Newsletter Issue 10/2020

Stay healthy and safe!

Coronavirus COVID-19

The RadioNet infrastructures are operating. Most of the events are postponed - see our calendar.

Three terahertz arrays for GUSTO mission

GUSTO is a balloon telescope that will simultaneously map three types of material in the gas and dust between stars. SRON and TU Delft develop all three detector arrays for this NASA mission based on the detector technology developed from EU RadioNet programs. The final two flight arrays have recently passed their pre-shipment review and are shipped to the University of Arizona for integration into the balloon observatory. Together with the earlier shipped array for 4.7 THz, the 1.4 and 1.9 THz arrays complete GUSTO's flight detector.

Future trends in Radio Astronomy instrumentation

The RadioNet Technical Dissemination Workshop took place on 21-22 September 2020 as virtual event. The workshop was organized by the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn/DE.

This meeting was the last in a series of technical workshops under the umbrella of RadioNet combining several aspects of engineering and operational issues at radio observatories all over Europe and beyond. It provided the unique opportunity to cross border the different communities to see what ‘the others’ are doing and planning and to enhance communication between engineers, scientists and operators.

The workshop was held as virtual meeting and attracted 234 participants from 29 countries – exceeding the usual participation of a factor of 6. The audience was enlarged for the first time by participants from Argentina, Columbia, Brazil, Ghana, Kenya and Ecuador, this time 31% of the participants were female. All presentations are available as PDF files and in a movie at the event page.

Image © RadioNet

Workshop "Exploiting Archives for Radio Astronomy in the SKA era"

The Institute of Astronomy and Space Sciences in collaboration with the University of Manchester and the RadioNet consortium is glad to announce that the online workshop “Exploiting Archives for Radio Astronomy in the SKA era” will take place on 23-25 November 2020 as virtual meeting. The main goal of this workshop is to give an overview of the capabilities, development, and user support for archival research in the main worldwide radio facilities.

The registration is open until 15 November 2020.

RADIOSYMPAN1,2->3

Motivated by the upcoming Hellenic Radio telescope THERMOpYlae, and driven by the need to familiarize pupils with Radio Astronomy and related technology, the scientific team of the instrument organizes the free educational activity RADIOSYMPAN1,2->3. The Hellenic Ministry of Education approved the activity, which because of the pandemic outbreak of Covid-19 will be held online. More information can be found here.

© Gizani, N. & Veldes, G. on behalf of the Scientific Team

The sharpest view of the radio Universe VLBI

The next European VLBI Network e-seminar on Pin-pointing the positions of repeating Fast Radio Bursts was held on 19 October 2020. It was one of 7 talks the EVN presents in a series of virtual seminars focused on how very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations can significantly contribute to different astronomical fields. These seminars are oriented to the broad astronomical community and provide an engaging introduction to cutting-edge.

The videos will be recorded and published at the JIVE/EVN YouTube channel and could be watched at any time.

e-MERLIN: Call for Cycle 11 open

e-MERLIN requests proposals from the international astronomical community for observations to be made during Cycle-11. Proposals are competitively peer-reviewed under standard STFC rules by the e-MERLIN PATT Time Allocation Committee. All awards will be made on the basis of scientific merit and technical feasibility alone. Full proposal call text here.

Submission deadline: 5 November 2020.

SKA Update

• Australia has ratified the Convention Establishing the SKA Observatory, with the UK expected to ratify in the coming days. You can read more about this process here.

• SKAO has completed its analysis of the potential impact of satellite mega-constellations on the SKA and released its conclusions.

POLICY NEWS

Proposals for Five possible EU missions

High-level independent experts presented their proposals for possible EU missions on societal challenges to the EC at the European R&I Days. The proposed missions aim to find solutions by 2030: for fighting cancer, resilient climate, restoring ocean and waters, achieving 100 climate-neutral cities, and ensuring 75% of soils are healthy. The details on the five mission proposals can be found here.

Communication on a new European Research Area for Research and Innovation

ERA-LEARN, which supports research funding organisations, policy makers and researchers with general information and services on research and innovation partnership initiatives, published an article that summarizes the Communication on a new European Research Area for Research and Innovation, adopted by the European Commission on 30 September 2020, with a view to European Partnerships. The four key strategic objectives are: (1) prioritizing investments in R&I to successfully accomplish the green and digital transformation, (2) improving access to excellence, (3) translating R&I results into the economy and (4) deepening policies that promote the free circulation of knowledge. Read more here.

Manifesto for EU COVID-19 Research launched

The European Commission has launched a manifesto to maximise the accessibility of research results in the fight against COVID-19. The manifesto provides guiding principles for beneficiaries of EU research grants for coronavirus prevention, testing, treatment and vaccination to ensure that their research results will be accessible for all and guarantee a return on public investment. Find the manifesto here.

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

Virtual Access to ALTA

The Westerbork Apertif Long Term Archive (ALTA) is a brand new facility offering 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.

JOB OPPORTUNITIES

ESO - Facilities Technical Assistant and more

SKA - Technical Writer and Electrical Engineer

Check also EURAXESS

UPCOMING EVENTS

supported by RadioNet

• CASA-VLBI workshop – Dwingeloo/NL and/or virtual - 2 November 2020

• ADASS2020 – virtual - 8 November 2020

• Exploiting Archives for Radio Astronomy in the SKA era - virtual - 23 November 2020

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