe pressure. The language varies — ‘doing fewer things better’, ‘aligning research with industrial strategy’ — but the underlying logic is the same. Fundamental science, the argument goes, is a luxury that becomes dispensable when budgets are tight. This premise is wrong, and the consequences of acting on it are already visible.

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Michelle Collins @runningastronomer.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

AAAAHHHHHH! 🥳🎉🎊 It begins! We're mapping the sky in a way we've never done before. Get excited everyone, LSST is finally here! 🔭☄️🧪

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Denis Erkal @derkal.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Interested in working on stellar streams in the UK? I’ll be posting a 3 year postdoc position to work with me and Eugene Vasiliev on measuring dark matter subhalo properties with streams in a few days. Interviews will be in early August with a start date of October 1st. 🧪☄️

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Mike Boylan-Kolchin @mbkplus.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

I hate that this — urgent pleas to save prestigious departments from drastic cuts — is becoming a regular occurrence. A program like this takes decades to build and a few strokes of a pen to destroy.

sussexphysics.github.io

Save Sussex Physics

Save Sussex Physics - Open Letter

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 25/06/2026

oh? you think we can cope??? Let me introduce you to Venus. Thanks to the greenhouse effect, it is an inhospitable hell-hole, with temperatures over 400°C (750°F). The probes we've sent usually lasted mere minutes on the surface due to the heat. Venus is why fucking with our climate is a bad idea

Radar imagery of venus. looks like a nice place for a holiday in the sun

the surface of venus, from the venera probes. the probes lasted less than an hour because it was so hot. the yellow atmosphere is because its a shithole

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Malcolm Fairbairn @malcfairbairn.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

This is * insane *. STFC council minutes from December have been removed from their website, changed, and reposted. The new version rolls back on funding commitments made explicit in the initial version. I can't think of another adjective other than Trumpian behaviour.

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

This is absolutely astonishing - it's rare in astronomy to see so much change on a human timescale, but this really shows how dynamic the gas and dust around a young star can be. Seeing the shadows from the inner regions cast out onto the outer spiral arms, amazing!

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Count Binface @countbinface.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Repost if you’d like me to represent the UK at #Eurovision 2027.

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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 23/04/2026

When Einstein developed general relativity the closest thing to a practical application that could even be imagined at the time was a slightly more precise description of where to look for the planet Mercury in the sky, and yet now we’d all be literally lost without it. Anyway: fund basic research.

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Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans @astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

The future of UK Astronomy & Particle Physics is at risk from proposed 30% funding cuts that, if implemented, will be "genuinely catastrophic". Great to see this detailed BBC report on the issue by @pallabg.bsky.social 🔭🧪⚛️ #STFCcuts #SaveUKAstronomy 🗞️: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The future of Uk scientific research. Several research projects face funding cuts. Here are some projects under threat.

Words over a picture of the extremely large telescope (ELT) under construction in Chile

Scotland's Astronomer Royal, Catherine Heymans, speaking for the UK community of astronomers, told the science select committee that the proposed cuts were "genuinely catastrophic and will be devastating for the UK."
She, along with a particle physicist, told MPs most of the potential cuts would lead to British scientists having to greatly reduce their involvement or withdraw altogether from some of the world's most important international astronomy and particle physics experiments.
Those experiments seek to answer some of the biggest questions in science. These include learning how the Universe began and how it will end, finding the first ever signs of life on planets orbiting distant stars, detecting black holes that ripple space time, mapping newborn planets around distant stars and analysing their atmospheres for signs of life. All of these are experiments in which, historically, the UK played a leading role. But now, British scientists could be largely locked out of them in the future, if the STFC does not pay its way.

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Mike Boylan-Kolchin @mbkplus.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

The explosion of popularity of LLMs — and the trust people put in them — indicates that the claimed death of expertise is overblown: people really do want (perceived) expertise. They just don’t like the experts. They want experts who will agree with their priors, and chatbots are the perfect vehicle

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Emily Hunt @emily.space · 22/10/2025

Simulating accurate observations of star clusters is really annoying! So as a part of this paper, we open sourced all of the code we used to simulate them, and there's a Python notebook that explains how to do it right here: 🔭☄️ #galactic #astrocode

ocelot-docs.org

Simulate a cluster with ocelot - ocelot

A toolbox for working with observations of star clusters.

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Andrew Mann @amann.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

There are two kinds of email inboxes: 0-5 unread emails >10,000 unread emails. 🧪🔭

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Dr Jan Eldridge @handle.invalid · 12/05/2025

So the Department of Physics at the University of Auckland is looking to hire a lecturer/senior lecturer in one of the following areas: - Physics education research, - Quantum optics and quantum information, - Biophotonics and/or medical physics, - Astrophysics and/or space technology. 1/2...