MIST

Magnetosphere, Ionosphere and Solar-Terrestrial

Latest news

RAS Awards

The Royal Astronomical Society announced their award recipients last week, and MIST Council would like to congratulate all that received an award. In particular, we would like to highlight the following members of the MIST Community, whose work has been recognised:
  • Professor Nick Achilleos (University College London) - Chapman Medal
  • Dr Oliver Allanson (University of Birmingham) - Fowler Award
  • Dr Ravindra Desai (University of Warwick) - Winton Award & RAS Higher Education Award
  • Professor Marina Galand (Imperial College London) - James Dungey Lecture

New MIST Council 2021-

There have been some recent ingoings and outgoings at MIST Council - please see below our current composition!:

  • Oliver Allanson, Exeter (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2024 -- Chair
  • Beatriz Sánchez-Cano, Leicester (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2024
  • Mathew Owens, Reading (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2023
  • Jasmine Sandhu, Northumbria (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2023 -- Vice-Chair
  • Maria-Theresia Walach, Lancaster (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2022
  • Sarah Badman, Lancaster (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), to 2022
    (co-opted in 2021 in lieu of outgoing councillor Greg Hunt)

Charter amendment and MIST Council elections open

Nominations for MIST Council open today and run through to 8 August 2021! Please feel free to put yourself forward for election – the voting will open shortly after the deadline and run through to the end of August. The positions available are:

  • 2 members of MIST Council
  • 1 student representative (pending the amendment below passing)

Please email nominations to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by 8 August 2021. Thank you!

Charter amendment

We also move to amend the following articles of the MIST Charter as demonstrated below. Bold type indicates additions and struck text indicates deletions. Please respond to the email on the MIST mailing list before 8 August 2021 if you would like to object to the amendment; MIST Charter provides that it will pass if less than 10% of the mailing list opposes its passing. 

4.1  MIST council is the collective term for the officers of MIST and consists of six individuals and one student representative from the MIST community.

5.1 Members of MIST council serve terms of three years, except for the student representative who serves a term of one year.

5.2 Elections will be announced at the Spring MIST meeting and voting must begin within two months of the Spring MIST meeting. Two slots on MIST council will be open in a given normal election year, alongside the student representative.

5.10 Candidates for student representative must not have submitted their PhD thesis at the time that nominations close.

SSAP roadmap update

The STFC Solar System Advisory Panel (SSAP) is undertaking a review of the "Roadmap for Solar System Research", to be presented to STFC Science Board later this year. This is expected to be a substantial update of the Roadmap, as the last full review was carried out in 2012, with a light-touch update in 2015.

The current version of the SSAP Roadmap can be found here.

In carrying out this review, we will take into account changes in the international landscape, and advances in instrumentation, technology, theory, and modelling work. 

As such, we solicit your input and comments on the existing roadmap and any material we should consider in this revision. This consultation will close on Wednesday 14 July 2021 and SSAP will try to give a preliminary assessment of findings at NAM.

This consultation is seeking the view of all members of our community and we particularly encourage early career researchers to respond. Specifically, we invite:

Comments and input on the current "Roadmap for Solar System Research" via the survey by clicking here.

Short "white papers" on science investigations (including space missions, ground-based experimental facilities, or computing infrastructure) and impact and knowledge exchange (e.g. societal and community impact, technology development). Please use the pro-forma sent to the MIST mailing list and send your response to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Quo vadis interim board

 

A white paper called "Quo vadis, European space weather community" has been published in J. Space Weather Space Clim. which outlines plans for the creation of an organisation to represent the European space weather community.
Since it was published, an online event of the same name was organised on 17 March 2021. A “Quo Vadis Interim Board” was then set up, to establish a mechanism for this discussion, which will go on until June 21st.

The Interim Board is composed of volunteers from the community in Europe. Its role is to coordinate the efforts so that the space weather (and including space climate) European community can:

  1. Organise itself
  2. Elect people to represent them

To reach this goal, the Interim Board is inviting anyone interested in and outside Europe to join the “Quo Vadis European Space Weather Community ” discussion forum.

