A Perspective on Analog Writing Implements

The motto of my favorite journal brand, Leuchtturm1917, is "Denken mit der hand" or thinking with the hand. I'm not the only member of my group with an appreciation of the analog. This week Elisa, one of this summer's graduating PhD students and our resident stylophile, shares her own love of tactile thinking. Her caption for the image above is: "Hastily scribbled text trying to capture the incessant flow of words coming from Elisa's mind. Only some of it is captured. Even less of it is legible. Somehow, she still manages to get the gist of it transcribed."

by Dr. Elisa Dong

Analog tools are often overlooked these days as more and more of our work shifts towards the digital space and collaboration shifts towards being hosted on the cloud. Most of this isn't necessarily bad per se, and typing is certainly faster than writing unless you know shorthand. I do feel like the act of writing is one best not forgotten, however.

Who am I to tell you what to do? My only credentials are that I love stationery. Functional, pretty, and just plain cool. Stationery will always excite me. Oh, and I used it extensively throughout my current academic career and attribute much of my successes of writing things by hand. If you like lists, there are lists in this blog post.

Perhaps it is best to start off with a side story regarding my love of note taking and documentation. My first ever purchase with my paltry $5 allowance was a notebook. It was spiral bound and the covers were made of a stiff foam. The cover had some sort of tropical bird on it made of overlapping pieces of foam. It might even had had a googly eye or two attached to the head. As you can imagine, it was immensely exciting to me. I purchased this notebook as guided by my parents to keep track of what I spent my allowance on, or note down when I received more. To this day, I still tally up my purchases by hand, though I'm certainly less vigilant than I used to be. Somehow, the number of my expenditures has also gone up. 

You might have not had the same experience of looking over your numbers and squishing a foam notebook, but I'm sure there will be something you can care about when it comes to stationery. 

Here's another, more recent story for you. During my defense last week, I asked the examination committee to pause right before the exam actually began in earnest (sorry Scott!) so I could grab my notebook.

    "I wanted to take notes," I explained.

    "Don't worry," said one of my supervisors, "We're taking notes."

And so they were, it was meant to be reassuring and a reminder that I would get a summary of requested feedback afterwards. In the meantime, I didn't have to simultaneously take down the questions and try to answer them. 

    "I wasn't (worried), I just think better with a pen in my hand." 

This is true! At least for me, I find my focus instantly sharpened when I have a writing implement in hand. I feel somewhat badly for those who do online exams now. Perhaps their brains have worked out the association with typing into blank boxes and forms. I know mine hasn't. 

The Joy of Writing

I also find my writing to reflect some things that I really enjoy. It's scribbling, yet flowy, and reminds me a lot of my mother's handwriting on the notes she'd leave out on the table for herself as a reminder. I have attempted such reminders, but it only works if I remember to look for them. Naturally, my handwriting is also far harder to decipher than hers. I also love the way ink flows on paper, whether it be a ballpoint or gel, though I'm particular to a smooth ink. Pencils can also be a lovely experience, with a touch of toothiness that reminds you that you're physically sheering away a layer of pigment to lay on paper. 

If you happen to enjoy a touch of colour in writing, it can be quite a delight to write in pencil crayon or fountain pen ink. I personally like fine-tipped felt markers. I periodically order a couple packs of the Zebra Sarasa vintage ink pens. They come in sets of 5 or so, and contain a suite of fairly standard colours, but deeper and more muted. These are far more economical than the clicky gel-pens I used to buy at the Waterloo bookstore to mark assignments or annotate my own work. What a delight it is to use a different colour on paper and see how variable (or invariant!) it can be. Different colours and strategic outlining can be so useful when narrowing down thoughts. Its like highlighters, but more subtle (on that note, I recommend Mildliners, I have some that are nearing a decade old and still function great without searing my retinas). 

Then, there is paper. Receipt paper, cheap paperback paper full of disintegrating fibers, 100 gsm toothy watercolour paper, paper with films or coating for a smooth texture that renders them water resistant but prone to skidding, craft paper... there are so many options out there. I found that the numerous packs of 10 cent sheets that are sold in massive packs at Walmart at the beginning of the school year always treated me well. I certainly went through thousands of those sheets. My biggest gripe with them at the time was that they didn't come in a 5 mm ruling, and instead came in 7 mm. I find 7 mm exceptionally difficult to read on, unless the writing is quite slanted and flowery, in which the extra space helps each word stand out without too much overlapping between lines. Back in elementary school (and for some part of undergrad), I would either opt to write two lines per ruling, or just freehand the lines. I do not think my teachers were impressed by this. I'll come back to this later, but I eventually moved into notebooks within finer rulings or using a grid pad with 5x5 mm grids. 

A Real-time(ish) Example and Things Elisa Likes

Right now (or when I originally drafted this post, see the photo at the top of the article), I'm writing on a discontinued 52 gsm Tomoe River paper notebook that has been printed over with a 3.7 mm grid. The binding of this notebook is excellent. I originally ordered this notebook years ago from Nanami Seven Seas and I think I got one of their cheaper offerings that had some defects, hence the lower price. Back then, the exchange rate of CAD to USD was also far more palatable as well. If you've ever read my personal blog, you'll know that I have a fondness for Hobonichi planner products which use the 52 gsm Tomoe River paper, and had been using them since 2018, but the paper is also now discontinued. Turns out there was only ever one factory that produced this paper and they had closed down. Oops. I believe the replacement is now Sanzen paper. Generally, I'm looking for incredibly thin paper that doesn't show through ("ghost") onto the other side too much so I can write on both sides, and carry around an enormous amount of paper with me at all times without adding too much weight to my already overfilled bags. 

