MIST

Magnetosphere, Ionosphere and Solar-Terrestrial

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2026 MIST Council Election Results

It is our pleasure to announce the results of the latest MIST Council Election.

  • Samuel Wharton (University of Leicester) is elected for a 3 year term as a MIST Councillor
  • Jewel Abbey Relampagos (Lancaster University) is elected for a 1 year term as the MIST Student Representative

In addition, due to concerns from the community regarding the ongoing UKRI/STFC funding situation, MIST Council have also decided to charter Mark Lester (University of Leicester) as an additional councillor to inform and steer the council in matters related to this specific brief, as set out in Article 4.5 of the MIST Charter.

We would like to congratulate everyone on their new roles. The full composition of Council can be found on the MIST website (https://www.mist.ac.uk/community/mist-council). We would like to thank all the candidates for putting themselves forward and everyone who took part in the voting. We received votes from 132 people which represents a turnout of 21.5% of people registered to receive the MIST emailing list.

Finally, MIST Council would like to extend their thanks and gratitude to our outgoing members: Fiona Ball and Georgios Nicolaou. We would also like to say a special thank you to Andy Smith who was co-opted to be on MIST council while Rosie Johnson was on maternity leave, thank you for all of your hard work.

Open Letter Ready For Signatories

Protect MIST Science! Sign the MIST Community Open Letter on the STFC funding cuts!

https://sites.google.com/view/uk-mist-community-open-letter

 

Statement from MIST Council regarding the STFC Funding Situation

Statement from MIST Council regarding the STFC Funding Situation

MIST Council is deeply concerned by the ongoing STFC funding uncertainty and its impact on our community and beyond.

The current combination of prospective delayed and reduced funding, together with already volatile financial situations at universities across the UK, is placing significant strain on research groups. In some cases, institutions may be unable to support researchers through gaps between projects, increasing precarity across the community and adding significant pressure on early-career researchers.

We are concerned that continued uncertainty risks accelerating a brain drain from the UK, as skilled researchers reconsider their future in a system offering limited stability. The loss of expertise at any career stage would have lasting consequences for UK space science.

 

What is going on?

For those that are unaware of the situation, it is complex and evolving. We suggest the following sources to get up to speed on the current developments.

https://www.sciencecampaign.org.uk/analysis-and-publications/detail/what-is-happening-with-ukri-funding-and-the-stfc-cuts/

https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/news/proposed-budget-cuts-catastrophe-uk-astronomy

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2514481-physicists-warn-of-catastrophic-impact-from-uk-science-cuts/

 

What are we doing about it?

Behind the scenes, MIST Council is actively engaging with relevant parties to understand the scale of the challenge and to identify constructive ways forward.

  • We are seeking seasoned members of the community to join MIST Council on a task force to help develop options and represent the needs of our community. If you would like to be involved, please reach out to us via the MIST Council email (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) by the end of this week (13th February 2026).
  • In addition to the task force, we want to provide an open forum for discussion and collective input among all members of the wider MIST community. We are exploring options and will be in touch as soon as possible with further details.
  • We believe in working together in the face of the current challenges and we are collaborating with UKSP and others to strive for a fair and positive outcome for all. We are reaching out to members of the SSAP (Solar System Advisory Panel) to explore the hosting of a community town hall meeting, like the one already being organised by the AAP (Astronomy Advisory Panel), to provide an open forum for discussion and collective input.

 

What can you do to help?

There are several open letters representing people in various career stages that have been made available to sign. We encourage you to read the relevant letter(s) and to sign them if you support them:

The Royal Astronomical Society are also urging Fellows to lobby their MPs against the cuts, and have included a template letter that can be used to do so:
https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/news/ras-fellows-urged-lobby-against-unprecedented-cuts

 

MIST Council will continue to advocate for transparency, stability, and funding structures that recognise both the long-term nature of our science and the people who deliver it.
We thank you for your continued support in this period of uncertainty.

 

Please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you have further suggestions.
MIST Council

Announcement of New MIST Council 2025

We are very pleased to announce the following members of the community have been elected to MIST Council:

  • Gemma Bower (University of Leicester), MIST Councillor
  • Tom Elsden (University of St Andrews), MIST Councillor
  • Cameron Patterson (Lancaster University), MIST Councillor
  • Fiona Ball (University of Southampton), Student Representative

They will begin their terms in July 2025.

We thank outgoing MIST Council members: Maria Walach, Chiara Lazzeri and Emma Woodfield. Andy Smith will remain on council a little longer as a co-opted member to cover Rosie Johnson's maternity leave.

The current composition of Council can be found on our website (https://www.mist.ac.uk/community/mist-council).

Announcement of New MIST Councillors.

We are very pleased to announce the following members of the community have been elected unopposed to MIST Council:

  • Rosie Johnson (Aberystwyth University), MIST Councillor
  • Matthew Brown (University of Birmingham), MIST Councillor
  • Chiara Lazzeri (MSSL, UCL), Student Representative

Rosie, Matthew, and Chiara will begin their terms in July. This will coincide with Jasmine Kaur Sandhu, Beatriz Sanchez-Cano, and Sophie Maguire outgoing as Councillors.

The current composition of Council can be found on our website, and this will be amended in July to reflect this announcement (https://www.mist.ac.uk/community/mist-council).

