UCL – DEPARTMENT OF SPACE AND CLIMATE PHYSICS
MULLARD SPACE SCIENCE LABORATORY
The Newsletter - Volume 12, Issue 2
11 June 2015
Covers events between 1 February and 30 April 2015
Contents
Stop Press ............................................................................................................................................................................... 1
New staff .................................................................................................................................................................................. 2
Departing staff ......................................................................................................................................................................... 2
Visitors ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 2
Prizes and Awards .................................................................................................................................................................. 2
Appointments .......................................................................................................................................................................... 2
Grants and Contracts.............................................................................................................................................................. 2
Proposals submitted ............................................................................................................................................................... 2
Telescope/Satellite Time Awards ........................................................................................................................................... 3
Mission Status and Developments ........................................................................................................................................ 3
Publications – Refereed.......................................................................................................................................................... 4
Papers in press ....................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Teaching Developments ......................................................................................................................................................... 6
Invited Talks and Conferences .............................................................................................................................................. 6
Outreach .................................................................................................................................................................................. 7
Press releases ......................................................................................................................................................................... 7
Media Broadcasts and Features ............................................................................................................................................ 7
Other news............................................................................................................................................................................... 8
Next Issue ................................................................................................................................................................................ 8
Stop Press
After technical and scientific reviews in both
Europe and China, it was announced on 4 June
that SMILE had been selected (out of 13
proposals) as the top candidate for an initial study
phase which will be carried out over the next few
months. Co-PIs of the mission are Chi Wang (CAS
National Space Science Center) and Graziella. If
selected for implementation (decision due to be
taken in Nov. 2015) launch is expected to take
place at the end of 2021.
ESA has announced the three missions that will
undergo Phase A studies for the fourth M-class
mission in the Cosmic Visions science programme.
These are the Atmospheric Remote-Sensing
Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey (Ariel), the
Turbulence Heating ObserveR (Thor) and the Xray Imaging Polarimetry Explorer (Xipe). MSSL
scientists and engineers will be involved in the
studies for all three missions.
New staff
Prizes and Awards
The Plasma Group welcomed two new members of
staff:

Dr Robert Wicks, who has been appointed a
joint lecturer position at UCL, with activities split
between MSSL and the Institute for Risk and
Disaster Reduction;

New postdoc. Dr Simon Thomas, who will be
working on prelaunch science for Solar Orbiter.

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
Lucie Green had a bust unveiled at the Royal
Society;
Ignacio Ferreras was awarded a “distinguished
visitor” position at the Australian Astronomical
Observatory, Sydney, for early 2016;
Jason Hunt was awarded the Physics Bronze
prize at the poster competition SET for Britain
at the House of Commons.
The Astrophysics Group welcomed back
Massimiliano De Pasquale, who has re-joined the
group as a research fellow.
Appointments
MSSL is also pleased to welcome the following
new staff: Sampi Smit, Adam Mayall and Paul
Wheeler (Electronics) and Chris Hoyle
(Mechanics).

Departing staff
Grants and Contracts


The Astrophysics Group wish all the best to SamiMatias Niemi who left to take up a new position in
the financial sector.

Visitors
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Dr Robert Fear from University of Southampton
gave a seminar entitled, “Observational tests of
flux transfer event structure”;
Yanbo Cui from Peking University is a visiting
student, currently working with Andrew
Fazakerley on auroral acceleration regions;
The Plasma Group hosted James Buxton from
The Judd School for a week of work experience
(16-20 Feb), during which he worked on a miniresearch project looking for multiple point
observations of solar eruptive events;
Nathan Pilkington, a PhD student from UCL
P&A, visited the Planetary Science Group on
24 Feb and gave a seminar entitled, “How does
plasma shape Saturn’s magneto-sphere?”;
Tushar Bhatt, a PhD student from Kadi Sarva
Vishwavidyalaya Universiity, India, visited the
Planetary Science Group, 27 Apr-8 May;
Norbert Krupp, Elias Roussos and Leonardo
Regoli (currently at MPS as part of his joint
studentship) from MPS, Gottingen, visited the
Planetary Science Group, 27-29 Apr; N.Krupp
gave a seminar on 28 Apr;
The Astrophysics Group hosted (and is hosting)
Samantha Oates (IAA-CSIC, Granada, Spain),
Denija Cronjevic (Texas Tech University, USA),
Hung-Yi Pu (ASIAA, Taiwan), Lorena Nieves
(IFCA Santander and Valencia Observatory,
Spain).
Lidia van Driel-Gesztelyi was appointed to the
Review Board for the Kiepenheuer-Institut für
Sonnenphysik (Germany);
Chris Owen served on the 2015 NASA Senior
Review Panel for Heliospheric Physics in
Washington DC on 21-24 April.
Stephanie Yardley was awarded an RAS small
grant award to attend the 3rd SOLARNET
summer school and workshop in May;
David Long and David Pérez-Suárez were
awarded an RAS small grant award for a
summer student to work on converting EIS
analysis software from IDL to Python.
Proposals submitted


