UK undergrads - UK Space Agency Internships Programme is running this summer. Is paid too (£5k for 8 weeks). web-eur.cvent.com/event/2a6caf...

We’re bringing our mix of comedy and science to Oxford’s best basement next Thursday, the 19th. Tickets available here: wegottickets.com/f/15055/ Do come, it’ll be a blast.

The 2026 ESA Graduate Trainee positions are waiting for your applications! Step into a unique role where you’ll contribute to inspiring space missions and work alongside leading professionals from across Europe. Discover the available positions 👉 jobs.esa.int #ESArecruits 🔭 🧪

Reposting to the astronomy and science feeds 🔭🧪 GPE's conclusion on STFC's savage cuts to astro/particle/nuclear physics research:

This is a cool photo of crescent Venus. And the Moon, too. Image credit: Iván Éder

Early-career researchers are rightly worried about the road ahead, and have drafted an open letter to UKRI & #STFC, calling for a "strategic correction" to avoid irreversible loss of curiosity-driven UK research - an essential part of future discoveries, tech, & growth. bsky.app/profile/si-w...

‘We have a world-leading research base...but we’re about to throw it away.’ @oxfordphysics.bsky.social's Prof Chris Lintott responds to plans to cut University funding for astronomy and physics ⬇️

MPs for Cambridge and Milton Keynes Central represent institutions (Cambridge and OU) with astronomy groups. If you're in those please email Emily Darlington and Daniel Zeichner ASAP.

That'll be MPs from Newcastle Central/West, Mid-Norfolk, NW Hants, Gravesham, Henley & Thame, Cambridge, MK, Stoke-on-Trent South, South Derbyshire, Erewash and Newton Abbot. If you're in one of those areas and would be willing to write to your MP today that would be amazing.

Interesting. The head of UKRI is talking to the Commons Science, Innovation and Tech. Committee tomorrow: hope one of the MPs asks about his dramatic cuts to the astronomy budget.

I've updated my post on the funding crisis heading for British astronomy: docs.google.com/document/d/1.... UKRI made clear that astro and particle physics are being subject to unique cuts due to rising costs elsewhere. This looks like a deliberate decision not to fund fundamental physics. 🔭 🧪

Me, on astronomy funding crisis, on the @ox.ac.uk website: www.ox.ac.uk/news/2026-02... 🔭🧪

You may have seen pictures, but have you ever seen video of a gigantic jet #TLE from space? Astronaut Jeanette Epps captured this incredible sequence on July 20th, 2024 for the DTU/@science.esa.int Thor-Davis experiment. 🧪🔭 youtu.be/xN2J7_rOBJY Credit: ESA/NASA/J. Epps Processing: Simeon Schmauß

Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin’s autobiography is just amazing. Every astronomer should read it. Here she is talking about her memories of Annie Jump Cannon.

That image just blows my mind

A reminder that I and a bunch of awesome people are doing stand-up about science in Kings Cross on the 28th. This will be excellent. Tickets here: wegottickets.com/event/684234.

Excited to be heading to London on January 25th for a concert of sorts at King's Place Theatre near Kings Cross for "Bach the Universe and Everything" Where I will be talking about exoplanets and their exotic clouds 🪐🌦️ interspersed with music from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment!

👏 Congratulations to Professor Aigrain, Dr Bartlett and Professor Bunker from the Department of Physics, and Associate Professor Koelemeijer from the Department of Earth Sciences, on their recognition in the Royal Astronomical Society Awards. ➡️ See: https://tinyurl.com/32wk7894

An amazing result using some beautiful MUSE data! In my Master’s project I found this bow shock while searching for the remnants of nova explosions in H-alpha imaging with the Issac Newton Telescope. Great to see all the hard the work the team have put in since to bring this to publication!

A bit of good news: a new Exoplanet Travel Bureau poster just debuted at NASA ExoPAG 33!

The physics-based realities of Santa’s Christmas Eve present-delivering extravaganza by Dr George Dransfield! 🦌🛷

Parents & anyone else up early on Christmas morning: there’s a bright pass of the International Space Station over the UK, just after 6.15. Well, I say it’s the ISS. Could be Santa heading home… Exact timings for where you are at www.heavens-above.com/PassSummary....

The application for the ESO Summer Research Programme 2026 has just opened! It‘s a six week programme in Garching close to Munich where pre-Ph.D students can work on a hands-on project. Working at @eso.org is a fabulous experience, so please help me spread the word ✨ 🔗 eso.org/sci/meetings...

Wonderful news, congratulations Prof Markoff, very much looking forward to you joining the UK astronomy community!

