Author: cassac_wpadmin

[Reprinted] Cloaked Black Hole Discovered in Early Universe using NASA’s Chandra

  By

NASA/CXC

Astronomers have discovered evidence for the farthest “cloaked” black hole found to date, using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. At only about 6% of the current age of the universe, this is the first indication of a black hole hidden by gas at such an early time in the history of the cosmos.

Supermassive black holes, which are millions to billions of times more massive than our Sun, typically grow by pulling in material from a disk of surrounding matter. Rapid growth generates large amounts of radiation in a very small region around the black hole. Scientists call this extremely bright, compact source a “quasar.”

According to current theories, a dense cloud of gas feeds material into the disk surrounding a supermassive black hole during its period of early growth, which “cloaks” or hides much of the quasar’s bright light from our view. As the black hole consumes material and becomes more massive, the gas in the cloud is depleted, until the black hole and its bright disk are uncovered.

“It’s extraordinarily challenging to find quasars in this cloaked phase because so much of their radiation is absorbed and cannot be detected by current instruments,” said Fabio Vito of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, in Santiago, Chile, who led the study. “Thanks to Chandra and the ability of X-rays to pierce through the obscuring cloud, we think we’ve finally succeeded.”

The new finding came from observations of a quasar called PSO167-13, which was first discovered by Pan-STARRS, an optical-light telescope in Hawaii. Optical observations from these and other surveys have detected about 180 quasars already shining brightly when the universe was less than a billion years old, or about 8 percent of its present age. These surveys were only considered effective at finding unobscured black holes, because the radiation they detect is suppressed by even thin clouds of gas and dust. Since PSO167-13 was part of those observations, this quasar was expected to be unobscured, too.

Vito’s team were able to test this idea by using Chandra to observe PSO167-13 and nine other quasars discovered with optical surveys. After 16 hours of observation, only three X-ray light particles were detected from PSO167-13, all with relatively high energies. Since low-energy X-rays are more easily absorbed than higher energy ones, the likely explanation is that the quasar is highly obscured by gas, allowing only high-energy X-rays to be detected.

“This was a complete surprise”, said co-author Niel Brandt of Penn State University in University Park, Pennsylvania. “It was like we were expecting a moth but saw a cocoon instead. None of the other nine quasars we observed were cloaked, which is what we anticipated.”

An interesting twist for PSO167-13 is that the galaxy hosting the quasar has a close companion galaxy, visible in data previously obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) of radio dishes in Chile and NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Because of their close separation and the faintness of the X-ray source, the team was unable to determine whether the newly-discovered X-ray emission is associated with the quasar PSO167-13 or with the companion galaxy.

If the X-rays come from the known quasar, then astronomers need to develop an explanation for why the quasar appeared highly obscured in X-rays but not in optical light. One possibility is that there has been a large and rapid increase in cloaking of the quasar during the three years between when the optical and the X-ray observations were made.

On the other hand, if instead the X-rays arise from the companion galaxy, then it represents the detection of a new quasar in close proximity to PSO167-13. This quasar pair would be the most distant yet detected.

In either of these two cases, the quasar detected by Chandra would be the most distant cloaked one yet seen, at 850 million years after the Big Bang. The previous record holder has been observed 1.3 billion years after the Big Bang.

The authors plan to follow up with more observations to learn more.

“With a longer Chandra observation we’ll be able to get a better estimate of how obscured this black hole is,” said co-author Franz Bauer, also from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, “and make a confident identification of the X-ray source with either the known quasar or the companion galaxy.”

The authors also plan to search for more examples of highly obscured black holes.

“We suspect that the majority of supermassive black holes in the early universe are cloaked: it’s then crucial to detect and study them to understand how they could grow to masses of a billion suns so quickly,” said co-author Roberto Gilli of INAF in Bologna, Italy.

A paper describing these results is accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics and is available online. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science and flight operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Other materials about the findings are available at:
http://chandra.si.edu

The Fifth China-Chile Bi-lateral Astronomy Science Meeting was successfully held in Kunming during Jan. 23-26, 2019

  By ,
Meeting group photo

In order to promote the communication and collaboration between astronomy communities of China and Chile, sponsored by Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), National Astronomical Observatories, CAS (NAOC), the “Fifth Chile-China Bi-lateral Astronomy Science Meeting” was successfully held in Kunming during Jan. 23-26, 2019. The meeting was organized by the CAS South American Center for Astronomy (CASSACA), also known as China-Chile Joint Center for Astronomy, along with Yunnan Astronomical Observatory (YNAO).

