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Astronomers Discover Fast Radio Bursts That Skewer Nearby Galaxy

Astronomers have found five new Fast Radio Bursts with the upgraded Westerbork radio telescope array. The telescope images revealed that multiple bursts had pierced our neighbouring Triangulum Galaxy. This allowed the astronomers to determine the maximum number of otherwise invisible atoms in this galaxy for the first time.

ERC Advanced Grant for research into the origin of fast radio bursts from space

Jason Hessels, Professor of Observational High-Energy Astrophysics at the University of Amsterdam and Chief Astronomer at ASTRON, has been awarded a €3.5 million ERC Advanced Grant to search for the origin of fast radio bursts. Among other things, the research money will be used to develop new hardware to set up a coordinated network of European radio telescopes to study repeating FRBs in more detail.

Animation explaining the workings of LOFAR

We have created an animation, which briefly explains the workings of our LOFAR radio telescope.

NAC 2023 to be held in Leeuwarden in May

The 78th edition of the Nederlandse Astronomen Conferentie (NAC) will be held this year in the Westcord WTC hotel in Leeuwarden from 15 to 17 May.

ASTRON astronomy groups focus on LOFAR and SKA

Recently, the astronomy group within the A&O department of ASTRON went through a reformation: instead of several focus groups, it now consists of two groups: the LOFAR Science Group and the SKA Science Group. The LOFAR Science Group is led by André Offringa, the SKA Science Group by Joe Callingham.

Major upgrade of International LOFAR Telescope approved

The ILT Board has approved the order for the LOFAR2.0 upgrade of all 52 stations plus 2 additional stations of the International LOFAR Telescope (ILT), plus spare parts. A total of € 10 million investment goes to orders at the Dutch companies Neways, Major Electronics, Variass, and Batenburg Industriële Elektronica.

Events

Mon 06 Nov 2023 - Thu 09 Nov 2023

Cursus: Toegepaste RF-techniek

De cursus Toegepaste RF-techniek bestaat uit een theoriegedeelte (75%) en hands-on sessies in ons eigen lab (25%).
Deelnemers aan deze cursus dienen een hbo werk- en denkniveau te hebben. De deelnemer kent de basisbegrippen van elektronica. Parate kennis van wiskundige concepten is niet vereist, maar komt wel aan de orde bij de transmissielijntheorie. In de cursus wordt ook complexe rekenwijze toegepast.

Daily Image

Looking at JUICE with PRIDE

© JIVE, University of Tasmania, Guifre Molera Calvés

Planetary Radio Interferometry and Doppler Experiment (PRIDE) of the JUICE mission, while having no dedicated onboard instrumentation, conducts observations of the spacecraft from the first days of the New Earth Commissioning Phase (NECP). This phase has started immediately after the mission launch on 14 April 2023 and will last for about 2.5 months. The major PRIDE assets are a global network of radio telescopes and data processing centers. To be prepared for science operations with JUICE, these assets should be “tuned up”, checked and maintained in fully operational state. As a part of this activity, three radio telescopes, operated by the University of Tasmania (Australia), a PRIDE partner, has begun monitoring the JUICE radio signal from the first days of the in-flight operations.

One of the monitoring observations of JUICE was conducted with three PRIDE 12-m radio telescopes located in Australia: Hobart (Tasmania), Katherine (Northern Territory), and Yarragadee (Western Australia). The signal, detected in these observations, demonstrate the expected strength and stability. During these observations, the spacecraft was at about 7.8 million km from Earth. The University of Tasmania antennas have been tracking the JUICE spacecraft on a regular basis 3 to 4 times per week to calibrate the PRIDE ground-based instrumentation, verify data processing software and maintain operational readiness for future science observations. The ongoing monitoring PRIDE campaign also contributes into studies of space weather.

Latest tweets

Our congratulations go out to Anna Bilous and her colleagues, for this intriguing paper, which was published in Nature.

Every year on May 4th we put our Westerbork telescopes into mourning mode, to remember all the victims who fought for our freedom. Watch the video that we made a couple of years ago in cooperation with @kampwesterbork, demonstrating this. #4mei #Memorial

Our radio telescopes don't need the darkness to function, but they do need quiet skies, free from radio interference. This month is Dark and Quiet Skies month. What can you do to keep our skies dark and quiet?
https://www.iau.org/public/darkskiesawareness/
#DarkAndQuietSkies

Daily Image of the Week: Blast from the past

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