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Sue Bowler finds out about a research career in infrared astronomy, the instruments that made it a hot topic in space and ground-based astronomy – and the tremendous power of teamwork. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the RAS journals move to Open Access publication, Sue Bowler finds out what the change means for research and the research community [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

That build quality and resilience depends on the mission designers, engineers, technologists and more, but it especially depends on teamwork. Astronomy is no longer somebody simply looking though a telescope, and astronomical instruments are no longer built by astronomers alone. No astronomer, metrologist, materials scientists, modeller...is an island, we are all part of the team, if you'll forgive the misquotation. [Extracted from the article]

Sue Bowler talks to Ravindra Desai about the lure of solar physics, building a career and keeping safe on the Moon [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Welcoming autistic people' is a new free guide, devised to educate and make astronomy events and activities more flexible and accommodating for people with autism. Sue Bowler takes a look. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are some areas in astronomy, planetary sciences, solar-terrestrial and solid Earth geophysics where rapid progress is changing the research landscape, or where efforts to tackle outstanding questions reveal new unknowns. The cover feature is much longer than usual, offering an in-depth snapshot of research in one field. Betelgeuse is well worth it: it's both a big star and an object with a big research footprint, from its colour and surface features to its changing brightness. [Extracted from the article]

Sue Bowler talks to Dr Alexandra Amon, cosmologist and winner of this year's Caroline Herschel Lectureship [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the space-faring world heads back to the Moon, Sue Bowler finds out what astronomers really really want from a lunar observatory – and what they will need to do in order to get it [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sue Bowler takes her seat at The Flowering Desert, an opera inspired by a system of exoplanets, performed in the rarefied atmosphere of a planetarium [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this issue, Joanne Wheeler makes the case for urgent action to organise and regulate near-Earth space, and James Smith explores how to police the frightening issue of conflict in space. This decade will see intensive exploration of the Moon, in addition to further exploitation of low Earth orbit, which is already pretty crowded. Every defunct satellite makes the cloud of space junk around our planet more dangerous. [Extracted from the article]

A grain-shape fabric measured in quartsite from the Moine thrust belt cannot be accounted for by deformation distributed hemogeneously over the bedding unit. Oblate grains, aligned subparallel to bedding, are formed without equivalent thinning of the layer as a whole. The fabric shows evidence of crystal plastic strain and pressure solution. Healed microfractures aligned subparallel to bedding both predate and postdate lattice strain and indicate the importance of cataclasis throughout deformation. Shear offsets on these fractures split original detrital grains into platy fragments. If the fragments are used as original detrital grains for grain-shape strain analysis, they will give artificially high strain ratios. The shapes of quartz grains in deformed rock are often used for strain analysis by ellipse fitting or center-to-center methods. It is generally assumed that individual quartz grains in the deformed state represent original detrital grains with negligible or simple initial shape fabrics. These results emphasize the importance of recognizing localized deformation, especially cataclasis, which may affect the validity of these methods.

Graph New ESA Director of Science Graph ESA has appointed as Director of Science Carole Mundell, currently President of the UK Science Council, and Professor of Extragalactic Astronomy and founding Head of Astrophysics at the University of Bath, UK. WEAVE was produced by an international team led from the UK, coordinated by the Science and Technology Facilities Research Council. bit.ly/3HXtjQm JWST resets redshift record Graph: (NASA, ESA, CSA, and M. Zamani (ESA/Webb). Now that the report is published, RAS Council has decided that, while the acronym JWST is preferred to the full name, its use in RAS publications and communications is no longer compulsory. go.nasa.gov/3FKUZFD Ancient heart of Milky Way found Graph: (H.-W. Rix / MPIA) Ancient metal-poor stars in the heart of the Milky Way galaxy formed some 12.5 billion years ago, soon after the formation of its core. [Extracted from the article]

