The Astronomy Committee meton 29 June in Swindon to con-

sider one main item, the restructur-ing of the programme and UKmembership of ESO, following theSCAP and RAS meetings on thesame topic. But first the Chair wel-comed three new members, WalterGear, Janet Drew and SteveSchwartz. In view of the impor-tance of the discussion and to pro-vide continuity, he had also invitedback retired members Phil Charles,Mike Lockwood and YvonneElsworth for an extra meeting.Andy Lawrence and Roger Daviesattended as new Council members.

Matters arising(i) ESA. For the future programmeas a whole, savings of €110 millionhave been identified on three mis-sions. On NGST the mid-infraredcamera spectrograph may be a pos-sible instrument for a UK involve-ment. On Mars Express the BeagleII lander is progressing well and itis hoped to raise £10m from spon-sorship. For SMART2, Lisa is thehighest priority. The lack of UKfunds for space has been highlight-ed by PPARC’s submission to theHouse of Commons Trade andIndustry Select Committee inquiryinto UK Space Policy, which com-pares the money spent on space byEuropean nations. ESA subscrip-tions are 17% (France), 25% (Ger-many), 15% (Italy) and 14% (UK),whereas the amounts spent on ESAinstruments are 20% (France), 23%(Germany), 16% (Italy) and 11%(UK) and the amounts spent onnon-ESA space science are 8%(France), 29% (Germany), 36%(Italy) and only 1% (UK).(ii) Long-Term Science Reviews.The Science Committee has begunto prioritize the LTSR panel pro-posals. It has recommended thatany additional funds from theSpending Review should go notonly to IT and projects but also toresearch and development andgrants, with a first claim being asubstantial enhancement of thegrants line. The new Road Map,now on PPARC’s Web page, hasadded many new elements that willbe considered over the coming yearand which show what a potentiallyvibrant programme we have. Theseinclude ALMA, FMOS, MERLINupgrade, MOSAIC, NGST,Robonet, SCUBA2, Stereo and theSun–Earth satellite.

(iii) Spending Review. The whitepaper on science and innovation isexpected in mid-July with the over-all results of the SpendingReview atthe same time. A substantial astron-omy IT bid has been preparedincluding theory machines, datamining and a UK virtual observato-ry project that is being coordinatedby Andy Lawrence.(iv) VISTA. The Paranal site recom-mended by the Committee has beenagreed by Council and the VISTABoard: the project is proceeding.(v) ING, AAT, Stereo. Papers onthese projects will be brought to theCommittee in the autumn.

Restructuring the astronomyprogramme and ESOThe Chair gave an introductorypresentation, essentially the same asat the RAS meeting the weekbefore, and he reported that thegeneral feeling at the RAS had beenextremely positive about the impor-tance of seeking ESO membership,while saving £5m from the ground-based programme and preserving abalance. This was followed by apresentation by Carol Armstrong ofa paper prepared by Ian Corbett,essentially background for thedebate we shall have in the autumnwhen we have the results of theSpending Review as well as detailedpapers on the possible future of theAAT, ING, MERLIN and proposalsfor new projects such as Scuba 2,FMOS, Mosaic.

Roger Davies then outlined thecase for ESO membership. Theeffects would be: stronger Europeanastronomy; a secure stake in futureglobal projects such as ELT; UKparticipation in ALMA at aroundthe 10% level; and a 22% share inESO facilities such as VLT. Interna-tionally, the UK ranks second to theUSA on many measures but our

access to the largest ground-basedfacilities has fallen from two 4 mtelescopes to just half of an 8 mtelescope. Furthermore, ESO stateshave access to facilities outsideESO; indeed, national facilities pro-vide an important balance to ESOand our telescopes on La Palma areworld-class. In the long-term, theeffect of the currency in which theannual fee is paid is neutral, butOST is being asked for help inmanaging short-term problems aris-ing from currency fluctuations.

Extremely helpful written com-ments had been provided by SCAPfrom their meeting last week, aswell as from the ALMA ScienceAdvisory Committee and fromJodrell Bank. All were taken intoaccount during the discussion andIan Halliday described the currentstate of play with OST and ESO.