Interested in finding transiting planets at long periods, e.g. with the @platomissioncon.bsky.social? We just published a Research Note led by Geert Jan Talens, showing that such transits can be much longer or shorter than usually assumed iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

🌞🛰️Sun-watcher SOHO turns 30! 🎂 "SOHO has overcome nail-biting challenges to become one of the longest-operating space missions of all time" – Prof. @cmundell.esa.int , ESA Director of Science 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl... 🔭🧪

Eminent researchers have written an open letter to the Chilean Government appealing for the protection of the #DarkSkies above our Paranal Observatory, threatened by the industrial complex INNA — planned to be located just a few kilometres away. https://www.eso.org/public/announcements/ann25009 🔭 🧪

Pretty exciting news, a long-thought possibly - that dry dust storms produce enough static energy to create little lighting bolts - has been kind of observed on Mars!! 🧪🔭 #planetsci doi.org/10.1038/s415...

We are hiring a new Assistant Professor in Astrophysics at Trinity College Dublin!! ☘ Job ad here: aas.org/jobregister/... Deadline: Jan 02 2026 Please share widely! 🪐🔭

Webb has revealed for the first time that there are four shells of dust around this pair of Wolf-Rayet stars, which are known as Apep. Read more 👉 https://esawebb.org/images/wolf-rayet-apep/ 🔭

Soon… 🤩 #ExoELT

Remember that lovely aurora last week? Well...um...this is what Euclid saw... 😱 🧵

Lots of fun work out from APEx postdocs in the past week! first up was Sophia Vaughan @sophiavaughan.bsky.social on a deep search for reflected light from a hot Neptune w/ the VLT. This summed up light from ALL FOUR 8m telescopes over 2 nights- a preview of ELT-like data! arxiv.org/abs/2511.08691

⭐️🔭Applications open at Anton Pannekoek Institute in Amsterdam for the 7th ASPIRE program: aspire.science.uva.nl. This 2026 summer school provides astronomy research experience for talented MSc students from countries where opportunities to move into a PhD program are limited. [1/2]

But what about the ELT instruments themselves I hear you ask, how big are they? Well, dear reader, they are giraffe-sized and weigh four elephants #ExoELT 👀🦒🐘

It’s #ExoELT week! A week dedicated to discussing all things exoplanets and the ELT, @eso.org’s 39-m telescope coming online in 2029 😱 The size of this machine is just extraordinary. You can fit a whole VLT telescope on its Nasmyth platform 🤯

I may have to form a rock band, so I can use this as the cover of our first cd. www.livescience.com/space/the-su...

3I/ATLAS is the first interstellar object bright enough for amateurs to image: so fabulous to see the delight ☄️😍

On Saturday we held the inaugural Afternoon of Astrophysics in @oxfordphysics.bsky.social. Myself, Prof Suzanne Aigrain @airbornegrain.bsky.social and Prof Jayne Birkby @jaynebirkby.bsky.social discussed the cutting edge of exoplanet research with the public, moderated by @chrislintott.bsky.social

Londoners! Drink excellent wine and chat with me about space, next week: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cosmology-...

🤩 moving doors!

Are you a grad student interested in writing for Astrobites, or do you know one? We're recruiting! Apply by November 26 :) astrobites.org/2025/10/31/a...

We are awarding our President's Medal to 'In Our Time' as it has done so much to showcase humanities & social sciences. We'd decided this before the news of Melvyn Bragg stepping down, but glad we got our timing right & had a chance to celebrate with him! www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/renowne...

📈 Record interest in ERC Starting Grants 2026! 4,807 proposals - a 22% increase compared to last year’s call. 👩‍🔬 Women submitted nearly 43% of proposals - the highest share ever recorded in an ERC call. More stats 👉 bit.ly/4hcYJln #ChooseEurope

Cosmologists! We have a faculty job going here in Oxford - happy to answer questions. Brief version is that this remains a great & collaborative place to do science and the students are superb. 🔭 www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOP628/a...

w/ Oli Shorttle, @johannateske.bsky.social & Eliza Kempton we reviewed our current understanding and prospects for peaking on the inside of small #exoplanets in "Constraining exoplanet interiors using observations of their atmospheres": www.science.org/stoken/autho... & arxiv.org/abs/2510.08844 🔭🧪⚒️☄️

😮🤩

Happy 30th discovery day 51 Peg b! We're at Observatoire de Haute Provence where it all happened, listening to Michel Mayor & Didier Queloz tell us all about that extraordinary radial velocity discovery with ELODIE on the 1.93m in 1995 and the incredible exoplanet science that followed. What a day!