Lidia van Driel-Gesztelyi and Lucie Green:
Horizon 2020 TWINNING call proposal (H2020TWINN-2015 692156 MASAR) “Achieving
excellence in multiwavelength analyses of solar
active regions” (2 yrs) with Ventspils University
College (Latvia) and the University of Ioannina
(Greece);
Two Mission Proposals (SMILE and BEADS)
were submitted in response to the ESAChinese Academy of Sciences opportunity for a
joint small space mission, due on 16 March:
o
2
Graziella submitted a proposal (SMILE:
Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link
Explorer) which is the result of an
international
collaboration
including
institutions from the UK (UCL-MSSL,
Leicester, Imperial), Europe, Canada, the
USA and China. SMILE aims to investigate
the dynamic response of the Earth's
magnetosphere to the impact of the solar
wind by combining soft X-ray imaging of the
Earth's magnetopause and magnetospheric
cusps with simultaneous UV imaging of the
Northern aurora. A proton and alpha particle
analyser and a magnetometer, for solar
wind measurements, complete the payload.
See http://www.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/SMILE/ for
more details (and to express support!).
o
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Jonny Rae and Jinbin Cao led a proposal
called BEADS, designed to study the
auroral signatures of substorm onset and
test theories of what cases onset. Much of
the writing and coordination of team inputs
was done at MSSL by Jonny Rae and
Andrew Fazakerley. The proposal was,
however, one of the large fraction which
were not selected on "technical" grounds.
Chris Owen led the compilation and submission
of the Statement of Interest to the UKSA for the
“Thor” mission, a candidate for ESA's M4
mission opportunity. The mission was
presented by the Swedish leads to the ESA
selection panel in Paris on April 21.
Andrew Fazakerley, co-lead on the Alfven+
proposal, with support from within MSSL and
other UK institutes, compiled the UK SoIs for
the Alfven+ and Nitro proposals and contributed
to the Ravens SoI, which were submitted on 23
Feb. Andrew also shared the work of
coordinating a written response to questions
from ESA and was one of three people
presenting Alfven+ to the ESA selection panel
on April 21.
of the small pixel array, if in the centre of the FOV
or, for example, at a corner.
The following astrophysics group members joined
the working groups: Graziella Branduardi-Raymont
(SWG3.1: Solar systems and exoplanets as a cochair), Mathew Page (SWG 2.2 Understanding the
building of supermassive black holes and galaxies,
MWG 5.1 Scientific ground segment), Myrto
Symeonidis (SWG 2.2 Understanding the building
of supermassive black holes and galaxies), Megan
Whewell (SWG 2.3 Feedback in local AGN and
star forming galaxies), Kinwah Wu (SWG 2.4 Close
environments of SMBHs, SWG 2.6 Luminous
extragalactic transients), Silvia Zane (SWG 3.3
End points of stellar evolution, SWG 3.5 Multiwavelength synergy).
Cassini – Andrew Coates gave a talk at CAPSINMS team telecom on polar wind at Titan (25
Mar), science work continuing in the group.
Cluster - Branislav Mihaljcic and Andrew
Fazakerley participated in the 21st Cluster Cross
Calibration meeting in Leiden, 24-26 Mar, reporting
progress on Cluster and Double Star PEACE
activities. Andrew Fazakerley coordinated and
submitted an input on behalf of the UK Cluster
teams to the joint UKSA/STFC Operations Review
on 10 April. The review is concerned with
postlaunch support for Cluster, Cassini, Hinode,
STEREO and Swift in the period April 2016 - 31
Mar 2019 (or from 1 Jan 2017 for Cluster and
Cassini). Natasha Doss returned from maternity
leave on 1 April, rejoining the PEACE Operations
Team.
Telescope/Satellite Time Awards
Stephanie Yardley and Deb Baker were awarded
observing time with the IBIS and ROSA
instruments. The first observations were made on
10 and 15 April.
Mission Status and Developments
