ASTRON launches database of female experts
Today marks International Women’s Day. This year’s theme is ‘Inspire Inclusion’.
LOFAR ERIC: Distributed Research Infrastructure for European Astronomical Research Launched
LOFAR ERIC (European Research Infrastructure Consortium) has been officially launched at its first Council meeting today. The world-leading LOFAR (LOw Frequency ARray) Distributed Research Infrastructure has already revolutionised low-frequency radio astronomy research, resulting in an avalanche of scientific publications in the past decade. LOFAR ERIC is now a single legal entity across the European Union. The LOFAR ERIC statutory seat is in Dwingeloo, the Netherlands, hosted by NWO-I/ASTRON (Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy; the original designer of LOFAR).
Telescope quartet reveals surprising statistics of cosmic flashes
Scientists led by Chalmers astronomer Franz Kirsten have studied a famous source of repeating fast radio bursts – a still unexplained cosmic phenomenon. Comparing with earlier measurements, the scientists draw a conclusion with far-reaching consequences: any source of fast radio bursts will repeat, if watched long enough and carefully enough. The research team, a unique collaboration between professional and amateur radio astronomers, used four telescopes in northern Europe, amongst which ASTRON’s Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope.
Dutch astronomers prove last piece of gas feedback-feeding loop of black hole
Three astronomers from the Netherlands have proven that gas that was previously heated near a supermassive black hole and flowed to the outskirts of the galaxy and cooled down, is moving back towards the black hole. While there had been indirect evidence for this theory, this is the first time that the cooled gas moving toward the black hole has actually been observed.
Wolfsbos visits ASTRON
© Frank Nuijens
On March 26th and 27th, no less than 120 high school students (around 60 each day) visited ASTRON to learn more about the technology behind everything that ASTRON does. The visitors were first-year high school students mavo-havo from Wolfsbos in Hoogeveen.Johan Pragt gave them a wonderful introduction talk in the auditorium, after which the classes were split up into four groups and brought to several different locations with activities by tour guides Lonneke Kerkhoff, Sandra Mellema, Roelie Kremers, Miranda Vos, Amelie Finan, Gerda Sikken, and Steyn Hulshof.
The students got to see the EMC lab, where Albert van Duin explained about radio interference, learned about gravity with the black hole experiment, run by Sanne Bloot, Reinier van der Walle, and Mischa Brendel, got a tour of the radio telescope by Tammo Jan Dijkema, and learned how to build a planetarium by Scott Polotto and Sjouke Kuindersma, or how to solder by Mark Olijve, Paula Fusiara, and Henri Meulman. Their day ended with a mini quiz, in which the winner went home with a Lego radio telescope.
It were two loud and busy days and we are very grateful to all those colleagues who helped out and – hopefully – made some students excited about mechanics, electronics, and engineering and all that ASTRON does.
Toegepaste RF-techniek
Mon 13 May 2024 - Thu 16 May 2024
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.