European Radio Astronomy Consortium

Newsletter Issue 9/2022

ALMA: Astronomers detect hot gas bubble swirling around the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have spotted signs of a ‘hot spot’ orbiting Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the centre of our galaxy. The finding helps us better understand the enigmatic and dynamic environment of our supermassive black hole.

Read the ESO article here.

Image: © EHT Collaboration, ESO/M. Kornmesser (Acknowledgment: M. Wielgus) This shows a still image of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*, as seen by the Event Horizon Collaboration (EHT), with an artist’s illustration indicating where the modelling of the ALMA data predicts the hot spot to be and its orbit around the black hole.

James Webb Space Telescope: Image Captures Clearest View of Neptune’s Rings in Decades

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope published its first image of Neptune. Webb captured the clearest view of this peculiar planet’s rings in more than 30 years and its cameras are also revealing the ice giant in a whole new light.

Most striking about Webb’s new image is the crisp view of the planet’s dynamic rings — some of which haven’t been seen at all, let alone with this clarity, since the Voyager 2 flyby in 1989. In addition to several bright narrow rings, the Webb images clearly show Neptune’s fainter dust bands. Webb’s extremely stable and precise image quality also permits these very faint rings to be detected so close to Neptune.

Read here the ESA article from September 21, 2022.

Image: © NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI; Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) image of Neptune, taken on 12 July 2022, brings the planet’s rings into full focus for the first time in more than three decades. The most prominent features of Neptune’s atmosphere in this image are a series of bright patches in the planet’s southern hemisphere that represent high-altitude methane-ice clouds.

ERIS 2022

The ERIS 2022 took place on 19-23 September 2022 in Dwingeloo/NL, hosted by JIVE and ASTRON. Over 70 students participated and had a week of lectures and tutorials on how to achieve scientific results from radio interferometry.

The ERIS 2022 school - sponsored by the H2020 Opticon RadioNet Pilot (ORP) Project

Read here the JIV-ERIC news article.

POLICY NEWS

Commission announces top experts to advise on EU Missions

On September 6, 2022, the Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth Mariya Gabriel announced the names of the experts who have been selected to be the new Chairs and members of the Mission Boards of the five EU Missions. Their mandate will run from 2022 to 2025. A first Mission Boards introduction will take place at the European Research and Innovation Days on 28 to 29 September 2022. Read the press release of the EC here.

DESCA Model Consortium Agreement

DESCA, the most widespread model Consortium Agreement in Horizon 2020, has now been updated for use in Horizon Europe projects. The revised model takes into account requirements stemming from the new rules and experience of the user community in working with DESCA 2020, as well as other legal developments. You find an overview of all modifications and amendments here.

Innovation Scoreboard published

The Commission has published on the 2022 edition of the European Innovation Scoreboard. The EU's innovation performance has grown by about 10% since 2015; compared to 2021, innovation performance in 2022 has improved for 19 Member States, and declined for eight.

Webinar on Lump Sum Funding in Horizon Europe

Join the EC webinar on October 20, 2022 to learn how Lump Sum Funding in Horizon Europe works and to learn how to write a proposal. More details here.

ERC Consolidator Grant Call 2023 is now open for applications. It is aimed at excellent researchers who are in the consolidation phase of their research career.
Deadline for applications: February 02, 2023.

ACCESS OPPORTUNITIES

e-MERLIN cycle 15: Call is open now

The e-Merlin call for proposals for Cycle 15 is now open. Details specific to Cycle 15 are available here. Use the e-MERLIN proposal tool to submit your proposal.

Access/funding is offered through the ORP (Opticon RadioNet Pilot) project.

Submission deadline: November 3, 2022, 13:59:59 UT

European VLBI Network: Call for Proposals open

The call for proposals for the European VLBI Network (EVN) is open. EVN access and travel support is possible through the OPTICON RadioNet Pilot project (ORP). All regular proposals should be submitted through the Northstar submission tool.

Submission deadline: October 1, 2022 16:00 UTC

LMT Call for Proposals open for the semester 2023-S1

Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) Call for Proposals for the semester 2023-S1 is open. The schedule for the next observing season (2023-S1) is January 2 – June 30, 2023.

Submission deadline: October 22, 2022, 05:00 UTC

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 project.

The Westerbork Apertif Long Term Archive (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. The access/funding offered through the ORP project.

LOFAR Long Term Archive (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. The access/funding is offered through the ORP project.

JOB OPPORTUNITIES

• SARAO – Commercialisation Specialis – position – deadline 04.10.2022; SKA Mid–Senior Electrical Engineer – position – deadline 18.10.2022

• Radboud University - Postdoctoral Excellence Fellowship – position – deadline 10.10.2022

• ESO – Optics Engineer – position – deadline 08.10.2022; Fellowship Programmes Europe and Chile 2022/2023 – position – deadline 15.10.2022; ALMA Postdoctoral Fellow – position – deadline 31.10.2022; Internships: Science Journalism – position – deadline 31.12.2022

• York University – Full Time Professorial Stream - Assistant Professor – position – 21.11.2022

• TU Berlin – Research Assistant/ Astronomy and Astrophysics – position

• MPIfR – Postdoctoral Positions in Radio Astronomy at ERC project M2FINDERS – position

• University of Chicago – Associate Professor in Astronomy and Astrophysics – position, Assistant Professor in Astronomy and Astrophysics – position

Check also EURAXESS

EVENTS

• Village de l'astronomie – October 1-2, 2022 – Le Dévoluy/FR

• 2022 NEON Observing School – October 2-15, 2022 – Observatoire de Haute-Provence/FR

• ALMA Archive School 2022 – October 5-7, 2022 – Bologna/IT

• Science Europe Open Science Conference 2022 – October 18-19, 2022 - virtual

• Next Generation Space VLBI (ngSVLBI) workshop – October 17-19, 2022 – Dwingeloo/NL

• ICRI2022 – October 19-21, 2022 – Brno, CZ

• ESCAPE to the future – October 25-26, 2022 – Brussels/BE

• Galaxy evolution with the ESA Euclid mission and ESO telescopes – October 25-28, 2022 – Madrid/ES

• ADASS XXXII – October 31-November 4, 2022 – Victoria/CA

• Radio2022 Symposium and GLOW Annual Assembly – November 2-4, 2022 – Berlin/DE

• 11th IRAM Interferometry School – November 21-25, 2022 – Grenoble/FR

• IAU-Challenges and Innovations in Computational Astrophysics IV – November 21-23, 2022 – virtual

• IAU Symposium (IAUS) 380 Cosmic Masers: Proper Motion toward the Next-Generation Large Projects – March 20-24, 2023 – Kagoshima City/JP (hybrid)

• New Eyes on the Universe: SKA & ngVLA – April 30-May 5, 2023 – Vancouver/CA

• Bologna-VLBI: Life begins at 40! New frontiers and scientific challenges with enhanced frequency/time/space – May 22-26, 2023 – Bologna/IT

• EAS 2023 – July 10-14, 2023 – Krakow/PL

• IAU Symposium 365: Dynamics of Solar and Stellar Convection Zones and Atmospheres – August 21-25, 2023 – Moscow/RU

• ALMA at 10 years: Past, Present, and Future – December 4-8, 2023 – Puerto Varas/CL