MIST

Magnetosphere, Ionosphere and Solar-Terrestrial

Latest news

RAS Awards

The Royal Astronomical Society announced their award recipients last week, and MIST Council would like to congratulate all that received an award. In particular, we would like to highlight the following members of the MIST Community, whose work has been recognised:
  • Professor Nick Achilleos (University College London) - Chapman Medal
  • Dr Oliver Allanson (University of Birmingham) - Fowler Award
  • Dr Ravindra Desai (University of Warwick) - Winton Award & RAS Higher Education Award
  • Professor Marina Galand (Imperial College London) - James Dungey Lecture

New MIST Council 2021-

There have been some recent ingoings and outgoings at MIST Council - please see below our current composition!:

  • Oliver Allanson, Exeter (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2024 -- Chair
  • Beatriz Sánchez-Cano, Leicester (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2024
  • Mathew Owens, Reading (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2023
  • Jasmine Sandhu, Northumbria (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2023 -- Vice-Chair
  • Maria-Theresia Walach, Lancaster (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2022
  • Sarah Badman, Lancaster (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2022
    (co-opted in 2021 in lieu of outgoing councillor Greg Hunt)

Charter amendment and MIST Council elections open

Nominations for MIST Council open today and run through to 8 August 2021! Please feel free to put yourself forward for election – the voting will open shortly after the deadline and run through to the end of August. The positions available are:

  • 2 members of MIST Council
  • 1 student representative (pending the amendment below passing)

Please email nominations to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by 8 August 2021. Thank you!

Charter amendment

We also move to amend the following articles of the MIST Charter as demonstrated below. Bold type indicates additions and struck text indicates deletions. Please respond to the email on the MIST mailing list before 8 August 2021 if you would like to object to the amendment; MIST Charter provides that it will pass if less than 10% of the mailing list opposes its passing. 

4.1  MIST council is the collective term for the officers of MIST and consists of six individuals and one student representative from the MIST community.

5.1 Members of MIST council serve terms of three years, except for the student representative who serves a term of one year.

5.2 Elections will be announced at the Spring MIST meeting and voting must begin within two months of the Spring MIST meeting. Two slots on MIST council will be open in a given normal election year, alongside the student representative.

5.10 Candidates for student representative must not have submitted their PhD thesis at the time that nominations close.

SSAP roadmap update

The STFC Solar System Advisory Panel (SSAP) is undertaking a review of the "Roadmap for Solar System Research", to be presented to STFC Science Board later this year. This is expected to be a substantial update of the Roadmap, as the last full review was carried out in 2012, with a light-touch update in 2015.

The current version of the SSAP Roadmap can be found here.

In carrying out this review, we will take into account changes in the international landscape, and advances in instrumentation, technology, theory, and modelling work. 

As such, we solicit your input and comments on the existing roadmap and any material we should consider in this revision. This consultation will close on Wednesday 14 July 2021 and SSAP will try to give a preliminary assessment of findings at NAM.

This consultation is seeking the view of all members of our community and we particularly encourage early career researchers to respond. Specifically, we invite:

Comments and input on the current "Roadmap for Solar System Research" via the survey by clicking here.

Short "white papers" on science investigations (including space missions, ground-based experimental facilities, or computing infrastructure) and impact and knowledge exchange (e.g. societal and community impact, technology development). Please use the pro-forma sent to the MIST mailing list and send your response to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Quo vadis interim board

 

A white paper called "Quo vadis, European space weather community" has been published in J. Space Weather Space Clim. which outlines plans for the creation of an organisation to represent the European space weather community.
Since it was published, an online event of the same name was organised on 17 March 2021. A “Quo Vadis Interim Board” was then set up, to establish a mechanism for this discussion, which will go on until June 21st.

The Interim Board is composed of volunteers from the community in Europe. Its role is to coordinate the efforts so that the space weather (and including space climate) European community can:

  1. Organise itself
  2. Elect people to represent them

To reach this goal, the Interim Board is inviting anyone interested in and outside Europe to join the “Quo Vadis European Space Weather Community ” discussion forum.