The Committee strongly endorsedthe pursuit of ESO membership,provided sufficient extra funds aremade available from the SpendingReview. In particular, £65m plus£5m per year or the equivalent of£10m per year is the minimum thatwould be acceptable. In addition, itrecognized the need for a majorrestructuring of the ground-basedprogramme in ways to be decidedin detail later. In particular, itwould aim to release £5m perannum from the optical/IR ground-based programme in the firstinstance: possibly saving £2m fromING, £1m from AAT and £2mfrom JCMT/UKIRT in the longterm. It was not prepared to aim tosave an extra £3m per year bywithdrawing funding completelyfrom ING and from MERLIN. Inother words, it was prepared to tryand make savings of up to a maxi-mum of £5m, but it made no deci-sions on how and where to makethose savings. The Committeeagreed to have open presentationsin the autumn on these facilitiesand on Road Map requests forlarge projects, followed by a closedsession of the Committee.

Starlink Cost Review PanelFollowing the 1998–99 review ofastronomical computing, the planwas for computing resources to befunded on grants instead of throughStarlink from April 2001. However,the Starlink team at RAL wouldcontinue to offer a central purchas-ing facility for hardware, supportand coordinate system managers,

work on infrastructure hardwareand provide software licences. Atits meeting in October, the Commit-tee had agreed that: Starlink is aneffective and highly valued part ofthe support of UK astronomy; andthat Starlink be encouraged to setup its own advisory panel, with noneed for a standing PPARC panel.

The plan was for Starlink to befunded by a rolling grant reviewedevery three years. A visiting panelhad reviewed Starlink in March andmade recommendations on fundingfor the next two years from April2001. The Panel’s chair, RachaelPadman, presented the report,which recommended that the staffat RAL and in universities be cutfrom 15 and 6 staff years, respec-tively, to 13.6 and 4.4 staff years.

During an extensive discussionthe concern was raised that the costof about £1m per year seemed high,bearing in mind the strains in otherparts of the programme such asgrants. Whereas we have an excel-lent resource, what is the best wayto exploit it, to ensure that itremains at the international fore-front and satisfies the needs of thecommunity? What is its vision forthe future? Some felt there was agreater demand for new hardwarethan new software.

The Committee recommendedthat a small expert panel draw up aspecification over the summer (withinput from the wider community)and that bids be invited from RALand other interested groups.

Review of PPARC advisory andpeer-review structuresCouncil, at its meeting in May,agreed to set up a small panel toreview the current committee struc-ture in PPARC, chaired by Ian Hall-iday. It will meet in the summer andautumn, and so anyone who wouldlike to make their views known iswelcome to contact the astronomymembers of the panel, namely EricPriest and Keith Mason.

Eric Priest presented a paper thathe and John Garvey had preparedas a starting point for discussion.He suggested that the Science Com-mittee be strengthened and empow-ered to make decisions on majorprojects in excess of £1m with, say,an annual call for proposalsagainst a new projects line. Themain scientific decisions should betaken by the scientists, with theExecutive’s role being to informand advise the committees andensure delivery of the agreed pro-gramme. He would like to improvecommunication between commit-

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News from PPARC’s Astronomy CommitteeEric Priest, Chair of the Committee, reports on the June meeting, where ESO loomed large.

Eric Priest, Chair of the Committee.

4.5

tees and the community, beginningwith the recent RAS/ SCAP meet-ings and e-mail dialogue and withhis regular reports of AstronomyCommittee meetings in A&G.

He also felt that a regular pro-gramme of committee visits to uni-versity groups could help, togetherwith an annual open meeting of theAstronomy Committee, including apresentation of the strategy for thecoming year and of the major pro-jects coming up for approval, withplenty of time for feedback on anytopic of interest. One possibilitywould be to keep the present struc-ture and to polish it. Anotherwould be to rename the AstronomyCommittee the Astronomy andSolar System Committee and toreplace RAP by an AstronomyPanel and a Solar System Panel,each responsible for both grantsand strategy in their areas.

During the discussion manypoints were made. A mechanismfor prioritizing different areas andcomparing projects from space andground and particle physics isneeded. VISTA or a particle physicssupercomputer would never befunded by the present PPARCstructure. The LTSR panels withcommunity input worked well butwould have been better if they hadbeen conducted in less hurry andmore depth, like US decadalreviews. The bilateral opportunityfor space missions worked wellwith a call for proposals but wasunder-funded. Maybe a similarannouncement of opportunity fortelescope instruments would be agood idea. A mechanism is neededfor a rapid reaction to opportunis-tic openings. In general, there isindeed a need for an overarchingcommittee (Science Committee)together with a broad astronomycommittee for astronomical priori-ties (Astronomy Committee).Prof. Eric Priest, Mathematical Sci-ences Dept, St Andrews University.

