Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans (@astroroyalscot.bsky.social)

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Oct 11, 2026, 7:05 PM

Next time we'll need to book a longer slot in our schedule - so much to say to each other and so little time to say it! Such a genuine joy to meet IRL Chanda. You have an open invitation to come to Edinburgh any time. 🤗

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Oct 11, 2026, 7:03 PM

I totally do 🤗

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Oct 11, 2026, 7:03 PM

Fab Sun at #NewScientistLive: the @eucliduk.bsky.social stand was packed with young dark matter detectives; a delight to hear @jimalkhalili.bsky.social's book talk"On Time"; everyone laughed at my jokes in my talk 🥳

Tomorrow I'm talking in #Greenwich - come along!🔭
ℹ️: www.rmg.co.uk/whats-on/nat...

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Oct 11, 2026, 6:48 PM

This one is my favourite. All quiet at the moment.
aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Oct 11, 2026, 6:47 PM

🤗👍

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Oct 10, 2026, 8:26 PM

🤩🥳

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Oct 10, 2026, 6:32 PM

Fab 1st day at #NewScientistLive. Absolutely brilliant astro talks from @chanda.blacksky.app & @chrislintott.bsky.social and I even managed to fangirl Helen Sharman (astronaut) to tell her about the time she visited my school and changed my life. She is the nicest person in the world ever 🤗🔭

Chanda is on the Universe New Scientist live stage with her hand raised in the air. It's a rubbish photo because the room was packed and I was at the back of it trying to zoom in on my hero on the stage!

Chris is on stage with a firey image on the screen behind him. It's another rubbish photo because the room was packed and I was at the back of it trying to zoom in on my hero on the stage!

@chrislintott.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 7:42 AMReposted by @astroroyalscot.bsky.social

As expected, the Prime Minister's promise to sort out the mess of funding for Jodrell actually meant nothing - it seems the government would like it to be some sort of heritage theme park when you can go and see where we used to do science. 🔭

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 4:54 PM

Fab story from Margaret Hamilton, RIP, showing why Science-Mums are brilliant scientists! When innovating at the cutting edge of technology, it's so important to bring together a wide range of lived experiences. Sad that only ~20% comp-scientists are female 👩‍🔬🧪

ℹ️: www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Right: A woman looking very cool in a 70's dress standing next to a massive pile of very thick books
Left text: Did your life as a software engineer and a mother ever collide?
Often in the evening or at weekends I would bring my young daughter, Lauren, into work with me. One day, she was with me when I was doing a simulation of a mission to the moon. She liked to imitate me – playing astronaut. She started hitting keys and all of a sudden, the simulation started. Then she pressed other keys and the simulation crashed. She had selected a program which was supposed to be run prior to launch – when she was already “on the way” to the moon. The computer had so little space, it had wiped the navigation data taking her to the moon. I thought: my God – this could inadvertently happen in a real mission. I suggested a program change to prevent a prelaunch program being selected during flight. But the higher-ups at MIT and Nasa said the astronauts were too well trained to make such a mistake. Midcourse on the very next mission – Apollo 8 – one of the astronauts on board accidentally did exactly what Lauren had done. The Lauren bug! It created much havoc and required the mission to be reconfigured. After that, they let me put the program change in, all right.

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 1:43 PM

💯🙏

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 8:05 AM

So sad to hear that the iconic, trailblazing, Apollo 11 moon landing software engineering lead, Margaret Hamilton, is no longer with us. Love this image of her, standing next to a print out of the software that landed Buzz Aldrin and Neil Amstrong on the moon! 👩‍🔬🔭🛰️🧪
ℹ️: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

A woman looking very cool in a 70's dress standing next to a massive pile of very thick books

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 7:40 PM

Big up the Johns! 😞

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 7:40 PM

👌🤗

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 3:41 PM

👌 Nicely done!

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 3:38 PM

👌😃

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 2:43 PM

🥰 Hoots of joy at this end 🥰

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 1:59 PM

Extremely loud squeals of excitement chez-Heymans.... that is the actual CERN Director General holding a copy of my book in front of the actual LHC tunnel 🥰 🤩

Huge thanks to @pippawells.bsky.social for taking the book on a little site tour before it joins its friends on the CERN library shelves 🙏⚛️🔭

A bespectacled man in a suit (the CERN Director General Mark Thomson) with a large long tunnel behind him (the Large Hadron Collider Tunnel) is smiling holding a copy of "How to Design a Universe"

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 12:21 PM

😎 Sunny in Scotland! To my UK friends - the Met Office are here! Give them a follow.

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 7:11 PM

THE CUTENESS 🥰

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 11:47 AM

😡 I have a similar internal black list, but for academics..... indeed I think all female academics keep such a list 💪