Eligible European Space Weather Community members should register to the “Electoral Census” to be able to vote in June for the final choice of organisation.

This effort will be achieved through different actions indicated on the Quo Vadis webpage and special Slack workspace.

MIST online seminar and business lunch

Today sees the inaugural MIST online seminar and the 2020 MIST business lunch taking place over Zoom. If you would like to attend, details of how to connect to the Zoom are available on the MIST Mailing List and Slack.

Daniel Verscharen (MSSL, UCL) will be talking on the topic of Kinetic physics, collisions, and turbulence in the solar wind: a multi-scale perspective from 11am to 11:50am. If you'd like to read his abstract, or look at the list of upcoming MIST seminar speakers, visit the MIST online seminars page.

Business Lunch

The business lunch will begin at noon, following a ten minute break after Daniel's seminar, and the agenda is as follows:

  1. NAM rescheduled
  2. Online Autumn MIST 2020
  3. Online discussion meetings
  4. Online summer schools
  5. Inclusion of ED&I in STFC core summer school curriculum
  6. Anonymous reporting tool
  7. MIST elections
  8. Online seminar series
  9. MIST Awards Taskforce
  10. SSAP
  11. Any other business

UKSP Specialist Discussion Day

In lieu of NAM happening this year, UKSP are holding a day-long discussion meeting on 30 July. For more details, see the UKSP website.

There are three sessions during the day:

  1. Open session on solar physics, featuring invited speakers David Kuridze and Lauren Doyle. This session is for all contributions describing advances relating to physical processes occurring from the interior to the outer atmosphere, based on space- or ground-based observations, simulations or theory.
  2. Sun-Heliosphere session, featuring invited speakers Stephanie Yardley and David Stansby. This session will discuss the connections between the Sun and the heliosphere: in-situ and remote-sensing observations, and related theory and modelling work, including contributions that discuss results from Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter.
  3. Online poster session covering all solar/heliosphere topics.

SuperDARN workshop 2020

The SuperDARN 2020 workshop will be held in South Africa on 31 May–5 June 2020. For more information, visit the conference web site. Abstract submissions are currently open with a deadline of 10 April 2020, and registrations are also open with a deadline of 30 April 2020 for early-bird registration and 10 May for all registration. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The location will be the Sani Pass hotel in the beautiful Drakensberg mountains. A single shuttle bus will be provided on 31 May and 5 June to/from this remote location. The venue is at high altitude in the winter, so expect freezing but dry conditions at night, yet warm and sunny conditions in the daytime. Those venturing to the top of Sani pass into the Kingdom of Lesotho can expect freezing conditions all day with possible snow (with no skiing), but the highest pub in Africa has a solution for this.

 

System-scale observations and modelling of solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere coupling

As a result of COVID-19, the below meeting has been cancelled, and will appear in the 2020/21 round.

A RAS G discussion meeting on “System-scale observations and modelling of solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere coupling” will be held at the Royal Astronomical Society on 17 April 2020 from 10:00–15:30. The registration fee is free for RAS members, £5 for students, or £15 for non-student non-members.

The invited speaker will be Colin Waters (University of Newcastle, Australia).

If you would like to submit an abstract, please complete the abstract submission form by 20 March 2020.

Read more: System-scale observations and modelling of solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere coupling

Nonstationary signal analysis in geophysics and other fields

A summer school plus conference on “Nonstationary Signal Analysis in Geophysics and other fields” will take place at Gran Sasso Science Institute, in L’Aquila, Italy, on 13–18 July 2020.

During the Summer School young researchers and PhD students will have a chance to learn about new data analysis tools/techniques for non-stationary time series and their theoretical foundation.

The summer school will take place during the first four days and it will consist of three eight-hour courses. Lecturers at the school are Patrick Flandrin (ENS Lyon), Yang Wang (HKSTU), and Hau-tieng Wu (Duke University).

At the end of the school there will be a three-day conference during which the speakers will show both the applications of these techniques to real-life data and present the current frontiers of theoretical research.

Applications for prospective students of the Summer School, as well as speakers of the conference are now open; for more information and to apply please visit the event webpage.