UCL – DEPARTMENT OF SPACE AND CLIMATE PHYSICS
MULLARD SPACE SCIENCE LABORATORY
The Newsletter - Volume 12, Issue 1
29 March 2015
Covers events between 1 November 2014 and 31 January 2015
Contents
New staff .................................................................................................................................................................1
Visitors ....................................................................................................................................................................1
Promotions .............................................................................................................................................................2
Prizes and Awards .................................................................................................................................................2
Appointments .........................................................................................................................................................2
Telescope/Satellite Time Awarded .......................................................................................................................2
Grants and Contracts ............................................................................................................................................2
Proposals Submitted .............................................................................................................................................2
Mission Status and Developments ......................................................................................................................3
Publications – Refereed ........................................................................................................................................4
Publications - Non-refereed .................................................................................................................................6
Papers in Press ......................................................................................................................................................6
Teaching Developments .......................................................................................................................................6
Invited Talks and Conferences .............................................................................................................................6
Outreach .................................................................................................................................................................8
Media Broadcasts and Features ..........................................................................................................................8
Next Issue ...............................................................................................................................................................8
New staff
Visitors
A warm welcome to our new staff:
 Solar Group: David Perez-Suarez joined as a
Research Associate working on a USAF grant
(1 Dec);
 Astrophysics Group: Paniez Paykari joined as
a Research Fellow to work withTom Kitching (1
Dec);
 Plasma/Planetary Group: Simon Thomas
joined as a Research Associate (1 Jan).



Stan Gunar visited the Solar Group from St
Andrews University from 3-4 Dec;
Miho Janvier visited the Solar Group from
Dundee University from 15-16 Dec;
Dr Mick Denton from Lancaster University
gave a seminar entitled ‘A new empirical model
of ion and electron fluxes at geosynchronous
orbit’.
Promotions
Congratulations to George Seabroke who has
been promoted from Research Associate to Senior
Research Associate with effect from 1 Sept 2014.
o
Prizes and Awards



Ziri Younsi (former Astrophysics PhD
student, now PDRA at Institute of
Theoretical Physics, Frankfurt) won a
Humboldt Research Fellowship;
Lidia van Driel-Gesztelyi was awarded the
RAS Service Award. The award honours
individuals who, through outstanding or
exceptional
work,
have
promoted,
facilitated or encouraged the sciences of
astronomy or geophysics and developed
their role in the life of the nation;
The Hinode/EIS team (PI: Louise Harra)
was awarded the RAS Group Achievement
award in Geophysics which is presented in
recognition of outstanding achievement by
large consortia in any branch of astronomy
or geophysics.
o
Proposals Submitted


Appointments



Andrew Coates’ 3-year term as STFC AGP
Planetary panel chair ended in December;
Geraint Jones has been appointed to the AGP
planetary panel;
Louise Harra:
o Management committee of Armagh
Observatory and
Planetarium
ministerial appointment. (Nov 2014 for
4 years).
o Editorial board of Space Science
Reviews, Jan 2015.



Telescope/Satellite Time Awarded

George Seabroke is Co-I on the observing
proposal ‘For richer or poorer: does globular
cluster NGC 3201 have a metallicity spread?’,
which was awarded 3 nights (7-9 Apr) on the
Australian National University 2.3m telescope.
Grants and Contracts

