Today's entry in "Astronomers should't get to name things". Hubble's constant being constant in direction rather than time has always made it a bad name.

Astronomers! This year’s A level physics exams included the following question which seems dodgy to me. Anyone got a sensible answer?

Personal opinion: Squirrels are cuter than other rodents because of the bouncy way they run, not because of the tail

🔭🧪🎢 I'll be at the Leicester open day this Saturday. Maybe you can find out why my student feedback included being called an "S-tier" lecturer, which I had to look up, but is apparently positive! 🔭🧪🎢 le.ac.uk/open-days

🔭 On a related note: When students reach out to their former supervisors it can mean a lot to us. I'm going to write to my former Masters project supervisor and thank her. 🔭

🔭 One of the greatest pleasures of my job is when someone I helped and enthused at the start of their astrophysics studies finds success. Congratulations ot Aayush Desai on publishing his first paper! arxiv.org/abs/2509.03216 🔭 "Magnetic Atmospheres and Circumstellar Interaction in J1901+1458"

🔭🧪🎢 Reposting for the feeds 🎢🧪🔭 If you know/are an interested sixth-form student, our open day is a great way of seeing what you could be doing with us. I'll be there telling you about our work on the Milky Way! le.ac.uk/open-days

🔭 Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, UK astronomy version. Inspired by a comment from LOC chair David Alexander at #NAM2025 🔭

🔭 Exciting results from my colleagues 🔭

Our Prof @leighfletcher.bsky.social is giving a plenary talk at the National Astronomy Meeting presenting JWST observations of the solar system's gas giants! #NAM2025

A sighting of Leicester's @spacecentre.bsky.social Thor Able rocket during a really interesting (and last minute replacement!) talk by Dr Bleddyn Bowen on the politics of space at the UK's National Astronomy Meeting #NAM2025

Interesting start to #NAM2025 at a session dedicated to Galactic dynamics, and how "Basis function expansions" are useful tools for this. Speakers keep abbreviating this as BFE, pronounced "Beefy", which is a touch distracting

Some student feedback on my lecturing described it as "S-tier", which I assumed meant it was very bad. It turns out to be the opposite, but I remain a bit baffled. The S does not stand for the word I would expect.

'if a forklift truck can pick it up, is it even worth lifting weights in the gym?'

Non-hot take: The "AI will kill us" discourse was a distraction from the real problem: it removes the young end of the skilled knowledge workforce. They are harder to train, because AI can do it for them. They can't get jobs, because AI can do it for their bosses. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

I am very much a child of the 90s. Watching the BBC's stream of this set gave me quite literal chills www.theguardian.com/music/2025/j...

My lips are sealed. But we can expect incredible data! 🔭

Our final call for expressions of interest for the STFC Rutherford Fellowships, with a deadline tomorrow - do get in touch if you have any questions!

🔭 A compare and contrast that helped me understand how good the Vera Rubin images are:

The next open day for Physics degrees at the University of Leicester is Saturday 5th July 🧪🎢

I designed and 3D printed my own floaty galaxy! 🔭🧪

Brian Wilson was a genius. God Only Knows is the most incredibly beautiful song that YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE PLAYED AT YOUR WEDDING www.theguardian.com/music/2025/j...

Yes. Plot everything. (Do not put all of those plots in your paper/lab report!) A favourite exercise when I taught stats was to get students to calculate the mean and std deviation of one set each from the 'Datasaurus dozen', and then get them to plot their data! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datasau...

Is "What about selection effects?" the new "What about magnetic fields?" in seminars? Or is it just something I always ask?

🎉 #50YearsOfESA: for half a century, we've been serving Europe as its space agency and inspiring its citizens. Join us this anniversary year to reflect not only on our past achievements, but also on our future perspectives!

I'm incredibly proud of my sister, Dr Beth McMillan, who graduated on Saturday. To have completed her PhD in computational cardiovascular science despite her illness is a huge achievement. I had the honour of helping her through the ceremony itself.