Acceleration of Electrons by Whistler-Mode Hiss Waves at Saturn

By Emma Woodfield (British Antarctic Survey)

Whistler-mode hiss waves are well known for causing losses of energetic electrons from the radiation belts at the Earth through wave-particle interactions. The result of the interactions of charged particle with plasma waves, whether energy is transferred from wave to particle or vice-versa, is dependent on many factors including the background plasma conditions. In Saturn’s magnetosphere there is a torus of charged particles, the primary source of this plasma torus is neutral water particles emitted from the moon Enceladus which are then ionised. The combination of pressure, ambipolar electric field, centrifugal and gravitational forces on this moon sourced plasma creates a regime where density is highest near the magnetic equator and notably lower at higher latitudes. Consequently, the ratio of plasma frequency to electron gyrofrequency frequently falls below one at higher latitudes. This also coincides with the region where hiss mode waves are observed and our simulations show that this very low ratio leads hiss waves at Saturn to accelerate electrons rather than scattering them out of the radiation belt. This new finding has important implications for the radiation belt dynamics at Saturn since hiss waves are strong and frequently observed.

 

Another result of the high latitude occurrence of hiss (> 25 degrees) is that only electrons which bounce a good distance along the magnetic field lines will encounter these particular wave-particle interactions. Therefore, the energy increase in the electrons due to the hiss waves is only seen in these particles. We can describe how far along the magnetic field a particle will reach using the equatorial pitch angle, which is the angle between the particle velocity and the magnetic field at the magnetic equator. An electron with an equatorial pitch angle of 90 degrees is confined to the equator whereas one of 0 or 180 degrees will reach all the way down to the planet in different hemispheres. The result of the hiss wave interactions is to drive the pitch angle distributions of the electrons towards a “butterfly shape” with peaks at low (and very high) equatorial pitch angle reflecting the hiss interactions at high latitudes in both hemispheres. The strength and speed of the interaction also varies with electron energy, the figure shows how our simulations of the electron pitch angle distributions at different L-shells (radial distance along the magnetic equator of a magnetic field line) progress after one Earth day for three typical radiation belt energies. These simulations consider only the effect of the hiss waves to isolate their effect from radial diffusion and transport and any other wave-particle interactions or collisional losses. Highly anisotropic pitch angle distributions (with the peak at lowest and highest pitch angle) are apparent in all three energies in even this relatively short timescale simulation.

Equatorial pitch angle distributions from 2D model runs at a given L-shell after 24 hours with a resolution of 0.1L. Each run considers the energy and pitch angle diffusion, no radial diffusion or radial transport is included. Each pitch angle distribution is normalised to the flux value at 90 degrees. (a) initial condition for all energies, (b,c,d) flux at 0.4, 1.0 and 3.0 MeV respectively. From: Emma Woodfield - BAS Sent: 27 January 2022 13:50 To: Walach, Maria <m.walach@lancaster.ac.uk> Subject: RE: [External] MIST Nugget Hi Maria, Will do 😊 There’s a BAS news twitter – I’ll double check the twitter handle. Thanks Emma From: Walach, Maria <m.walach@lancaster.ac.uk> Sent: 27 January 2022 12:36 To: Emma Woodfield - BAS <emmwoo@bas.ac.uk> Subject: Re: [External] MIST Nugget Hi Emma, Great! Could you prepare one within the next 1-2 weeks? I also advertise new nuggets via the MIST twitter page. Please let me know if you have any twitter account(s) that you would like me to tag in the post or any suggested wordings. Thanks, Maria On 27 Jan 2022, at 12:29, Emma Woodfield - BAS <emmwoo@bas.ac.uk> wrote: This email originated outside the University. Check before clicking links or attachments. Hi Maria, That was a quick spot – I haven’t even checked the online version myself yet! :-) Yes happy to do a nugget, when would you like it by? Kind regards Emma From: Walach, Maria <m.walach@lancaster.ac.uk> Sent: 27 January 2022 12:28 To: Emma Woodfield - BAS <emmwoo@bas.ac.uk> Subject: MIST Nugget Hi Emma, I hope all is well with you! I am contacting you on MIST Council business, due to your recent article (https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2021GL096213?campaign=wolacceptedarticle). MIST nuggets are short, 1-2 paragraphs (100 - 300 words) accompanied by a figure/animation that describes the importance and some key result/aspect of your work, as well as a caption for the figure and any references.. For some examples please see http://www.mist.ac.uk/nuggets. They are aimed to be understandable for the general MIST audience - at the level of a 1st year PhD student, with a focus on clear language and the wider impact of the results. We would like to invite you to contribute to the series of MIST nuggets and provide a short nugget on your recently published work. Hopefully this should not take much time to write, and it is a great way to advertise your work to the wider MIST community! Please would you be able to let me know whether or not you will be able to contribute at your earliest convenience. Many thanks, Maria On behalf of MIST council -------------------------------------------------- Maria-Theresia Walach Senior Research Associate Space and Planetary Physics Group Physics Department Lancaster University Lancaster LA1 4YB UK This email and any attachments are intended solely for the use of the named recipients. If you are not the intended recipient you must not use, disclose, copy or distribute this email or any of its attachments and should notify the sender immediately and delete this email from your system. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has taken every reasonable precaution to minimise risk of this email or any attachments containing viruses or malware but the recipient should carry out its own virus and malware checks before opening the attachments. UKRI does not accept any liability for any losses or damages which the recipient may sustain due to presence of any viruses.  

Figure Caption: Equatorial pitch angle distributions from 2D model runs at a given L-shell after 24 hours with a resolution of 0.1L. Each run considers the energy and pitch angle diffusion, no radial diffusion or radial transport is included. Each pitch angle distribution is normalised to the flux value at 90 degrees. (a) initial condition for all energies, (b,c,d) flux at 0.4, 1.0 and 3.0 MeV respectively.

 

See full paper for details:

Woodfield, E. E., Glauert, S. A., Menietti, J. D., Horne, R. B., Kavanagh, A. J., & Shprits, Y. Y. (2022). Acceleration of electrons by whistler-mode hiss waves at Saturn. Geophysical Research Letters, 49, e2021GL096213. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL096213

Publication URL: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GL096213