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European Radio Astronomy ConsortiumNewsletter Issue 08/2025
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An international team of astronomers lead by Prof. Yuri Kovalev of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy has captured the sharpest image yet of the blazar PKS 1424+240, revealing a jet pointed almost directly at Earth. The study, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters, shows the jet shaped like a glowing “Eye of Sauron,” its plasma stream threaded by a toroidal magnetic field. Though its radio jet appears slow, PKS 1424+240 is among the brightest gamma-ray and neutrino sources. Fifteen years of VLBA data show that its head-on alignment boosts its brightness more than 30-fold — a striking example of relativistic beaming. The discovery links blazar jets, high-energy neutrinos, and magnetic fields in particle acceleration — a key goal of multi-messenger astronomy. The work builds on the MOJAVE program and forms part of the EU-funded MuSES project. Read more here. Image: The “Eye of Sauron” — a striking image of the plasma jet in the blazar PKS 1424+240, seen head-on. The jet is threaded by a nearly perfect toroidal magnetic field (visualized in orange). Due to special relativity, high-energy gamma rays and neutrinos are strongly beamed toward Earth, even though the jet appears slow-moving from our perspective. © Y.Y. Kovalev et al. |
An international team led by Dr. Efthalia Traianou (Heidelberg University) has captured the most detailed image yet of galaxy OJ 287, five billion light years away. The observation shows a sharply curved, ribbon-like plasma jet — the first of its kind seen in this galaxy. OJ 287’s unusual brightness variations have long suggested two supermassive black holes at its core. The new data, combining space- and ground-based radio telescopes, strengthen this theory and reveal extreme conditions in the jet, with temperatures above ten trillion degrees. The study, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, offers key insights into black hole mergers, jet physics, and gravitational wave signals. Read more here. Image: A new image of galaxy OJ 287 reveals for the first time the sharply curved, ribbon-like structure of the plasma jet emitted from its center. © Dr Efthalia Traianou, Heidelberg University, IWR |
Astronomers using ALMA have discovered a vast bubble of gas and dust surrounding the red supergiant star DFK 52 — the largest structure of its kind ever seen in the Milky Way. Containing as much mass as the Sun and stretching 1.4 light years across, the bubble was created by a dramatic stellar eruption about 4000 years ago. The study, led by Mark Siebert of Chalmers University of Technology, shows how unusual such an event is: why the star survived without exploding as a supernova remains a mystery. Researchers suggest a hidden companion may have played a role. The findings, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, provide new clues to the late lives of massive stars and raise the question of whether DFK 52 could be the galaxy’s next supernova. Read the full press release here Image: The vast bubble around red supergiant star DFK 52, imaged by Alma. Red colours indicate gas moving away from us, blue denotes gas moving toward us. Credit: ALMA(ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/M. Siebert et al. |
Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) may have caught a planet in the act of forming around the young star HD 135344B, about 440 light-years away. The planet candidate, estimated at twice Jupiter’s size, appears to be shaping striking spiral arms in the star’s protoplanetary disc – the first direct detection of its kind. The findings, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, provide rare insight into how planets emerge and influence their environments. Read the full ESO press release Image: A planet candidate around the star HD 135344B Credit: ESO/F. Maio et al./T. Stolker et al./ ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/N. van der Marel et al |
An international team of astronomers has traced one of the brightest one-off fast radio bursts (FRBs) ever observed - FRB 20250316A - to a galaxy 130 million light-years away. Using the Canadian CHIME radio telescope, the team localized the burst to a region just 45 light-years wide, the most precise localization of such a powerful non-repeating FRB to date. The study, led by Amanda Cook (McGill University) and with major contributions from Nina Gusinskaia and Omar Ould-Boukattine (ASTRON), shows that the burst does not repeat, challenging prevailing models of FRBs. Complementary James Webb Space Telescope data revealed a faint infrared counterpart at the same location, offering new clues to these mysterious cosmic flashes. The results are published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters in two companion papers (DOI and DOI). Read the full press release. Image: Two filtered JWST images, along with a zoom-in on the location of FRB 20250316A and its possible counterpart. Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/CfA/P. Blanchard et al.; Image processing: CfA/P. Edmond |
Astronomers have, for the first time, followed the 130-year transformation of the “spirograph” nebula IC 418, showing its central star heating up 3,000°C - far faster than expected. The study, led by Prof. Albert Zijlstra (University of Manchester), challenges stellar evolution models and reveals new insights into how stars end their lives. The result were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Read the full press release. Image: The f658 image was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope on 14 September 1999 by R. Sahai, and is available from the HST Legacy Archive. The images shows light from the nebula emitted by nitrogen atoms, and clearly depicts the spirograph-like appearance of the nebula. The star visible at its centre, which ejected the nebulae, is now found to be rapidly heating up as it nears the end of its life. Our Sun will reach this phase of its evolution 5 billion years from now. Credits: Left NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), Right Albert Zijlstra (The University of Manchester). |