Eligible European Space Weather Community members should register to the “Electoral Census” to be able to vote in June for the final choice of organisation.

This effort will be achieved through different actions indicated on the Quo Vadis webpage and special Slack workspace.

MISTs of Time

The first MIST meeting was held in London on 20 August 1970, so we are well into our fifth decade! Henry Rishbeth, who with Peter Kendall was one of the originators of MIST, wrote an authoritative account of the origins and history of MIST to mark the 25th anniversary:

The idea of UK 'Magnetosphere, Ionosphere and Solar-Terrestrial Meetings' originated one evening in October 1969, while driving out from Sheffield to Peter Kendall's home in the Pennines. Peter and I were concerned at the lack of regular contact between UK groups working in the field of solar-terrestrial physics. It seemed that one had to go to international conferences to find out what neighbouring groups were doing! The success of the "Sydney Chapman Meeting" at Sheffield in July 1968, at which the great man himself was present, showed us that scope existed for regular meetings in the UK. We considered setting up a new society but, in conversations with Professor Vincent Ferraro, Mr Jack Ratcliffe and others, it became obvious that we should work through an existing learned society. Through the good offices of Vincent Ferraro, the Royal Astronomical Society took us under its wing. Peter thought up the MIST acronym, though its impact in other languages was not considered.

 

The first MIST Meeting took place in the Scientific Societies' Lecture Theatre, London, on 20 November 1970, with the theme Geomagnetic Storm Effects. The attendance of 200 was overwhelming, and has never been equalled at subsequent meetings. Largely, the audience consisted of astronomers who just came to see what we were up to. Quickly settling down to a more realistic size, MIST meetings were held semiannually at Burlington House, generously supported by the RAS. For many years, MIST was co-sponsored by the Institute of Physics, who provided some publicity. In the early days each MIST meeting had a definite theme. The May meetings suffered from poor attendance, and it was David Orr who solved this problem by inviting us to York in April 1973, for a residential meeting with a wide-ranging programme. This out-of-town meeting was popular, and was followed in 1974 onwards by 'Spring MISTs' at Leicester, Exeter, Aberystwyth ... the list is long, and MIST owes much to the local organizers of the spring meetings. Exceptionally, the Autumn 1974 meeting was held at Queen Mary College; it was planned to be the 'Ferraro Retirement Meeting' but sadly became the 'Ferraro Memorial Meeting'.

 

From the start, MIST meetings have been reported in the QJRAS and the practice continues, thanks to the work of Mike Laird, Anne Hadjiry, and many others. Maintaining the MIST mailing list is no light task; it was done first at the RAS, then at Slough, then for many years by Roy Moffett at Sheffield, and currently by Andy Smith and Margaret Riley at BAS.

 

With the advent of the 'UK Geophysical Assembly', MIST joined UKGA at Edinburgh in 1977, setting a pattern in which MIST sometimes joined with UKGA or with the RAS Out-of-Town meeting, at other times keeping to the traditional 'stand-alone' MIST meeting organized by a local STP group. This mix-and-match plan led to the holding of two successive meetings in Southampton: a 'stand-alone meeting' in 1978 followed by UKGA in 1979, in both cases benefiting from competent organization by the late Pam Rothwell. In 1992 MIST 'went international', with special sessions at the EGS meeting at Edinburgh. The autumn one-day meetings in London have continued successfully at Burlington House till the present day. Sometimes MIST takes part in a regular RAS Geophysical meeting; these so-called 'G/MIST Meetings' have helped to boost the total to 60 meetings in 26 years. MIST has become a forum for all UK STP scientists, sometimes welcoming visitors from overseas, a place for community discussions of wider issues, and above all the place for research students and new postdocs to present their science.

 

Henry Rishbeth

8 March 1996

[A version of this article has been published in Astronomy & Geophysics (1997) 38(2), 20-22.]