Prof. Jonathan Nichols

Has anyone else noticed a recent (to me) irritating surge in the use of the word “colleagues” in university admin-speak? It’s not just a result of AI, it’s verbal too. “Colleagues” this, “colleagues” that, every other sentence.

I'm looking for a new #postdoc to join Leicester's #planetsci atmospheres team, working with us on the treasure-trove of #JWST giant planet data to study atmospheric composition, weather, and variability. Deadline Nov 5th with a start date in early 2027. jobs.le.ac.uk/vacancies/13...

"Oversubscription of 18:1" ☠️ And also: "Due to the increasing number of proposals, and with the goal of fairly distributing the review activity, JWST proposers may be expected to serve as reviewers in future cycles." #JWST 🔭 www.stsci.edu/contents/new...

Sunday afternoon with wine and Feynman

☁️ ☁️ ☁️ here in the East Midlands 🙁

In which I stick my oar www.cnn.com/2026/10/02/s...

Great news! Congratulations to Bea and Daniel! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Am I the only one who shouts “It’s use THE pinpad to complete THE transaction!”?

Remember having the same thing with the Shoemaker-Levy impact. An audience of blank stares carried the message that I was old!

BBC Sky at Night magazine article featuring the potential discovery of auroral radio from an exoplanet. (Funnily enough featuring our Hubble image of Jupiter’s auroras…) www.skyatnightmagazine.com/news/radio-s...

Looks great work, @kortizceballos.bsky.social and @whereisyvette.bsky.social! (and not just because you namechecked our model ☺️)

A very exciting result dropped on arXiv a few days ago (by @kortizceballos.bsky.social, @whereisyvette.bsky.social and Edo Berger) - direct detection of radio emission from an exoplanet. If the result stands up to peer review, it is a giant leap forward! www.sciencenews.org/article/exop...

One of the key skills of a scientist (that no one tells you about) is to be able to add twice the information whilst using half as many words

Cool! Radio detection from a (large!) exoplanet with our proposed mechanism implicated for its source 🤗

New video from Nature interviewing members of the @physicsuol.bsky.social team at Perpetual Atomics and Space Park Leicester, working on Americium-based space nuclear power sources for future exploration(RPS for electricity generation, RHUs for heating). www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYb_...

And after all that, it’s just there on the fence!

Wow, eerily dark

My best effort so far with the Eclipsenator 2000

My practical astronomy skillz know no bounds

The Guardian view on the Lovell telescope: budget cuts to physics are bad science and worse politics www.theguardian.com/commentisfre.... 🔭

In Toulouse for my favourite (admittedly niche) conference, Magnetospheres of the Outer Planets. Santé!

These are some of the big satellite dishes that are used to communicate with spacecraft throughout the solar system. 😔

The reviewer who found the time and space to write down the weakness that there was a typo (“Cycle 24” not 34) and that this then didn’t make sense in the context of the proposal, should be pleased to have cut insightfully to the very beating heart of a scientific case

That was a win for football

That is a joke

Finally some reffing!

Allez Spain. Or whatever.

I just don’t get the plan. Why the hell did we stop playing with 30 mins to go?

Shit

Dirty buggers!

"Fundamental research should not be allowed to decline through attrition while public statements continue to suggest it is being protected." @jim-wild.bsky.social in @resprofnews.bsky.social today. Well worth a read. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-v...

"Crazy Beautiful!" 5,234 images from 2 time-lapse sequences photographed by Sophie Adenot & Jessica Meir on ISS Expedition 74 are repaired, remastered & retimed to create this video of aurora australis with music by Andreas Vollenweider. 11m19s 4K youtu.be/22mTjdmpG1M

"Day 127, orbit 1968 — That aurora was absolutely spectacular… shimmering and dancing beneath us, stretching as far as the eye could see, and so intense it lit up the Station in shades of green 💚", says @esa.int astronaut Sophie Adenot.   📸 ESA/NASA – S. Adenot #εpsilon

This is * insane *. STFC council minutes from December have been removed from their website, changed, and reposted. The new version rolls back on funding commitments made explicit in the initial version. I can't think of another adjective other than Trumpian behaviour.

Hydration breaks my arse

🔭 Triple Shockwave from Sun Crossing Rocket Image Credit & Copyright: John Winkopp (WAI Media) ap260615

To those of you in the UK who have been sitting under non-stop rain since last Wednesday, I would like to apologise profusely. It is entirely my fault, since I bought some garden furniture that was delivered, indeed, last Wednesday. You can’t argue with physics. #meaculpa