The SKA telescopes are currently in the construction phase, and with it the central signal processor (CSP) for the SKA Low frequency telescope, called CSP-Low. CSP-Low will be integrated and delivered to site by a consortium led by the Dutch company TOPIC; ASTRON is one of its subcontractors. One of TOPIC’s specializations is designing and developing hardware, firmware, and software for sophisticated systems.
STORIES
In People of ASTRON we share stories about the people at ASTRON. Who are the people behind the discoveries and innovations and also, who are the people that make sure that everything runs smoothly? Tom Kamphuis is Head Software Delivery and loves that he can contribute to groundbreaking science.
Om onze kennis over het heelal te vergroten, verlegt ASTRON voortdurend de grenzen van de technologie in haar radiotelescopen. Deze expertise stellen wij nu ter beschikking om de innovatieve kracht van ondernemers te vergroten. Hiertoe lanceren we het Wireless Data Lab (WDL), een proeftuin waarmee ASTRON haar kennis en faciliteiten op het gebied van draadloze dataoverdracht beschikbaar stelt aan het bedrijfsleven en andere instellingen.
DAILY IMAGE
Forecasting Solar Energetic Particles (SEPs) by combining SXR and low frequency radio observations
© Liam Clarke
SEPs don’t always occur following a flare. In order to observe SEPs at Earth, enough energy needs to be released to accelerate a significant number of particles to high energies, and particles need to escape from the magnetic fields of the Sun into to the interplanetary medium. These conditions can be inferred from the soft X-ray (1-8 Å, SXR) fluence and Radio fluence of the preceding flare respectively. So, using the photoemissions from a flare, the probability of a following SEP can be forecast within 18 mins of the flare (8 mins for light to reach Earth, 10 mins for enough data to be collected for prediction).
To do this, we took data from 200 ≥ M2 class flares from 1995-2017 and made a scatter plot of SXR fluence and 46 MHz radio fluence, with SEPs shown by red stars. Using this, we can overlay a continuous probability function to give the likelihood of an SEP following a flare, dependent on its position in the scatter plot (colour map). We then choose a threshold probability contour (white line), above which we predict an SEP to occur. For this example, this allows us to correctly forecast 95% of the 200 flares, with 12/17 (71%) SEP detections, and 6/18 (33%) false alarms.
EVENTS
Next Generation Space VLBI workshop
Mon 17 Oct 2022 - Wed 19 Oct 2022
The third edition of the Next Generation Space VLBI workshop (ngSVLBI-2022), co-organised by JIVE and ASTRON in Dwingeloo (The Netherlands) will be held on 17-19 October 2022. The ngSVLBI-2022 workshop will focus on the future of high-resolution radio interferometry. Next-generation Space VLBI missions would be natural extensions of advanced Earth-based facilities such as global VLBI networks, (ng)EHT, […]
CAREERS
