Dear Colleagues, This is a reminder to register for the upcoming RAS Specialist Discussion Meeting: "How Does Solar Wind Control Earth's Radiation Belt Dynamics?" Date: Friday, 16 October 2026 Venue: Burlington House, Piccadilly, London Registration for the meeting is required and should be completed by 9 October 2026. Please register via the following link: We look forward to welcoming you to Burlington House in October.

Dear Colleagues. We are pleased to announce that the next UK Space Weather and Space Environment meeting (UKSWSE V) will jointly take place with the COSPAR International Space Weather Action Teams (ISWAT) Initiative and the Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS) in the UK, 18-24 September 2027. Information will be populated at the website in due course: - please bookmark this for future reference.

After many months of hard background work, finally, I am delighted to share with the UK Solar Community an excellent news about the European Solar Telescope (EST) project. The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructure (ESFRI) triennial evaluation process has now concluded, and EST has successfully achieved ESFRI Landmark status. EST will therefore be included as an ESFRI Landmark in the new ESFRI Roadmap, which is due to be officially launched in December 2026.

The SolarNuggets continue the earlier series of RHESSI Nuggets, and are now located at No. 534, “A New Route to Coronal Vector Magnetometry”, by Alin PARASCHIV: An “IQUD” approach to global vector magnetic fields in the solar corona. No. 535, “Why do only some fast CMEs produce sustained gamma-ray emissions?”, by Atul MOHAN. Evidence grows for the association of SGREs with with CME/CME interactions…

Dear colleagues, It is our pleasure to share new Solar Orbiter science nuggets, and celebrate our 100th+ nuggets so far! Thank you to the community at large for making this outlet of Solar Orbiter science as lively as it is. The September 2026 releases can be found here:  SO Nugget #100: Prediction modeling and Solar Orbiter: How PHI provided a sneak peek beneath the east limb for the 2026 Total Solar Eclipse (C.

Dear UKSP Community, We are pleased to welcome two new members to the UKSP Council: Dr Ryan Campbell – Queen’s University Belfast Dr Graham Kerr – University of Glasgow You can read their application statements here: Ryan and Graham will be taking over from Peter Wyper (Durham University) and Karen Meyer (University of Dundee). We would like to thank Peter and Karen for all their hard work, time, and contributions to the UKSP Council and the wider UK solar physics community during their time on the Council.

Please save the date. The UK Royal Society will host a Theo Murphy meeting on "The young solar wind: birth and beyond", on 24-25th May 2027, in Bristol. Further details regarding the registration, venue, and accommodation will be circulated in due course. Meeting organisers: Jesse Coburn (CNRS), Steph Yardley (Northumbria University), Mathew Owens (University of Reading)

Deadline: 30 September 2026 The European Astronomical Society Annual Meeting will take place in Vienna, Austria, on 21-25 June 2027. The meeting is organized by the European Astronomical Society (EAS). Link: We hereby invite proposals from colleagues who are interested in organising a Symposium, a Special Session, or a Lunch Session at the EAS Annual Meeting 2027. Solar Physics sessions are very welcome!!

Dear colleagues, As I'm sure you are all well aware, the STFC has released the conclusions of its prioritisation, which is hurting the PPAN research area and beyond. If you are a PI, co-PI, UK project lead, or equivalent person responsible for an STFC-supported PPAN activity, we would like to know how you feel about the future of your project, grant, facility, and the impact the prioritisation has on your international partners.

Dear Colleagues, I would like to share a new online tool, LION-8, a daytime model of the lower ionosphere under quiet conditions and its response to solar flares. The model has been successfully verified against experimental data. The model can be run directly in your browser: Further details are available on the website. I hope this will be useful to those working on flare-driven ionospheric responses. Feedback and questions are very welcome. Kind regards, Susanna Bekker Queen's University Belfast

Dear UKRI reviewers, UKRI is carrying out a survey to better understand the culture of submitting written reviews for funding assessment, focusing on the how reviewing is recognised across the sector and within UKRI. This is your chance to tell us about what motivates you to review, what the barriers are, and to what extent you feel valued for this vital work, to help shape future UKRI policy. The survey should take less than 10 mins. Please complete before Midnight Friday 2 October. Best wishes Abigail Reynolds (Strategy Lead, UKRI)

A researcher position is available at the Rosseland Centre for Solar Physics, Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo. The position is for a period of 2 years. The starting date is flexible between 1 January 2027 and 1 October 2027. The position is funded by the Research Council of Norway through the Researcher Project for Early Career Scientists “MultiSCORE: Multi-scale structure of the coronal environment” led by Petra Kohutova.