A glance at the meeting

CASSACA is one of the overseas projects initiated by CAS to develop cooperation in science and technology with foreign countries. In February 2013, CASSACA was inaugurated at NAOC, and its Santiago office was inaugurated in October 2013 at University of Chile. The Center serves as a platform for collaboration in astronomical research and related technologies between China and South America countries. The Center helps to build international scientific teams and joint programs engaging in frontier astronomy research. The China-Chile Astronomy Workshop is a major platform to strengthen communications in astronomical research between the two countries, and has been held alternately in Chile and China. It has been proven to be successful in the past meetings of the series, prompting knowledge and information exchange between astronomers, and initiating collaborative projects and joint programs.

Hui Sun, Director of America and Oceania Department, Bureau of International Co-operation, CAS, addressing the meeting
Suijian Xue, Deputy president of NAOC, addressing the meeting
Jiasheng Huang, Chief Scientist of CASSACA, hosting the meeting
Patricio Rojo , Chairman of SOCHIAS, introducing the astronomy in Chile
Participants discussing

Around 70 participants attended this Meeting, including experts, young scientists and students, coming from more than 20 institutes of China, Chile, and other countries. Professor. Jiasheng Huang, Chief Scientist of CASSACA, and Professor Jinming Bai, president of YNAO, offered their welcome as the hosts; Hui Sun, Director of Division of America and Oceanian Affairs, Bureau of International Cooperation, CAS and Suijian Xue, Deputy Director General of NAOC, both addressed the meeting; Dr. Wei Wang, Deputy Director of CASSACA, introduced the current status and future prospects of the Center; Professor Patricio Rojo, Chairman of Astronomical Society of Chile (SOCHIAS) and other Chilean astronomers expressed high expectations for the Chile-China cooperation, and gave a lot of suggestions and comments. At this Meeting, directors or their representatives of nearly all major astronomical observatories/departments of China and Chile summarized the major research areas and current activities of their institutions, including detailed talks on recent research highlights. During the four-day workshop, astronomers from both countries communicated cordially and comprehensively, reviewing the existing ties and finding opportunities for future collaborations. The bilateral meeting is recognized as an important catalyst for Chile-China astronomy communications, and a useful model for CAS to advance international cooperation widely.

CASSACA scientist reveals the connection between radiation and shape of circum-nuclear materials around super-massive black holes

  By ,

[Dr. Claudio Ricci, a CAS-CONICYT Postdoctoral Fellow in astronomy,  led an important paper in《Nature》on September 27th 2017, in which he reported recent major progress regarding how radiation feedback controls the shape of close environment around super-massive black holes, drawn from a multi-band survey of a sample of black holes selected in the hard X-ray band.]

A black hole is a place in space-time where gravity pulls are so strong that even light cannot get out, it is therefore “black” in any bands. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently large and dense mass would deform space -time and give birth to a black hole. Despite its invisible interior, a black hole can be indirectly inferred and investigated at various wavelengths through its interactions with the surrounding and in-falling materials.

It is known for decades that very heavy black holes inhabit the centers of galaxies (including our own galaxy, the Milky Way), but are hidden by gas and dust. Some of these black holes can “eat” materials from their environment, and emit a lot of light during this process. Most of these “luminous” black holes are surrounded by large amount of gas and dust, distributed in a doughnut-like structure. Such a structure could resemble a pantry, which guarantees that the black hole can keep eating, radiating and growing. However, it is not known where exactly this material is located, and what the relationship is between light produced by the black hole and the dusty gas.

In order to address this long-standing issue, Dr. Claudio Ricci, a postdoc fellow supported by Chinese Academy of Sciences South America Center for Astronomy (CASSACA), and his collaborators made use of observations carried out in the X-ray band, similar to what is typically used for radiographies in hospitals. With each observation performing these “space radiographies”, they could measure the amount of material around the black hole, and then study its evolution.

This project started in 2013, and it took the authors many years to create the large database used for their research, using data from space telescopes as well as ground-based observatories, such as those in Chile. The Chilean telescopes were extremely important for measuring the properties of the black holes, and in particular, for “weighing” their masses. The main X-ray instrument used was the NASA satellite Swift, but also data from the satellites XMM-Newton of ESA, Suzaku of JAXA, and another NASA telescope, Chandra, were used. In the optical band the facilities used include the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the UK Schmidt telescope, Gemini, CTIO, DuPont and SAAO.

