Anke Ardern-Arentsen

Before being locked in a basement at the TNG offices for two days of WEAVE Science Processing & Analysis meeting (my first as part of the CASU team!), I managed to check out the southernmost tip of La Palma 🌋

The emergence of globular clusters and globular-cluster-like dwarfs - Nature The results from a state-of-the-art suite of hydrodynamical cosmological zoom-in simulations show how globular clusters naturally emerge in the Standard Cosmology and also reveal the existence of a ne...

Big news! @astroeth.bsky.social has his Nature paper on the Emergence of Globular Clusters out today! His simulations have globulars forming naturally, as well as some cool globular cluster like dwarfs! Check it out! 🔭🧪☄️

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I think it stopped after 15 iterations 😅

The Andromeda Galaxy is shown just right of center, while some unusual blue arcs appear to its left. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

🔭 Blue Arcs Toward Andromeda

Image Credit & Copyright: Ogle et al.

apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap25080...

UK gets first female Astronomer Royal in 350 years Prof Michele Dougherty is the first woman to be appointed to the influential post.

Big day for the matriarchy! 🥳 Huge congrats to the awesome Prof. Doughtery, lead on the Jupiter-bound ESA JUICE mission & STFC Exec Chair.

If anyone's confused on the astro royal hierarchy: Michele and I are the astro equivalents of 🇬🇧Westminster and 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Holyrood 🤗

ℹ️: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... 👩‍🔬🔭🧪

Our sister institute at Durham, the Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, are advertising for a five year lectureship position 🔭☄️
Advertisement is here, have a look and come join us in pretty Durham: durham.taleo.net/careersectio...
#astrosci

Hanyuan Zhang.

Hanyuan Zhang won for the paper: "Kinematics and dynamics of the Galactic bar revealed by Gaia long-period variables" by Hanyuan Zhang, Vasily Belokurov, N Wyn Evans, Sarah G Kane, and Jason L Sanders.
academic.oup.com/mnras/articl...

Predicting metallicities and carbon abundances from Gaia XP spectra for (carbon-enhanced) metal-poor stars ABSTRACT. Carbon-rich (C-rich) stars can be found at all metallicities and evolutionary stages. They are often the result of mass transfer from a companion

At NAM 2025 in Durham @nam25-durham.bsky.social Anke Ardern-Arentsen is speaking on Carbon-enhanced metal-poor stars as probes for early chemical enrichment. Anke has published in #MNRAS: academic.oup.com/mnras/articl...

Ending bullying and precarity should be the Cambridge chancellor’s focus In recent decades, the post has been seen as purely ceremonial. But there is precedent and justification for a more interventionist role, says Wyn Evans

"Ending bullying and precarity should be Cambridge chancellor’s focus" says Prof Wyn Evans

"There is a need for University ombudsman to investigate cases of mismanagement or misconduct

I urge my fellow candidates for chancellor to back this call"

www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/endi...

Unsung observatory worker was UK’s first professional female astronomer, experts say Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy is trying to find a photo of Annie Walker, who died in 1940, to give her star billing

A story about Annie Walker, a 19th cent. astronomer who worked at the Cambridge Observatory, a forerunner to the IoA ... www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Congrats!! 🥳

Happy to announce that the line-detector.oca.eu website is now online!
It allows the user to select the stellar type, [M/H], λ- range, and resolving power and the page returns:
-purity of the line and minimum S/N required to detect it.
-interactive plot to identify the lines in the spectra

Picture of a TV screen showing the Sun through an H-alpha filter. Some nice solar prominences can be seen on the upper right

Nice view of the Sun 🌞 today from @cambridgeastro.bsky.social - thanks to Robin Catchpole 🔭

Wyn Evans of 21 Group is standing

If we can put together an alliance of everyone who is left out of decision-making in our universities, we can bring about real change

In universities, power is controlled by a tiny elite

Let's make this election about the principle of academic self-governance

Aww! Ik heb zo’n geluk gehad met haar als PhD supervisor! 😊

The 2025 Gruber Cosmology Prize has been awarded to Professor Max Pettini (IoA) and Professor Ryan Cooke (who is currently faculty at Durham, and was an IoA PhD student 2008-2011). www.ast.cam.ac.uk/news/2025-gr...