This notebook has several nice features, but I especially appreciate the ability to lay flat (due to the binding method) and the incredibly sturdy binding overall. It has been tossed around in the bottom of my bags for 7 months at this point, and I expect it to hold up for another couple of years. (AN: I'm noticing right now that it’s actually taking longer to type this up than the original writing, perhaps I'm a terribly slow typer! Or perhaps it’s just difficult to transcribe my own writing). I also peeked at the website, and apparently the notebook IS still available, as is the paper. Huh. Perhaps they had a huge back-stock or aren't concerned about the changes in paper quality and there certainly were changes. Mind you, the Café B6 slim that I have is currently unavailable, and it does state that it uses the new paper. 
 

Paper Rankings

Let's say I've intrigued you a bit regarding paper, but you don't want to hunt down a discontinued old copy of the notebook I have. Here are some that I've enjoyed in the past and would happily repurchase:

1. 1/2 year Stalogy notebooks in A6 or B6. These small pocket-sized notebooks use a similar binding technique that let you set the notebook fully flat. Because they can be a little small, you may have to push the pages down, but don't worry because the binding won't give out on you. The typical colours available year-round are black, red, and yellow. Limited edition colours are sometimes released. There is gold embossing along the spine for branding. I personally use the gridded paper version. It comes in 5 mm grid (or dot) and is the perfect size for doing math calculations by hand. What's not great about it if you get the printed grids is that they end quite far from the edges of the page, losing valuable writing space. On top of each page is also a calendar, lightly printed so you can mark in the date yourself. This too, takes up valuable writing space. However, one can certainly use it as a title section. I recommend the slightly larger B6 for actual writing or taking notes, and the A6 for more of a personal to-do list. The problem here is that its not always readily available in Canada, and there is quite a price bump buying it from a local business. I tend to do so periodically if I'm only purchasing one, but otherwise I'll get them straight from Japan if I am putting in an order for pens too. 
   
   
2. Mnemosyne. These notebooks are super sturdy, spiral bound, have a sleek black cover and are perhaps best used for on the go writing when you need a sturdy surface. For an unknown reason, there is a stunning strong yellow page in each one of these notebooks. I find it incredibly eye-catching. I have only used the A5 size from this brand. Regardless of the page design, the back side of each page is blank. The individual sheets are quite sturdy and thick, with a lovely soft cream colour that's really quite close to white. Each page tears out neatly with the microperforations. This notebook is for those who like a bit of heft, but appreciate a slim build to tuck away. Or if you like to doodle and write notes on a rickety subway line. They also take wetter inks and markers quite well, and I find that pencil crayons shade nicely on this paper. I usually use it as my base paper for sending letters because I find the paper so satisfying to hold in my hands. I imagine the recipients appreciate it too, though I've never confirmed.
   
   
3. Muji notebooks. The ones in the 5 packs with different coloured spines. I used these extensively in my undergraduate studies. One notebook colour per class. And I'd just purchase more if I was short on them. The paper texture was reasonably nice and smooth, and the price was definitely right for something so customizable. I've checked, and there are no Mujis close by to my new place! Looks like I'll have to swing by on my trips to Toronto. There was something exceptionally charming about the Muji shop encouraging people to stamp their notebooks in store to customize them. 
   
   
4. Leuchtturm1917 notebooks. The paper quality of these is variable, but if you enjoy a thicker notebook cover and built in bookmarks, I recommend these. The cream colouring is excellent and easy on the eyes. These notebooks are A5-ish sized. Normally I'd argue that they're too large to be toting around. But since the cover is very stiff, it'll hold up against the other miscellaneous items rattling around in your bag no problem! It's also got an elastic to keep the pages shut to prevent dinging up and folding pages that might splay open. I found that these typically lasted about ¾ of a year for me. I do really appreciate that the pages are numbered if you like indexing your notes. 

All of the above, except for the Muji notebooks, have a coating on the sheets that let ink float on top and show off fun features. It also means that text can take some time to dry before you can close the pages without smearing. I've also found that if your hands are a bit oily/sweaty, it can ruin the coating on the paper leading to a very blotchy writing experience. This seems to vary across all the papers, with the original Tomoe River paper having the least amount of ruined coating. Mnemosyne is also pretty great about staying consistent, but I don't do enough writing on it to actually test it out. It does seem like a lot to care about when I write it up! Nice writing experience aside, I feel like there are some good reasons to give writing by hand a shot: 

1. Improved memory of things you write down. I'm sure there are a few references kicking around for this. Have people done studies on typing as an equivalent? It does still take fine motor control to some extent (my motor control is less fine, if you ever hear me type, it sounds like I'm trying to destroy the keys).
   
   
2. I imagine its generally good for the brain. Something about using both the more creative side and the fine motor control side at the same time. Perhaps there is also an equivalent perk when it comes to typing however, as stabbing at tiny keys can be quite difficult to do precisely!
   
