LOFAR: Aurorae discovered on distant stars suggest hidden planets

Using the world’s most powerful radio telescope, LOFAR, scientists have discovered stars unexpectedly blasting out radio waves, possibly indicating the existence of hidden planets.

Read here the full LOFAR article from October 11, 2021 on the ASTRON website.

Image: ©Danielle Futselaar (artsource.nl)

e-MERLIN community consultation questionnaire

 The UK’s National Radio Astronomy Facility, e-MERLIN/VLBI, operated from Jodrell Bank Observatory on behalf of STFC, is a unique and world-leading radio astronomy facility for high resolution (0.01-0.1arcsec) imaging at centimetre wavelengths, and is a designated SKA pathfinder instrument. The e-MERLIN/VLBI also provides the UK’s contributions to the European VLBI Network (EVN). Now fully integrated e-MERLIN and the EVN operate seamlessly together providing radio imaging across a large range of key spatial scales (10 to 10,000km baselines) from arcsec to sub-mas at radio wavelengths. A summary of recent scientific highlights and the future directions of the EVN (+ e-MERLIN) can be found in for example here.

UK’s National Radio Astronomy Facility, e-MERLIN/VLBI wishes to solicit the views of the e-MERLIN/VLBI scientific community regarding future priorities. You are invited to provide your feedback in a very brief questionnaire (~5-10 min).

SKAO News

• SKAO signed agreements with the governments of Australia and South Africa to host its telescopes and associated infrastructures, formalising arrangements for the construction and operation of the SKA telescopes.

• SKAO also signed an agreement with Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology, giving the university responsibility for representing Sweden in the project.

• SKAO’s second science data challenge concluded, seeing record participation by the scientific community.

2nd edition of the IAU Women in Astronomy (WiA) newsletter

The second edition of the IAU WiA newsletter gives a brief update on the activities carried out last month and the encouraging feedback from the participants. Among others:

• 1st virtual Training Program series on Essential Skills for Astronomy Research, Nov 8-12th, 2021. Registration open by October 31, 2021.

• Nomination of a National Representative for your country to work with the IAU-WiA WG to create stronger links.

• Short survey on Women’s Career in Astronomy to address the  national issues.

Find the new IAU WIA issue here.

Image: ©IAU

Hypatia Colloquium: Early Career Astronomer series at ESO

Following the successful first edition in 2021, ESO is continuing  the "Hypatia Colloquium" series 2022.

PhD students and early postdocs (max 3 years from the PhD) working in any field of theoretical and observational astronomy and astrophysics are invited to apply to be nominated as speaker of the Hypatia Colloquium, by submitting an abstract using the dedicated form.

The format of this series foresees a 20 min long talk followed by questions and discussion. The seminars will be entirely hosted on-line and will be streamed live on the dedicated YouTube channel. The videos will remain on-line on the same platform. Find more information here.

Deadline for speakers applications: November 19, 2021, 1pm CET

East Asian VLBI Network (EAVN)

The Call for Proposals for the East Asian VLBI Network (EAVN) for the 2022A semester is open.

Submission deadline: November 1, 2021, 8:00 UT

Image: Map: Location of EAVN sites, including the Korea-Japan Correlation Center at KASI (Korea) and Mizusawa VLBI observatory (NAOJ, Japan), overlaid on ‘the Blue Marble’ image (credit of the ground image: NASA’s Earth Observatory). Sejong 22-m telescope newly participates in the EAVN open use from the 2022A semester.

European ALMA Regional Centre

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. Users that want to visit an ARC node for a face-to-face visit can apply for funding through the ORP (Opticon RadioNet Pilot). 

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. The access/funding offered through the ORP (Opticon RadioNet Pilot) project.