provide expert support for Earth
Observation missions though to June
2016. Contract with Vega UK as Prime
and ESA as customer;
Sentinel-3
Mission
Performance
Monitoring Facility (S3-MPMF): MSSL
provides expert support on SARAL
altimetry to the Prime (ACS of Italy) in
this contract from ESA;
Sentinel-3
Mission
Performance
Centre (S3-MPC): MSSL is part of an
expert team, lead by ACRI-ST
(France) to support the Sentinel-3
mission through to 2017. ESA and
EUMETSAT are the customer.
Steve Baker and colleagues were awarded the
following contracts:
o CryoSat-IPF maintenance: a CCN was
granted for the upgrade of the CryoSat
Ground data processing chains to
‘Baseline C’;
o IDEAS+ : MSSL is part of a team to
2
MSSL are part of a team which has submitted
a proposal for a contract within the ESA
Climate Change Initiative (CCI) to develop
‘Antarctic Ice Sheet Essential Climate
Variables’;
MSSL have submitted 2 proposals to ESA's
programme for ‘Scientific Exploitations of
Operational Missions (SEOM)’. The first is on
the monitoring of Mountain Glaciers, and the
second is to develop a ‘scientific software
toolbox’ to aid greater exploitation of SAR
altimetry data;
ExoMars PanCam studentship (UKSA);
ExoMars PanCam continuation (UKSA);
The following 5 proposals (Alfven+, Nitro,
Ravens,THOR and EPIC) survived the first
step in ESA's selection process, a technical
review and are now undergoing a scientific
review:
o MSSL has an instrument lead
contribution
on
the
electron
spectrometer package for the THOR
mission submitted to the ESA M4 Call
for mission proposals. The mission
aims to make high resolution fields and
particle measurements to further our
understanding of fundamental physical
processes
such
as
turbulence,
magnetic
reconnection,
shocks,
particle acceleration and heating, etc
in the heliosphere;
o MSSL also jointly led the Alfven+
proposal for ESA M4, and proposed
instruments to measure auroral
electron pitch angle distributions with
very high time resolution. Alfven+ is
designed to use two spacecraft to
study the plasma physics of the
auroral acceleration region and wider
o
o
sensitivity in Gaia’s Radial Velocity Spectrometer
(RVS). Collaborator’s simulations have predicted
that this loss will be about +1.4 magnitudes, which
was confirmed by MSSL multi-transit analysis of
faint-end spectra. These simulations suggest that
adapting the onboard data acquisition software to
the observing conditions could recover about +0.14
magnitudes of the faint-end loss. Consequently,
Airbus DS (Gaia’s prime contractor) is developing
this functionality in a new version of the onboard
software, in consultation with us. We have scoped
the implications for MSSL’s pipeline software,
which are considerable, and started to implement
these changes.
questions about how magnetosphereionosphere coupling works;
MSSL participated in the Nitro
proposal and proposed instruments to
measure ionospheric photoelectrons
and
magnetospheric
electron
populations. The Nitro mission is
designed
to
make
the
first
measurements of nitrogen atoms and
ions in the exosphere, ionosphere and
magnetosphere, which will open up
new understanding of atmospheric
loss
processes
(with
possible
implications for when or whether
molecules, important for life, could
have formed at Earth and other
planets),
and
charged
particle
dynamics in the magnetosphere;
MSSL participated in the Ravens
proposal,
and
proposed
EUV
telescope instrumentation to remotely
sense the Earth's plasmasphere. The
Ravens mission is designed to provide
the first continuous global observations
of several key magnetospheric regions
- the plasmasheet, plasmasphere, ring
current and ionosphere - to enable
study of the solar wind driving of the
magnetosphere-ionosphere system as
a whole.
Mark Cropper and Steve Baker attended various
meetings with UK Space Agency to review and
defend the Grant extension from 2015 to 2017.
Funding of the amount of work proposed has been
agreed and confirmed.
M4 – LOFT and XIPE proposals are submitted to
the ESA M4 call.
Rosetta – Andrew Coates attended RPC meeting,
Graz, 4-6 Nov.
Solar Orbiter -. There were a number of high level
meetings between the mission PIs, including Chris
Owen as SWA PI, and the ESA upper
management. Discussions of the way forward for
the mission culminated in a decision by the ESA
SPC to move the launch date back to Oct 2018.
This provides some respite to the hardworking
technical teams at MSSL, but meeting the new
