Welcome to the Department of Astrophysics, Radboud University, Nijmegen. On our dedicated website you will hopefully find all the information you need about the Department and its people.
The News page with the most recent news flashes will be in Dutch, but the most important information can be found in this English section of our website.
LOFAR on Nature.com: Radio array starts work
Giant low-frequency sensor system on track to probe the birth of the first stars.
Falcke and his colleagues defied the doubters by presenting their first results on 9 January at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas. “The message today is: the basic things all work. We can do this,” he said.
Mapping the low-frequency sky requires an expansive telescope as well as the ability to tune out noise. When completed later this year, the array will contain 2,700 slender dipole antennas tuned to 30–80 megahertz, and 43,000 antennas embedded in flat tiles a few metres square that are sensitive to 120–240 megahertz. The antennas will be concentrated in 40 stations across the Netherlands; 8 other stations in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Sweden give the array extra angular resolution for fine-scale imaging.
For the complete article, see http://www.nature.com/news/radio-array-starts-work-1.9762.
Frye Stipend for Silvia Toonen
Silvia Toonen received one of the Dr. I.B.M. Frye Stipends on Tuesday. The yearly Frye Stipends are awarded by the Radboud University Nijmegen to ten promising female PhD students from all faculties of the university. The award, which involves 3500 euros, can be used by the laureates for work-related travel and visits in order to increase the collaboration with other leading scientists in the field, and hence the level of their own research. Ms. Toonen (MSc) receives the stipend for her research on compact binary stars, and in particular those compact binaries that contain one or more white dwarfs, and are possible progenitors of type-Ia supernovae. She will use her stipend to visit the University of Warwick, which houses experts on the observation of compact binaries, and to visit the University Tübingen, where leading research on the theory of these binaries is conducted.
Nature: Red giants have rapidly spinning cores
An international team of astronomers led by PhD student Paul Beck from Leuven University in Belgium have managed to look deep inside some old stars and discovered that their cores spin at least ten times as fast as their surfaces. The result appeared today in the renowned journal nature. It is the fourth top publication in 2011 of Conny Aerts, professor of Asteroseismologie at the RU. Read more...
Nijmegen Astronomers observed close fly-by of large asteroid 2005 YU55
Only in 2028 will another asteroid of this size get as close to the Earth again as the 400 m diameter asteroid 2005 YU55 did on November 8th. A team of scientists from the department of Astronomy in Nijmegen and from the Astronomische Kring Nijmegen (AKN) were able to observe the fly-by with the 35 cm telescope of the department and succeeded in making a movie of this rare event. The asteroid passed the Earth at a distance of only 85% of the distance from the Earth to the Moon.
In the video you can see the asteroid coming from the top and moving to the bottom of the picture. This video has been composed from single images that have been taken between 2:07 and 2:27 at November 10 in Nijmegen.
The thumbnail image shows a Nasa/JPL-Caltech radar image of the asteroid.
Physics and Astronomy programme at the Radboud University comes out as best in the Netherlands
In an inquiry by Elsevier and ResearchNed the Physics and Astronomy programme of the Radboud University Nijmegen has managed to score significantly higher than the other dutch Universities.
Aspects of the studies examined were, amongst others, the facilities, the organization and communication, teachers and the educational aspects in general (for example the match with previous education, quality of studing material etc.). Scores for our study were highest on account of facilities (i.e. available seats, digital studying environment and availability of studying material) and teachers (availability, supervision, capabilities and motivation), a 7.6 and 7.7 respectively. In total, the study for Physics and Astronomy scored a 7.4, which was significantly higher than the scores of universities such as the University of Leiden or the University of Amsterdam.
ESO and Chile sign agreement on mountain for E-ELT
In Santiago on October 13, Chile and the European Southern Observatory ESO have signed an agreement on the future home of the E-ELT on the mountain Armazones in the northern part of Chile. At the same time a large area around Armazones will now be a protected area. Cerro Armazones lies next to Cerro Paranal where ESO is already operating the Very Large Telescope (VLT). “This is a big step towards the E-ELT becoming reality”, according to Tim de Zeeuw, the director-general of ESO. The Netherlands is playing an active role in the construction of the E-ELT, among others through the Micado instrument that will partially be built by NOVA and that Nijmegen astronomers hope to use to study the details of our Milky Way Galaxy.