Athena - Funding from UKSA for the Study Phase
has been applied for and discussions are ongoing.
On the technical side an outcome of the
Concurrent Design Facility study for Athena has
been the suggestion to reduce the effective area of
the mirror to 1.4 m2 (from the proposed 2 m2) on
cost grounds. The Athena Science Study Team
(ASST) have asked the Science Working Groups
to estimate the loss of science with going to a
smaller area; the Groups have provided feedback
and the ASST have compiled a report which has
been submitted to ESA. Essentially the loss of area
implies that substantially longer exposures are
needed to achieve most of the science goals. In
conclusion, achieving a mirror area of 2 m2 should
be top priority for the forthcoming industrial studies.
ExoMars - Regular team telecons continue, ESA
visited MSSL on 12-13 March and 12-13 May (the
latter meeting was also attended by three
representatives from TAS-I, ExoMars prime
contractor. Andrew Coates and Andrew Griffiths
attended a UKSA ExoMars PanCam/Raman field
trial near Shrewsbury, 26-27 Mar. Craig Leff and
Andrew Coates attended an EXOC meeting,
Imperial, 17 Apr and presented on PanCam status.
Andrew Coates, Craig Leff (remotely), Barry
Hancock, Tom Hunt and Craig Theobald visited
RUAG, Zurich on 5 May to discuss WAC plans.
Gaia - Gaia’s Radial Velocity Spectrometer (RVS)
reads out spectra from its CCDs by placing a
window around them. Each window has a fixed
width of 10 columns Across Scan (AC). The
contents of windows are read out slowly, while the
rest of the sky on the CCD is not read out. New
onboard software was uploaded to Gaia on 7 Apr.
It is designed to mitigate the straylight issue by
adapting the AC size of each window to the
observing conditions. These include the straylight
Optimisation of the TES array for the X-IFU is
under discussion: the US (now expected to provide
the array) have developed hybrid arrays with a
combination of large and small pixels. Smaller
pixels allow achieving good energy resolution (2.5
eV) for bright sources (the resolution degrades for
bright sources in the large pixels). Discussions are
continuing on optimal pixel sizes and the location
3
level, which has a complex pattern repeated every
6 hours (the satellite’s spin period), and the AC
Line Spread Function, which has a double sinusoid
pattern, each with different amplitudes, also on
repeat every 6 hours. The MSSL Gaia team
prepared the onground pipeline to process these
new data and has been testing this pipeline with
the new data since 7 April.
immediately followed by a bilateral meeting with
the ESA Science Operations Group for Solar
Orbiter to discuss our ongoing preparations for
operating the SWA sensors. Unfortunately, these
meetings ran in parallel with the delayed EMC
working group, so Barry Hancock returned to
Stevenage to represent SWA there.
The EUI consortium meeting was held at MSSL in
Mar and filter wheel testing and testing between
the common electronics box and the front-end
electronics took place .
JUICE - Continuing design and tender documents
for sensors prepared and iterated. Andrew Coates
was asked to represent JANUS (imager) on JUICE
Working Group 3 (Jovian magnetosphere and
plasma environment) and the meetings start in
May.
Publications – Refereed
Published
Antoja, T., …, Seabroke, G. et al., The Imprints of
the Galactic Bar on the Thick Disk with Rave,
2015, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. Letter, 800, 32
Badman, S.V., Branduardi-Raymont, G. et al.,
Auroral Processes at the Giant Planets: Energy
Deposition, Emission Mechanisms, Morphology
and Spectra, 2015, Space, Sci. Rev., 187, 99,
doi: 10.1007/s11214-014-0042-x
Baker, D.; Brooks, D. H.; Démoulin, P.; Yardley, S.
L.; van Driel-Gesztelyi, L.; Long, D. M.; Green,
L. M., 2015, FIP Bias Evolution in a Decaying
Active Region, ApJ, 802, 104.
Coates, A.J., A. Wellbrock, R.A. Frahm, J.D.
Winningham, A. Fedorov, S. Barabash, R.