deadlines remains extremely challenging. In more
regular activity, Chris Owen and Chris BrockleyBlatt attended the December meeting of the UKSA
Project management board to report MSSL
progress. In early December, MSSL also hosted
members of our Italian DPU team, Gennaro Mele
and Leo Amoruso, to discuss various aspects of the
SWA scientific and application software design.
Chris Owen, Khalid Al Janabi and Gethyn Lewis
represented SWA at the 6th SOWG in Madrid on
19-22 Jan, to discuss various aspects of the
operations of the Solar Orbiter mission with the
ESA operations team and the other instrument
representatives.
Mission Status and Developments
Cassini – science exploitation continuing (see
lists).
Cluster – The ESA CAA team visited MSSL to
discuss PEACE Team progress on 27/28
Nov. Andrew Fazakerley attended the Cluster
Science Operations Working Group meeting in
Parison 4/5 Dec.
ExoMars – PanCam science team meeting was
held at DLR, Berlin, 20/21 Nov (attended by A.
Coates (chair), A. Griffiths, C. Leff). Andrew
Coates also attended an ESA sample analogue
workshop at ESA Harwell, 28 Nov. A. Coates, A.
Griffiths and C. Leff attended ExoMars Science
Working team and landing site selection meetings,
ALTEC, Turin, 9-11 Dec.
Filter wheel testing, and testing between the
common electronics box and the front-end
electronics took place.
Gaia – MSSL’s Gaia team attended the biannual
Data Processing and Analysis Collaboration
(DPAC) Co-ordination Unit (CU) 6 Spectroscopic
Processing meeting in Paris (9-11 Dec). Here the
team reported progress on pipeline development
and scientific results. The unexpected high levels
of stray light will result in a loss of faint-end
Venus Express – mission declared ended after 8
years in Venus orbit on 16 Dec when the
spacecraft entered the Venus atmospheres. MSSL
provided blackening, calibration and a radiation
shield for the SwRI-built electron spectrometer,
3
part of the IRF-led ASPERA-4 instrument.
Research work continues with 2 new papers in
press to be reported in next issue.
Archive, 2015, Astrophys. & Space Sci., 354,
89, doi: 10.1007/s10509-014-2059-8;
Calzada-Diaz, A., K. H. Joy, I. A. Crawford, T.
Nordheim, Constraining the source regions of
lunar meteorites using orbital geochemical data,
Meteoritics and Planetary Science, 50, 214-228,
Feb 2015;
Crnojević, D., …, Pasetto, S., A PandAS view of
M31 dwarf elliptical satellites: NGC 147 and
NGC 185, 2014, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc.,
445, 3862, doi: 10.1093/mnras/stu2003;
Fear R. C., S. E. Milan, R. Maggiolo, A. N.
Fazakerley, I. Dandouras, S. B. Mende (2014).
Direct observation of closed magnetic flux
trapped in the high latitude magnetosphere,
Science , vol. 346, no. 6216, pp. 15061510, doi:
10.1126/science.1257377;
Forsyth C, Watt CEJ, Rae IJ, Fazakerley AN,
Kalmoni NME, Freeman MP, Boakes PD,
Nakamura R, Dandouras I, Kistler LM, Jackman
CM, Coxon JC, Carr C, Increases in plasma
sheet temperature with solar wind driving during
substorm growth phases . Geophysical
Research Letters , doi:10.1002/2014GL062400;
Garnier, P., M.K.G. Holmberg, J.-E. Wahlund, G.R.
Lewis, P. Schippers, A. Coates, D.A. Gurnett,
J.H. Waite, I. Dandouras, Deriving the
characteristics of warm electrons (100 − 500
eV) in the magnetosphere of Saturn with the
Cassini Langmuir probe. Planetary and Space
Science, 104, 173-184, Dec 2014;
Hills,M.J., Hepburn, I.D, Bartlett,J. Hardy, G.,
Thermal Magnetoconductivity of Tungsten
Below 6 K: Combining the Zero-, Low- and
High-Field Cases, Journal of Low Temperature
Physics, Vol 178, Issue 1-2, 18-34 January
2015;
Hunt, G.J., S.W.H. Cowley, G. Provan, E.J. Bunce,
I.I. Alexeev, E.S. Belenkaya, V.V. Kalegaev,
M.K. Dougherty, and A.J. Coates, Field-aligned
currents in Saturn’s southern nightside
magnetosphere: Sub-corotation and planetary
period oscillation components, J. Geophys.
Res., 119, 9847–9899, DOI:
10.1002/2014JA020506, Dec 2014;
Kunder, A., …, Seabroke, G. et al., Spectroscopic
signatures of extratidal stars around the
globular clusters NGC 6656 (M22), NGC 3201,
and NGC 1851 from RAVE, 2014, Astron. &
Astrophys., 572, A30, doi: 10.1051/00046361/201424113;
La Barbera, F., …, Ferreras, I. et al., SPIDER – X.
Environmental effects in central and satellite
early-type galaxies through the stellar fossil
record, 2014, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 445,
1977, doi: 10.1093/mnras/stu1626;
Lilensten, J., A.J. Coates, V. Dehant T. Dudok de
Wit, R.B. Horne, F. Leblanc, J. Luhmann, E.