Students from High School in Goch at RU Nijmegen
Students from the Gymnasium Gaesdonck in Goch have conducted an internship at the Department of Astrophysics in August 2011. The students have been selected as the best students in natural sciences. They spend one week at the department of astrophysics, doing research with the radio telescope and the optical telescope of the department.
Heino Falcke receives Spinoza award from State Secretary Zijlstra on September 9 in The Hague
Heino Falcke was awarded his NWO Spinoza prize officially last Friday September 9, by Halbe Zijlstra, State Secretary of Education, Culture and Science, in the Nieuwe Kerk in The Hague. Before this ceremony started, Heino Falcke and the other laureates gave a lecture on their topics and their plans for spending the 2.5 million euro.
Heino will use part of his Spinoza funding for innovative educational projects aimed at children throughout the world. For the younger children aged 4 to 10 years, he will work together with the Universe Awareness (UNAWE) project to create inspirational material that will use astronomy to open children's minds, introduce them to science and engineering, and stimulate them to adopt a multicultural viewpoint.
For older pupils (age 14 and higher) he will develop school projects, providing hands-on access to radio telescopes. This will highlight the excitement of radio astronomy and allow children to explore the universe with their own minds, letting them further develop their talents and skills in science and technology.
The outreach projects will be developed in close collaboration between the Radboud University, the NOVA Information Office, ASTRON in Dwingeloo, the Max-Planck-Insitut für Radioastronomie in Bonn (D), and UNAWE.
The research component of Falcke's project will focus on the experimental verification of the existence of an event horizon in black holes. Some fraction of the money will be used# to upgrade the CARMA telescope in California, in collaboration with the Radio Astronomy Lab at the University of Berkeley. CARMA is a radio interferometer working at frequencies around 100 GHz. Together with other high-frequency radio telescopes, such as ESO's new ALMA observatory, it can be combined to form a global virtual radio telescope. This technique, called mm-wave VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry), has in principle the sensitivity and resolution to detect the shadow of the black hole in the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way as predicted by Falcke. Such a finding would be of fundamental importance for astrophysics and prove one of the most extreme predictions of Einstein's theory of General Relativity. The experiment is very difficult and requires a good collaboration between different groups around the world. It therefore likely will take a couple of years before it could succeed.
Here's a short video recording of the award ceremony video Spinoza 09 09 2011.
Palomar Transient Factory finds new supernova Type Ia in the Pinwheel Galaxy
This week the Palomar Transient Factory has found a new supernova Type Ia in the nearby M101 (Pinwheel Galaxy) at a distance of only 20 million light years. The image shows the supernova brightening from invisibility to the brightest 'star' in the galaxy. The supernova is still getting brighter since it was caught very soon after the explosion. Supernovae Type Ia are exploding white dwarfs used to track the accelerated expansion of our Universe. The trigger for the explosion in a binary system containing the white dwarf is unclear and an active research area of Gijs Nelemans and his group in Nijmegen. Understanding supernova Type Ia triggers is one of the biggest questions in astrophysics today. Paul Groot is a member of the Palomar Transient Factory and is currently spending his sabbatical at Caltech, from where this survey is coordinated.
Collapse and fire in radio/TV tower as seen in LOFAR data
On July 15, 2011 the TV & Radio communication tower at Hoogersmilde in the province of Drenthe caught fire and eventually collapsed. This caused a major disruption of TV and radio service in the Netherlands.
The tower is located in the same province as the LOFAR radio telescope, which was operational at the time measuring radio emission from cosmic particles for the LOFAR Cosmic Ray Key Science project using the transient buffer boards (TBBs). The TBBs allow one to record raw data from all antenna and do offline processing after an event has happened.
The figure shows three radio spectra from low-band antennas (LBAs) in the FM band with 1 kHz resolution right after the fire had started: During the fire the signal strength goes down and then shuts off completely. The data was taken through the side-lobes of the antennas and through a low-pass filter to suppress the FM band, so is highly suppressed, but nonetheless clearly visible.