The Operational Activities, Infrastructure, Data and Models Working Group of European Space Weather and Space Climate Association (E-SWAN) is conducting a short survey to better understand the community’s needs and current practices regarding infrastructure, data and modelling in Space Weather and Space Climate. In particular, we would like to gather your views on the accessibility and use of existing resources, the challenges you encounter, and the potential value of a more centralised repository/catalogue bringing together datasets, models and infrastructures.

Registration is still open for DASH/IHDEA 2026. DASH/IHDEA 2026 will take place October 5–9, 2026, at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin, Ireland, hosted by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS). The Data, Analysis, and Software in Heliophysics (DASH) workshop brings together software developers, data practitioners, and scientists to present and discuss algorithms, software, analysis methods, data systems, and standards used throughout heliophysics.

147. Calculation of Field-line Slippage Rates in Coronal Simulations Link: UKSP Nuggets are published on a monthly basis, highlighting solar physics research led from the UK. Regards, Sargam Mulay (sargam.mulay@glasgow.ac.uk) and Alexander Russell (ar51@st-andrews.ac.uk)

Dear all, University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory is inviting applications for the academic position of a Lecturer or Associate Professor in Space Plasma Physics. This post is a permanent Lectureship or Associate Professorship in the Department of Space and Climate Physics:  The successful applicant will be expected to pursue a vigorous, internationally-competitive, original research programme, strongly aligned with the group's research strategy.

The SolarNuggets continue the earlier series of RHESSI Nuggets, and are now located at No. 532, “Electron-ion equilibration in CME-driven shocks,” by John RAYMOND: Signatures of heliospheric plasmas not in thermal equilibrium. No. 533, “The Variance of Solar X-ray Flux,” by Hugh HUDSON: Taylor’s law describes solar X-ray variability all the way. As always, we welcome new items and encourage opinion pieces and news items as well as descriptions of new discoveries. Just email Hugh Hudson with a page of news-oriented text and 2-3 nice figures.

146. DeepFilter: A machine learning technique for removing the hot AIA 304 Å channel component for the analysis of coronal rain Link: UKSP Nuggets are published on a monthly basis highlighting solar physics research led from the UK. Regards, Sargam Mulay (sargam.mulay@glasgow.ac.uk) and Alexander Russell (ar51@st-andrews.ac.uk)

The Space Systems and Technology research group at Northumbria University are seeking to appoint a Post-Doctoral Research Associate in Solar Physics to undertake research in the fields of solar atmospheric science and coronal emission line imaging spectropolarimetry. The funded project is titled, "SULIS Pathfinder: Solar cUbeSats for Linked Imaging Spectro-polarimetry". The project will involve participating in a Concurrent Design Facility at University of Portsmouth supporting the SULIS mission design definition.

Dear colleagues, It is our pleasure to share new Solar Orbiter science nuggets (June 2026 releases):  SO Nugget #96:  Solar Orbiter catches external reconnection bringing a filament eruption to halt (Y. Fang, S. Tan, J. Guo, et al.) SO Nugget #97: Solar Orbiter SEP dropout during a magnetic cloud with evidence for strong connectivity gradients (R. Bučík, R. Gómez-Herrero, S.

We invite the solar physics and machine learning communities to participate in the Filament Segmentation Challenge 2026, a Kaggle competition focused on automated, pixel-precise segmentation of solar filaments in ground-based H-alpha observations. The competition offers $3,000 in prizes, and winning teams will have an opportunity to present their work at IEEE BigData 2026. A judging committee from NSO, GSU, NJIT, and UMSL will evaluate the submissions.

Dear Colleagues, We would also like to share the following information: There will be a Westminster Hall debate on astronomy funding cuts on Tuesday, 1 September, from 13:00 to 13:30 in Westminster Hall. Link:  The RAS published the following:  The RAS is encouraging astronomers and supporters to contact their local MPs and urge them to attend the debate.

Dear colleagues Apologies for any cross-posting. Following earlier communications, the Met Office Space Weather Partnerships Programme (MOSWePP) workshop takes place 10:30 - 16:30 (London time), on Tuesday 8th September. This community workshop provides an opportunity to help shape the programme. Format Hybrid In person: RAS, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, W1J 0BQ - places are currently full, although there is a reserve list (see workshop info spreadsheet).

Dear Colleagues Registration is open for UK Space Weather & Space Environment Meeting IV: Space as a Global Endeavour, 14-17 September 2026 at Northumbria University in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Final Registration Deadline: 3 September 2026. Please see: for full registration details and rates. This will again be a hybrid meeting that allows for full participation and presentation both in-person and online.

We are pleased to announce the 2026 Call for Applications for the European Space Agency's Research Fellowships in Space Science. We expect to hire ~9-10 postdoctoral fellows who will start their fellowship in fall 2027. The deadline for applications is 21 September 2026. ESA's postdoctoral Research Fellowship programme offers early-career researchers the possibility to carry out independent research in a variety of disciplines.