Publications – Refereed
Published
Achilleos, N., C.S Arridge, C. Bertucci, P. Guio, N.
Romanelli and N. Sergis, A combined model of
pressure variations in Titan’s plasma
environment, Geophysical Research Letters,
41, Issue 24, 8730-8735, Dec 2014;
Arridge, C.S., N. Achilleos, J. Agarwal, C.B. Agnor,
R. Ambrosi, N. André, S.V. Badman, K. Baines,
D. Banfield, M. Barthélémy, M. Bisi, J. Blum, T.
Bocanegra-Bahamon, B. Bonfond, C. Bracken,
P. Brandt, C. Briand, C. Briois, S. Brooks, J.
Castillo-Rogez, T. Cavalié, B. Christophe, A.J.
Coates. G. Collinson, J.F. Cooper, M. CostaSitja, R. Courtin, A. Daglis, I. de Pater, M.
Desai, D. Dirkx, M.K. Dougherty, R. Ebert, G.
Filacchione, L.N. Fletcher, J. Fortney, M.
Galand, I. Gerth, D. Grassi, D. Grodent, E.
Grün, J. Gustin, M. Hedman, R. Helled, P.
Henri, S. Hess, J.K. Hillier, M. Hofstadter, R.
Holme, M. Horányi, G. Hospodarsky, S. Hsu, P.
Irwin, C.M. Jackman, O. Karatekin, S. Kempf,
E. Khalisi, K. Konstantinidis, H. Krüger, W.S.
Kurth, C. Labrianidis, V. Lainey, L.L. Lamy, M.
Laneuville, D. Lucchesi, A. Luntzer, J.
MacArthur, A. Maier, A. Masters, S. McKennaLawlor, H. Melin, A. Milillo, G. MoragasKlostermeyer, A. Morschhauser, J. Moses, O.
Mousis, N. Nettelmann, F.M. Neubauer, T.
Nordheim, B. Noyelles, G. Orton, M. Owens, R.
Peron, F. Postberg, N. Rambaux, K. Retherford,
S. Reynaud, E. Roussos, C.T. Russell, A.M.
Rymer, R. Sallantin, A. Sánchez-Lavega, O.
Santolik, J. Saur, K. Sayanagi, P. Schenk, J.
Schubert, N. Sergis, E. Sittler, A. Smith, F.
Spahn, R. Srama, T. Stallard, V. Sterken, Z.
Sternovsky, M. Tiscareno, G. Tobie, F. Tosi, M.
Trieloff, D. Turrini, E.P. Turtle, S. Vinatier, R.
Wilson, P. Zarka, The science case for an
orbital mission to Uranus: Exploring the origins
and evolution of ice giant planets, Planet.
Space Sci., 104, 122-140, Dec 2014;
Béthermin, M., …, Symeonidis, M. et al., Evolution
of the dust emission of massive galaxies up to
z=4 and constraints on their dominant mode of
star formation, 2015, Astron. & Astrophys., 573,
A113, doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/201425031;
Bienaymé, O., …, Seabroke, G.M. et al., Weighing
the local dark matter with RAVE red clump
stars, 2014, Astron. & Astrophys., 571, 92, doi:
10.1051/0004-6361/201424478;
Brown, P.J., Breeveld, A., …, Kuin, P. et al.,
SOUSA: the Swift Optical/Ultraviolet Supernova
4
Woodfield, M. Barthélémy, What characterizes
planetary space weather?, Astronomy &
Astrophysics Reviews, 22:79,
doi:10.1007/s00159-014-0079-6, Nov 2014;
Long, D. M., Baker, D., Williams, D. R., Carley, E.
P., Gallagher, P. T., Zucca, P.The Energetics of
a Global Shock Wave in the Low Solar Corona,
ApJ 2015, 799, 2, 224, doi:10.1088/0004637X/799/2/224;
Magnelli, B., …, Page, M. et al., The farinfrared/radio correlation and radio spectral
index of galaxies in the SFR-M* plane up to
z~2, 2015, Astron. & Astrophys., 573, 45, doi:
10.1051/0004-6361/201424937;
Martín-Navarro, I., …, Ferreras, I. et al., The Stellar
Initial Mass Function at 0.9<z<1.5, 2015,
Astrophys. J. Letter, 798, L4, doi:
10.1088/2041-8205/798/1/L4;
Masters, A., N. Achilleos, C.B. Agnord, S.
Campagnola, S. Charnoze, B. Christophe, A. J.
Coates, L.N. Fletcher, G.H. Jones, L. Lamy, F.
Marzari, N. Nettelmann, J. Ruiz, R. Ambrosi, N.
Andre, A. Bhardwaj, J. J. Fortney, C. J. Hansen,
R. Helled, G. Moragas-Klostermeyer, G. Orton,
L. Ray, S. Reynaud, N. Sergis, R. Srama, M.
Volwerk, Neptune and Triton: Essential pieces
of the Solar System puzzle, Planet. Space Sci.,
104(A), 108-121, Dec 2014;
Munari, U., …, Seabroke, G. et al., APASS
Landolt-Sloan BVgri Photometry of RAVE stars.
I. Data, Effective Temperatures, and
Reddenings, 2014, Astrophys. J., 148, 81, doi:
10.1088/0004-6256/148/5/81;
Nordheim, T.A., L.R. Dartnell, L. Desorgher, A.J.
Coates. G.H. Jones, Ionization of the Venusian
atmosphere from Solar and Galactic Cosmic
Rays, Icarus, 245, 80-86,
10.1016/j.icarus.2014.09.032, Jan 2015;
Pasetto, S, Cropper, M. et al. Environmental
effects on star formation in dwarf galaxies and
star clusters, 2015, Astron. & Astrophys., 573,
A48, doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/201424502;
Pasetto, S., …, Cropper, M. et al., Theory of stellar
convection: removing the mixing-length
parameter, 2014, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc.,
445, 3692, doi: 10.1093/mnras/stu1933;
Piffl, T., …, Seabroke, G. et al., Constraining the
Galaxy’s dark halo with RAVE stars, 2014, Mon.
Not. R. Astron. Soc., 445, 3133, doi:
