Astronomers witness the birth of a very distant cluster of galaxies from the early Universe

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), of which ESO is a partner, astronomers have discovered a large reservoir of hot gas in the still-forming galaxy cluster around the Spiderweb galaxy — the most distant detection of such hot gas yet. Galaxy clusters are some of the largest objects known in the Universe and this result, published today in Nature, further reveals just how early these structures begin to form. This research was presented in the paper “Forming intracluster gas in a galaxy protocluster at a redshift of 2.16” to appear in Nature (doi). Read more.

Image: © ESO/H. Ford; This image shows the protocluster around the Spiderweb galaxy (formally known as MRC 1138-262). The light that we see in the image shows galaxies at a time when the Universe was only 3 billion years old. Most of the mass in the protocluster does not reside in the galaxies, but in the gas known as the intracluster medium. Because of the mass in the gas, the protocluster is in the process of becoming a massive cluster held together by its own gravity.

MPIfR director Anton Zensus receives Tycho Brahe Medal

The 2023 Tycho Brahe Medal is awarded to Prof J. Anton Zensus (Max-Planck- Institute for Radio Astronomy, Bonn, Germany) for major advances of Very Long Baseline Interferometry that led to the first images of the shadows of the black holes in the galaxy Messier 87 and in our own Galactic centre. Read more.

Image: © Silvia Steinbach; Prof. J. Anton Zensus, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) in Bonn, Germany, and Head of the Radio Astronomy / VLBI research department at MPIfR. 

SKA NEWS

Membership of the SKAO grows as observatory raises issue of satellite megaconstellations

In January, the Canadian government announced its intention to become a full member of the SKA Observatory. This was followed in March by German Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger‘s announcement of Germany’s intention to join the SKAO during a visit to the SKA site in South Africa. In April, the Spanish Council of Ministers approved the country’s accession to the observatory as a full member.

In policy developments, the SKAO and partners including ESO, the IAU, Chile, South Africa, Spain, and others recently put forward a proposal at the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) to create an expert group to advise the committee on the impact of satellite megaconstellations.

Image: © SARAO; German Federal Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (in cream suit) with leaders from the SKAO and SARAO at the SKA-Mid prototype dish in South Africa's Northern Cape province.

e-MERLIN cycle 16: Call is open now

The e-Merlin call for proposals for Cycle 16 is now open. Details specific to Cycle 16 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: 18 May 2023 (13:59:59 UT)

100-m Effelsberg radio telescope: Open call for proposals

The call for proposals of the 100-m radio telescope (Effelsberg/DE) of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy is open.

Access/funding is offered through the ORP project.

Submission deadline: 01 June 2023 (15:00 UT)

Image: © N. Tacken (MPIfR)

Open call for the EAVN

The call for Proposals for the East Asian VLBI Network (EAVN) for the 2023B semester is open.

Submission deadline: 1 June 2023 (8:00 UT)

Image: © KASI

ALMA Cycle 10 Call for Proposals

The ALMA Director, on behalf of the Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) and the partner organizations in East Asia, Europe, and North America, is pleased to announce the ALMA Cycle 10 Call for Proposals (CfP) for scientific observations to be scheduled from October 2023 to September 2024.

ALMA Cycle 10 proposal submission has opened on 12 April 2023, the proposal submission deadline is 15:00 UT on Wednesday, 10 May 2023. For more information see here the Cycle 10 Proposer’s Guide.

Submission deadline: 10 May 2023

MeerKAT Radio Telescope Call for Observing Proposals

The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) announces an opportunity to apply for observing time on the MeerKAT telescope.

Deadline: 03 May 2023, 12:00 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.