145. Automatic detection of flare ribbon fine structures as proxies for plasmoid dynamics in flare reconnection Link: UKSP Nuggets are published on a monthly basis highlighting solar physics research led from the UK. Regards, Sargam Mulay (sargam.mulay@glasgow.ac.uk) and Alexander Russell (ar51@st-andrews.ac.uk)

We will cover SKAO Construction and Commissioning, ECR Science Highlights, a UK SV and KSP planning workshop and a UKSRC Workshop. The meeting aims to bring the UK SKA community together to provide information on science using the SKA Observatory (SKAO) and its pathfinders and precursors. This year the meeting will run over two days and include sessions on the following topics:

Dear Colleagues, We are delighted to announce the first S³PARK Workshop (Synergy between Spacecraft observations and Simulations of Particle Acceleration, Reconnection, and Kinetic processes in turbulent plasmas), to be held at Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, from Monday 14 to Friday 18 September 2026. We would be grateful if you could circulate this among your research group and wider network of collaborators, particularly early-career scientists.

The SolarNuggets continue the earlier series of RHESSI Nuggets, and are now located at No. 531, “The Source Surface Height Through the Solar Cycle: A Path to Better Solar Wind Forecasts,” by Sandeep KUMAR and Nandita SRIVASTAVA. Following the solar cycle with optimized PFSS modeling. No. 530, “Filament Eruptions as seen in the Sun-as-a-star H-alpha Spectrum,” by Junyi ZHANG and Yijun HOU.

Dear colleagues, Would you be interested in contributing towards session chairing at UKSWSE ( this year? All colleagues are very welcome and this is a good opportunity for Early Career Researchers in particular (but not limited to). We are very grateful for any help from anybody in the community to help make the conference as vibrant as possible. For some sessions it might be the case that there are two chairs (e.g.

We are delighted to announce the winners of the UK Solar Physics Prizes at NAM 2026. Best PhD Talk Prize: Arooj Faryad - "Automatic Detection of Ellerman Bombs in the Hα Line" Runner-up PhD Talk Prize: Qihui Ming - "Distinct Strong and Weak Shear Regimes of Turbulent Magnetic Reconnection" Best PhD Poster Prize: Mashael Aldhafeeri - "Validation of Vortex Identification in the Solar Photosphere: True Velocities vs LCT-Reconstructed Flows"

Dear Colleagues, We are pleased to announce an upcoming Royal Astronomical Society Specialist Discussion Meeting: "How Does Solar Wind Control Earth's Radiation Belt Dynamics?" Date: Friday, 16 October 2026 Venue: Burlington House, Piccadilly, London The solar wind is the primary external driver of Earth’s radiation belt variability. Therefore, understanding the chain of processes connecting upstream solar wind conditions to radiation belt dynamics is crucial to obtain a systemic understanding of the near-Earth geospace environment.

Dear colleagues, Registration is open for UK Space Weather & Space Environment Meeting IV: Space as a Global Endeavour, 14-17 September 2026 at Northumbria University in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Final Registration Deadline: 3 September 2026. Please see: for full registration details and rates. This will again be a hybrid meeting that allows for full participation and presentation both in-person and online.

Dear All, Please find below the UKRI Venture Doctorates Focal Award opportunity which goes live on the 10th August: Doctoral focal award: UKRI venture doctorates: outline stage – UKRI Please direct any enquiries to venturedoctorates@ukri.org. Regards, UKRI Talent and Skills

Registration is now open for the online workshop "From Sun to Earth: Understanding Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) and Interplanetary CMEs (ICMEs)" in celebration of the scientific contributions of Prof. Nandita Srivastava, Udaipur Solar Observatory (Physical Research Laboratory, India) for her superannuation in Aug, 2026. The workshop will be held on 25 August 2026 and will feature invited talks covering the initiation, propagation, and Sun–Earth impacts of CMEs and ICMEs, with a focus on recent advances in observations, modelling, and space weather.

Dear Colleagues. We kindly ask you to consider submitting an abstract to our session at the upcoming Fall AGU 2026 in San Francisco, CA, USA: - the deadline for submission is 5th August 2026 at 23:59EDT (6th August 2026 at 03:59UT). The session details: Session ID: 282818 Session Title: SH038. Space Weather: What can Researchers Learn from Users/Forecasters, and Vice Versa...

Please bear in mind that the deadline for applying for financial support is fast approaching. The IAU Symposium 410 New Look at Solar and Stellar Coronae will address some of the most pressing open questions in coronal physics, capitalising on the rapid expansion of high-resolution solar and stellar observations and the growing synergy between the solar and stellar research communities.