   
3. Processing of ideas, emotions, and the like. This mostly pertains to the value of journalling, but I also find it useful to write things out by hand when I’m looking for patterns. This can be notes on papers I’m reading, or a wrong variable in an equation I’m trying to track down. 
   
   
4. Bonus - talking to other people who love stationery! One of my new colleagues recognized the pens I was using, and we ended up connecting over the brands we use for writing. I've promised to bring in fountain pen inks to the office. I also remember one of the first meetings with the PVL lab I went to, John saw that I had a rather unique looking notebook! Stationery lovers can identify each other from a mile away I feel. 

Discontinued notebook and paper aside, I also try to always have a booklet of regular letter-sized grid paper on a pad on hand. I find it super useful to work out problems, illustrate things to people if I don't want to check if the whiteboard markers are dried out, and mock up maps if there's some impromptu DnD about to happen. I used these extensively in undergrad for a while as an alternative to the Muji notebooks. I'd take notes continuously on the pad and flip them over so they wouldn't tear at the top, and just start a new page for each class I was going to. At the end of the term, I would compile all the sheets together. 

I wonder if there are many students who bring paper and pen to class these days. I can see the value in not losing your notes by maintaining them digitally, but it is nice to be able to shuffle sheets around and see the entire class represented all at once. I remember I mostly brought in my laptop to read manga during lectures, and occasionally annotated power point slides as they became more common later in my degree. Rarely did I feel it was worth the battery power consumption to bring a laptop to class though. About half of my classmates simply printed out the slides and filled them in by hand, later transcribing them onto a digital copy. Doing things twice might seem inefficient, but I imagine it meant things stuck in their heads more.*

I'm at somewhat of a loss as to what I'm going to do after I finish up my stash of notebooks (I accumulated a few from Hobonichi with their blank/undated pages a couple years ago, though I don't love the book size). I recently purchased one from Knock Thrice which had a fun trim, but the notebook itself seemed far to heavy to be lugging around. Since I don't love having separate books for different things, unless it's meant to be very one-off, I think I'll have to go back to the Stalogy. Maybe with my next bulk purchase of the Zebra Sarasa since I'm down to one now, I think. With Tomoe River gone, possibly forever, I may truly need to move on. 
 

On Pens and Friendships

In the past few paragraphs, I've been very "In my day...", but the the truth is that my stationery loving journey really accelerated when I found entire online communities that shared similar interests. Shortly after I had an explanation from my brother as to why he had a syringe in the bathroom that is (blunt-tipped, used to refill ink). He promised it was nothing nefarious, and gave me my first ever Platinum Preppy. Prior to that, I just periodically purchased rather pricey gel pens so that my hands wouldn't cramp when marking student assignments. After... well. Let's say I've been to pen meetups and regularly scope out stationery shops when I get the chance. The existence of the community has given me access to trying out pens that go for thousands of dollars MSRP, and sampling papers that I normally wouldn't have paid for, like those element themed bound notebooks that launched on a Kickstarter that I won during a giveaway that seems to have since vanished. 

I found that the (fountain pen) community was incredibly generous and welcoming, regardless of what price point you could handle, or what it was you enjoyed. Whether it be 18 K nibs, custom grinds, cheapie beaters, urushi, or the history of pens and paper. I was encouraged to test things out, swap inks, and simply chat about whatever it was on our minds. The community at the time was fairly small, and it was interesting hearing perspectives on new developments. I tried to give back where I could, and essentially gave away a prized Platinum Century 3776 that I had initially purchased second hand from the US. I'm also a big fan of distributing Platinum Preppy and Pilot Kakuno pens, which I find to be excellent writers in spite of their price point. They are currently my preferred pens, though I have cracked several of them. 

As it turns out, price does not correlate with quality when it comes to fountain pens. Typically, the writing end comes from one of a few companies, and the differences arise from the body of the pen. Urushi, a hand lacquring technique, is far more expensive than an injection mold. Explosive rods that were used for the gorgeous striping found in celluloid have been discontinued because...they are explosive. The technology for flex nibs seemingly has been lost over years. Pens with unique aspects tend to go for more than the standard counterparts. 

Some of the modern “grails” (sub $200) I've tried out! I enjoyed the writing experience of the Platinum 3776, but the number of turns to uncap the pen drove me nuts. I've also had a Pilot Vanishing Point, and upgraded to a vintage body. Unfortunately, I didn't purchase a vintage nib along side it, and it doesn't cap fully when retracted, leading to a messy experience. I also tinkered with the nib and lost most of its tipping. Oops. I also tried out the gorgeous Lamy 2000. What a nightmare that was. I found one on sale with exactly what I wanted, an extra fine nib. Well, with such a huge tolerance for EF, it was decidedly not extra-fine. Furthermore, the makrolon body cracked after a few months, apparently a well-known defect the Lamy team hasn't resolved. I quite enjoyed the taper of the pen, but clearly it was not the one for me. I'm still eyeing a Waterman Carene, but the Platinum desk pen is actually an excellent replacement that is actually fine, and tapered. I've also acquired a "vintage" Pilot pocket pen that posts and turns into a light-weight rounded pen. It has an engraving on it that I've never bothered to translate, but it was most likely a graduation gift for someone at some point. The nib is slightly bouncy, and allows for excellent variation across a single stroke. But it doesn't open so wide that it would be classified as a flex pen. I like this one for urban sketching. 