A view of Nice city and the Mediterranean sea, framed by a window inside the Observatory library. There are clouds in the sky and some raindrops on the window, but the view is amazing.

View of Nice by night, with many city lights below and still some sunset colours in the sky. Taken from Nice observatory, near the big dome (not visible)

Such a good view for a meeting room, and the view at the dinner was amazing too 😍 @ Pristine collaboration meeting, Nice Observatory @obscoteazur.bsky.social

so pretty! Is that in Cambridge?

In person voting for Chancellorship of Cambridge will break for University's candidate

If you did degree at Cambridge, you can vote online but must register beforehand

Deadline to register for online voting is 2 May

Act now

Please repost to ensure wide electorate

www.cam.ac.uk/about-the-un...

Recommend going through your spam folder after an academic rejection: "The paper with the title (...) has left a deep impression on us", "We believe your insights would be highly valuable to our readership", "I understand that you are an outstanding researcher" ✨

Deadline is tomorrow!

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.

The image shows three spectra from top to bottom (metal-rich, very metal-poor and carbon-enhanced very metal-poor, respectively), with each wavelength visualised by a coloured vertical line. The axis goes from ~380-700 nanometers. The metal-rich star has more and stronger dark lines than the metal-poor star, corresponding to absorption features. The carbon-enhanced metal-poor star has massive absorption bands, corresponding to molecular carbon absorption.

For a recent outreach talk I created this visualisation of real stellar spectra (from the LAMOST survey) - showing a metal-rich, a very metal-poor, and a carbon-enhanced very metal-poor star with similar temperatures (~5000K). Look at those massive molecular carbon bands for the CEMP star! ✨🔭

I love all the fake astro papers on arXiv 🔭🧪 today! (thread of links)
1/
Feng Shui in the Universe: arxiv.org/pdf/2503.22800
One for the Swifties: arxiv.org/pdf/2503.22795
Kepler’s Platonic model after all: arxiv.org/pdf/2503.22793
Let’s just throw deep learning at it: arxiv.org/pdf/2503.22786

NAM abstract submission closes *today* don't forget to submit yours and join us in beautiful Durham in July! 🔭 #astrosci

A field of bright yellow daffodils, with a 1960s building in the background.

Spring is springing at the Institute of Astronomy!

Astronomy Plot of the Week is back!

Submit a great plot/graph/diagram by tagging @plotastro.bsky.social

It does not have to be yours, but it has to include a publicly accessible link (i.e. arXiv, ADS, etc.)

🔭

All 21 choir members that participated in the concert, smiling and doing some spontaneous movements for the photo. We are wearing black & white and red scarves. The photo is taken in the front of Great St Mary’s Church.

I love singing with the #Cambridge University Gospel #Choir 😍 so enjoyed our concert at Great St Mary’s tonight! 🎶

Two protostars are hidden in a single pixel near the center of a striking hourglass-shaped nebula in this near-infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope. The actively forming star system lies in a dusty molecular cloud cataloged as Lynds 483, some 650 light-years distant toward the constellation Serpens Cauda. Responsible for the stunning bipolar outflows, the collapsing protostars have been blasting out collimated energetic jets of material over tens of thousands of years. Webb's high-resolution view shows the violence of star-formation in dramatic detail as twisting shock fronts expand and collide with slower, denser material. The premier close-up of the star-forming region spans less than 1/2 a light-year within dark nebula Lynds 483.

🔭 The Protostars within Lynds 483

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA,

apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap25031...

The Round Church, Cambridge, in the evening, with the moon appearing behind the clouds

To live in Cambridge is to be surrounded by amazing built history.

One favourite of mine is the Round Church, where I've had the privilege of speaking a couple of times. It was built approx. ~1130AD, likely before the first human settlement in my homeland of NZ 🤯
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_...