Index

For decades astronomers have been spotting bursts of electromagnetic radiation coming from black holes. They assumed those are the result of stars being torn apart, but they have never seen the silhouette of the actual material ligaments. Now a group of astronomers, including lead author Giacomo Cannizzaro and Peter Jonker from SRON/Radboud University, has for the first time observed spectral absorption lines caused by strands of a spaghettified star.

Astronomer Sara Issaoun will receive the ‘For Women in Science Rising Talent Prize 2021’. This prize is awarded annually to young, talented female researchers in The Netherlands to benefit their academic career.

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. Data from 19 observatories  are being released that promise to give unparalleled insight into this black hole and the system it powers, and to improve tests of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.

Sara Issaoun awarded an Einstein Fellowship. Fellows are named to one of three sub-categories corresponding to three broad scientific questions NASA seeks to answer about the universe:How does the universe work? – Einstein FellowsHow did we get here? – Hubble FellowsAre we alone? – Sagan Fellows

2021 Petrie Prize LectureCASCA is pleased to announce Dr. Heino Falcke as the 2021 R.M Petrie Prize Lecturer.For decades Dr. Falcke has an international leader in the quest to use very-long baseline interferometry to image the shadow of a black hole. These efforts culminated in the stunning images of the supermassive black hole in M87 produced by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). Dr. Falcke is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2019 won the Breakthrough Prize for Fundamental Physics as part of the EHT collaboration.CASCA is honoured to have Dr. Falcke give the Petrie Prize lecture.

Martina Chruslinska receives the Christine Mohrmann Grant 2020-2021

Free public webinar on new results by the Event Horizon Telescope: “Imaging Magnetic Fields at the Edge of M87’s Black Hole”

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.

Astronomers Heino Falcke of Radboud University and Sheperd Doeleman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics will jointly receive the Henry Draper Medal for their pioneering work, which led to the first image of a black hole.

An international team of astronomers led by Søren Larsen (Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands) has accidentally discovered a globular cluster that contains extremely few metals. The astronomers had some spare observation time and decided to include the globular cluster in the Andromeda Galaxy as a bonus. They will publish their findings in the journal Science on Friday.