Paul McMillan

@mcmillan-astro

Astrophysicist working on Milky Way dynamics and Gaia data. University of Leicester. Views expressed are my own. Website:

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Bluesky

¿Es tu perfil?Reclámalo y mcmillan-astro.dirty.social es tuyo.Reclamar perfil

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· 8d

The lid itself:

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· 8d

The best thing to use as an eclipse pinhole is, of course, the lid of a microwave rice cooker

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· 9d

Breaking news: RFK Jr calls on people to stare directly at the eclipse. Calls solar eclipse glasses "vaccines for eyes".

Woman wearing eclipse glasses (borrowed from BBC live blog)

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· 11d

Never let it be said that the people of BlueSky don't have their fingers on the pulse

Trending
1. Andy Burnham become UK Prime Minister

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· Jul 21

Tragic ending to Vikram Dhillon's plenary talk at #NAM2026, where he tells us that the STFC cuts have robbed us of the future of this wonderful instrument.

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· Jun 25

Attention has been drawn to the difference in earnings for different degree types in the new IFS study, but I think the more egregious and obvious gap is still the gender pay gap!

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· Jun 10

🔭 Congratulations to three brilliant astronomers who have won this year's Kavli Prize "for uncovering the fossil evidence of past mergers proving that the Milky Way galaxy was built through hierarchical accretion" www.kavliprize.org/prizes/astro... 🔭

Vasily Belokurov, Amina Helmi & Rodrigo Ibata

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· May 28

I'm giving a public webinar on "10 things you might not know about the Milky Way", on 22nd June. Sign up below! It will be of interest to anyone who's interested in space. Particularly, schoolchildren who might apply to University of Leicester (or their parents)! 🔭🎢

Artist's impression of the Milky Way with superimposed orbit (Credit: NASA/R. Hurt, adapted by me)

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· May 15

I don't think 'definitive' is quite right, maybe 'standard', but if you want an estimate of the Milky Way's gravitational field, then I've got you covered: ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017MNRA...

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· May 8

A thoroughly enjoyable piece about the excessive reaction to any minor 'controversy' in professional football by @maxrushden.bsky.social, with a possible explanation for why I've never gotten too annoyed about them. 🔭 #everythingisshowbiz #everythingisshorterthanaHubbletime

My latest existential crisis comes from my four-year-old’s recent discovery of the existence of the solar system. And there’s a danger of severe nihilism when someone is explaining to you that the universe is almost 14 billion years old – can I really get exercised that Mikel Arteta can’t stay in his technical area when it’s 465C on Venus? On Jupiter there’s a storm the size of Earth that has been raging for 350 years with winds of over 400mph. You’d have to keep the ball on the deck in those conditions – perhaps it would be a leveller against Paris Saint-Germain. Go with the wind first half.

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· May 7

🌌 🔭 2nd December 2026 will be a huge day for astronomy: Gaia DR4 is coming out! 5 years of data bringing better measurements and allowing new science 🔭🌌 www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/news

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· Apr 27

I've seen where this leads. We're a few steps away from this guy:

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· Feb 24

That is helpful, because Google AI had no idea what you were taking about

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· Feb 6

1000 citations for something I made a decade ago. I'm going to allow myself a little moment of pride that my work has been useful to so many people

2017, MNRAS, 465, 76. cited 1000 times

The mass distribution and gravitational potential of the Milky Way

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· Jan 30

Lost a little in the last paragraphs of articles about the cuts to astronomy and particle physics: UKRI are trying to shift the blame on to STFC itself for commiting too much money back in 2022: www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

From a UKRI spokeperson: "STFC’s budget faces particular pressures due to its growing cost base—driven by unforeseeable developments since setting ambitious goals in its 2022 delivery plan, which are no longer affordable. This means that STFC needs to find savings from within its allocation. STFC is actively working with its Science Board and community to make the choices about how these savings are realised, and so put STFC on a sustainable footing."

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· Dec 8

Movie you’ve watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Stars (Wars nor Trek), LOTR, or Marvel, Disney Animated or Pixar.

