News

The May 2021 issue of the EVN/JIVE Newsletter is now available and includes relevant updates of the European VLBI Network (EVN). The May 2021 Newsletter can be accessed here.

An online EVN Mini-Symposium and Users Meeting will be held during July 12-14, 2021. The EVN Symposium normally takes place every two years, and is the main forum for discussion of the latest Very Long Baseline Interferometry scientific results and technical and technological developments within the EVN member countries.

Two international teams of astronomers (with significant JIVE involvement) have narrowed-down the origin of the flashes produced in the famous fast radio burst FRB20180916B by examining them with the highest time resolution and at the lowest possible frequencies.

In April 2019, scientists released the first image of a black hole in the galaxy M87 using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). However, that remarkable achievement was just the beginning of the science story to be told. Scientists from JIVE contributed to this global effort.

All supermassive black holes in the centres of galaxies appear to have periods when they swallow matter from their close surroundings. But that is about as far as the similarities go. That's the conclusion reached by British and Dutch astronomers from their research with ultra-sensitive radio telescopes in a well-studied region of the universe. They publish their findings in two articles in the international journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

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.