With this work, Ricci and collaborators discovered the process that controls the interaction between light produced by the black hole and the gas that surrounds it, and showed that most of the material around black holes is located close to it. The authors found that, when the black hole emits a lot of light, this light pushes away the material from its vicinity; in other words, the gas can “evaporate” because of the large amount of energy released by the material falling rapidly onto the black hole. This could also mean that, if the black hole “eats” too rapidly, the energy produced could destroy the “food” available for the future.

It is a major step forward to reveal a clear picture of the connection between radiation feedback and the surrounding material’s shape. “The next step will be to further understand the details of this behavior, and what happens to the material that is pushed away from the black hole”, said Dr. Ricci, the leading author of this work.

Figure 1. Artistic impression of the gas and dust surrounding an accreting supermassive black hole. Taken from NASA/JPL/Caltech.

Figure 2. Schematic representation of the material surrounding supermassive black holes for different ranges of Eddington ratio. The Eddington ratio is the ratio between the bolometric and the Eddington luminosity, where the latter is defined as the luminosity at which the radiation pressure from a source, in this case the accreting SMBH, balances the gravitational attraction. Taken from Ricci et al. (2017, Nature Letter).

Young scientist from CASSACA pens review on accreting supermassive black holes in Nature Astronomy

  By ,

Dr. Claudio Ricci, a CAS-CONICYT Postdoctoral Fellow in astronomy, recently authored a review paper in 《Nature Astronomy》 with Cristina Ramos Almeida of IAC Tenerife, in which they summarized the most important developments of the past ten years in the fields of accreting black holes and circum-nuclear materials, as revealed by observations in the X-ray and infrared bands.

All massive galaxies host supermassive black holes (SMBH) at their centers, and these objects are often found to be hidden behind large amounts of gas and dust. This circum-nuclear material is what eventually accretes onto the black hole, allowing it to grow, and its structure and evolution have been the subject of intense study in the past decade. Chinese Academy of Sciences South America Center for Astronomy (CASSACA)’s postdoctoral fellow Claudio Ricci and Dr. Cristina Ramos Almeida (IAC Tenerife) were recently invited to write a review for《Nature Astronomy》 on this subject, with the idea of combining results obtained from X-ray and infrared studies of the close environments of supermassive black holes. These two energy bands are highly complementary: while X-rays are produced very close to the supermassive black hole and allow the study of radiation absorbed and reflected, infrared radiation is directly produced by the dust around the black hole.

A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light cannot get out, and therefore itself is “black” in any bands. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently large and compact mass can deform space time and give birth to a black hole. Black holes of stellar masses are expected to form when very massive stars collapse at the end of their life cycle. After a black hole is formed, it can continue to grow by absorbing mass from its surroundings. By absorbing other stars and merging with other black holes, supermassive black holes of millions of solar masses may form. The first widely-accepted black hole is Cygnus X-1 discovered in 1964, and it weighs about 15 solar masses (Figure 1). The well-known radio source named Sagittarius A*, sitting at the core of our own Milky Way galaxy, contains a supermassive black hole of about 4.3 million solar masses.

Despite its invisible interior, the presence of a black hole can be inferred through its interactions with matter. Circum-nuclear materials falls onto a black hole, and forms an AGN (active galactic nucleus), one of the brightest objects in the universe, including an external accretion disk, an X-ray emitting corona, a broad-line region (BLR), a torus and a narrow-line region (NLR) (Figure 2), which have various physical characteristics, and their radiation are widely used to study the black hole and its surroundings.

The review summarizes the most important developments of the past ten years in this field, and particularly in light of the most advanced X-ray and IR facilities. The authors discuss why the circum-nuclear material is anisotropic, clumpy, and connects with the host galaxy via gas inflow/outflows. They also highlight the importance of dust emission from the polar region of the AGN, possibly related to outflows caused by radiation pressure from the accreting supermassive black hole. Future observing facilities will allow a better understanding of the nuclear environment of AGN, and a fuller description on how it links the black hole to its host galaxy. In particular, the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will allow us to probe the structure and evolution of AGN’s polar dust, while high-resolution spectrometers, such as the ones on board XARM and Athena satellites, will shed light on the physical characteristics of the gas and dust.