10.1093/mnras/stu1948;
Planck Collaboration: …, McEwen, J. D. et al.,
Planck 2013 results. I. Overview of products
and scientific results, 2014, Astron. &
Astrophys., 571, 1, doi: 10.1051/00046361/201321529;
Planck Collaboration: …, McEwen, J. D. et al.,
Planck 2013 results. XXIII. Isotropy and
statistics of the CMB, 2014, Astron. &
Astrophys., 571, 23, doi: 10.1051/00046361/201321534;
Planck Collaboration: …, McEwen, J. D. et al.,
Planck 2013 results. XXV. Searches for cosmic
strings and other topological defects, 2014,
Astron. & Astrophys., 571, 25, doi:
10.1051/0004-6361/201321621;
Planck Collaboration: …, McEwen, J. D. et al.,
Planck 2013 results. XXVI. Background
geometry and topology of the Universe, 2014,
Astron. & Astrophys., 571, 26, doi:
10.1051/0004-6361/201321546;
Rahimi, A., Carrell, K., Kawata, D., Numerical
simulation of a possible origin of the positive
radial metallicitiy gradient of the thick disk,
2014, Research in Astron. & Astrophys., 14,
1406, doi: 10.1088/1674-4527/14/11/004;
Romanelli, N., R. Modolo, E. Dubinin, J.-J.
Berthelier, C. Bertucci, J.E. Wahlund, F.
Leblanc, P. Canu, N.J.T. Edberg, H. Waite,
W.S. Kurth, D. Gurnett, A. Coates and M.
Dougherty, Outflow and plasma acceleration in
Titan's induced magnetotail: Evidence of
magnetic tension forces, J. Geophys. Res., 119,
9992-10, Dec 2014;
Saxton, C., Soria, R., Wu, K., Dark halo
microphysics and massive black hole scaling
relation in galaxies, 2014, Mon. Not. R. Astron.
Soc., 445, 3415, doi: 10.1093/mnras/stu1984;
Soobiah, Y., J.A. Wild, M.J. Beharrel, S. Barabash,
R.J Lillis, D.L Mitchell, A.J. Coates, J.D.
Winningham and R.A Frahm, Properties of a
large-scale flux rope and current sheet region
on the dayside of Mars: MGS MAG/ER and
MEX ASPERA-3 ELS observations, Icarus, 242,
297-315, 10.1016/j.icarus.2014.08.019, Nov
2014;
Tobie, G., N.A. Teanby, A. Coustenis, R. Jaumann,
F. Raulin, J. Schmidt, N. Carrasco, A.J. Coates,
D. Cordier, R. De Kok, W.D. Geppert, J.-P.
Lebreton, A. Lefevre, T.A. Livengood, K. E.
Mandt, G. Mitri, F. Nimmo, C.A. Nixon, L.
Norman, R.T. Pappalardo, F. Postberg, S.
Rodriguez, D. Schulze-Makuch, J.M.
Soderblom, A. Solomonidou, K. Stephan, E. R.
Stofan, E. P. Turtle, R. J. Wagner, R.A. West, J.
H. Westlake, Science goals and mission
concept for the future exploration of Titan and
Enceladus, Planet. Space Sci., 104 (2014) 59–
77, Dec 2014;
Toloba, E., …, Niemi, S.-M. et al., Stellar
Kinematics and Structural Properties of Virgo
Cluster Dwarf Early-type Galaxies from the
SMAKCED Project. II. The Survey and a
Systematic Analysis of Kinematic Anomalies
and Asymmetries, 2014, Astrophys. J. Sup.,
215, 17, doi: 10.1088/0067-0049/215/2/17;
5
Tortora, C.,…, Ferreras, I. et al., Systematic
variations of central mass density slopes in
early-type galaxyes, 2014, Mon. Not. R. Astron.
Soc., 445, 115, doi: 10.1093/mnras/stu1616;
Van De Kamp, M., Pokhotelov, D., Kauristie, K.
(2014). TID characterised using joint effort of
incoherent scatter radar and GPS. Annales
Geophysicae , 32 (12), 15111532,
doi:10.5194/angeo3215112014;
von Alfthan, S., Pokhotelov, D., Kempf, Y.,
Hoilijoki, S., Honkonen, I., Sandroos, A.,
Palmroth, M. (2014). Vlasiator: First global
hybrid Vlasov simulations of Earth's foreshock
and magnetosheath. Journal of Atmospheric
and SolarTerrestrial Physics , 120, 2435,
doi:10.1016/j.jastp.2014.08.012;
Viganò, D., …, Zane, S., Searching for small-scale
diffuse emission around SGR 1806-20, J. of
High Energy Astrophys., 3, 41, doi:
10.1016/j.jheap.2014.10.001;
Vigren, E., M. Galand, R. V. Yelle, A. Wellbrock,
A.J. Coates, D. Snowden, J. Cui, P. Lavvas,
N.J.T. Edberg, O. Shebanits, J.-E. Wahlund, V.
Vuitton, K. Mandt, Ionization balance in Titan’s
darkside ionosphere, Icarus, 248, 539-546,
doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2014.11.012, Mar 2015;
Wang, L., …, Page, M.J. et al., HerMES: point
source catalogue from Herschel-SPIRE
observations II, 2014, Mon. Not. R. Astron.
Soc., 444, 2870, doi: 10.1093/mnras/stu1569
Yershov, V. et al., Possible signature of distant
foreground in the Planck data, 2014, Mon. Not.
R. Astron. Soc., 445, 2440, doi:
10.1093/mnras/stu1932;
Yershov, V.N., Serendipitous UV source catalogue
for 10 years of XMM and 5 years of Swift, 2014,
Astrophys. & Space Sci., 354, 97, doi:
10.1007/s10509-014-1944-5;
Zane, S., LOFT Detector’s Group, LOFT – Large
Observatory for X-ray Timing, 2014, J. of
Instrumentation, 9, 12, C12003, doi:
10.1088/1748-0221/9/12/C12003.