Dear colleagues, On 12 August 2026, a total solar eclipse will be visible across parts of Europe and the North Atlantic. The path of totality will cross Greenland, Iceland, northern Spain, and a small area of northeastern Portugal, while other parts of Europe will see a partial eclipse. We are pleased to share the following resources on mission operations for ESA/NASA's Solar Orbiter and ESA's Proba-3 around the eclipse:

Hi all, As part of the upcoming call for DiRAC time, I am planning on submitting a thematic proposal for the duration of three years to examine the active Sun. I would personally be using this to perform Lare3d simulations of solar flares. I have previously run a DiRAC seedcorn project on a similar topic which was awarded 0.1MCPUhrs over three months.

Dear Colleagues, We are pleased to announce that nominations are now open for the 2026 International Space Weather and Space Climate Medals. The three medals recognize outstanding scientific, technological, educational, and community-building contributions in the fields of Space Weather and Space Climate: Kristian Birkeland Medal Baron Marcel Nicolet Medal Alexander Chizhevsky Medal, dedicated to early-career scientists. The medal recipients will be announced during the Medal Ceremony on 2 November 2026, at the European Space Weather Week in Florence, Italy.

Dear Colleagues, Predicting the ambient solar wind three days ahead remains one of the most significant open problems in heliophysics. This is why we are engaging the community to drive SOTA in operational conditions. We are pleased to share the FDL Benchlab Solar Wind Prediction 2026 AI Tournament, a live operational AI competition designed to test whether machine learning systems can produce robust 72-hour ambient solar-wind forecasts under realistic forward-time constraints.

The article collection “Advances in the Physics of the Sun and the Solar-Heliosphere Connection” has been completed and is now published in the journal Solar Physics. All articles not published with open access are free to read from 1 August to 30 September 2026: This collection originates from contributions presented at the 17th European Solar Physics Meeting (ESPM-17), held in Turin, Italy, in the week of 9 – 13 September 2024.

STFC has today shared the outcomes of the review of its Particle Physics, Astronomy and Nuclear Physics (PPAN) projects portfolio, explaining how its future investment choices will affect individual projects. This builds on the high-level         announcement of prioritisation decisions made on 9 July. Full details for each project are set out in the explainer annex on the UKRI website

We warmly congratulate Prof Andrew Hillier of the University of Exeter on receiving the 2026 James Dungey Lectureship. We would also like to extend our congratulations to Prof Mathew Owens of the University of Reading on receiving the 2026 Royal Astronomical Society Chapman Medal.

Dear All, Thank you for the very useful and productive discussion at the UKSP Business Lunch Meeting at NAM 2026. We would also like to share the presentation slides from the UKSP Business Lunch with the community. Please take a look , as they include a lot of important information. Link to the presentation: If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch with us. Best wishes, UKSP Council

144. Pre-flare and active-region plasma seen by the short-wavelength camera on SOLAR-C/EUVST Link: UKSP Nuggets are published on a monthly basis highlighting solar physics research led from the UK. Regards, Sargam Mulay (sargam.mulay@glasgow.ac.uk) and Alexander Russell (ar51@st-andrews.ac.uk)

We are seeking applications to join the UKSP Council due to members leaving in October 2026. Serving on the UKSP Council provides an excellent platform to contribute and represent our research community.  We welcome applications for Two UKSP Council Staff members.  These positions are for a three-year term on the UKSP Council. Successful candidates will be expected to attend Council meetings and lead one or two community initiatives, such as UKSP Nuggets, or contribute to other activities that support the UK solar physics community. 

Dear all, MIST and the UKSP support applications to the STFC introductory summer schools according to a rota posted here. We are seeking expressions of interest from staff members to the next 4 entries in this rota (2030-2033), as well as any expressions of interest for advanced summer school applications.  Please express your interest using this form before 1st October 2026.

Dear colleague, we hope this email finds you well. We'd like to draw your attention to the upcoming AGU session SH021 "Fundamental Plasma Processes in the Solar Atmosphere: Insights from High Resolution Observations and Simulations". The goal of the session is to discuss recent results and progress brought about by novel high resolution observations and advanced numerical simulations, including the identification of thermal and magnetic instabilities in the solar atmosphere, wave creation and dissipation, etc.

UK Space Frontiers 2035: Update No. 4: July 2026 Since the last update, distributed in mid-May, things have moved on at a fair pace. The three Thematic Panels (TP) and the Technical Panel have submitted their reports to the Steering Committee (SC). The SC met face to face to consider the reports and identified any areas where clarification was required. This has now been received; the SC is currently synthesising the findings of the Panels to produce a single set of themes which relate to science drivers and potential missions which support them.