Violette Impellizzeri to head astronomy and operations department
We are excited that Dr Violette Impellizzeri will join ASTRON as head of the Astronomy & Operations department. She will start her new duties on 1 September 2024. Her research focus is on VLBI investigations of the molecular gas enveloping black holes and spectral line analyses.
New calibration technique circumvents Earth’s ionosphere
An international team of researchers has developed a new calibration technique to circumvent disturbances of Earth’s ionosphere.
ASTRON has turned 75!
75 years ago today, SRZM (Stichting Radiostraling van Zon en Melkweg/Netherlands Foundation for Radio Astronomy) was founded. This organization would later become ASTRON.
ASTRON launches database of female experts
Today marks International Women’s Day. This year’s theme is ‘Inspire Inclusion’.
LOFAR ERIC: Distributed Research Infrastructure for European Astronomical Research Launched
LOFAR ERIC (European Research Infrastructure Consortium) has been officially launched at its first Council meeting today. The world-leading LOFAR (LOw Frequency ARray) Distributed Research Infrastructure has already revolutionised low-frequency radio astronomy research, resulting in an avalanche of scientific publications in the past decade. LOFAR ERIC is now a single legal entity across the European Union. The LOFAR ERIC statutory seat is in Dwingeloo, the Netherlands, hosted by NWO-I/ASTRON (Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy; the original designer of LOFAR).
Telescope quartet reveals surprising statistics of cosmic flashes
Scientists led by Chalmers astronomer Franz Kirsten have studied a famous source of repeating fast radio bursts – a still unexplained cosmic phenomenon. Comparing with earlier measurements, the scientists draw a conclusion with far-reaching consequences: any source of fast radio bursts will repeat, if watched long enough and carefully enough. The research team, a unique collaboration between professional and amateur radio astronomers, used four telescopes in northern Europe, amongst which ASTRON’s Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope.
Dutch astronomers prove last piece of gas feedback-feeding loop of black hole
Three astronomers from the Netherlands have proven that gas that was previously heated near a supermassive black hole and flowed to the outskirts of the galaxy and cooled down, is moving back towards the black hole. While there had been indirect evidence for this theory, this is the first time that the cooled gas moving toward the black hole has actually been observed.
Super sharp images reveal a possible hypernebula powered by a source of fast radio bursts
A team led by astronomers in the Netherlands have confirmed a repeating FRB source to be linked to a potential ‘hypernebula’ – a dense and highly magnetised cloud of plasma that is illuminated by a powerful but still mysterious source.
Astronomers discover ultra-fast radio bursts in archived data
An international team of researchers led by Dutch Ph.D. candidate Mark Snelders has discovered radio pulses that last only millionths of a second.
ERC Starting Grant Awarded to Dr. Aditya Parthasarathy
The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded Dr. Aditya Parthasarathy a prestigious and extremely competitive grant to pursue his research at ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy.
Radio waves leaking from large satellite constellations could jeopardize astronomical exploration
The LOFAR radio telescope has shown that satellites can unintentionally emit radio waves that interfere with the observations of radio telescopes. Satellites circle the globe in ever increasing numbers. Their radio emission could, if not addressed, close unique and scientifically valuable windows into the Universe. It is of crucial importance for the astronomy sector and industry to collaborate to overcome these issues and for the International Telecommunications Union to establish regulation to control this emission.
Pulsar clocks open new window on gravitational waves
An international collaboration of European astronomers, together with Indian and Japanese colleagues, have seen evidence for ultra-low-frequency gravitational waves, which is expected to originate from pairs of supermassive black holes found in the centres of merging galaxies. This is the result of more than 25 years of observations with the most sensitive radio telescopes in Europe and India, including the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT). In doing so, they have opened a new window on gravitational wave research. These gravitational waves contain information about the Universe’s best-kept secrets. The research has been published in a series of articles in the professional journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.