News

To catch a supernova is not an easy task. To detect it with radio telescopes requires hard work, extensive coordination and good luck. An international team of astronomers, including researchers at JIVE and ASTRON, has taken a picture of the youngest radio supernova ever.

Using a perfectly orchestrated world-wide network of radio telescopes, astronomers have produced a high-resolution map of an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) belonging to an unknown class of gamma-ray sources. The unusual source and the groundbreaking technique used to produce the image are detailed in a letter published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Astronomers from JIVE and ASTRON have observed a supernova with peculiar radio emission. In a paper published in Nature, the team led by JIVE's Zsolt Paragi reports, for the first time ever, detection of a relativistic outflow in a Type Ic supernova, thus supporting the link with the even more energetic Gamma Ray Bursts.

The electronic European VLBI Network (e-EVN) was critical in the detection of an "extremely prolific supernova factory" in the buried nucleus of a starburst galaxy last year. The results are published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The jet from a powerful gamma-ray burst on March 19 that was bright enough for human eyes to see, despite the distance of 7.5 billion light years, was aimed almost directly at Earth. The burst was observed by satellites and observatories around the world, including ASTRON’s Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope. Results of the observation are published today in an article in Nature authored by an international team of 93 astronomers, including Dutch astronomers of the University of Amsterdam, ASTRON, the University of Leiden and the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE).

Huib Jan van Langevelde (44) has been a member of the JIVE staff for 12 years, holding various positions. Recently he has managed various international projects related to astronomical user software and computing. His astronomical research focuses on the circumstellar matter around young and old stars, with an emphasis on astrophysical masers.

As part of the VLBI tracking of the ESA's Huygens planetray probe, the R.C.Byrd Green Bank Telescope of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory equipped with the ESA/JIVE-supplied Mk5 recorder was the first to detect the Huygens' carrier signal at the frequency of 2040 MHz. The spectrum with resolution of 900 mHz is obtained with the JIVE's Huygens Software Correlator will be used for reconstruction of the vertical profile of the wind in Titan's atmosphere.

When the Huygens Probe makes its plunge into the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan on 14 January 2005, a network of radio telescopes located in Australia, China, Japan and the USA connected to the Data Processing centre at the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE) will help international teams of scientists extract the maximum possible amount of irreplaceable information from a planetary mission unique in human history.

Jodrell Bank's new 2.5 Gb/s connection was used in an eVLBI test for the first time yesterday (20th Dec 2004). Real-time fringes to Jodrell were detected from Westerbork, at 128Mb/s, and from Torun at 256Mb/s. These are the highest real-time eVLBI data rates achieved in Europe so far, quadrupling the previous record. This fringe plot shows individual integrations, for one sub-band, on the Jodrell Bank-Torun baseline.

Huib van Langevelde was recently interviewed by Dutch radio on the subject of eVLBI.