News & Events

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.

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.

Open dag

Op zondag 8 oktober organiseren ASTRON en Stichting LofarTafel samen met Het Drentse Landschap een open dag in de LofarZone tussen Buinen en Exloo, waar het hart ligt van LOFAR, de grootste radiotelescoop ter wereld! Onze open dag vindt dit jaar dus NIET plaats in Dwingeloo. Er worden excursies over natuur en astronomie gegeven, er […]

Samen innoveren voor de toekomst