These days I use a mix of the Zebra Sarasa vintage pens and relatively cheap fountain pens (Platinum Preppy and Pilot Kakuno). I'm not too surprised if they crack in two years given my reckless treatment of them, but they last usually well beyond that length. I had a favourite Preppy with the most incredible nib last just over five years! 

More Reason to Carry Around Stationery

Anyhow, I do feel it is well worth trying to write things using pen and paper. There's something about the inability to edit and simply scratching out mistakes that is incredibly satisfying. Having a notebook on hand also gives you the freedom to doodle during boring meetings rather than browse unrelated websites, which might be more obvious. 

Related to writing, is also just drawing out your problems. I personally think my presentations are pretty decent! For the better ones, I almost always have something mocked up on paper first to show a story board. This is something I did for my defense (Fig. 2), and I had less than normal feedback on the specific contents and sequence of delivery as a result (I think). Instead, the feedback I got could focus on small details to really polish the final product (Fig. 3). When I start drafting something on Power Point (or equivalent software) right away, I often get stuck and feel uninspired, even if I have headers and points of what I want to present on each slide. Starting it out on paper feels more exciting and I can see the whole vision together with minimal distractions. No looking at my messy fingerprints on the screen, the annoying colour scheme of the software, or a reminder to log into my Microsoft account! Especially when I'm planning out a sequence that involves quite a long time to put together, I feel like its best to see it out on paper before the committing the several hours it takes to complete.

Figure 2. A draft storyboard in preparation for a defense. Elisa likes to think of them as movie scripts, with critical details in scenes shown as their own slides, and various arcs that need to be captured. The ellipses represent various content that are either methodology or results, which she likes to keep fairly simple, nothing too flashy. Some of these sections would borrow from previous slides, so any critical design elements didn’t have to be reproduced. The transition slides and ideas are shown on the far right. Key words are written in all caps for legibility.

 Figure 3. Simple notes that Elisa took during her second mock defense regarding things that could be improved. These pages are a mix of suggestions in illustration and animation upgrades, and text that covers things she likely wants to remember or reconsider for before the final presentation.

 

Conclusion?

I don’t really have one for you. I wanted to share a love of stationery and encourage that readers seriously consider trying out writing by hand. Even if you cannot read your own handwriting, there is a lot of value to putting your thoughts on paper.

---

*As a further aside, I lived in China for a year, and I recall the stationery there to be generally excellent unless you were purchasing scrap paper that was clearly quite rough and fibrous that was meant for practicing letters. Paper was pretty much always quite nice, regardless of whether or not it was cheap and had cute figures on the front. I definitely recommend purchasing random cute notebooks when in East Asia, generally everything is nicer feeling, even if it is cheap! 

One Year In

 

It's an adjustment, starting grad school. Even if you've already done research work, becoming a teaching assistant, taking on more responsibility in the lab or even lecturing to a class can be daunting! But fear not - these are challenges that all academics have overcome in their careers and so will you. This week, MSc student Isabelle Marincic reflects on her first year experience.

by Isabelle Marincic

It’s official! I am one year into my masters, yet I am feeling dumber than ever before. Well, not really, but being in a constant state of learning makes me feel like I never actually know anything for certain. After a slight crash-out with my supervisor (shout out John), I am finally starting to feel like I belong, and that maybe I can actually get through this degree. I want to dedicate this blog post to things I’ve learned, skills I’ve gained, and things I am still working on. (This blog post topic was inspired by Grace’s wonderful enrichment exercise at the last group meeting.)

What have I learned (seriously!)

Throughout a masters, learning comes in many forms. This can be academic or personal, in that while I have definitely gained scientific knowledge I have also gained knowledge about how I am able to effectively conduct research. A hard lesson learned was how self-regulated a masters degree really is, and as it turns out, I needed to come to terms with the fact that I am really bad at self-motivation sometimes. Most days my schedule is completely up to me, which sounds ideal in theory but in practice allows for the perpetuation of bad habits, such as doom-scrolling on reels. This combined with the crushing weight of impostor syndrome leads to quite the unproductive day. I quickly realized that I needed to change my mindset, mostly regarding my impostor syndrome. For a while doing research felt like; “Why even bother if I know some other masters student out there is way smarter than me?” I bother because I love research, I love what I am researching, and this is the place I know I want to be. On top of my difficulty in an academic setting, the negative self-talk was seeping into other areas of my life, into things I also simply love doing. So, while having learned a lot about remote sensing techniques and methane measurements on Mars, one of the most important learning experiences was learning how to speak nicer to myself. Self-motivation can be really difficult - and it is currently a work in progress - but it is most definitely progressing in the right direction. Thankfully, I work with an amazing group of people who always offer the best and most comforting advice :) 

Have I even gained any skills?

You bet I have. Again, skills can be separated into academic and personal. The academic skills I have gained are small but mighty. For instance, I can read better now. And by this I mean I can better approach a research paper rather than having absolutely no clue where to start. A good place to start is the abstract, though. Then I like to read headings and assess the flow of the paper. Sometimes I accidentally end up just reading the entire paper depending on how cool the research is, but this is often a waste of time </3 

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to give a lecture on Martian methane (see image above)! I was really excited to work on my public speaking skills as this skill is crucial when attending conferences and presenting your research. I also hope to continue down the academic track to obtain a professorship (in a thousand years) so giving a lecture fit right in with that goal.  