Invited Talks and Conferences






Publications - Non-refereed

Jonathan Rae, Ian McCrea (2015). Autumn MIST
2014 Review, A&G , 56 (1): 1.341.38,
doi:10.1093/astrogeo/atv030.

Papers in Press
Harra, Baker, Edwards, Hara, Howe and van DrielGesztelyi, Solar Physics, 2015, A Study of the
Coronal Non-Thermal Velocity in Polar Regions
During the Rise from Solar Minimum to Solar
Maximum in Cycle 24.
Teaching Developments

analysis course which was supported by the
UCL Doctoral Skills Development Programme.
About 40 students attended, 20 of whom
travelled to MSSL from UCL’s main campus;
New lectures have been added into the MSc
course on space instrumentation to include
solar remote sensing instruments (Louise
Harra).
Sami Niemi ran a two-day Python data
6
Alvina On gave a talk on ‘Cosmic Magnetic
Fields’ at the London Cosmology Discussion
Meeting at the RAS on 11 Dec;
Mark Cropper, Daisuke Kawata and Jason
Hunt attended ‘The Milky Way unravelled by
Gaia’, Barcelona, 1-5 Dec, and gave talks on
‘Gaia
Radial
Velocity
Spectrograph
Performance’, ‘Stellar motion around corotating spiral arm: Gaia Mock data’ and ‘A
PRIMAL view of the Milky Way, made possible
by Gaia and M2M modelling’ respectively;
Jason McEwen gave a talk on ‘Sparsity in
astrophysics:
Astrostatistics
meets
astroinformatics’ at the SuSTaIn EdgeCutter
Workshop on Astrostatistics at the Royal
Statistical Society and a talk on ‘Spin scalediscretised wavelets on the sphere for the
analysis of CMB Polarisation’ at ERCIM
International Conference on Computational
and Methodological Statistics at Pisa, Italy
(Dec);
Daisuke Kawata gave an invited seminar on
‘Bubble induced star formation in dwarf
galaxies’ at Portsmouth University, 20 Nov;
Mark Cropper, Tom Kitching and Sami Niemi
organized ‘Euclid UK Meeting 2014’ at
UCL,18/19 Dec;
Jason McEwen (co-chair) organized ‘The
International Biomedical and Astronomical
Signal Processing (BASP) Frontiers workshop
2015’ at Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland on 25-30
Jan;
Mat Page (Chair) organized ‘XMM SSC
Consortium Meeting No. 28’ at MSSL on 22-23
Jan;
The
Planetary
Science
Group
were
represented in presentations at AGU, San
Fransciso, 15-19 Dec :
o Hunt, G., S. Cowley, G. Provan, E.
Bunce, I. Alexeev, E. Belenkaya, V.
Kalegaev, M. Dougherty, A. Coates,
Field-Aligned Currents in Saturn’s
Southern Nightside Magnetosphere:
Sub Corotation and Planetary Period
Oscillation Currents;
o Ma, Y., A. Nagy, G. Toth, C. Bertucci,