� PPARC, the RAS, the Engineeringand Science Research Council andthe Institute of Physics sponsored areport by an international panel ofphysicists, at the request of theOffice of Science and Technology.The report concluded: “At its best,research in physics and astronomyin the UK is at the very highest levelworldwide… The strength of…astronomy/astrophysics is support-ed and ensured by strong interna-tional collaboration.” The fullreport and comments from spon-sors can be found at: “www.iop.org/Policy/Intrev.html” SB.

August 2000 Vol 41

NEWS

This year has seen the results of anunusual opportunity for astronomers inBritain: the chance to set out priorities

for future excellence in science. The Long-Term Spending Review focused on clear objec-tives needed to keep Britain at the forefront ofscience in established and emergent fields. It isclear that the country retains the potential toexcel in a wide range of fields, provided thatwe can keep the best young scientists workingin the subject, with sufficient support fromspecialist technical staff and access to power-ful computers. And, of course, they need to beable to use world-class instruments.

This is where it gets tough. New instrumentsare being built (Gemini), being planned(ALMA) and being talked about (OWL).Theseinstruments represent the future of observa-tional astronomy. If Britain wants to build onits heritage of discovery in this field, Britishscientists have to be able to use such instru-ments. International cooperation is the nameof the game and astronomers have to be goodat it. UK astronomers have established inter-national collaborations that make it possiblefor us to run and use major observatories, but

in the future of much larger telescopes, wewill need more. This is the one fundamentalreason for UK membership of ESO.

But whether or not we join ESO (and arti-cles elsewhere in this issue make a clear casein favour) astronomers have to face the factthat if Britain wants to put in place the innov-ative and rewarding science identified in theLong-Term Spending Review, then somethinghas to go. To achieve the targets identified bythe community, existing projects will receiveless money, whether the government choosesto join ESO or not. Talk of cutbacks and clo-sures raises the spectre of the RGO: we can-not contemplate another such damagingepisode. The changes to come must be man-aged well and by consensus.

If the government does decide in favour ofjoining ESO, we will gain not only the nextgeneration of observatories, but also closerEuropean links and experience of other waysof working and other scientific cultures. Wehave plenty to contribute and plenty to learn.If the next generation of astronomers is tocontinue our success, we have no choice. Sue Bowler, Editor.

The Royal Astronomical Soci-ety, which represents all

branches of the astronomical com-munity, held an open meeting onThursday 22 June to provide aforum at which they could discusswhether the UK should join theEuropean Southern Observatory(ESO), as recommended both byPPARC’s Astronomy Long-TermScience Review Panel and by theInternational Review of UKResearch in Physics and Astrono-my. This meeting was attended byabout 150 astronomers and wasaddressed by speakers fromPPARC and from the community,who reviewed the future develop-ment of ground-based observa-tions. There was also ampleopportunity for discussion.

At this meeting there was over-whelming support for the propos-

al that the UK should attempt tojoin ESO and that additionalfunds should be sought from OSTfor this purpose. It was acceptedthat there would also have to besome savings in PPARC’s currentresearch programme but that anyreductions could only be agreedafter a careful review of ground-based facilities.

The RAS Council considered theoutcome of this consultation at itsmeeting on 4 July. They agreedthat the move towards larger andlarger telescopes makes it essentialfor the UK to join a multinationalgroup, and believed that links toEurope have to be strengthenedand supported.

Council therefore urges the OSTto seek additional funding via theComprehensive Spending Reviewthat would enable the UK to join

ESO. What is needed is a capitalsum of at least £60 million plus anadditional annual contribution ofaround £12 million. Council real-izes that part of the recurrent costwill have to be met by savingsresulting from rationalization inthe current programme; neverthe-less, it remains important to main-tain observations across the wholeelectromagnetic spectrum and anycuts should be preceded by a care-ful review of future plans. Rene-gotiation of arrangements foroperating existing facilities shouldproduce substantial savings with-out actually forcing telescopes tobe closed.

The RAS recognizes that this is aunique and valuable opportunityfor astronomy. We hope this state-ment will help you in obtainingthe financial support that is need-ed if we are to take advantage ofit. Please let us know if we canassist in any other way.Yours sincerely,Prof. N O Weiss,President.

