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Professor Michele Dougherty
Michele Dougherty becomes first female Astronomer Royal
The Royal Astronomical Society is pleased to congratulate Professor Michele Dougherty CBE FRS FRAS on her appointment as Astronomer Royal. The Society has a strong working relationship with Professor Dougherty in her position as Executive Chair of...
Last chance to nominate for 2026 RAS Awards
Time is running out to submit nominations for the Royal Astronomical Society's 2026 Awards. There is now less than a week to go before the deadline closes for most awards – 31 July 2025 – although the Education and Outreach Awards have a later...
Professor James Binney, of Oxford University (right with RAS president Professor Mike Lockwood), and University College London's Professor Jonathan Tennyson (left), received the Society's Gold Medal at the 2025 RAS Awards ceremony during the National Astronomy Meeting in Durham. Inset is all the winners of the 2025 RAS Awards.
Winners of 2025 RAS Awards receive their prizes
The winners of the 2025 RAS Awards were given their prizes at a special ceremony during the National Astronomy Meeting. Awards and medals were handed out at the conference dinner at the Newcastle Civic Centre on 8 July, which was attended by around...
Purple starry background with the logos of the Royal Astronomical Society and the UK Planetary Forum.
UK Planetary Forum joins RAS as Affiliated Group
We are delighted to announce that the UK Planetary Forum (UKPF) is now officially affiliated with the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). Additionally, UKPF has been recognised as the newest Professional and Scientific Interest Group of the Geological...
The winners of the MNRAS Student Prize 2025 are, clockwise from top left, Konstantinos Kilmetis, Natasha Van Bemmel, Ignas Juodžbalis, Jesús Carrillo-Santamaría, Hanyuan Zhang and Dávid Puskás.
MNRAS Student Prize Winners 2025
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ( MNRAS) is delighted to announce the winners of the 2025 MNRAS Student Prize. The annual award recognises papers that, in the view of the MNRAS Editorial Board, are the best submitted in a given 12...
Top view of the Milky Way galaxy showing the estimated orbits of both our Sun and the 3I/ATLAS comet.
Newly discovered interstellar object 'may be oldest comet ever seen'
A mystery interstellar object discovered last week is likely to be the oldest comet ever seen – possibly predating our solar system by more than three billion years, researchers say. The "water ice-rich" visitor, named 3I/ATLAS, is only the third...
The dark matter distribution of a Milky Way mass halo in a Lambda-cold dark matter (LCDM) cosmological simulation.
The Milky Way could be teeming with more satellite galaxies than previously thought
The Milky Way could have many more satellite galaxies than scientists have previously been able to predict or observe, according to new research. Cosmologists at Durham University used a new technique combining the highest-resolution supercomputer...
Numbers of staff and postgraduate students in astronomy, solar system science and geophysics in the 2023, 2016 and 2010 surveys.
Astronomy and geophysics 'still overwhelmingly white'
Women and ethnic minority groups are still significantly underrepresented in astronomy and geophysics despite attempts to bring about change over the past decade, research has shown. The survey, carried out by the Royal Astronomical Society and...
Colour image of a flat top, heavily eroded FSR. Sand dunes can be seen migrating over the top of the FSR.
Ancient river systems reveal Mars was wetter than we thought
The discovery of more than 15,000 kilometres of ancient riverbeds on Mars suggests that the Red Planet may once have been much wetter than previously thought. Researchers looked at fluvial sinuous ridges, also known as inverted channels, across...
An artist’s impression of the proposed VERVE mission to Venus the answer whether tiny bacterial lifeforms really do exist in the planet’s clouds.
Life on Venus? UK probe could reveal the answer
The answer to whether tiny bacterial lifeforms really do exist in the clouds of Venus could be revealed once-and-for-all by a UK-backed mission. Over the past five years researchers have detected the presence of two potential biomarkers – the gases...
The Mars mission that could prep for a human landing
If we're to land humans on Mars in the coming decades, we'll have to know what challenges await them when they get there. Enter M-MATISSE, a potential precursor to a crewed mission to the Red Planet which could use UK instrumentation being promoted...
An artist’s impression of what the UK-ODESSI space monitor could look like.
UK hopes to bolster space weather forecasts with Europe's first solar storm monitor
A new UK-led satellite mission concept aims to strengthen the country's position in space weather observation and forecasting by deploying a suite of homegrown scientific instruments on a low-cost spacecraft in low-Earth orbit. The proposal is being...