M. Dougherty, A. Coates, J.-E.
Wahlund,
Time-dependent
MHD
modeling of Titan's plasma interaction
during T32, T85 and T96 and
comparison to Cassini data;
o Collinson, G., J. Grebowsky, D.
Sibeck, S. Boardsen, T. Zhang, A.
Coates, S. Barabash, A Case Study of
the Impact of a Transient Solar Wind
Structure on Venus;
o Achilleos, N., C. Arridge, P. Guio, N.
Pilkington, A. Masters, N. Sergis, A.
Coates, M. Dougherty, Modelling the
Compressibility
of
Saturn's
Magnetosphere;
o Birkett, K., G. Jones, A. Coates Modelling the Neutral Sodium Tails of
Comets;
o Felici, M., C. Arridge, D. Reisenfeld, M.
Thomsen, A. Coates, Survey of the
Plasma Composition in Saturn's
Magnetotail;
o Jasinski, J., C. Arridge, A. Coates, M.
Dougherty, Cassini Observations of
Saturn’s Magnetospheric Cusps;
o Pilkington, N., N. Achilleos, C. Arridge,
P. Guio, A. Masters, N. Sergis, A.
Coates, M. Dougherty, Internally
Driven, Dynamical Behaviour of
Saturn's Magnetosphere;
Leonardo Regoli attended the 65 Cassini PSG
meeting Rome, 19-22 Jan where he gave a
presentation;
o Regoli, L., M. Feyerabend, E.
Roussos, G. Jones, N. Krupp, A.
Coates, Global precipitation maps of
energetic
particles
in
Titan's
atmosphere: T9 flyby, presented at the
65 Cassini PSG Meeting.
David Long gave an invited seminar at the
University of Glasgow;
David Long, Ailsa Prise, Sarah Matthews, Deb
Baker, Len Culhane and Lucie Green gave
contributed talks at the Living with a Star
meeting in Portland, Oregon;
David Long and David Pérez-Suárez attended
the USAF annual program review meeting in
Albuquerque, New Mexico;
Louise Harra gave a seminar at the Armagh
Observatory, Nov;
Gherardo Valori:
o ISSI-Bern meeting on helicity 1-5 Dec ,
coordinator;
o eHEROES final meeting Leuven 7-9
Jan (three talks);
The Plasma Science Group were represented
at the 12th International Conference on




Substorms, held in Japan on 10-14 Nov and
gave presentations:
o Jonathan Rae gave an invited talk
entitled ‘ Exploring substorms with ULF
waves’;
o Jonathan
also
gave
multiple
presentations outlining his work and the
work of other MSSL members and their
collaborators (see programme for
details);
o Colin Forsyth submitted a poster
entitled ‘How plasma sheet temperature
varies with upstream solar wind
conditions and affects substorm
intensity’;
The Plasma Science Group were represented
at the Autumn MIST meeting held at the Royal
Astronomical Society on 28 Nov. As a member
of MIST Council, Jonathan Rae chaired the
afternoon session. Presentations were given by
Zhonghua Yao, Dimitry Pokhotelov and Nadine
Kalmoni. Posters were presented by Colin
Forsyth, Alice Foster, Louise Cooper and
Kirthika Mohan;
Members of the plasma group attended the
Royal
Astronomical
Society
Magnetic
Reconnection meeting on 12 Dec. Posters were
presented by Alice Foster and Ali Varsani;
Members of the plasma group attended the
AGU Fall Meeting on 16-19 Dec. Posters were
presented by Zhonghua Yao and Andrew
Walsh for Ali
Varsani;
Jonathan Rae gave an invited talk at Imperial in
Nov. The seminar was entitled ‘The role of
plasma instabilities at substorm onset’.
Press Releases