Finally with regards to a personal skill that I’ve gained, I realized that in order to complete work I HAVE to allot hours in my day to specific tasks. Otherwise, I will literally not complete anything. Perhaps I acquired this skill a little late in the game but better late than never!

Some more room to grow

There will always be room for a person to grow, which is what makes life so fulfilling. Although, it can be hard to admit you need to grow, hence my crash out. I was in denial for a couple of months about the severity of my issues, resulting in such a build up of feelings that they all came out in a teary mess. So, moving forward, I plan on maintaining a positive internal dialogue, and to simply keep trying new things despite not feeling 10000% confident. This holds true for my academic endeavours, like writing my first paper, or my athletic endeavours, because my climbing gym is sandbagged and I keep falling off the wall. But like most things in life worth doing, you have to suck before you can get better!

 

Talking to Mars

This week, PhD student Diana Hayes takes a look at how we communicate with spacecraft dispersed throughout the solar system. Given the number of assets at Mars, the situation on the red planet is particularly complex and therefore particularly interesting. Like any infrastructure, maintenance is critical to enabling future science if we expect to continue to count on the capable systems we have in place today.

by Diana Hayes

Here on Earth, we’ve built a sophisticated global telecommunications network that allows us to talk to people on the other side of the planet nearly instantaneously with very little difficulty, whether that be through the internet, texts, phone calls, or video chats. It’s easy to take this interconnectivity for granted. For example, if I have data that I want to share with a collaborator in Europe, can upload it to a Microsoft server from my computer, send them a OneDrive link, and they can download it to their computer; unless something goes wrong somewhere along the way, there’s very little thought from either of us about the intricate complexities of the systems that make this possible.

But what if your collaborator is on another planet?

This is a question that every interplanetary mission needs to answer. For many missions, the answer is simple: the Deep Space Network (DSN). The DSN consists of 14 radio telescopes spread across three sites in Spain (Madrid), the United States (Goldstone), and Australia (Canberra). This spacing ensures that at least one telescope has a direct line-of-sight to every location in the Solar System further than about 30,000 kilometres from Earth. The data rates seem laughable compared to what we can achieve on the ground, as they’re limited both by the size and power of the DSN telescopes and the antennas that can be put on a spacecraft, as well as the distance between Earth and a given spacecraft. For example, as I write this, one of the DSN telescopes is talking to Juno (orbiting Jupiter) at 50 kilobits per second, while another is talking to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at 550 kilobits per second. For comparison, the wireless internet connection here at York typically averages around 100 megabits per second.

A screenshot of NASA’s DSN Now page, highlighting a communications session between one of the deep space antennas in Canberra and the Mars Odyssey orbiter.

For orbiters and flyby missions, the DSN is good enough. You can put a reasonably large, powerful antenna on your spacecraft and talk directly to Earth with minimal difficulty. For landed missions, the situation is more complex. When landing on another planet, minimizing the weight and size of your spacecraft is essential, so you can’t really just use a big antenna unless you’re willing to sacrifice science instruments for it. The solution we’ve come up with is relay communications. Rather than talking directly to Earth, a rover or lander first transmits its data to a spacecraft in orbit, which then uses its more powerful antenna to transmit that data to Earth. Because the lander-orbiter distance is much smaller than the lander-Earth distance, you can get away with much smaller antennas on the lander. 

Over time, this strategy has led to the development of the Mars Relay Network (MRN), which consists of a number of Mars orbiters that rovers and landers on the surface can use to talk to Earth. At the moment, there are four orbiters in the MRN: the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), Mars Odyssey, and Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN). Relay communications is not the primary mission of any of these orbiters, but they all were specifically outfitted with the instruments needed to serve as part of the MRN.

There is one obvious limitation to using this method to communicate with our landers and rovers on Mars: data can only be transmitted when an orbiter is above the horizon. During rover planning, this means that we need to keep track of when orbiters are available to receive data, and to prioritize which data we want to receive first since we can’t always downlink all of the data on the rover during a single comms pass. Fortunately, because we understand the movements and capabilities of our orbiters pretty well, this is really only a minor problem. 

Top: The elevation of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as seen from Curiosity during the first week of 2025. Most of the time, the orbiter is below the horizon, passing over Gale about twice a day. Bottom: A close-up of the highest-elevation pass of MRO on January 4, 2025, highlighting how the orbiter is only above the horizon  for a very short period of time, about 15 minutes, which limits the amount of data that can be transmitted.

Less avoidable is the motion of the planets themselves. Every few years, Earth and Mars pass on opposite sides of the Sun, an event we call “solar conjunction.” When this happens, interference from the Sun can cause data corruption in the signals sent through the MRN. Corrupted data received from Mars isn’t the end of the world, since the data aren’t deleted from the rovers’ computers until they are verified to have been received intact on Earth, so any missing data can just be re-transmitted. Of more concern is data transmitted to Mars, which usually consists of rover commands. We really don’t want to send corrupted commands to our rovers, so during conjunction, we stand down from operations until the apparent angular separation between the planets is large enough for data to be transmitted reliably.

