Volume 2 Issue 1, January 2018

An astrophysicist describes how he charted his course into writing and journalism — and how others could do the same.

A planetary scientist describes how she left the traditional corridors of academia to help found her own company, thereby continuing her research program and interests. The flexibility afforded by this break-away has been life-changing.

Leaving academia was hard, but becoming an editor for Nature Astronomy has been an unexpected delight. That is not to say it is a bed of roses; rather it is the variety and complexity of the challenges of the job that make it so enjoyable.

After almost ten years in academia I took one of the best decisions of my life: to leave it. This is my experience transitioning from astronomy to data science in search of a more open, fast-paced working environment.

Astronomers should not feel like failures for leaving academia — the multiverse is replete with engaging, satisfying and well-remunerated jobs that will value you, your education, your training and your unique skills.

Education and public outreach has evolved from being part of a scientist’s duties into a distinct career path that is well-suited for astronomers. The ideal professional in this field has strong communication skills coupled with a broad research background.

From the PhD through several post-doctoral positions, to the few permanent academic posts, the selection processes determining who will populate the upper echelons of academic astronomy might not involve just merit, hard work or dedication.

We asked the same five questions to eleven astronomers who now work in different fields in order to understand their career paths, their motivations to leave astronomy and the skills that helped them in their transition.

Innovative and versatile, William Klemperer devised both unorthodox experimental tools that enhanced molecular spectroscopy and a theoretical model that elucidated the paradoxical chemistry of cold interstellar clouds.

A study suggests that the gas clouds in the vicinity of rapidly accreting supermassive black holes are distributed in a planar distribution, impacting the estimation of the mass of the black hole based on the motion of these clouds.

Long-term multi-wavelength monitoring of a jet from a supermassive black hole reveals that more intense periods of variability in brightness occur when the jet is pointed more directly at Earth, thereby strengthening the geometric interpretation of long-term changes in brightness.

The Antikythera Mechanism is the oldest known mechanical calculator. Imaging reveals its solar and lunar astronomical functions, and deciphering its extensive inscriptions shows that it displayed the shifting position of the planets in the zodiac.

A global flow model of Europa’s icy crust coupled with the underlying ocean shows the presence of a meridional ice flow. Convection and ocean heat transport can affect the direction and intensity of the flow and the gradients in ice thickness.

Sensitive X-ray polarization measurements of the Crab pulsar by the Indian AstroSat satellite confirm earlier indications of strongly polarized off-pulse emission but also reveal variations in polarization properties within the off-pulse region.

This paper reports the detection of a high-redshift galaxy that may be more representative of ‘normal’ star-forming galaxies formed in the first billion years of the Universe than the extreme starbursts discovered to date.

Black hole masses derived from the properties of the accretion disk and virial mass estimates differ by a factor that is inversely proportional to the width of the broad emission lines. An inclined planar gas distribution may account for this effect.

The extremely bright GRB 160625B, consisting of three sub-bursts separated by quiescent intervals, shows a transition from thermal to non-thermal radiation that indicates a change of jet composition from a fireball to a Poynting-flux-dominated jet.

A galaxy at z ~ 1 is multiply imaged by strong lensing with different spatial resolutions. The properties of the giant stellar clumps within the galaxy depend on the resolution of the images. This observational effect must be considered in galactic models of star formation.

The nuclear region of NGC 1097 is found to be dominated by non-thermal pressure. An anti-correlation between the star formation efficiency of molecular clouds and the magnetic field strength indicates that the formation of massive stars is quenched.

The authors present a photon detector suitable for terahertz astronomy, with very high sensitivity, low power consumption and the ability to be configured into arrays. This device is demonstrably able to count individual far-infrared photons.

The Dark Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) satellite is currently in orbit measuring cosmic rays to research their origin and propagation and also to find possible hidden signatures of dark matter, emphasizes Principal Investigator Jin Chang.