7
Jason McEwen – ‘Pioneering work helps to join
the dots across the known universe … and the
human brain’ UCL MAPS News, 24 Nov,
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/mathematical-physicalsciences/maps-news-publication/maps1431;
Jason McEwen – ‘Highlights from the 2015
Planck Cosmology Data Release’ MSSL news,
20 Feb http://www.ucl.ac.uk/mssl/news/msslnews/news-q1-2015/planck;
MSSL planetary website item – planetary
space weather (1 Dec);
Andrew Fazakerley was co-author on a paper
published in Science about the origins of high
latitude aurora, the results of which were
featured in ESA and NASA news stories on 18
Dec.
Outreach
Kim Birkett
 Gave a talk to the Science and Engineering
Diploma students at UCL, on studying a PhD
at MSSL (11 Nov);

Colin Forsyth
 Attended the annual Year 12 Careers Fest at
the National Space Centre in Leicester on 30
Jan. Colin gave short talks on the different
career opportunities at MSSL and took part in
a Q&A session, in which he discussed some of
MSSL’s space hardware;





Graziella Branduardi-Raymont and colleagues
 Supported the Science and Engineering
Postgraduate Open Day at UCL on 14 Jan with
two stands, one for our S&CP MSc and PhD
programmes and one for the UCL Centre for
Systems Engineering (UCLse). We received a
good volume of enquiries, with at least two of
them turning into applications for the Space
Science and Engineering MSc programme;



Chris Brockley-Blatt
 Gave a talk on the Solar Orbiter to the Reading
and District Amateur Radio Club;
George Seabroke
 Gave a Gaia outreach talk to sixth form
students in Islington in Nov;
 George Seabroke’s tweet of Gaia’s 1st
birthday cake had 1,067 views, 11 favourites, 5
link visits and 16 retweets;
1 Weekend News (15 Sep), Naked Scientists
(15 Sep) on Rosetta/Philae landing;
Info for The Times on DNA survival on outside
of a rocket, 26 Nov (appeared 27 Nov);
Interview on BBC R5 live breakfast on ExoMars
PanCam and Mars exploration, 4 Dec;
Appeared on Review 2014: the year in space,
on Enceladus and Mars, on BBC News
Channel and BBC World, Dec 2014-Jan 2015;
Interview for Space Boffins on ExoMars,
PanCam and 2015 space exploration, 9 Jan.
Interview for The Times on Pluto and New
Horizons, appeared 15 Jan ;
PA interview on Beagle 2 and ExoMars,
appeared PA/Daily Mail, Daily Mail, Telegraph,
Guardian 16 Jan;
Interviews on Beagle 2 and ExoMars (16 Jan)
for Space Boffins, Sky News, Naked
Scientists (used 18 Jan);
Quoted on ExoMars, Rosetta and image policy
for BBC News website, 16 Jan;
Interview for Deutsche Welle (DW), Spectrum
programme, on New Horizons Pluto arrival,
Dawn nearing Ceres, on Rosetta at 67P, and
relevance for European and global space
science, included info on ExoMars for website,
28 Jan;
Andrew Fazakerley:
 Contributed to the making of a Radio 4 "The
Life Scientific" programme about Dr Matt
Taylor, the Project Scientist for the ESA
Rosetta mission, and MSSL alumnus;
Myrto Symeonidis
 Gave an outreach talk on ‘supermassive black
holes’ for the Croydon Astronomy Society in
Nov.
A BBC film crew visited MSSL on 28 Jan to record
footage and interviews for the March 'Stargarzing
live' event.
Next Issue
Media Broadcasts and Features
The next issue of the Newsletter (Volume 12, Issue
2) will be published in June 2015. This will cover
activities from 1 Feb to 30 Apr 2015.
Andrew Coates:
 Interviews on Virgin Galactic crash, channel 4
News 1 Nov, BBC R4 Today programme, BBC
Surrey, BBC Sussex, Voice of Russia, BBC
World TV, 3 Nov;
 Info for UCL science blog on Rosetta, 10 Nov;
 Interview for The Naked Scientists (BBC R5) on
Rosetta and landing, 11 Nov;
 Interviews on Sky News, and for space boffins,
Wall St Journal, (12 Nov), LBC, BBC Surrey,
BBC London, BBC News Channel, BBC World
(13 Nov), BBC News Channel, BBC World, Al
Jazeera TV, Dorking Advertiser (14 Nov), BBC
R5 live, BBC World, BBC News Channel, BBC
8