The apparent angle between Mars and the Sun, as viewed from Earth between the start of 2023 and the end of 2026. About once every two years, this angle is so small that the Sun blocks data transmission between the two planets, a period known as “solar conjunction.”

The MRN has become a critical piece of infrastructure in the exploration of Mars, but it’s facing an imminent crisis: it’s aging. Odyssey, the oldest part of the MRN, was launched in 2001, while the newest (TGO) was launched in 2016. The fragility of this age was highlighted in December of last year when the DSN lost contact with MAVEN. Although recovery efforts are ongoing, NASA has admitted that it’s unlikely that communication with MAVEN will be re-established. MAVEN had the highest data transmission capabilities of any of the four orbiters, so its likely loss leaves a gaping hole in the MRN. The other orbiters can at least partially fill that hole, but it’s obvious that something needs to be done before we lose another orbiter. Some proposals have been made, such as the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter (MTO), which was cancelled in 2005 before being revived in NASA’s 2025 budget. Dedicated telecom orbiters are much less sexy (scientifically speaking) than science orbiters, which makes justifying their cost to national legislatures much more difficult, despite their importance. 

By the way, this isn’t limited to just Mars. For example, the Huygens probe, which landed on Saturn’s largest moon Titan in 2005, relayed its data through the Cassini spacecraft. Notably, Dragonfly, NASA’s upcoming rotorcraft mission to Titan, will not be using a data relay, instead opting for direct-to-Earth communication. To make this possible with any kind of appreciable data volume while not using the much larger antennas found on spacecraft like Juno, Cassini, and Voyager, Dragonfly will be taking advantage of the large amount of energy provided by its nuclear power system (similar to the one used by Curiosity and Perseverance), which will allow it to transmit much stronger signals with a much smaller antenna.

If you’re curious about what the DSN and MRN are up to right now, check out NASA’s DSN Now (https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/dsn-now/dsn.html) and MRN (https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/mrn/) websites. 

DPS/EPSC 2025: Izzy’s First Masters Conference

 

One of the best parts about being an advisor is that you get to see growth in your trainees. Not only is is satisfying to see those students succeed, but you are also reminded of the early times in your own career. There is no more reliable occasion for such moments than a masters student's first conference. This week is Izzy's turn to talk about this evergreen topic on our blog!
(Above: Izzy at the Airport. Image credit: Izzy's father)

By Isabelle Marincic

From the title, you probably have been able to deduce the topic of today’s blog post. What you may not have guessed is that I am going to recount to you in chronological order the events of my first conference during my masters degree!

Step one was getting to the airport (YYZ, Rush). My father graciously drove me to the airport for my 4:30 pm flight on September 5th, 2025. Pictured above is my father embarrassingly sending me off while he waited outside of security. Naturally, I was about 2.5 hours early for my flight. 

 

Feeling under-packed and tired, I bought a delicious panini to tie myself over until they fed me dinner on the plane (yum!). I think I slept most of the flight to the layover location: Frankfurt. Upon arriving at the Frankfurt airport, I took the world's longest bus ride to the other side of this ginormous airport hoping I would magically arrive at my terminal. Which I did! Long story short, I accidentally gave the German government my fingerprint, and waited in a very long line for security. One final flight later, I arrived in Helsinki, Finland. Very excited to take European public transportation, I trained to the city center, and meandered my way to my hotel on foot. First impressions of Finland: grey.

 

Fast forward to Sunday, September 7th after Milena and Abby arrive. We took this day to peruse areas near our hotel before the conference began the following day. Abby and I guided a ship to shore, and got some steps in. 

 

 

 

With this being my first conference attended during my masters, I was extremely excited to learn about tons of new science, to meet other scientists interested in the same things as I, and to present the work I had completed so far since arriving at York. There was an immense amount of information being relayed throughout the conference, it was so much all at once that I had trouble remembering most of it. This was a lesson for me to take notes at the next conference I attend. But, the programme included talks on terrestrial planets, outer planet systems, small bodies (comets, asteroids, etc), exoplanets, origins of planetary systems and astrobiology, and outreach, diversity, and amateur astronomy. The talks I primarily attended were those in my general field of astrobiology, along with talks given by members of my lab.  

 

 

 

One of the highlights of the conference with regards to my professional development was the poster I presented during the Exoplanet and Astrobiology poster session. Tragically, I only attracted a single visitor to my poster. While it was slightly awkward to stand by my poster for about an hour without being able to talk about my research, I still firmly believe in the writing and presenting of poster presentations. It is a necessary segue into academic writing, which is a very difficult skill to master. I have yet to do so. So, writing short abstracts that explain your work to a relatively broad audience is good practice for advancing your academic writing skills in the long run, especially for undergraduate students.

 

 

 

Overall there were two lessons learned during this conference: (1) take notes, and (2) talk to more people! I was insanely nervous as this was my first time interacting with a large group of intelligent people, so it was quite intimidating. I know Abby and Elisa have no problem with this part of the job, so maybe I should ask for some tips. I personally enjoy collaborating and sharing ideas with people in my field, as I believe this helps improve my science by hashing things out-loud. Now that I am a whopping 4 more months into my degree, I think I will have more ideas to share during AbSciCon 2026 :)
 

Lastly, below are some images of Helsinki during the touristy part of the conference trip! Helsinki was a 

very inviting and pleasant city, especially with the availability of public transit which the North American mind could not comprehend.