Dr. Ricci was invited to write this review because of his significant contribution to this field of research, and in particular in the light of his recent studies on the properties of the most heavily obscured accretion events in the Universe, and of the discovery that the merger of two or more galaxies can strongly affect the surroundings of the supermassive black hole, enriching it in gas and dust. Being able to publish review papers in such prestigious scholarly journals is usually an indication of wide acceptance and recognition of the author’s research work.

For young scientists such as Ricci and Almeida, this is an even more remarkable testimonial to their creative contribution to the relevant subject matter.

Figure 1. An artist’s drawing of a black hole named Cygnus X-1. It formed when a large star caved in. This black hole pulls matter from the blue star beside it. Taken from NASA/CXC/M. Weiss.

Figure 2. Sketch of the main AGN structures, seen along the equatorial and polar directions. From the center to host-galaxy scales: SMBH (Super Massive Black Hole), accretion disk and X-ray emitting corona, BLR (Broad-Line Region), torus and NLR (Narrow-Line Region). Different colors indicate different compositions or densities. Taken from Ramos Almeida & Ricci (2017, Nature Astronomy).

For more information about the Nature Astronomy Review, please visit https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-017-0232-z.

CAS-CONICYT Postdoc Claudio Ricci Finds that Merging Galaxies Have Enshrouded Black Holes

  By

This illustration compares growing supermassive black holes in two different kinds of galaxies. A growing supermassive black hole in a normal galaxy would have a donut-shaped structure of gas and dust around it (left). In a merging galaxy, a sphere of material obscures the black hole (right).

Credits: National Astronomical Observatory of Japan

Black holes get a bad rap in popular culture for swallowing everything in their environments. In reality, stars, gas and dust can orbit black holes for long periods of time, until a major disruption pushes the material in.

A merger of two galaxies is one such disruption. As the galaxies combine and their central black holes approach each other, gas and dust in the vicinity are pushed onto their respective black holes. An enormous amount of high-energy radiation is released as material spirals rapidly toward the hungry black hole, which becomes what astronomers call an active galactic nucleus (AGN).

A study using NASA’s NuSTAR telescope shows that in the late stages of galaxy mergers, so much gas and dust falls toward a black hole that the extremely bright AGN is enshrouded. The combined effect of the gravity of the two galaxies slows the rotational speeds of gas and dust that would otherwise be orbiting freely. This loss of energy makes the material fall onto the black hole.

“The further along the merger is, the more enshrouded the AGN will be,” said Claudio Ricci, lead author of the study published in the Monthly Notices Royal Astronomical Society. “Galaxies that are far along in the merging process are completely covered in a cocoon of gas and dust.”

Ricci and colleagues observed the penetrating high-energy X-ray emission from 52 galaxies. About half of them were in the later stages of merging. Because NuSTAR is very sensitive to detecting the highest-energy X-rays, it was critical in establishing how much light escapes the sphere of gas and dust covering an AGN.

The study was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Researchers compared NuSTAR observations of the galaxies with data from NASA’s Swift and Chandra and ESA’s XMM-Newton observatories, which look at lower energy components of the X-ray spectrum. If high-energy X-rays are detected from a galaxy, but low-energy X-rays are not, that is a sign that an AGN is heavily obscured.

The study helps confirm the longstanding idea that an AGN’s black hole does most of its eating while enshrouded during the late stages of a merger.

“A supermassive black hole grows rapidly during these mergers,” Ricci said. “The results further our understanding of the mysterious origins of the relationship between a black hole and its host galaxy.”

NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led by Caltech and managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. NuSTAR was developed in partnership with the Danish Technical University and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). The spacecraft was built by Orbital Sciences Corp., Dulles, Virginia. NuSTAR’s mission operations center is at UC Berkeley, and the official data archive is at NASA’s High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center. ASI provides the mission’s ground station and a mirror archive. JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA.

For more information on NuSTAR, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/nustar

http://www.nustar.caltech.edu

Reproduced from https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/merging-galaxies-have-enshrouded-black-holes

China Finishes Construction of World’s Largest Radio Telescope [from CAS newsroom]

  By

 

 

FAST one step from completion. (Image by XIN Ling)

After more than five years of construction, the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope is finally getting ready to open its eye. On July 3, 2016, with the installation of the last of its 4,450 reflecting panels – equivalent to the size of 30 soccer fields – the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) is counting down to seeing its first light in two to three months’ time.