Lundin, Distant ionospheric photoelectron
energy peak observations at Venus, Planetary
and Space Science,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pss.2015.02.003, in
press, Feb 2015
Coates, A.J., Could tiny Enceladus harbour life?,
The Conversation, Mar 2015
Dorville, N., Haaland, S., Chandrasekhar, A.,
Belmont, G., and Rezeau, L., (2015),
Magnetopause orientation: Comparison
between generic residue analysis and BV
method, J. Gophys. Res. Space Physics , 120,
doi: 10.1002/2014JA020806.
Ferreras, I. et al., Further evidence for a timedependent initial mass function in massive
early-type galaxies, 2015, Mon. Not. R. Astron.
Soc., 448, 82, doi: 10.1093/mnrasl/slv003
Ford, J., …, Kitching, T. et al., CFHTLenS: a weak
lensing shear analysis of the 3D-Matched-Filter
galaxy clusters, 2015, Mon. Not. R. Astron.
Soc., 447, 1304, doi: 10.1093/mnras/stu2545
Grand, R.J.J., Kawata, D., Cropper, M., Impact of
radial migration on stellar and gas radial
metallicity distribution, 2015, Mon. Not. R.
Astron. Soc., 447, 4018, doi:
10.1093/mnras/stv016
Harris, J.K, C.R. Cousins, M. Gunn, P.M. Grindrod,
D. Barnes, I.A. Crawford, R.E. Cross, A.J.
Mars Express – Mission continuing.
Rosetta – Mission continuing, Andrew Coates
gave talks at the Rosetta science meeting (Mar)
and at IAC, Tampa (Apr).
Solar Orbiter - The launch of Solar Orbiter has
been formally delayed by ESA until Oct 2018.
Chris Owen represented the SWA investigation at
the 16th Solar Orbiter SWT at the Max Planck
Institute in Gottingen, Germany, and at associated
splinter meetings of the Modelling and Data
Analysis Working Group and the In-Situ
Instruments Working Group, 10-13 Feb.
Chris Brockley Blatt and Barry Hancock
represented SWA/MSSL at a meeting to discuss
the Payload Thermal Interfaces with the spacecraft
prime contractor in Stevenage, 5/6 Mar.
Chris Owen represented SWA at the kick-off of the
formal spacecraft critical design review in ESTEC
on 10 Mar, which will run through to mid June. A
number of members of the MSSL SWA team
suggested RIDs in the light of the subset of the
spacecraft documentation that was made
available.
On 13 March, Airbus Stevenage invited the UK
Instrument PIs to view the completed Structural
and Thermal Model (STM) of the Solar Orbiter
Spacecraft. Chris Owen attended on behalf of
SWA and was pleased to see the STM models of
the SWA PAS and HIS sensors sitting behind their
cutouts in the heat shield. He was also able to
witness the integration of the STM boom to the
spacecraft, complete with the mass dummy for the
SWA EAS sensor. The STM will now be sent for
testing in Germany. This was followed in the
afternoon by a meeting of the UKSA Project
Management Board for Solar Orbiter. Progress on
the project by the UK instrument teams was
reviewed.
The SWA team held a full team meeting hosted by
our partners in Toulouse, 23/24 Mar. This was
4
Coates, Remote detection of past habitability at
Mars-analogue hydrothermal alteration terrains
using an ExoMars Panoramic Camera
Emulator, Icarus, 252, p. 284-300, doi:
10.1016/j.icarus.2015.02.004, May 2015.
Harvey, D., …, Kitching, T. et al., The
nongravitational interactions of dark matter in
colliding galaxy clusters, 2015, Sci., 347, 1462
Hawkins, K., …, Seabroke, G. et al.,
Characterizing the high-velocity stars of RAVE:
the discovery of a metal-rich halo star born in
the Galactic disc, 2015, Mon. Not., R. Astron.
Soc., 447, 2046, doi: 10.1093/mnras/stu2574
Hudson, M.J., Kitching, T.D. et al., CFHTLenS: coevolution of galaxies and their dark matter
haloes, 2015, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 447,
298, doi: 10.1093/mnras/stu2367
Kempf, Y., Pokhotelov, D., Gutynska, O., Wilson
III, L. B., Walsh, B. M., von Alfthan,
S.,Hannuksela, O., Sibeck, D. G., and
Palmroth, M.: Ion distributions in the Earth’s
foreshock:hybridVlasov simulation and THEMIS
observations, J. Geophys. Res. ,
