Newsletter Issue 9/2019

RadioNet Board meeting

The RadioNet Board meeting was taking place on Sept 16, 2019 in the Harnack House in Berlin. A group of very dedicated and experienced scientists/radio astronomers meeting in an amicable atmosphere, reporting on the last year's achievements and developing ideas for the future of Radio Astronomy. First time with the RadioNet Board, by videoconference was Mina Koleva, the new RadioNet project officer. Read more.

© RadioNet

A Centenary Of Astrophysical Jets: Observations, Theory, And Future Prospects

The conference supported by RadioNet was held in the SKA headquarters at Jodrell Bank Observatory, from 23-26 July 2019 and it brought together a total of 122 participants (multi-wavelength observers and theorists) to review the progress made over the past century. The event revealed present understanding of jets on all scales, provided the ‘jets astronomy community’ with an opportunity to review key questions in jet studies, and to discuss the prospects for future research on jets at a time when major new facilities, such as SKA and JWST. More

Image © J. Diamond (SKAO)

YERAC 2019

The Young European Radio Astronomers Conference (YERAC) has been held nearly annually in different radio astronomical centres in Europe since 1968. Since 2014 the European Commission is supporting the YERAC organisation through the RadioNet project.

This year YERAC was hosted by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, held at Trinity College Dublin and funded by RadioNet. 29 early-career radio astronomers had the chance to showcase their most recent results over the course of 3 days (25-27 August, 2019) and develop their own research networks. Participants were also granted the chance to visit the Irish LOFAR site at Birr Castle, which forms an important component of the RadioNet-affiliated International LOFAR Telescope.

Image © YERAC LOC

The black hole picture worth 3M$

On September 5, 2019 - one of the four Breakthrough prizes – in fundamental Physics - was awarded to the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration. The EHT revealed on April 10, 2019 - the first ever image of the black hole, which shows the 6 billion solar masses black hole at the centre of the galaxy Messier 87 located around 55 million light years from Earth.

“An effort of over twenty years of preparation has born fruit in the first image of a black hole, a result of a large collaboration with many astronomers giving their best. We are delighted that our collective effort will be awarded the prestigious Breakthrough Prize. It is a wonderful recognition of patient and thorough work of a great team”, says Prof. Anton Zensus, Chair of the EHT Collaboration Board, Director at the MPIfR and the coordinator of the RadioNet project. Read more.

Image © EHT

Towards the SKA Observatory

On 19 August 2019 – the Netherlands has become the first country to ratify the SKA Observatory Convention, which establishes the SKA as an intergovernmental organisation tasked with building and operating the world’s largest radio telescope.

Similar ratification processes are currently under way through national parliaments of the other six countries that signed the Convention in Rome on 12 March 2019: Australia, China, Italy, Portugal, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. The Convention will enter into force when five signatories, including the three hosts (Australia, South Africa and the UK), have ratified the text and submitted their instruments of ratification to the depository. Read more.

POLICY NEWS

Rise your voice for Horizon Europe

The Commission would like to hear your views on laws and policies currently in development.

How can the EU best support impactful, inclusive research and innovation partnerships with industry, Member States and other stakeholders? Now you can share your views on the 12 proposed institutionalised partnerships under Horizon Europe, the next EU research and innovation programme (2021-2027). The consultation is a key step in assessing the overall need for and focus of specific research and innovation partnerships. Click on an initiative to find out more, view feedback, or give your own feedback, e.g.

• BREXIT – Implementation of the general EU budget in 2020

European Commission 2019-2024: hearings

On September 10, 2019, President-elect Ursula von der Leyen presented her team and the new structure of the next European Commission. As a next step, the European Parliament has to give its consent to the entire College of Commissioners, including the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the EC. This is preceded by hearings of the Commissioners-designate in the relevant Parliamentary committees, in line with Parliament's Rules of Procedure.

• Mariya Gabriel (Bulgaria) is a current European Commissioner. She worked on the digital portfolio, and is now moving on to create new perspectives for the young generation - ‘Innovation and Youth' portfolio. Her hearing is scheduled on September 30, 2019 at 6.30-9.30pm and can be followed online.

17th European Gender Summit

The two-day Gender Summit is organised on various continents each year. Aim of the Gender Summit is to make gender equality in research and innovation the norm and to embed gender as a primary dimension of quality. The outcome results in recommendations for the European Commission and Parliament.

GS17 EU will be held in the Netherlands 3–4 October 2019 at Leonardo Royal Hotel Amsterdam. Click here to register.

ACCESS OPPORTUNITIES

RadioNet's Transnational Access programme ensures free of charge access to the best European radio astronomical research infrastructures. This opportunity is open to all European researchers and to some extent to researchers from non-EU countries. More

European VLBI Network (EVN) Call for Proposals is open

The EVN is a Very Long Baseline Interferometry network of radio telescopes operated by an international consortium of institutes. It is located primarily in Europe and Asia, with additional antennas in South Africa and Puerto Rico. The EVN facility is open to all astronomers, astronomers with limited or no VLBI experience are particularly encouraged to apply for observing time. Student proposals are judged favourably. The call is available here (pdf file).

RadioNet supports the EVN for eligible projects by its Transnational Access programme.

Submission deadline: October 1, 2019, 23:59:59 UTC

Effelsberg Call for Proposals

The 100-m radio telescope of the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie and the data reduction facilities are available to all qualified scientists. The present policy allows the allocation of up to 40% of available observing time to external astronomers. The directors of the institute make observing time available to applicants based on the recommendations of the Program Committee for Effelsberg (PKE), which judges the scientific merit (and technical feasibility) of the observing proposals.

Submission deadline: October 2, 2019 15:00 UT

JOB OPPORTUNITIES

- INAF - Postdoc position

- SKA - Lead Software Architect, Digital Signal processing Engineer, DevOps Engineer

- UMAN - two research support scientists

Check also EURAXESS

UPCOMING EVENTS

supported by RadioNet

• ADASS 2019 on October 6, 2019 - Groningen/NL

• ERIS2019 on October 7, 2019 - Gothenburg/SE

• EPTA on October 7, 2019 - Marcoux/FR

• SKA VLBI KEY Science Projects and Operations Workshop on October 14, 2019 - Jodrell Bank/UK

• ALMA2019 on October 14, 2019 - Cagliari/IT

• LOFAR Solar Space Weather KSP Busy Week on October 21, 2019 - Dwingeloo/NL

Links to these and to other related events are in our Calendar.

EDITORS:

RadioNet Management
Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie
Auf dem Hügel 69 // DE 53121 Bonn

Subscription (Unsubscription) send e-mail: RadioNet@mpifr.de

RadioNet has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 730562, and contribution from the partner organisations