Netherlands Research School for Astronomy

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The Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (Dutch: Nederlandse Onderzoekschool voor Astronomie, also known as NOVA) is a graduate school specializing in astronomy, based in the Netherlands. This graduate school was founded in 1992. [1]

Contents

Formation and partners

NOVA was formed by a federated partnership of the following institutions: [1]

The astronomical institute of Utrecht University was also part of NOVA until it closed in 2012.

Three of the top research institutions that NOVA collaborates with internationally are Max Planck Society, Harvard University, and Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). [2]

Goals, activities, and research areas

This graduate school has two main goals. The first goal is to conduct advanced astronomical research, and the second is to educate young astronomers at the highest international level. [3]

Education

NOVA is involved in, among other things, distributing funds for hiring PhD students, as well as communicating astronomical research results to the press, the general public and primary and secondary education. NOVA also organizes the annual autumn school in which every astronomical PhD student participates at least once.

NOVA possesses three inflatable mobile planetariums that visit approximately 200 primary and secondary schools annually, reaching about 30,000 students per year. After an initial stop in activities during 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands, NOVA resumed classroom visits with a high quality flat screen, pending resumption of the inflatable technique. [4]

Support for research

Coordinating national scientific policy in the field of astronomy is among NOVA's tasks. NOVA also helps to fund telescope projects, for example the Africa Millimetre Telescope. [5]

Astronomical research is divided by NOVA into three parts:

Leaders, facilities, and discoveries

Since 2007, Ewine van Dishoeck has been scientific director of NOVA, and from 2017 Huub Röttgering has been chairman of the board.

NOVA astronomers rely heavily on the European Southern Observatory (ESO), most notably the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). [1] A large fraction of the instrument projects that NOVA participates in are targeted at these facilities, as well as the future Extremely Large Telescope.

Among recent discoveries made by NOVA astronomers, one pertains to NGC 2005 which is a spherical globular cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). NOVA announced in 2021 proof that NGC 2005 is a relic from the merger of a smaller galaxy into the LMC, i.e. one galaxy got eaten by another. [6] [7]

Related Research Articles

Astronomer Scientist in the field of astronomy

An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either observational or theoretical astronomy. Examples of topics or fields astronomers study include planetary science, solar astronomy, the origin or evolution of stars, or the formation of galaxies. A related but distinct subject is physical cosmology, which studies the Universe as a whole.

Sandra Faber American astrophysicist

Sandra Moore Faber is an American astrophysicist known for her research on the evolution of galaxies. She is the University Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and works at the Lick Observatory. She has made discoveries linking the brightness of galaxies to the speed of stars within them and was the co-discoverer of the Faber–Jackson relation. Faber was also instrumental in designing the Keck telescopes in Hawaii.

European Southern Observatory Intergovernmental organization and observatory in Chile

The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, commonly referred to as the European Southern Observatory (ESO), is an intergovernmental research organisation made up of 16 member states for ground-based astronomy. Created in 1962, ESO has provided astronomers with state-of-the-art research facilities and access to the southern sky. The organisation employs about 730 staff members and receives annual member state contributions of approximately €162 million. Its observatories are located in northern Chile.

Jan Oort Dutch astronomer

Jan Hendrik Oort was a Dutch astronomer who made significant contributions to the understanding of the Milky Way and who was a pioneer in the field of radio astronomy. His New York Times obituary called him "one of the century's foremost explorers of the universe"; the European Space Agency website describes him as "one of the greatest astronomers of the 20th century" and states that he "revolutionised astronomy through his ground-breaking discoveries." In 1955, Oort's name appeared in Life magazine's list of the 100 most famous living people. He has been described as "putting the Netherlands in the forefront of postwar astronomy."

Centaurus A Radio galaxy in the constellation Centaurus

Centaurus A is a galaxy in the constellation of Centaurus. It was discovered in 1826 by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop from his home in Parramatta, in New South Wales, Australia. There is considerable debate in the literature regarding the galaxy's fundamental properties such as its Hubble type and distance. NGC 5128 is one of the closest radio galaxies to Earth, so its active galactic nucleus has been extensively studied by professional astronomers. The galaxy is also the fifth-brightest in the sky, making it an ideal amateur astronomy target. It is only visible from the southern hemisphere and low northern latitudes.

Olin J. Eggen American astronomer

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Max Planck Institute for Astronomy

The Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie is a research institute of the Max Planck Society (MPG). It is located in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany near the top of the Königstuhl, adjacent to the historic Landessternwarte Heidelberg-Königstuhl astronomical observatory. The institute primarily conducts basic research in the natural sciences in the field of astronomy.

Rome Observatory Observatory

The Astronomical Observatory of Rome is one of twelve Astronomical Observatories in Italy. The main site of the Observatory is Monte Porzio Catone. Part of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica since 2002.

Gart Westerhout Dutch-American astronomer (1927–2012)

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Astronomy in Chile

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Marek Janusz Kukula is a British astronomer and an author of works on popular science. After gaining a PhD in radio astronomy from the University of Manchester in 1994, he specialised in studying distant galaxies. As his research reached the limits of telescopes, he moved into the field of public engagement. In 2008 he was appointed Public Astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich.

Tim de Zeeuw Dutch astronomer

Pieter Timotheus "Tim" de Zeeuw is a Dutch astronomer specializing in the formation, structure and dynamics of galaxies.

Alicia M. Soderberg American astronomer

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Jeremy R. Mould is an Australian astronomer currently at the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing at Swinburne University of Technology. Mould was previously Director of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University and the American National Optical Astronomy Observatory. He is an Honorary Professorial Fellow, at the University of Melbourne.

Event Horizon Telescope Global radio telescope array

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a large telescope array consisting of a global network of radio telescopes. The EHT project combines data from several very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) stations around Earth, which form a combined array with an angular resolution sufficient to observe objects the size of a supermassive black hole's event horizon. The project's observational targets include the two black holes with the largest angular diameter as observed from Earth: the black hole at the center of the supergiant elliptical galaxy Messier 87, and Sagittarius A* at the center of the Milky Way.

George Kildare Miley is an Irish-Dutch astronomer. He holds a professorship at Leiden University, where he served as director of Leiden Observatory from 1996 to 2003.

The Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto is an astronomical research centre.

Violette Impellizzeri Astronomer from Italy

Violette Impellizzeri, is an Italian astronomer, astrophysicist and university teacher.

James Michael Moran American astronomer

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Encyclopedia of Astronomy & Astrophysics , p. 1138 (CRC Press, 2001, edited by Paul Murdin).
  2. “Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA)”, Nature Index, Springer Nature. Retrieved May 28, 2022.
  3. Heck, Andre. Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy , Volume II, p. 92 (Springer Netherlands 2012).
  4. Holt, Joanna. “Keyword: zich aanpassen, making a flat screen work when you can't use the dome”, Planetarian: Journal of the International Planetarium Society, Vol. 49, No. 4, p. 28 (Dec. 2020).
  5. Wild, Sarah. “Major African Radio Telescope Will Help to Image Black Holes”, Nature via Scientific American (9 Feb 2022).
  6. “Astronomers Find Relic From a Galaxy That Once Consumed a Smaller One”, News18 (26 Oct 2021).
  7. NOVA, “Dwarf galaxy catches even smaller galaxy”, Phys.org (18 Oct 2021).

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