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· Dec 5

🔭 Catching up on arXiv in a quiet moment, I enjoyed this from the abstract of Balser & Burton (arxiv.org/abs/2511.00720). The inner Milky Way is a disorganised shambles, I've always thought that. Not the most disorganized shambles I've ever seen in a bar, but that's a different matter. 🔭

Text: Taken together with decades of work on the bits and pieces of the quite disorganized shambles of the inner Galaxy, we suggest that the Milky Way belongs to the category of Flocculent spirals.

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· Dec 2

Interesting journal club with the Exoplanets group at @physicsuol.bsky.social, looking at the transition from giant planets to brown dwarfs (arxiv.org/abs/2511.11818). They don't mention it, but is the gap at 2-3 MJ & [Fe/H]~0.2 called anything? If not, I'm calling it the Leicester doughnut hole 🔭

Plot of companion mass vs [Fe/H] from the linked paper. There's a hole around 2 Jupiter masses and 0.2 dex.

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· Nov 29

This is going to turn out to be an incredibly brilliant performance art satire about left wing politics

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· Nov 21

I'm back at Lund University to support/watch Simon Alinder defend his PhD thesis. Simon has studied the Milky Way's disc, especially the 'phase spiral' across the disc.

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· Nov 20

I've spent much of the last decade trying to convince my family that Sweden isn't the constantly snow-covered and freezing place they think it is. So why does it always look like this when I visit?

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· Nov 5

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· Oct 29

Martin Luther. Simon Alinder. Some other people too, no doubt. There's a great history of nailing theses to things and Simon did that yesterday ahead of his thesis defense next month. I watched on zoom, and it turns out quite hard to get a good screenshot!

A poor photo of Simon nailing his thesis

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· Oct 3

The University of Leicester's marketing department know that it's the staff who are the lifeblood of the university. Leaving staff under threat of firing for months on end, with no negotiation with our representatives, is awful management

UoL advert "We are researchers. teachers. activists. entrepreneurs. storytellers.

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· Sep 30

I'm not usually a much of a protestor, but I will try to defend the University of Leicester, and my colleagues, from the bad decisions made by our management. The proposed cuts unneeded, unfair and backed by cherry picked metrics. I support the @leicesterucu.bsky.social strike action.

Me holding a protest banner. I think the grin is a bit cheesy.

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· Sep 12

Related note: Warthogs are delightful to watch because they prance when they run

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· Sep 12

Personal opinion: Squirrels are cuter than other rodents because of the bouncy way they run, not because of the tail

By JeffreyGammon - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=117070505

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· Sep 4

🔭 One of the greatest pleasures of my job is when someone I helped and enthused at the start of their astrophysics studies finds success. Congratulations ot Aayush Desai on publishing his first paper! arxiv.org/abs/2509.03216 🔭 "Magnetic Atmospheres and Circumstellar Interaction in J1901+1458"

Figure illustrating a possible setup (not to scale) of J1901 in blue, with dipolar field lines emanating from the poles. The
Alfvén radius and Light cylinder radii are marked with dashed lines. In red is material that existed as a disk just after the merger,
which is falling back. Once it crosses the Alfvén radius, it follows the field line. In blue is the extraction process due to the potential
difference across the open field line at the light cylinder. In orange is a field line that is reconnecting close to the light cylinder.
Along this field line, the dashed-dotted orange wiggle represents the Alfvén wave due to the reconnection. We caution the reader
that while the Alfvén radius in the figure corresponds to a higher accretion rate than the rate derived from the X-rays, in which case
the Alfvén radius would be outside the light cylinder.

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· Jul 15

🔭 Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, UK astronomy version. Inspired by a comment from LOC chair David Alexander at #NAM2025 🔭

Sgt Pepper Beatles in NAM 2025 group photo

Paul McMillan@mcmillan-astro· Jul 7

A sighting of Leicester's @spacecentre.bsky.social Thor Able rocket during a really interesting (and last minute replacement!) talk by Dr Bleddyn Bowen on the politics of space at the UK's National Astronomy Meeting #NAM2025