RAS takes action on Fellows’ viewsThis is the text of a letter sent by the President of the RAS toLord Sainsbury of Turville, Parliamentary Under Secretary ofState for Science, following the Discussion Meeting on ESO.

ESO or bust?

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NEWS

The enthusiastic American “Side-walk astronomers” who brave

muggers, police and public incom-prehension to present the wondersof the universe to passers-by have,perhaps, a longer pedigree than theyrealize, though exponents of earliergenerations may have thought moreof turning an honest penny thanaltruistic educational ends.

In this cartoon from Punch‚ of 5September 1874, an old sailor, withthe confident assurance of hiskind, exhibits the bright Moon onsome pier head to an interestedaudience. He blandly assures hislisteners that the distance to oursatellite is 24 million miles. Acountry excursionist, who is notactually called Hodge, but proba-bly should be, asks how this vastdistance is known and the sailorassures him it has been measuredto “a hinch”.

Note on the right an Armstrong’sPatent capstan (everything worked

by manual labour at sea is knownas Armstrong’s Patent), probablyfor warping vessels into harbour,with holes for the capstan bars atthe top and strips of wood on the

decking to give purchase for thefeet of those who tramped round it.

The cartoon is from RAS ADDMS 90 (Jackson-Gwilt) page 71. P D Hingley, Librarian of the RAS.

From the RAS Archives

Radio astronomers at the WorldRadio Conference WRC-2000

in Istanbul in May succeeded inwinning crucial protection for themm-wave spectrum. As a result,radio astronomy is now officiallyallocated most of the useable fre-quencies between 71 and 275 GHz.

WRCs are held every two or threeyears. They are where governmentsof the world agree on how theradio spectrum should be sharedout. Of the 2500 delegates to themonth-long meeting, only 16 wereradio astronomers (7 from Europe).Pressure on the radio spectrum isintense at some frequencies, such asthose suitable for broadcasting,mobile phones and satellite commu-nications. The main business ofWRC-2000 was to replan satelliteTV broadcasting, and find space forthe new-generation mobile phonesystem IMT-2000 (InternationalMobile Telecommunications).Radio astronomy made its gains inthe mm-wave region of the spec-trum, where commercial exploita-tion has scarcely begun.

Radio astronomers have pio-neered the mm-wave bands. Themm-wave spectrum is incrediblyrich in molecular lines, so that the

idea of protecting narrow frequen-cy-bands centred on each importantline is ridiculous: there are just toomany important lines. Radioastronomers adopted the bold strat-egy of asking for large blocks ofcontinuous spectrum. Crucial to thebargaining were the relatively smallnumber of mm-wave observatories,and the fact that mm-wave propa-gation is more or less line-of-sight.Thus it is feasible to protect a fewsensitive sites over a wide range offrequencies, while allowing otheruse of the frequencies elsewhere.

The radio astronomy strategy forWRC-2000 was coordinated inter-nationally through IUCAF (a scien-tific committee of UNESCO, withmembers drawn from IAU, URSIand COSPAR), and in Europethrough the European ScienceFoundation’s Committee on RadioAstronomy Frequencies (CRAF).CRAF’s planning began in Grenoblein 1995, when Dennis Downes ofIRAM (Institute de RadioAstronomie Millimetrique) outlinedthe need to protect the entire mm-wave spectrum. Although thisseemed impossible at the time,CRAF took the idea on board. Weproduced a report for IUCAF on

protecting mm-wave astronomywhich eventually led to coordinatedradio astronomy inputs to theWRC-2000 from Europe, NorthAmerica, and the Asian-Pacificcountries. That plan was acceptedvirtually intact by WRC-2000.

Under the new allocations, radioastronomy now has primary alloca-tions to most of the spectrum in thethree atmospheric windowsbetween 71 and 275 GHz. Inreturn, radio astronomy gave upsome of its bands in which notransmissions are allowed. If wesimply count up the bandwidth,radio astronomy has lost 3.45 GHzof purely passive spectrum, but hasgained 87.4 GHz of shared primaryallocations, in which radio astrono-my will be protected.

Radio astronomy has now alsostaked its claim to the sub-mmregion. Our use of frequency bandsup to 1000 GHz is now acknowl-edged in the Radio Regulations viafootnote S5.565. Frequency alloca-tions above 275 GHz are on theagenda for WRC-06.