A bird view of FAST (Image by NAOC)

Compared with the Arecibo telescope, the previous record holder with a diameter of 300 meters, FAST is not only much bigger and more sensitive, but innovative in several ways: It has a much larger sky coverage thanks to its active main reflector, and a light-weight, adjustable feed cabin to move with high precision, etc.

“Once completed, it will lead the world for at least 10 to 20 years,” said YAN Jun, director general of the telescope’s designer, builder and owner – the National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC) under CAS. YAN was on the scene to celebrate the completion of FAST’s main construction work on July 3.

Installation of the reflector started in August 2015. In 11 months’ time, 4,273 triangular segments and 177 special-shaped segments were set into a unique cable-net structure consisting of thousands of steel cables, nodes and corresponding driving cables, which are tied to actuators on the ground to realize the transformation from a spherical to a parabolic surface.

FAST under construction (Image by NAOC)

The idea of building such a telescope was first proposed in 1994. After a decade of site surveying, Chinese scientists found a nearly perfect spot for FAST in Dawodang, Kedu Town in southeastern China’s Guizhou Province, which is famous for its karst landforms and mountains that naturally shield against radio frequency interference.

The project was approved by the Chinese government in 2007 and will be completed 5-1/2 years after the project was formally started – exactly in line with projections. When completed, the total cost is estimated to be 1.15 billion yuan ($180 million US dollars).

“FAST will enable Chinese astronomers to jump-start many scientific goals, such as surveying the neutral hydrogen in the Milky Way, detecting faint pulsars, and listening to possible signals from other civilizations,” said NAN Rendong, the general engineer and chief scientist of FAST.

“It’s time for China to have its own big telescope,” NAN said.

In the next couple of months, the FAST team will focus on testing and debugging to make the telescope work, said WANG Qiming, head of the reflector system and general technologist for the project. The official completion date is set for late September, and the telescope’s first data are expected around the same time. (By XIN Ling)

Night view of FAST (Image by NAOC)

CAS Vice President Tieniu Tan Visits Chile

  By
Dr. Tieniu Tan, Vice President of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), visited Chile from May 6th to 8th, 2016, as invited by the Chilean Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (CONICYT), the University of Chile and the Chinese Academy of Sciences South America Center for Astronomy (CASSACA). Dr. Xiaoyu Hong (Director General of Shanghai Astronomical Observatories, CAS), Xiaoou Chen (Commissioner of Science and Technology, Chinese Embassy in Chile), Zhong Wang (Director of CASSACA), Wei Wang (Deputy Director of CASSACA) and Dr. Meng Su (MIT) accompanied his visit.

 

In the morning of May 6th, Dr. Tan met the new CONICYT director Dr. Mario Hummuy and Chilean Senator Dr. Guido Girardi. They discussed potential collaborations between the two countries in astronomy and other aspects of science and technology. Afterwards, Dr. Tan visited the China-Chile Astronomical Data Center (CCADC) and offered his suggestions for its long-term development. CCADC is the first major collaborative project led by CASSACA. Its aim is to enable Chinese and Chilean astronomers to better process astronomical data obtained from large telescopes.

 

In the afternoon, Dr. Tan visited the Department of Astronomy at the University of Chile. There, he expressed gratitude to director Dr. Guido Garay for the department’s help in the development of CASSACA and discussed future plans for the Center. Dr. Tan then visited the CASSACA office and was introduced to its staff and researchers. Dr. Tan applauded the significant achievements of CASSACA during the past three years, and he encouraged the staff in their efforts to build international scientific cooperation, to drive cutting edge astronomical research, and to develop the Center as a platform for China-Chile collaborations in astronomy and other areas of research. In addition, Dr. Tan met the Chinese Ambassador in Chile, Mr. Baorong Li, and the President of the Chilean Academy of Sciences, Madam Maria Teresa Ruiz, and exchanged ideas with them regarding China-Chile collaborations and CASSACA.

 

On May 7th and 8th, Vice President Tan went to northern Chile to visit the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA), which is assembled on a 5,060 meter-high plateau, as well as three telescopes dedicated to Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) research. These were the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), the Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS), and the POLARBEAR telescopes, all of which are assembled on a 5,200 site nearby. Together, these facilities represent the state-of-the-art science and technology in radio astronomy and are the results of a wide-range of international collaborations. Dr. Tan’s visit is among the first that CAS leaders made to the 5,000+ meter sites in Chile.