 

  

  

Cleaning up the lab… finally!

 

 Whenever you are doing research, it's important to control the chaos. That could be keeping notes and reference papers organized, keeping track of simulations and parameters or the physical items that accumulate in any lab. This week, Kevin describes a major cleanup in our lab to keep entropy at bay for a little while longer.

by Kevin Axelrod

December 20, 2025 was finally the day. 

I have been at the PVL for over 2 years now, and while projects and some people have come and gone, one thing has always remained constant: our PVL lab room has looked like my bedroom when I was 7. Because we work in planetary sciences, we have a wide variety of equipment – from optical equipment to vacuum chamber components to flow tubing to spectrometers to regolith simulant to various chemicals. And that is before we get to all the non-science items in the lab, like books and files, as well as that big Venus globe! 

Keeping all these things organized is difficult, with so many different projects in and out of the lab. And at times, motivation to clean can ebb and flow, both for me and a lot of other people. But, on the week of December 15, just one week before I planned to leave town for the winter holiday, I decided that it was finally time to get down on it. 

It started when we needed to pack up our Martian Atmospheric Gas Evolution (MAGE) experimental breadboard spectrometer and send it back to our industrial partner, ABB. Abby and I had collected a pallet and ordered some bubble wrap and shrink film a few weeks prior, and on December 16 we put those materials to use (below). Shipping it out via LTL freight, which happened on December 19, only 2 days before I left for the holiday, was a significant step towards making the lab genuinely clean. This was not just because it had been sitting in there for a few weeks and was crowding our lab, but also in the process of shipping it out, we cleaned the lab upstairs (which belonged to a different group and was where we conducted most of our experimentation with this spectrometer).

Sending it out freed up a little bit of space on our optical table. Nonetheless, there was still a significant amount of optical equipment and other things lying out - tools strewn everywhere, old boxes/cardboard, tubing pieces from the spectrometer setup, etc. Even our chiller still contained ethylene glycol-based antifreeze from a project that occurred several months ago.  

It seemed like such a massive task that maybe we were beginning to accept the constant state of clutter. However, in many cases, constant clutter in a laboratory is a safety hazard, because it impedes the ability to conduct experiments in an organized fashion, and introduces issues like tripping and spilling hazards. So, on December 20, with my flight out of Toronto less than 24 hours away, I drank a cup of coffee, put in my earbuds, and somehow just got into the zone. I went through the lab putting away tools, taking apart optical equipment, wiping down counters, and throwing away scraps. I officially started a “Sharps” disposal box for our lab (we were starting to use glass pipettes on a regular basis) and also started and labeled waste disposal containers for the ethylene glycol. I also started a “Misc/I don’t know” box. This box is for all the things that are probably optical components, but I am not completely certain of exactly what they are or how they are used in optical setups. “Misc” is a Swiss-army knife of a lousy excuse for a box label, isn’t it? 

The lab is far from perfect so far. We still have 2 desks in the back of the room that are filled with miscellaneous computer equipment, the corner next to the door is overflowing with old poster tubes, and the floor could use a sweeping. But, when cleaning a lab, just like in conducting scientific experiments, progress is always incremental. I forgot to take a “Before” picture, but the “After” picture is at the top of this post. It will keep getting better, too.

Two final thoughts:

1. For what feels like the millionth time, our lab’s tape measure has gone missing. It might be time for another trip to our local hardware store.
2. During this day, I listened to a lot of what I would call “indie EDM” and a lot of the songs made me think of outer space.  We need to start making a PVL playlist/mixtape.

[Insert Title Here]

Writing is a key part of being a researcher of any kind. It's not enough to do the work, take the data or make the discovery. It's not science until it is shared. This week, Alex reflects on their writing journey.

By Alex Innanen

I like to think of myself as a pretty good writer. Very young me harboured the wish to be a famous novelist when I grew up, and I probably still have old notebooks hidden somewhere in my parents’ house full of stories and attempted novels. There’s a lot about writing I like. I like putting words together in interesting and clever ways (I am a big fan of puns), I like figuring out how best to say something, and I really like the rules of language which feel a bit like a puzzle. In first year engineering we had a Technical Writing for Engineers course that many of my classmates groaned about but for me I was thrilled to have a whole class full of grammar quizzes. 

Moderate bragging aside, there’s one thing I struggle with time and again when I’m writing and that is choosing a title. Several of the posts I’ve written for this very blog have been sent to John with something like ‘I can’t think of a good title, HELP!’ at the top. I also write blog posts about once a month for the Curiosity Rover’s mission updates page, and there’s many a time I’ll have the whole post written, sitting in my inbox ready to be sent for approval and struggling to think of a title. 

It's not just blog titles either – short stories, journal articles, even my dissertation. And all these different kinds of writing need different sorts of titles! But this post is not just for me to complain about how hard titles are though. Having toiled in the title mines for as long as I have, I’ve developed some tricks and observations about choosing a good title. 