doi:10.1002/2014JA020519, 2015.
Khan-Ali, A., …, Page, M.J., …, Symeonidis, M. et
al., Submm-bright X-ray-absorbed QSOs at
z~2: insights into the coevolution of AGN and
star formation, 2015, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc.,
448, 75, doi: 10.1093/mnras/stu2719
Kitching, T.D. et al., Image analysis for cosmology:
Shape measurement challenge review & results
from the Mapping Dark Matter challenge, 2015,
Astron. & Computing, 10, 9, doi:
10.1016/j.ascom.2014.12.004
Kohn, S.A., …, Symeonidis, M. et al, Far-infrared
observations of an unbiased sample of gammaray burst host galaxies, 2015, Mon. Not. R.
Astron. Soc., 448, 1494, doi:
10.1093/mnras/stv088
Kordopatis, G., …, Seabroke, G. et al., The rich
are different: evidence from the RAVE survey
for stellar radial migration, 2015, Mon. Not. R.
Astron. Soc., 447, 3526, doi:
10.1093/mnras/stu2726
La Barbera, F., Ferreras, I., Vazdekis, A., The
initial mass function of early-type galaxies: no
correlation with [Mg/Fe], 2015, Mon. Not. R.
Astron. Soc. Letter, 449, 137, doi:
10.1093/mnrasl/slv029
Martín-Navarro, I., …, Ferreras, I., Radial
variations in the stellar initial mass function of
early-type galaxies, 2015, Mon. Not. R. Astron.
Soc., 447, 1033, doi: 10.1093/mnras/stu2480
Mehdipour, M., …, Branduardi-Raymont, G., …
Whewell, M., Anatomy of the AGN in NGC
5548. I. A global model for the broadband
spectral energy distribution, 2015, Astron. &
Astrophys., 575, 22, doi: 10.1051/00046361/201425373
Möstl, C., Rollett, T., Frahm, R. A., Liu, Y. D.,
Long, D. M. et al., Strong coronal channelling
and interplanetary evolution of a solar storm up
to Earth and Mars, 2015, Nature
Communications, 6, 7135
Niemi, S.-M., Cropper, M., Szafraniec, M., Kitching,
T., Measuring a charge-coupled device point
spread function - Euclid visible instrument
CCD273-84 PSF performance, 2015,
Experimental Astron., doi: 10.1007/s10686-0159440-7
Prise, A. J., Harra, L. K., Matthews, S. A., Arridge,
C. S. and Achilleos, N., 2015, Tracking a
coronal mass ejection and co-rotating
interaction region as they travel from the Sun
passing Venus, Earth, Mars and Saturn, JGR,
120, 3, p1566
Pu, H.-Y., …, Wu, K. et al., Steady General
Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic
Inflow/Outflow Solution Along Large-Scale
Magnetic Fields that Thread a Rotating Black
Hole, 2015, Astrophys. J., 801, 56, doi:
10.1088/0004-637X/801/1/56
Richard, M.S., T.E. Cravens, C. Wylie, D. Webb,
Q. Chediak, K.Mandt, J.H. Waite Jr., A. Rymer,
C. Bertucci, A. Wellbrock, A. Windsor, A.J.
Coates, An Empirical Approach to Modeling Ion
Production Rates in Titan’s Ionosphere II: Ion
Production Rates on the Nightside, J. Geophys.
Res., 120, 1281-1298,
doi:10.1002/2014JA020343, Feb 2015.
Thomsen, M.F., D.G. Mitchell, X. Jia, C.M.
Jackman, G. Hospodarsky and A.J. Coates,
Plasmapause Formation at Saturn,
J.Geophys.Res., in press, Mar 2015.
Tsang, S.M.E., A.J. Coates, G. H. Jones, R.A.
Frahm, J.D. Winningham, S. Barabash, R.
Lundin, A. Fedorov, Ionospheric Photoelectrons
at Venus: Case Studies and First Observation
in the Tail, Planet. Space Sci.,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pss.2015.01.019, in
press, Feb 2015.
Valori, G., Romano, P., Malanushenko, A., Ermolli,
I., Giorgi, F., Steed, K., van Driel-Gesztelyi, L.,
Zuccarello, F., Malherbe, J.-M., 2015, Time
evolution of force-free parameter and free
magnetic energy in Active Region 10365. Solar
Phys., 290, 491-506.
van Driel-Gesztelyi, L., Schrijver, C.J., 2015, JD3 3D Views of the Cycling Sun in Stellar Context:
Overview" Highlights of Astronomy, T.
Montmerle (ed.) Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, Volume 16, 81-85.
5
Papers in press
Bartlett J, Hardy G, Hepburn I. D, Design and
performance of a fast thermal response
miniature Chromium Potassium Alum (CPA)
salt pill for use in a millikelvin cryocooler,
Cryogenics, Oct 2014. doi:
10.1016/j.cryogenics.2014.11.004.