The 21 CentiMeter Array (21CMA), located in China’s Tianshan Mountains, has been officially recognised as an SKA pathfinder telescope by the SKA Observatory. Originally built in 2004–2006 and recently upgraded, 21CMA operates at 50–200 MHz, overlapping with the frequency range of SKA-Low. The array has collected over 3,000 terabytes of data and developed new digital beamforming technology, already detecting known pulsars. With its new status, 21CMA will continue to advance low-frequency radio astronomy and contribute to preparations for SKA science, including studies of the Epoch of Reionization. Read the full press release here. Image The 21 CentiMeter Array consists of 81 pods with 127 log-period antennas. Credit: 21CMA project |
The Max Planck Society has launched its Transatlantic Program to deepen collaboration with leading U.S. research institutions and strengthen opportunities for junior and senior scientists. Key elements of the program include:
• Opportunities for PhD candidates and postdocs
• New leadership-track positions
• Open call for directors
• Max Planck Advanced Investigator positions
• Up to six new International Max Planck Centers
This initiative underscores the Society’s commitment to scientific excellence, talent mobility, and global cooperation. Learn more here. Image: © Max-Planck-Gesellschaft; Image sources: [AI] lolipop, 3Nitro / Adobe Stock |
POLICY NEWSThe European Commission is requesting feedback on the planned legislative act for the European Research Area (ERA). The aim of the initiative is to reduce fragmentation and barriers to cross-border cooperation in research and innovation within the ERA, and to better harmonize investments. The feedback deadline for this first step in the consultation process is 10 September 2025. A subsequent 12-week public consultation is planned for the fourth quarter of 2025. Find more here. The European Commission has released the European Innovation Scoreboard 2025. While EU innovation performance has grown by 12.6% since 2018, it slightly declined compared to 2024. Sweden tops the ranking, while China has now overtaken both the EU and the US. New indicators highlight deep tech as crucial for Europe’s competitiveness and resilience. Read more here. On 1 August, the EC launched a public consultation on the planned Circular Economy Act. The objective is to accelerate the transition to a more circular economy and to strengthen the EU’s economic resilience and competitiveness. Among other things, the Act aims to establish a single market for secondary raw materials and stimulate demand for high-quality recycled materials. The consultation is open to all interested stakeholders, particularly including research and academic institutions. Feedback can be submitted until 6 November 2025. Read more here. |
The call for NOEMA and 30-meter proposals for the winter semester 2025 (01 December 2025 to 31 May 2026) is available online. The proposal deadline is 11 September 2025. |
The Call for proposals for 100-m radio telescope of the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie is now open and the submission deadline 29 SEPTEMBER 2025 (UT 15:00) Detailed information can be found here |
The European ALMA Regional Centre (ARC) provides the interface between the ALMA project and the European science community. The ARC is staffed by scientists with expertise in radio astronomy and interferometry and it supports its users throughout the lifetime of a project, from proposal preparation to data analysis. |
ALTA offers to the world-wide astronomical community free virtual access to data and scientific products produced from all sky surveys of the Northern sky that will be conducted with the new Apertif frontend of the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT), as well as tools to query, further exploit and perform data mining of these products adaptable to diverse research goals. . |
LTA is a long-established archive and access facility supporting the international LOFAR telescope. It is currently the largest radio astronomical archive in the world already exceeding 45 PB from LOFAR’s past 10 years of operations. The LTA provides a central and key resource for all observed LOFAR astronomical science programs where the data become public within 12 months of first creation. |
• Unlocking ALMA's Potential with Focal Plane Arrays – 02-04.09.2025 – Bonn/DE
• ACME 1st MAGIC Open Data-Analysis School - 8 - 9 September 2025 - online
• IAU Symposium 402: Massive Stars Across Redshifts in the Era of JWST and
Large-Scale Surveys – 15.19.09.2025 – Ensanada/MX
• European Research & Innovation Days 2025 – 16-17.09.2025 – Brussels/BE
• JIVE VLBI School – 15-19.09.2025 - Dwingeloo/NL
• IAU Symposium 402: Massive Stars Across Redshifts in the Era of JWST and Large-Scale Surveys - September 15, 2025 - Ensandad/MX
• Joint VLBI School (JVS) 2025 on September 15, 2025 - Dwingeloo/Nl and Pretoria/SA
• LOFAR Family Meeting 2025 on September 22, 2025 - Paris/FR
• SFXC VLBI Software Correlator Workshop on September 22, 2025 - Dwingeloo/NL
• 16th Gaia Science Alerts and ACME Time-Domain Workshop - September 29, 2025 - La Laguna/ES
• ACME training Workshop on Swift and XMM-Newton data analysis - October 7-10, 2025, Milan/IT
• 10th International VLBI Technology Workshop (IVTW2025) - October 21, 2025 - Gothenburg/SE
• Towards high-performance mm-VLBI science operations with multi-band receivers - October 28, 2025 - Bologna/IT
• 16th East Asian VLBI Workshop (EAVW2025) - November 7-20, 2025 - Pyeongchang/Korea
• Highly Accreting Supermassive Black Holes Across all Cosmic Times: from the Local Universe to Cosmic Dawn - December 1, 2025 - Santiago/CL
See also the Calendar
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RadioNet - European Radio Astronomy Consortium
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