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.
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.
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.
‘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.
The Electron Density Structure of the Milky Way
© Stella Ocker (Caltech)
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.