PhDs/MPhil Awarded
Congratulations go to:
 Tom
Pollard,
PhD
entitled
“Modelling
deterioration of health and predicting mortality
using the vital signs of critical care patients”,
Mar 2015.

David Barnes who has been awarded his PhD.
(Title: Origin and evolution of large-scale
magnetic fields.)


Teaching Developments

New lectures have been added into the MSc
course on space instrumentation, to include
solar remote sensing instruments (Louise
Harra).
Invited Talks and Conferences
Andrew Coates

Attended the Rosetta science meeting (ESTEC,
2-6 Mar) and presented a talk: “Coates, A.J., J.
Burch, R. Goldstein, H. Nilsson, G. Stenberg
Wieser, E. Behar and the RPC team, Ion pickup
observed at comet 67P with RPC: similarities
and differences with AMPTE releases”;

Presented an invited talk at the 14th
International Astrophysics Conference, Tampa,
20-24 Apr: “Coates, A.J., J. Burch, R.
Goldstein, H. Nilsson, G. Stenberg Wieser, E.
Behar and the RPC team, Ion pickup observed
at comet 67P with RPC: similarities and
differences with AMPTE releases;

Presented seminars at Universities of Oxford
and Exeter: “Negative ions and photoelectrons:
results from Cassini and Venus Express”.
Joint American Astronomical Society/American
Geophysical Union Triennial Earth-Sun Summit,
meeting, Indianapolis, 26-30 Apr:

Collinson, G., A. Glocer, J. Grebowsky, T.
Moore, W. Peterson, R. Frahm, L. Gilbert, A.
Coates; Photoelectron reflection and scattering
at Venus: an upper limit on the "polar wind"
ambipolar electric field, and a new source of
top-side ionospheric heating.
Colin Forsyth gave two seminars:

“Auroral explosions: substorms and the
currents that drive them”, University of
Southampton, 11 Feb;

and during a visit to the University of Leicester
entitled “New insights into substorms from
decadal data sets”, 22-24 Apr.
Other Planetary Group presentations were made at:
Louise Harra

Gave a seminar at Lockheed Martin on
Spectroscopy on the Sun, Mar;

Gave a seminar at UClan on Activity on the
Sun, Apr;

Gave a “Meet the experts” talk at EGU in April.
EGU, Vienna, 12-17 Apr:

