Ian O’Neill speaking at the 7×24 Exchange “Leadership” conference in Orlando, Fla., on June 11, 2012. Photo credit: Joseph Rodriguez/www.proimagesphoto.com

“The universe, as far as we can observe it, is a wonderful and immense engine.”
- George Santayana (1863-1952), writer and philosopher.

Welcome. My name is Ian O’Neill, founder and editor of Astroengine.com. I am a published solar physics doctor (see publications below) and space science producer, editor and writer for Discovery News. Since I completed my PhD in coronal loop dynamics with the Solar System Group (supervised by Dr. Xing Li) at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth in 2006, I have moved into the field of science communication with a focus on providing my audience with mind-blowing space science, while debunking the growing tide of pseudo-science. I have been very active in confronting the disinformation about the “Mayan doomsday” phenomenon — you can find the majority of my current doomsday articles on Discovery News (but you can also find links to my original Universe Today “No Doomsday in 2012″ articles here).

For examples of a few of the outlets I’ve appeared on/in, see my “In the Media” page.

If you have any problems with this site or have a story you think I might be interested in, please contact me.

Cheers!

Ian

PUBLICATIONS:

• Ph.D. Thesis: Quiescent Coronal Loops Heated By Turbulence, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, 2006. Download .PDF (6.4MB)
• Interplanetary Scintillation Observations of Stream Interaction Regions in the Solar Wind, Bisi, M. M.; Fallows, R. A.; Breen, A. R.; O’Neill, I. J., Sol. Phys., Vol 261, DOI: 10.1007/s11207-009-9471-1
• Promoting astronomy, solar system science and particle physics to the disengaged: Radio and online outreach, Wood, A. G.; Dunbar, S.; Dorrian, G.; Whittick, E. L.; O’Neill, I. J., European Planetary Science Congress 2009, held 14-18 September in Potsdam, Germany.
• Coronal loops heated by turbulence-driven Alfven waves — a two fluid model, I. O’Neill & X. Li, Astron. & Astrophys., 435, 1159, 2005. DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20041596. Download .PDF (1MB)
• Turbulent Alfvén Wave Driven Coronal Loops, I. O’Neill & X. Li, Proceedings of ‘SOHO 15 Workshop – Coronal Heating.’ 6-9 September 2004, St. Andrews, Scotland, UK (ESA SP-575).
• Transition Region and Coronal Loops Heated by Turbulence, X. Li, I. O’Neill & S. R. Habbal, Proceedings of ‘SOHO 13 – Waves, Oscillations and Small-Scale Transient Events in the Solar Atmosphere: A Joint View from SOHO and TRACE’. 29 September – 3 October 2003, Palma de Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain (ESA SP-547, January 2004).

Disclaimer

All content on Astroengine.com is copyrighted to Ian O’Neill unless otherwise stated. Blog images are copyrighted to their respective owners and credited accordingly. All views, opinions and interpretations are my own and in no way affiliated with the original research being reviewed. Also, any views or opinions expressed here are not necessarily the same as my employer, Discovery News or Discovery Communications. Any mistakes, misinterpretations or typos are my responsibility and no one else’s. If you have any problems with the content on this site, feel free to shout at me… but don’t expect anything to change, my decision is final (unless I really did mess up)…