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Astronomers have found the ‘smoking gun’ of an ‘orphan’ gamma-ray burst afterglow. Gamma-ray bursts are brief, intense flashes of gamma-rays that are difficult to detect. They are believed to be linked to cataclysmic events such as the collapse of a massive star, or the collision and merger of two neutron stars. Evidence of an ‘orphan’ gamma-ray burst afterglow provides astronomers with more possibilities to study, and ultimately understand, such phenomena.

Mark your calendars for the 29th annual conference on Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems (http://adass.org). The conference will be held on 6-10 October 2019, hosted by ASTRON, JIVE, the ALMA European Regional Centre, University of Groningen, Universiteit Leiden, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Radboud University, and SRON. This annual conference, held in a different location each year, is a forum for astronomers, computer scientists, software engineers, faculty members and students working in areas related to algorithms, software and systems for the acquisition, reduction, analysis, and dissemination of astronomical data.

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.

Astronomers have combined radio telescopes from five continents to prove the existence of a narrow stream of material (jet) emerging from the only gravitational wave event involving two neutron stars observed so far.

On December 21st, 1993, the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE) was created by the European Consortium for VLBI, inspired by the vision of Richard Schilizzi, who became its first director, who recognised the potential of building a dedicated correlator for the European VLBI Network (EVN) in Dwingeloo, where JIVE is hosted by ASTRON.

Astronomers have combined data from an Australian network of radio telescopes and the optical Gaia satellite to track the motion of an extreme binary system and unveil its past.

Astronomers have combined data from multiple wavelengths across the electromagnetic spectrum to study the emission limits of the only known repeating fast radio burst.

Support scientists Ross Burns and Jay Blanchard recently travelled to Ghana to deliver a radio astronomy training programme as part of the EU H2020 JUMPING JIVE project. Activities such as this contribute to the growth of local expertise in the African VLBI Network.

"I got into Nature last year, I was nominated for a faculty teaching award and my kids don't care, but if your simulations get on The Big Bang Theory then that's something!" says Huib van Langevelde, a Senior Scientist at the Joint Institute for VLBI ERIC (JIVE) and Professor of Galactic Radio Astronomy at Leiden University.

A team of scientists, led by Boy Lankhaar at Chalmers University of Technology, has solved an important puzzle in astrochemistry: how to measure magnetic fields in space using methanol, the simplest form of alcohol. Their results, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, give astronomers a new way of investigating how massive stars are born.