The job of your title is to give your audience somewhat of an idea of what they’re getting into, or at least to interest them enough that they might want to read what you’ve written. For something like a blog post, I try to keep it relatively short and clear. The title of this post, for instance, pokes fun at not being able to come up with a title while also giving an idea of what the post may be about. When I’m writing mission updates for Curiosity I tend to go one of two ways: some wordplay or reference to a well known phrase (for example, “New Year, New Clouds”), or succinctly describing something important from the plan (like “On Top of the Ridge” – three guesses where we were). 

Writing a title for a paper is a bit different. You can assume that whoever is reading your title has a bit more familiarity with the subject so you can be a bit more specific. Sometimes this leads to marathon-length titles. The title of my first research note, for example, “Minimum Mars Climate Sounder Retrieval Altitudes Reveal Cloud Altitudes at Aphelion and Stranded High-altitude Dust Following the MY34 Global Dust Storm on Mars” is twenty three entire words. This may seem a bit excessive, but you cannot deny that it tells you exactly what’s in the note. We’re also big fans of the humble colon in academia. My master’s thesis was titled “Aphelion Cloud Formation and Swiss Cheese Sublimation: Martian Atmospheric Water Vapour Processes”. The first bit of the title tells you the two subjects of my thesis, the second part ties them together. Sometimes, Journals will have guidelines for paper titles. Acta Astronautica, for example, has a 15 word limit. My research note above wouldn’t fly, and in fact the title I proposed for the paper I submitted there (which I posted about here) was too long and I had to figure out how to fit what I wanted to say in their word limit (I think I changed ‘Canadian Arctic’ to ‘Arctic’). 

So maybe I actually do know a bit more about this title thing than I thought when I started writing this blog post. In fact, I feel confident enough to offer some things to think about when you’re coming up with a title: 

1. Consider your audience. Will they recognise what Aphelion means? Will they enjoy a good pop culture reference? 
2. What is/are the main takeaway(s) of your piece? Are there different subjects you need to link?
3. Is there a word limit? Should there be a word limit? How can you be more concise?
4. How are you going to get people excited to read what you’ve written? 

As with most things, though, practice helps. The more I write, the more titles I need to think of and the less daunting it gets each time.  

Baby’s First Conference Talk

Public speaking: it's a critical part of communicating your science. But, apocryphally, most people would rather do almost anything else, even something unpleasant. I can tell you that even for me, the anxiety is real. It's there, any time I'm giving a talk or delivering a lecture. That can be a good thing, pushing you to refine your technique and your content. Some can even harness the nervous energy in their delivery! Fortunately, I've found most audiences to be understanding - our colleagues remember feeling that way too. Below, MSc student Abby discusses her first experience delivering a scientific presentation at a conference.

by Abigail Newton

To be perfectly clear before we begin: I am not a public speaker. I don’t consider myself to be good at presentations, I certainly haven’t had much practice with large crowds, and my brain stops working the moment I open my mouth. For all these reasons, I signed up for a 12-minute oral presentation at the International Meeting for Planetary Missions 6 (IPM) conference. The moment I saw the email pop-up in my inbox indicating that I received a presentation slot, I regretted all my previous decisions. But it was too late – I had no choice but to get prepared. Though I couldn’t have expected it, this presentation ended up being one of the best decisions I could have made.

The topic of my presentation was a cloud sensor, designed to turn on a camera when it detects Martian clouds are overhead. However, mere weeks before the conference, my sensor prototype was still unfinished, and I had another presentation at a different conference a month after IPM. It was a busy summer to say the least. Gathering my results just 5 days before my presentation – at a time when wildfire smoke concentrations were at the highest level they would be all summer – I found that my sensor could separate smoke from clouds. This was an unexpected, but welcome discovery. IPM itself is unique in that it’s attended by primarily engineers and was completely instrument-focused – completely up my alley.

Once I had gathered my results and wrapped my mind around the implications for my instrument concept, I decided to tackle the presentation itself. I practiced – wrote and rewrote, stumbled through a rocky presentation within the department, redid the presentation, got a class-A lecture from my airplane seat-mate on how I should “just relax”, practiced some more, anxiously sat through presentation after presentation on instruments with MILLIONS of dollars in funding, all before it was finally my turn. I wanted to vomit.

After 12 minutes of complete blackout, I found myself back in my seat. I came to and realized: it went well! I got a laugh out of the audience at the very beginning that allowed me to loosen up and relax through the rest of it. Did I make some small mistakes while speaking? Yes. Was I perfectly engaging every corner of the room? No.

Unfortunately, my worst fear came true.  I got stumped by a question that was perhaps less than relevant to my presentation in front of a room full of world-class scientists I was desperate to impress. I did not give an answer that could in any way be described as coherent, but the moderator stepped in and shut it down. 

Seasoned scientists and engineers continued to ask interesting questions about my presentation for the rest of the conference – the kindest people, treating me as a peer. My results showing the detection of amounts of wildfire smoke significant enough to override the thick cloud cover above caught attention and brought questions about making a similar version of the sensor for dust – something I had already been considering. Even better, my presentation was on the first day, so I was able to take a deep breath and enjoy the rest of the conference stress-free. 

Lots of hiking and learning was done in beautiful Boulder over the rest of the week. I was inspired by both presentations on the future of instrumentation and the gorgeous landscape. I would massively recommend giving conference presentations to any grad student terrified of public speaking – exposure therapy is the way to go.