The shadow of the black hole in Messier 87 has been imaged with global radio array telescopes over the last years. Joint campaigns have been coordinated annually ever since. An international team of researchers has just released the results of a large campaign on M87 of Event Horizon Telescope and Global mm-VLBI Array observations in [...]
The International Conference on Research Infrastructures (ICRI) 2024, hosted in Brisbane/AU from 3-5 December 2024, brought together policymakers, research institution leaders, and facility operators from around the globe to discuss the pressing challenges and future of research infrastructures. This biennial event provided a unique platform for collaboration, exploration, and innovation across various scientific disciplines. Among [...]
The SKAO has signed a memorandum of understanding with the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) with the goal of establishing an SKAO Africa Programme in the next 12 months. Read more here.
The most sensitive map of the gravitational wave sky to date was produced by an international collaboration of researchers. To achieve this goal, the scientists analysed 4.5 years of pulsar data taken with the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa, one of the most powerful radio telescopes in the world. The MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array [...]
The Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy hosted the 16th European VLBI Network Symposium and Users Meeting in Bonn, Germany, from 2 to 6 September. More than 160 participants from 22 countries on five continents attended the meeting. Due to a significant mismatch between the number of participants expressing interest in oral presentations and the [...]
During a dedicated 90-minute session on the first day of the European VLBI Network Symposium in Bonn from 2 to 6 September, JIVE celebrated its 30th anniversary, surrounded by its community. Key individuals who have shaped JIVE into what it is today reflected on its milestones and future directions. A video featuring last year’s users [...]
The main reflector for the antenna system of the 40-meter-aperture radio telescope was hoisted and installed on 7 October 2024 in Shigatse, Southwest China's Xizang autonomous region. The construction of the telescope is expected to be completed by the end of 2024, with very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) observation capabilities in early 2025. Read more. Image: © [...]
Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), astronomers have discovered an exoplanet orbiting Barnard’s star, the closest single star to our Sun. On this newly discovered exoplanet, which has at least half the mass of Venus, a year lasts just over three Earth days. The team’s observations also hint at the existence [...]
For the first time, astronomers have captured images of a star other than the Sun in enough detail to track the motion of bubbling gas on its surface. The images of the star, R Doradus, were obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in July and August 2023. They show giant, hot bubbles of [...]
First fringes refers to the successful correlation of data from separate antennas stations – in this case two stations – signifying that SKA-Low has begun to work as an interferometer. Both of the SKA Observatory’s telescopes – SKA-Low in Western Australia and its counterpart SKA-Mid in South Africa’s Northern Cape – are radio interferometers. They [...]