Dutch Astrophysics Olympiad 2011
The finals of the Dutch Astrophysics Olympiad 2011, from 14 to 16 June at the Radboud University, has been won by the 18-year old Nastasha Wijers from Heerhugowaard. She is awarded with an observing trip to the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands.
After a few fore rounds, the final 3-day round took place, which existed of a series of lectures - a.o. by Spinoza Prize winner Heino Falcke - on different astronomical topics such as gravity, compact binaries, supernovas, black holes and cosmic rays, completed by an exam. Fourteen high school students participated in the finals. The three finalists with the highest scores were awarded. The second prize was given to Jeroen Winkel from Nijmegen, third prize to Eline de Weerd from Fochteloo. All 14 finalists received a certificate and a book on astronomy.
Lunar Eclipse
Between all the action, lecturing etc, the participants have been able to observe sun during day time, and - even though cloudy (!) -the Lunar Eclipse and Saturn, on Wednesday evening.
Heino Falcke wins Spinoza prize
Heino Falcke (1966), professor of Astroparticle Physics and Radio Astronomy has been awarded the Spinoza Prize of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research. The Spinoza prize is the most prestigious prize for science in the Netherlands (sometimes referred to as the Dutch Nobelprize). Heino receives the prize in recognition of his contributions to radio astronomy and astropartice physics
See also NWO page...
Paul Groot quoted in New York Times
In an article in the New York Times on light pollution Paul Groot is interviewed when observing at the MMT telescope in Arizona. Link to article...
Festive and educational re-opening of Astrophysics
Several joyous events that happened at our department, called for a celebration.
On 11 May, a toast was made to 4 events, which are the move of our department, which was becoming a great necessity, while Astrophysics expands continuously, the introduction of 2 new members of staff and the introduction of our temporary chair of department.
One of these people who we were happy to welcome as new member of our group is Dr. Elmar Körding, as Assistant Professor, since 2010.
Secondly, Dr. Marijke Haverkorn has been chosen as the best candidate for the Joliot Curie Fellowship and has accepted a position as Assistant Professor at our department, starting Spring 2011.
Last but not least, since Paul Groot is on sabbatical leave from January until December 2011, Heino Falcke was introduced as chair, during the re-opening ceremony.
The re-opening celebration was, next to being a social event, an informative introduction to our department as well, with experimental settings, screens with information of the variation of research topics, while at the same time posters informed our guests on these results and topics as well.
First multi-site video lectures
Modern techniques facilitate new possibilities for giving lectures! Last Thursday, March 24, the first multi-site video lecture has taken place at the Dept. of Astrophysics. Professor Paul Groot, on sabbatical leave at Caltech, L.A., at this moment, presented his lecture on compact binaries through video conferencing parallel for students in Nijmegen, Eindhoven, Tilburg and Cardiff. The students got the opportunity to follow the lecture, ask questions and react by means of the video conference system, from all different places at the same time.
Department moved within the Huygens building
On February 24 the Department has moved most of its offices within the Huygens building. Because of the increased size of the Department, as well as of the IMAPP institute as a whole, previous premises had become too small. The Department now also occupies a number of offices on the 2nd floor of wing 7, one floor directly below the current location. The entrance to the Department as well as the secretariat are located on the 2nd floor. The offices at the front side of the building on the 3rd and 4th floor will remain in use by the Department. Phone numbers of the Department have remained unchanged. New room numbers can be found in Who's who
Open Observatory night on Friday February 25
Friday evening of February 25, the Department of Astrophysics, in cooperation with the 'Astronomen Kring Nijmegen'/Astronomical Circle Nijmegen(AKN), will open her doors. You will receive a tour through our domes where you can have a look through the telescopes. If it is clouded, you can also listen to a lecture on an astronomical subject or view a short astronomical movie. Between 19.00 and 20.30 hrs excursions to the domes will start regularly, and each tour will take around 45 minutes. Location is the Huygens building, Heijendaalseweg 135, Nijmegen, gather at the reception. Free entry, pre-registration not necessary. Parking underneath the Huygens building,(North side!).
N.B.: Bear in mind that the temperature in the domes is about equal to that outside, and that they can only be reached by stairs.
