Chuckle o'clock: over on stargazers lounge (ace place for 🔭chat) someone got v confused about the whole 🇬🇧Astronomer Royal vs 🏴Astronomer Royal thing, accusing me of closing #JodrellBank to undermine the UK for Scottish supremacy (paraphrased). The response was mighty & furious 💪 poster apologised 🙏
#jodrellbank
5 posts · Last used Jul 30
The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) is shocked and dismayed to hear that the UK's iconic #JodrellBank Observatory is at risk of closure amid a slew of catastrophic budget cuts: https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/news/mass-cuts-and-potential-jodrell-closure-devastating-astronomy - other casualties in the long list of funding cuts include UK withdrawal from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) located in Hawaii, 20 per cent cuts for the UK's Square Kilometre Array Regional Centre and activities at the Vera Rubin Telescope in Chile, while the BISON solar observing network will suffer cuts of 40 per cent; see also https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/27/jodrell-bank-observatory-facing-closure-uk and https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y6r9rdxygo
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The #JodrellBank radio dish is a British icon ... since seven decades: https://www.britishpathe.com/lightbox/?st=1cc4c6302b117bd07855e9decc15fb253ed43abf&target=same has 12 British Pathé clips from the 1950s and 1960s.
Trashing UK astronomical science, all to save a back-of-the-sofa amount in government spend terms of £2.8m - I think that's less than 9p per person per year (33m UK taxpayers). Extremely short-sighted, risking the loss of a world-famous facility. #Science #JodrellBank
This is me in front of #JodrellBank's #LovellTelescope back in 2018. As far as I'm concerned the best thing we have ever managed to do as a species is to cooperate to do remarkably clever things none of us could manage alone, in the service of understanding more about the universe we find ourselves in. The fact we seem to be turning away from that as a culture and deciding the highest, most noble goal we could be persuing as a species is money making is heartbreaking.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y6r9rdxygo
#ResearchFunding #ScienceFunding #UKRI
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