Science Conference, The Woodlands, Texas,
Mar 16–20; Oleg Shebanits, Jan-Erik Wahlund,
Niklas J. T. Edberg, David J. Andrews, Frank J.
Crary, Anne Wellbrock, Andrew Coates,
Kathleen E. Mandt, and J. Hunter Waite Jr, On
ion drifts and neutral winds in Titan's
thermosphere;
Yingjuan Ma, Christopher T. Russell, Hanying
Wei, Andrew F. Nagy, Gabor Toth, Michele K.
Dougherty, Andrew J. Coates, Jan-Erik
Wahlund, and Niklas J.T. Edberg; Lifetime of
the fossil field in Titan's ionosphere;
Frank Crary, Mika Holmberg, Jan-Erik
Wahlund, Andrew Coates, Peter Delamere, and
Sam Taylor, Electron impact ionization in
Saturn's magnetosphere: direct calculations
using
observed,
nonthermal
electron
distributions;
David Pisa, George B. Hospodarsky, William S.
Kurth, Donald A. Gurnett, Ondrej Santolik, Jan
Soucek, Adam Masters, and Andrew J. Coates;
A detailed study of Langmuir waves observed
during extended intervals of waveform captures
by the Cassini Wideband Receiver in the
Saturn's foreshock;
Coates, A.J., R. Jaumann, N. Schmitz, C.E.
Leff, J.L. Josset, A.D. Griffiths, G. Paar, B.K.
Hancock, D.P. Barnes, L. Tyler, M. Gunn, A.
Bauer, C.R. Cousins, F. Trauthan, H. Michaelis,
H. Mosebach, S. Gutruf, A. Koncz, B. Pforte, J.
Kachlicki, R. Terzer & the ExoMars PanCam
team, PanCam on the ExoMars 2018 Rover: A
Stereo, Multispectral and High Resolution
Camera system to investigate the surface of
Mars, presented at 46th Lunar & Planetary
David Long and David Pérez-Suárez

Attended the Triennial Earth Sun Summit in
Indianapolis;

David Long gave a contributed talk and David
Pérez-Suárez presented a poster.
6
David Long

Co-ordinated the second meeting of an ISSI
team on the nature of Coronal Bright Fronts.

Graziella Branduardi-Raymont

Gave an invited talk on “Planetary Charge
Exchange X-ray emissions” at the ITAMP
Workshop on "Charge Exchange X-rays in
Current and Future Astrophysical Researches",
13-15 Apr, at CfA, Cambridge, Mass. USA.




Ignacio Ferreras

Gave a seminar on “The initial mass function as
a tracer of galaxy formation" at the Royal
Observatory, Edinburgh, 4 Mar.
Rosetta, Philae, and the ExoMars mission, at
Carshalton Boys Sports College, 19 Mar;
Rosetta and ExoMars at Midhurst Rother
College, 19 Mar;
The final frontier: current scientific exploration
and uses of space, Guildford U3A annual
lecture, on University of Surrey, 13 Apr;
Saturn, Titan and Enceladus: recent results
from Cassini, at U3A Guildford Science group,
12 May;
Article for “The Conversation” on Saturn's moon
Enceladus could be another location for life
beyond Earth, 11 Mar.
Kim Birkett

Rosetta, at Foredown Towers
Astronomy Society, 16 Apr.
Daisuke Kawata

Gave an invited talk on “Chemodynamical
evolution of the Milky Way like galaxies in Nbody simulations”, at a conference, Multi-Object
Spectroscopy in the Next Decade Big
Questions, Large Surveys and Wide Fields, La
Palma, Spain, 2-6 Mar;

Gave a seminar on “Spiral arms in numerical
simulations of disc galaxies” at Jodrell Bank
Centre for Astrophysics, the University of
Manchester, 29 Apr.
Amateur
Stephanie Yardley

Gave a lecture series onboard a Solar Eclipse
cruise that visited Norway and the Faroe
Islands;

Gave a space weather talk to students from the
Bishop Douglas School on 26 March.
Alice Foster and Georgina Graham