In the immediate future, there isWRC-03, with over 40 agendaitems, of which at least 7 concernradio astronomy at lower frequen-cies. The mills grind slowly in thisbusiness. From past experience,radio astronomers need to startworking towards WRC-03 andWRC-06 right now.

Our new PresidentIn the first of a series in whichnew RAS Councillors introducethemselves, the new PresidentNigel Weiss sums up his career.

Igrew up in South Africa but havespent most of my life at Cam-

bridge. After reading physics as anundergraduate I began research inthe origin of the Earth’s magneticfield, under Teddy Bullard, but Isoon decided that solar magnetismwas more interesting. I spent a yearat MIT and was a postdoc at Cul-ham, developing computationalmagnetohydrodynamics. Then Ireturned to Cambridge to stay,apart from sabbaticals at CfA,Sacramento Peak, Munich and inJapan. In due course I became aReader and Professor of Mathe-matical Astrophysics; for five yearsI was lucky enough to hold a SERCSenior Fellowship – but I paid thepenalty by spending the next sixyears as Chairman of the School ofPhysical Sciences, sitting on far toomany university committees. Afterthat, being President of the RAS isnot just an honour, but a pleasure.

The aim of my research is toexplain the structure and origin ofmagnetic fields in the Sun and stars.Features ranging in size from sun-spots to tiny flux concentrationsowe their origin to the nonlinearinteraction between magnetic fieldsand convection. Magnetoconvectionis fascinating in its own right andhas led me into other aspects ofconvection, nonlinear dynamics,bifurcation theory and chaos. Theseproblems are intrinsically nonlinearand involve large-scale computa-tion. Powerful computers havemade it possible to relate numericalresults to the latest high-resolutionobservations. I am also engaged inmodelling stellar dynamos andexplaining the origin of episodes ofreduced activity such as the Maun-der Minimum, as well as in explor-ing the relationship between solaractivity and climatic change.

Public understanding of science, naval style

Success for radio astronomyJim Cohen of Jodrell Bank Observatory, University of Manchester,brings good news from Istanbul for mm-wave radio astronomers.

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NEWS

Leon Lucy completed his PhD atthe University of Manchester

under the direction of Franz Kahnand took up postdoctoral positionsat Princeton. For 20 years he wasbased at Columbia University,where he edited the AstronomicalJournal, before coming to work atthe European Southern Observatoryin Garching. He has finallyreturned to the UK as a VisitingProfessor at Imperial College.

Although by leaning a perceptivetheoretician, Lucy’s work is firmlyfocused on issues arising from –and testable by – direct observa-tions. For example, he developedthe modern theory of radiation-dri-ven stellar winds, beginning withthe demonstration (with Solomon)that ultraviolet line opacity is suffi-cient to lead to continuous massloss from hot stars, and going on toexplain the behaviour of Wolf-

Rayet stars. Later he developed amodel to address the observation ofX-rays generated in stellar winds.

Lucy has made seminal contribu-tions in many other fields. Hedeveloped the physical basis for themodern picture of contact binaries,with a common convective enve-lope, showing how two stars ofvery different masses could appearto have the same effective tempera-ture, and provided a quantitativeaccount of gravity darkening inconvective envelopes. He alsoanalysed the radial velocity pulsa-tions of Deneb, triggering subse-quent interest in non-radial pulsa-tions of luminous stars.

In the late 1970s Lucy had theoriginal and path-breaking idea ofSmooth Particle Hydrodynamics, aLagrangian method for simulatingmultidimensional problems inastrophysical fluid dynamics. He

invented this method to solve theclassical fission problem of whethera contracting rotating mass couldsplit to form a binary with compa-rable masses, to which it gave thenow generally accepted negativeanswer. Since then the method hasundergone much development byothers and today it forms an impor-

tant tool in large-scale simulationsof cosmology, galactic structure andstar formation.

Leon Lucy is probably most wide-ly known for his contributions todeconvolution techniques. His 1974paper introduced the “Richardson–Lucy algorithm” and has become acentral pillar in the processing ofHST data, as well as having otherapplications in astronomy, medicineand elsewhere. More recently, hehas developed new tools for refin-ing spectroscopic data so as toachieve “super-resolution”.

Leon Lucy is without doubt one ofthe outstanding astrophysicists of hisgeneration. A notable feature of hislong research career is its individualvirtuosity and personal achievement.He has visited many fields in astron-omy, providing them all with hisown distinctive and important con-tributions – in many cases contain-ing original ideas that have led tothe development of whole new fieldsof research. His work has had andwill continue to have a major influ-ence on astrophysics.

