Launch of Europe’s largest astronomy network

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Credit: M. Claro / ESO.

To date, Europe has had two major collaborative networks for ground-based astronomy, one in the field of optical waveguide and the other in the field of radio-wave. OPTICON and RadioNet have now teamed up to create Europe’s largest land-based astronomy collaborative network. Launched with € 15 million in funding under the H2020 program, the project aims to harmonize observational techniques and devices, and provide access to a wider range of astronomical facilities.

As our knowledge of the Universe evolves, astronauts increasingly need a range of supportive techniques to study and understand astronomical analysis. As a result, the European Union has decided to merge the optical and radio networks OPTICON and RadioNet, which have successfully served their communities over the past two decades.

With funding of € 15 million from the European Commission’s H2020 program, the European celestial community will now benefit from the creation of Europe’s largest land-based astronomy network: the OPTICON-RadioNet PILOT (ORP) , which brings together twenty telescopes and telescope arrays. .

The ORP network aims to harmonize observational methods and tools for ground-based optical and radio astronomy instruments, and to give researchers access to a wider range of resources, building on success and knowledge. OPTICON and RadioNet networks.

The new program will make it easier for the astronomy community to access these infrastructures, as well as train new generations of astronauts.

According to the management team, «it is very exciting to have this opportunity to further develop European integration in astronomy, and to develop new scientific opportunities for astronomical research across Europe and around the world. »

The ORP in particular fosters development of the thriving field known as multi-message astronomy, which uses a wide range of waves in addition to gravitational waves, cosmic rays and neutrinos. Removing barriers between communities by aligning with observation protocols and monitoring methods in the optical and radio fields will allow astronauts to work better together when observing and monitoring on variable and variable astronomical events.

Astronauts from 15 European countries, Australia and South Africa, as well as from 37 institutions, have already joined the ORP consortium. It will be coordinated by the French National Center de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), which runs and contributes to several optical and radio telescopes, the University of Cambridge (UK), and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (Germany).

In Belgium, the network includes the Institute of Astronomy at KU Leuven which is in charge of the development of a new instrument for the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI, Chile) and coordinates one of the seven centers European VLTI knowledge. The VLTI is a major European observatory at the forefront of astronomical research.

With the new ORP funding, the Astronomical Institute will develop a new VLTI observation method dedicated to exoplanet research, support the activity of the VLTI knowledge center network, and bring together the entire VLTI community in Leuven in 2023. ” we are excited to be part of this new ORP network and to contribute to the development of astronomical and community research in Europe “said Denis Defrère, associate professor at the Institute of Astronomy.

The management team includes Jean-Gabriel Cuby, ORP project coordinator at the CNRS National Institute for Earth Sciences and Astronomy, and Gerry Gilmore, Professor at the University of Cambridge (UK) and Anton Zensus, Director Max-Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (Germany), as ORP scientific coordinators for OPTICON and RadioNet respectively.

This project has received funding from the European Union ‘s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 101004719.

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