Participated in the “Mission to Mars” outreach
event for Year 8 school students at UCL (19
Feb) . Alice and Georgina ran a Martian soil
workshop and chaired debates with the theme
of Mars colonisation.
Paniez Paykari

Gave an invited talk on: “Sparsely sampling the
sky: Bayesian Experimental Design” at a
workshop, Extracting Information from Weak
Lensing: Small Scales = Big Problem, Lorenz
Center, Leiden, Netherland, 16-20 Feb;

Invited to talk on “Passing on the torch of
success” by the Iranian Women’s Association.
George Seabroke

Staffed the Gaia stand at the Big Bang Fair at
the NEC in Birmingham on 14 March.
Kinwah Wu

Gave a talk on “Behaviour of light near BH
event horizons” at the UCL-Wellcome trust
event “On Light”;

Talked to the UCL Academy students about
physics and black holes.
Kinwah Wu

Gave an seminar on “Dynamics of fast spinning
neutron stars around a massive black holes”
and a short talk on “Cognitive Processes and
Learning-style models and theories” at Armagh
Observatory in April.
Megan Whewell

Gave a talk on “Supermassive Black Holes” at
European Astrofest, 6-7 Feb, which is featured
in “Astronomy Now” magazine.
Outreach
Andrew Coates gave several talks:

“Oceans on other Worlds”, at Cardiff
Astronomical Society, 5 Mar;

Rosetta and Philae: unlocking the secrets of
comets – and the ExoMars mission, at St
Catherines Scool, Bramley (U4 – Year 9) on 13
Mar;

Exciting Times in Space Exploration (“Rosetta
and Philae – unlocking the secrets of comets”,
and “Mars exploration - and the ExoMars
mission”), at Cranleigh Arts Centre, 16 Mar;
Press releases
Tom Kitching

Dark matter “ghosts” through galactic smashups (Publication in Science) is featured in BBC
News.
Media Broadcasts and Features
Andrew Coates gave a selection of interviews:

BBC Radio 5 live Drive, on Plumes on Mars
(mentioned ExoMars), 16 Feb;
7
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











Sky News on Mars One (mentioned ExoMars),
17 Feb;
Guardian on Russia, ISS and ExoMars, used
26 Feb;
The Naked Scientists on dawn arrival at Ceres,
website 6 Mar and BBC R5 7 Mar;
BBC World TV “Global” on spacewalk
anniversary, Rosetta and ExoMars, 18 Mar;
Sky News on solar eclipse, 19 Mar;
BBC Surrey on solar eclipse, 19 Mar ;
BBC Paul Hudson Weather show, Radio
Humberside on space weather, used 28 Mar;
BBC Earth on life on Europa, Enceladus and
Mars;
Guardian on water on Mars (mentioned
ExoMars), 13 Apr;
Guardian on Rosetta and solar system
formation, 14 Apr;
Al Jazeera on Mercury, Pluto and solar system
exploration, 30 Apr;
UK Space Agency/Imperative Space Aurora
outreach film, 27 Mar (Shropshire), 10 Apr
(MSSL), 15 May (Geological Society) on
ExoMars PanCam;
Sky at Night on Venus Express (filmed at
MSSL, included ExoMars hardware also), 22;
first transmitted on BBC4 10 May.
Chris Owen and Louise Harra were interviewed at
Airbus, Stevenage, by The Guardian, BBC and
Channel 4 about Solar Orbiter. This was at the
press event based around the fitting of the heat
shield to the spacecraft engineering model. 13
March.
The Solar Orbiter SWA instrument featured heavily
in an article broadcast as part of the BBC's
“Stargazing Live” event on 20 Mar.
Other news
Former member of the Space Plasmas Group, Matt
Taylor, was featured on Radio 4's “The life
scientific” in Mar. This recognition comes from the
high profile Matt has recently had as ESA Project
Scientist for Rosetta. Andrew Fazakerley was
interviewed at the BBC as part of the preparation
for the programme.
Next Issue
The next issue of The Newsletter (Volume 12,
Issue 3) will be published in August 2015. This will
cover activities from 1 May to 31 July 2015.
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