Appointmentsand awards� Congratulations to Prof. DonaldLyndon Bell FRAS, of Cambridge,now a Companion of the BritishEmpire. In 1969, Prof. Lyndon Bellexpounded the supermassive blackhole magnetic accretion disk theoryof quasars, and by estimating thenumbers of dead quasars he pre-dicted that the nuclei of many largegalaxies were stars gathered aboutsupermassive black holes. The theo-ry was finally verified in 1995 andis now commonly adopted.� Prof. Alan A Watson FRAS of theUniversity of Leeds became a Fel-low of the Royal Society in May.Distinguished for his work on cos-mic rays of the highest energy, heplayed a central role in the con-struction and operation of theExtensive Air Shower Array atHaverah Park, which led the worldfor two decades in studies of cosmicrays of the highest energies.� Sandra Chapman FRAS has beenappointed as the University of War-wick’s first female Professor ofPhysics. Appointments to Chairsare not normally within the remitof this column, but Prof. Chapmanis joining a select group of femaleprofessors of physics in the UK.Her appointment brings the totalnumber of women at this seniorlevel to six. SB

Robert Hutchison has spent thegreater part of his scientific

career as the Curator of Meteoritesat the Natural History Museum,London, caring for the world’s pre-mier collection. Unlike his predeces-sors, who were free to pursue theirown ends, he has had to cope withthe modern era of meteoriteresearch arising out of NASA’s verysuccessful lunar sample analysisprogramme.

In addition to his own work, hehas facilitated 30 years of amazing-ly diverse investigations by aspiringmeteoriticists, not just from the UKbut on a worldwide scale, as well asbuilding up a small but excellentresearch group within the NaturalHistory Museum.

With his encyclopaedic recall ofmaterial in his own collection andin others around the world,Hutchison has played a major partin helping legions of investigatorsto reach their goals. Many aresearcher has come to him withhalf a plan and gone away with acarefully assembled set of examplesand information about what torequest from Paris, Vienna orWashington to complete the pro-ject.

All members of the communitytoo have received prompts fromhim regarding what he saw in such-and-such a meteorite that might beof interest. A less self-effacing char-acter would have had a vast portfo-lio of publications with many co-authorships; instead this modestman has a huge list of gratefulacknowledgments.

Despite all his unselfish service tothe international community

(including the screening of Europe’scollection activity in the Antarcticand hot deserts) Robert has foundtime to author about 80 peer-reviewed papers, many of whichhave appeared in Nature.

His most significant contributionshave been recognizing the youngage of the Nakhla meteorite (whichled to the whole concept of mete-orites from Mars), detecting hydrat-ed minerals in a Martian meteoritefor the first time, reporting aqueousalteration in unequilibrated ordi-nary chondrites (leading to the dis-covery of interstellar material inthem) and finding planetary-typeclasts in ordinary chondrites.

His main love, however, has beena detailed study of the compositionof ordinary chondrites, which hasled to his involvement in livelydebates on the issue of hot versuscold accretion in the solar nebula.On top of his research papers hehas written a popular book, TheSearch for our Beginning and wassenior author of the standard Cata-logue of Meteorites. He is nowrevising the definitive work onmeteorite petrology, which will befinished only because of his dedica-tion.

The Gold Medal is awarded forhis own research on meteorites, forthe unstinting assistance that he hasgiven to others and for hisundoubted achievements in promot-ing his science internationally.

The President Prof. Nigel Weiss pre-sents the Gold Medal for Geophysicsfor 2000 to Dr Robert Hutchison, atthe A&G (Ordinary) Meeting of theSociety on 12 May 2000.

Prof. Leon Lucy: Gold MedalThe Address on the Award of the Society’s Gold Medal forAstronomy for 2000 to Prof. Leon Lucy of Imperial College, London.

The President Prof. Nigel Weisspresents the Gold Medal for Astrono-my for 2000 to Prof. Leon Lucy ofImperial College, London at the A&G(Ordinary) Meeting of the Society on12 May 2000.

Dr Robert Hutchison: Gold MedalThe Address on the Award of the Society’s Gold Medal forGeophysics for 2000 to Dr Robert Hutchison of the NaturalHistory Museum, London.