Most commonly "review this paper in the next 2 days, kthx", but otherwise this is bang on.

🔭🧪 Congratulations to Prof Nial Tanvir who has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for his work studying gamma-ray bursts, the most violent explosions we've ever seen. le.ac.uk/news/2025/ma...

I finally got around to reading "Made in Britain" which talks in general terms about the nature, strengths, and weaknesses of the UK economy as it was back in 2011. Reading some parts of it just make me sad.

For a beautiful 150 minute window this morning I did not have any marking that needed doing. First time since February. This probably speaks poorly of my ability to get marking finished.

Jupiter's aurora is fizzing and popping with light faster than anyone expected. Our Prof Jonathan Nichols lead work that discovered this using JWST and the Hubble Space Telescope. www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2T8...

✨ Your star cluster is: Ruprecht 147 ✨ Also known as NGC 6774, it's one of the oldest open clusters in the vicinity of the Sun, it's a fascinating cluster used in many studies. It's famous as an example of a cluster hosting white dwarfs and blue stragglers, and as an example of cluster dissolution

This seems like a valuable use of the position of Chancellor of Cambridge University. I have nominated Wyn Evans and encourage anyone else eligible (anyone with a Masters or PhD from Cambridge) to do the same.

A little part of me (my name, and a short slightly soppy message) will be floating around with Gaia in its retirement.

What an incredible mission. The deluge of data has changed our understanding of the Milky Way, and we have so much more still to process!

I'm not sure I'm emotionally prepared to say goodbye to Gaia. This video, shared by @esa.int, is the spacecraft fading from view for the final time. It's still alive, but will be switched off on Thursday. 🔭 www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NGh...

We are celebrating our centenary on Saturday 17th May this year. We're holding an open day on campus and we welcome all friends of the School to come and join us! You can reserve a place via this link: alumni-events.le.ac.uk/event11.html

A heads up for any members of the RAS who haven't looked at the candidates for Council: One candidate has strong objections to treating trans women as women. So use your vote to ensure that the other candidates win!

🪐Jupiter or Saturn? Which gas giant is best? Our Dr Paul Abel joins @robinince.bsky.social & @briancoxtalks.bsky.social in The Infinite Monkey Cage to debate it on Radio 4 tomorrow (Sat 15 March) or already available on BBC Sounds! 🪐 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

🔭 Question I'd never really thought about: Why do we so often refer to "hydrodynamics" within astrophysics? It's very rare that we're actually dealing with a liquid. Shouldn't it be "aerodynamics"? Or do we fudge it because neither really applies to plasmas? 🔭

The ancient question, do I call something in an application "unique", risking that something similar is pointed to as contradictory? Do I wimp out and say "innovative"? "Idiosyncratic?" "Odd?"

Archbishoppy McArchbishopface.

Making some art for my 4th year lectures

Move with care. And make things.

TV character "I have three doctorates in [three loosely related things]" Audience without PhD: "Ah, a genius" Audience with a PhD: "Ah, a time waster"

🔭 Reposting this tribute to Gaia on the day that it stops revolving smoothly through space 🔭

Thanks for all the data, Gaia! We've still got a lot of work to do to turn the data into science, but Gaia's last science observation today marks the end of a decade of incredible data gathering.

🔭 To mark the first Gaia data release, Louise & I made some Gaia cupcakes 🔭 🧁

🔭 Tomorrow is the last day of observations for @esa.int's Gaia. It has observed for over a decade, revolutionising our view of the Milky Way. The work is far from done. Thus far only 3 years of data are reflected in the public release. Nonetheless this is a moment to celebrate Gaia... 🔭 #MilkyWay

PSA: If you are going to write to someone 8 years after they wrote a paper accusing them of scientific misconduct for not citing you, do check carefully if they cited you. It's right there in Section 7. FFS.