 

ALMA is an astronomical interferometer of radio telescopes built collaboratively by several institutions from Europe, the United States and East Asia. It consists of 66 12-meter and 7-meter diameter radio telescopes, observing at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths, with a resolution of up to 0.01 arcsec. ALMA is expected to be able to provide insights on star birth during the early universe and detailed imaging of local star and planet formation. ALMA is located in the Atacama Desert of Northern Chile, on the Chajnantor plateau. The location is one of the driest sites in the world and very suitable for mm and submm observations. After about 15 years of construction, costing US$1.4 billion, ALMA began full operation in March 2013. The observatory has since attracted close attention from astronomers from all nations and led to various new scientific discoveries.

??

 

CAS Vice President Tieniu Tan Visits Chile

CASSACA Council Meeting held in Beijing

  By

On December 18, 2015，the Council Meeting of the Chinese Academy of Sciences South America Center for Astronomy (CASSACA) was held in  National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC). Prof. Zhongli Ding, Vice President of CAS & Director of the Council, attended the meeting and gave important suggestions and guidance to CASSACA. There are more than 30 attendees coming from CAS administration divisions, the institutes in CAS Observatory system and Universities. 

Prof. Zhong Wang, Director of CASSACA, reported the overall progress and achievements of the Center obtained in 2015. Prof. Jiasheng Huang, Chief Scientist of CASSACA, specially introduced the progress in research and scientific programs in the past. Then the Council gave full affirmation on the achievements and progress by the Center. The Council gave practical guidance and suggestions to the Center’s development and future plans. Two new members were approved to join the Council.  

CASSACA has achieved remarkable results and progress in the past, over its collaborations with Chilean institutions and scientists, on the scientific researches, programs and projects. Especially, the CASSACA set up the China-Chile astronomical data center with cooperation with Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria of Chile and Huawei company of China. Prime Minister Keqiang Li and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet witnessed the signing ceremony of the data center in May 2015. The system run stably and went into the stage of software debugging and commissioning since November 2015. 

CASSACA was set up in 2013 and has been playing an important role on the international collaborations in Astronomy between China and Chile together with other South America countries. 

??
COUNCIL MEETING
??
GROUP PHOTO

Call for China-Chile Joint Research project 2015

  By , ,

Based on the principles established in a 2013 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the National Commission of Scientific and Technological Research of the Republic of Chile (CONICYT), and the more specific guidelines described in a recent (2015) Agreement between the National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC), the Chinese Astronomical Society, the Chilean Astronomical Society (SOCHIAS) and CONICYT (pdf), we are now inviting research proposals that involve China-Chile collaboration in astronomical research,  to promote astronomical research collaborations between China and Chile, to advance astronomy in both countries.

Project duration will be 1-2 years, with funding level around $75k USD in average. The PI of the proposal must be from either China or Chile, and the subject can be in any area of astronomical research, including observations, instrumental development, and theory.

For more details, please read the attached announcement (pdf).

China-CONICYT Postdoctoral Fellowship 2015

  By , ,

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (CONICYT) of Chile are inviting for applications for post-doctoral fellowships in observational, theoretical, and/or computational astrophysics. The official announcement of this opportunity is made at the CONICYT website (www.conicyt.cl) and duplicated at www.cassaca.org. The duration of the Fellowship is for two to three years, with at least part of it spent at a host institution in Chile.

Preferential considerations will be given to those applicants with proposed research activities involving collaborations between the Chinese and Chilean astronomy communities. Potential applicants should check out the two web sites above for more up-to-date information on this opportunity and possible deadline extensions, and are encouraged to contact prospective sponsors accordingly before applying. A catalogue of  research projected proposed can be found at http://www.cassaca.org/?p=631.

Applications must include the CV, a research statement, a support letter from the Host institution in Chile signed by the Department Director and faculty sponsor, a copy or certificate of degree, and two recommendation letters. The applications will be received at http://www.conicyt.cl/astronomia/category/concursos/ and all the documents except recommendation letters should furthermore be sent  by email in PDF format to postdoc.cas@conicyt.cl and echen@das.uchile.cl before the deadline August 31st. Further inquires about this fellowship opportunity can be addressed to Dr. Jiasheng Huang, Chief Scientist of CASSACA （the CAS South America Center for Astronomy) at jhuang@nao.cas.cn.