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Curated by: Dr. Becky (610 videos)
The iconic Lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank is set to shut down. There is a petition to try and save Jodrell Bank, which needs £2.8 million per year to keep operating, for comparison the catering budget for the House of Commons is just under £7.5 million a year. Here’s the petition: https://www.change.org/p/save-jodrell-bank-protect-a-national-treasure-of-science-heritage-and-inspiration This is just one of many cuts to science funding coming in, and the community is still reeling from the announcement but let’s talk about it. So for some context this comes off the back of the science funding body announcing in January to expect up to 30% cuts to astronomy and physics funding in the UK. That was because the budget has been set at a constant number for the next 5 years, which is only 2.7% lower than it is currently. But to afford to run all the experiments and fund projects already committed too, that was going to result in a 30% cut to research funding, i.e. funding people to do the actual research. So in June I went to parliament with a bunch of other physicists to chat to MPs about stopping the cuts, and this was brought up by MPs many times in the House of Commons. Jump to last week and the overall UK research funding body has now announced a new list of priorities for the next 5 years worth of funding, saying research jobs wouldn’t be cut. A sort of victory and some good news, but then an anxious wait to see how the science funding body would adjust to those priorities and which projects, labs and experiment funding was going to be affected to account for those rising energy costs. And so now we know that the plan is to cut all funding for the eMERLIN network of radio telescopes in the UK from April 2028, which includes the iconic Lovell Telescope in Cheshire. As someone who grew up in Lancashire, with the Lovell as a beloved landmark and inspiration for me to get into astrophysics, this news hits really hard. Amongst the other cuts are a 20% cut to the UK’s contribution to the brand new Rubin observatory that takes an image of the entire sky every 3 days to catalogue everything that changes like supernovae, or moves like asteroids, and 20% cut of another radio telescope network, LOFAR, and all of the UK funding for the James Clerk Maxwell Telesope, JCMT, has been cut, meaning the UK no longer has access to any of the telescopes on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The announcement of these cuts has also been handled terribly. The people in charge of these projects were told just 2 hours before the news went public. So the community is still processing everything. I’m hopeful given how much media coverage there has been and public support of Jodrell that new UK government will help to reverse these cuts, but only time will tell... Video edited and produced by Dr Becky Smethurst --- 📚 My book, "A Brief History of Black Holes", out NOW in hardback, paperback, e-book and audiobook (which I narrated myself!): http://lnk.to/DrBecky --- 👕 My merch, including JWST designs, are available here (with worldwide shipping!): https://dr-becky.teemill.com/ --- 🎧 Royal Astronomical Society Podcast that I co-host: podfollow.com/supermassive --- 🔔 Don't forget to subscribe and click the little bell icon to be notified when I post a new video! --- 👩🏽💻 I'm Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford. I love making videos about science with an unnatural level of enthusiasm. I like to focus on how we know things, not just what we know. And especially, the things we still don't know. If you've ever wondered about something in space and couldn't find an answer online - you can ask me! My day job is to do research into how supermassive black holes can affect the galaxies that they live in. In particular, I look at whether the energy output from the disk of material orbiting around a growing supermassive black hole can stop a galaxy from forming stars. http://drbecky.uk.com