Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

• 1. Introduction

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  Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, known to astronomers by the initials MNRAS, has a name that no longer means what it says. It is not monthly. It does not carry notices. And for its entire modern life, it has quietly published more articles per year than any other astronomy journal on the planet. The first issue appeared on the 9th of February 1827, under a slightly different title, and the journal has been in continuous publication ever since. That unbroken run spans nearly two centuries of discovery, from the era of hand-drawn star charts to the age of gravitational wave detections. How a Victorian learned-society bulletin transformed into the most prolific outlet in professional astronomy is a story of institutional loyalty, commercial negotiation, and a global shift in how science gets shared.

• 2. A Name Frozen in Time

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  The 9th of February 1827 is the date printed in the first issue, but the journal carried a different masthead then: Monthly Notices of the Astronomical Society of London. The society itself was not yet royal. It earned that prefix, and the journal took its current name, only from the second volume onward. For well over a century, the title was perfectly accurate. The journal truly did appear monthly, and it truly did carry the official notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, announcements, meeting reports, and administrative communications that bound the membership together. That second function ended in 1960, when the notices were transferred to a newly created publication called the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society. That journal itself ran until 1996, when it gave way to a successor called Astronomy and Geophysics, which has carried the notices ever since. The frequency shift came later and more quietly. Today MNRAS appears as thirty-six issues a year, divided into nine volumes, a cadence that no longer fits the word monthly but reflects how much astronomy has accelerated.

• 3. Who Controls the Journal

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  From its founding until 1965, MNRAS was produced entirely in-house by the Royal Astronomical Society. That arrangement was common among learned societies of the nineteenth century, and it persisted into the modern era before finally giving way to commercial publishing. Blackwell Publishing took over production in 1965, and that relationship continued even after Blackwell was absorbed into Wiley-Blackwell. Oxford University Press became the publisher from 2013 onward. The current structure divides responsibility carefully: the RAS selects what gets published and oversees peer review through an editorial board of professional astronomers, while Oxford University Press handles production, distribution, and marketing. Editorial control sits with an editor-in-chief; David Flower of the University of Durham has held that role since 2012. Before the modern title existed, the function was performed by the secretaries of the RAS Council from 1881 through 1979, and named editors stretch back to figures including Arthur Cayley, who served two separate stints in the nineteenth century.

• 4. Two Formats, One Mission

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  MNRAS accepts original research in two distinct formats, and the distinction carries practical weight for working scientists. Papers can run to any length, accommodating the detailed methods sections and large datasets that modern astronomy requires. Letters are capped at five pages and move through the publication process more quickly, a route designed for results that need to reach the community fast. The letters section has its own small piece of material history: in the print era, those pages were printed on pink paper, a colour-coding that made them easy to spot in a thick issue. That quirk survived until the early 2000s, when the letters section moved online. Print publication as a whole ended with the April 2020 volume, a transition accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the journal has been online only since then. In 2022, MNRAS published 3,441 articles, more than any competing astronomy journal.

• 5. The Open Access Shift

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  January 2024 marked a structural break in how MNRAS operates financially. The journal became a gold open access publication, meaning every article is free to read online the moment it is published, under a Creative Commons Attribution licence. The change shifted the financial burden away from readers and institutions paying subscription fees and onto the authors themselves, through article processing charges. A standard article carries an APC of 2,310 pounds; a letter costs 1,100 pounds. Fellows of the Royal Astronomical Society receive a twenty-percent discount on both figures. The model includes relief mechanisms for researchers who cannot afford the charges. Authors based in developing countries qualify for a full waiver. Those not from developing countries but still unable to pay can apply for partial or full waivers assessed case by case. In many situations the charge is covered not by individual authors but by read-and-publish agreements between Oxford University Press and the author's institution. Before 2024, the journal had charged no fees to authors at all since its founding in 1827, with all costs met by subscription revenue.