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An Earth-sized radio observatory just got better: South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope joins forces with the European VLBI Network of telescopes

South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope has successfully conducted very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations with telescopes of the European VLBI Network (EVN)—currently the world’s most sensitive VLBI network. Their synergy sets a new standard for global collaboration and significantly enhances both resolution and sensitivity, opening new avenues for scientific exploration.

News
WSRT-APERTIF
Published by the editorial team, 10 June 2025

All sky, all the time – A new radio sky monitor for transients and technosignatures

Breakthrough Listen, headquartered at the University of Oxford – the most ambitious project to date searching for technosignatures (signs of technology as an indicator of extraterrestrial intelligence) – is partnering with ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, and the University of Manchester, to deploy a new all-sky monitor at the Westerbork Observatory in the Netherlands. The new experiment takes phased array feeds (PAFs) – essentially wide-field radio cameras – that were previously deployed on the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT), and installs them on the ground, looking up at the sky directly.

WSRT-APERTIF
Published by the editorial team, 12 May 2025

Sweden and the United Kingdom Join the LOFAR ERIC

Sweden and the United Kingdom have joined the LOFAR ERIC (European Research Infrastructure Consortium) as a member, following the decision of the Council on 26 March 2025. This significant expansion brings the total membership to eight countries, marking an important milestone in the growth of this pioneering research infrastructure.

LOFAR
News
Published by the editorial team, 1 May 2025

ASTRON receives €4.6 million to widen and sharpen LOFAR’s cosmic vision

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded over €4.6 million to ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, for a major upgrade to the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio telescope. The project, called LOFAR Enhanced Network for Sharp Surveys (LENSS), will significantly increase LOFAR’s observational capabilities, enabling astronomers to view four times more of the sky simultaneously while producing images with unprecedented clarity.

LOFAR
News
Published by the editorial team, 28 April 2025

Invisible jets from tiny black holes sculpt the Galaxy

Black holes, even relatively small ones, leave dramatic “footprints” in space that extend far beyond their immediate vicinity—like ripples from a pebble dropped in a pond. New research using the MeerKAT radio telescope reveals that stellar-mass black holes (those formed from collapsed stars) shoot powerful jets of energy creating massive shockwaves, effectively carving out space and influencing their galactic neighbourhoods over thousands of years. The discoveries show smaller black holes play a much more significant role in shaping galaxies than previously thought. These findings are published today in two studies featured in the scientific journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Astronomy
News
Published by the editorial team, 25 April 2025

‘Beyond what we’d hoped’: international telescope in Australia captures first glimpse of the Universe

The first image from the international SKA Observatory’s telescope in Australia, SKA-Low, has been released – a significant milestone in its quest to reveal an unparalleled view of our Universe.

Science
SKA
Published by the editorial team, 17 March 2025
EVENTS

CASPER Workshop 2025

Mon 08 Sep 2025 - Fri 12 Sep 2025

The CASPER workshop is a semi-annual workshop where FPGA, GPU, and general heterogeneous system programmers get together to discuss new instruments in radio astronomy, as well as the tools and libraries for developing and manipulating these instruments.

DAILY IMAGE
Reshma Anna Thomas wins IAU Division D PhD Prize for 2024

© IAU, adapted by Jason Hessels

ASTRON and University of Amsterdam post-doctoral fellow Reshma Anna Thomas has won the 2024 IAU PhD Prize in Division D (High Energy Phenomena and Fundamental Physics) for her thesis "The Search, The Localization, and The Characterization: Fast Radio Transients", which she conducted at West Virginia University.

The IAU PhD Prize recognises the outstanding scientific achievements of astronomy PhD students worldwide. Each of the IAU’s nine Divisions awards a prize to the candidate it identifies as having carried out the most remarkable work in the previous year.

Congratulations to Reshma and all the other winners. You can read more about it here: https://www.iau.org/Iau/News/Ann2025/ann25017.aspx

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