Sue Bowler talks to the editors of a RASTI Special Issue about interferometric imaging and the computational challenges needed for the next wave of radio astronomy instruments [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Each year the RAS recognises outstanding achievement in astronomy and geophysics by the award of medals and prizes to scientists at all stages of their careers. The awards are made by a committee of RAS Fellows, following nomination by fellow researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Notable this year is that several of our award-winners include a concern for diversity and inclusion in our sciences in their citations. Black In Astro, winners of the Annie Maunder Medal, stand out not only for the outreach work they do, but also because they highlight - and address - the lack of diversity in our subject. Graph February is a pivotal month in the UK; the days are longer and brighter and the weather - usually - improving. [Extracted from the article]

6.10 B Gunn A G b Galaxy with two big black holes 1.5 B Gunn A G b Gold standard 4.7 B Gunn A G b Heavy metal evolution 2.10 B Gunn A G b Heavy! B Aplin K b The charge of the spheres 4.12 B Beggan C b Filling the gaps 6.28 B Bell S b Katherine Joy, Keith Moore 50 years of Luna legacy 1.14 B Blake J b Looking out for a sustainable space 2.14 B Bowler S b ...and surprising martian sounds 3.8 B Bowler S b 2022 GCSE Astronomy competition 1.7 B Bowler S b A grand day out 4.18 B Bowler S b Accelerator boosts jobs 5.7 B Bowler S b Amon to give 2022 Caroline Herschel Lecture 4.8 B Bowler S b Back to the future 5.4 B Bowler S b Bates Medal for the President 1.7 B Bowler S b Benedict the Pole Prize 4.8 B Bowler S b Birthday Honours for Fellows 4.8 B Bowler S b Bouncing back 4.36 B Bowler S b Bright comet also biggest 3.10 B Bowler S b Call for mission name transparency 6.5 B Bowler S b Calling Caroline Herschel speakers 2.7 B Bowler S b Caroline Herschel Medal 3.5 B Bowler S b Caroline Herschel Medal Ceremony 6.8 B Bowler S b Celebrating Herschel in Bath 4.4 B Bowler S b Celebrating William Herschel's bicentenary 2.5 B Bowler S b Climate influencing tectonics in Andes 1.8 B Bowler S b Clouds of history 6.4 B Bowler S b Comet chaser off the drawing board 4.7 B Bowler S b Could Ryugu be a CAT? Rosetta's smelly comet 5.5 B Gunn A G b Teenage rampage for Milky Way 3.7 B Gunn A G b Temperate pits on the Moon 5.7 B Gunn A G b The sounds of aurora 4.7 B Gunn A G b Touching the Sun 1.5 B Gunn A G b Universe mediocre, in part 4.7 B Gunn A G b Unpredictable Sgr A* 2.9 B Gunn A G b Verging on a black hole 5.4 B Gunn A G b Verging on merging 3.7 B Gunn A G b Water from the Sun?. [Extracted from the article]

Dermot Gethings tells Sue Bowler how, as a teenage space enthusiast, he was part of NASA's commemoration of the last Apollo Moon mission. Half a century on, he has written a memoir of his experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sue Bowler attends a special meeting at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Society to hear fascinating details of the life of William Herschel, first president of the RAS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graph: (NASA, ESA, STScI, Jian-Yang Li (PSI), Joseph DePasquale) Two tails of dust ejected from the Didymos-Dimorphos asteroid system are seen in recent images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The research appears in I Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society i . bit.ly/3NiqLx2 And carbon dioxide Graph: (NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)) JWST has provided the first unequivocal detection of carbon dioxide in an exoplanet atmosphere. If there are fewer such massive stars, then pair-instability supernovae may be rarer than thought, with implications for the chemical evolution of the universe. bit.ly/3U2bSkt Call for mission name transparency The RAS has taken a decision over the controversy that currently surrounds the name of the newest space telescope. At its meeting in July the governing council of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) took a decision to write to the UK Space Agency, the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA to express its concerns about the original JWST naming process, the apparent failure to investigate celebrated 1960s NASA administrator James E. Webb's background, and the dismissal of requests to rename the telescope. [Extracted from the article]

You can read more about Herschel's work elsewhere in this issue. 200 years after Herschel's death, we are living through great technological changes, not least in the form of email, websites and cloud storage. Graph William Herschel is famous for his discovery of a new planet in 1781. [Extracted from the article]