News

Francisco Colomer, Director of JIVE ERIC, has been elected as the new Chair of the ERIC Forum. With the support of members from the Executive Board, he will be in charge of the strategic management and planning of the ERIC Forum, strengthening its dialogue and relations with key stakeholders such as the European Commission and the ESFRI.

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration, who produced the first ever image of a black hole, has revealed today a new view of the massive object at the centre of the M87 galaxy: how it looks in polarised light. This is the first time astronomers have been able to measure polarisation, a signature of magnetic fields, this close to the edge of a black hole. The observations are key to explaining how the M87 galaxy, located 55 million light-years away, is able to launch energetic jets from its core.

Two astronomy networks are coming together to form Europe’s largest ground-based astronomy collaborative network, the ORP, supported by €15 million of funding from the H2020 programme. The ORP will provide scientists with access to a wide range of instruments, promote training for young astronomers, and open the way to new discoveries. The project will, among others, facilitate access to the European VLBI Network (EVN) and the Joint Institute for VLBI ERIC (JIVE), develop tools to improve this access, and help develop models for long term sustainability of these research infrastructures.

As of March 12 2021, Italy has become a member of the JIVE European Research Infrastructure Consortium, joining the Netherlands (represented by NWO), the UK (STFC), Sweden (VR), France (CNRS), Spain (IGN) and Latvia (MES). JIVE is also supported by institutes in South Africa (NRF), Germany (MPIfR) and China (NAOC).

We are hiring at JIVE! Three positions available: Support Scientist (postdoc), Near-field VLBI Support Scientist (postdoc), and Science Communications Officer. Applications must be received by March 1st 2021.

Apep is a stellar system named after the Egyptian god of chaos due to the spiral pattern of dust generated by its two member stars. Now, as-tronomers have looked at Apep’s heart with the highest resolution avai-lable. They have revealed the strongest shock produced by the collision of the extreme winds of the two stars in our Galaxy.

Join us for extreme astrophysics at extremely high resolution at EAS2021 special session 11

Observing proposals are invited for the European VLBI Network (EVN), open to all astronomers. Deadline is Feb 1st 2021, 16h UTC. Astronomers with limited or no VLBI experience are particularly encouraged to apply for observing time.

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration is excited for having been granted by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) with the 2021 Group Achievement Award (A). The EHT is a global network of synchronised radio observatories that work in unison to observe radio sources associated with black holes. In April 2019, the EHT team showed the world the first image of the shadow cast by the black hole in M87, made possible by the enormous baselines which give the EHT its exquisite angular resolution.

The January 2021 issue of the EVN/JIVE Newsletter is available!