Huib Intema wins NRAO Jansky Fellowship
PhD student, Huib Intema, at Leiden Observatory has been awarded a "Jansky Fellowship" by the US-based National Radio Astronomy Observatory. The Jansky fellowships are the most prestigious postdoctoral positions in radio astronomy, named after Karl Jansky, who first discovered radio waves from the galaxy in the 1920s.
Until now it has been difficult to make astronomical observations at low radio frequencies that are comparable with frequencies in the AM radio band. At these frequencies changes in the ionosphere, a layer of electrons that surrounds the earth at a height of a few hundred km, cause radio stars and galaxies to "twinkle". For his PhD Huib Intema has developed a new technique for reducing these twinkling effects of the ionosphere.
Using Huib Intema's technique to calibrate the revolutionary new LOFAR telescope being built in the north of the Netherlands, astronomers hope to make the deepest ever images of the low-frequency radio sky. This will enable fundamental questions about how galaxies and black holes form in the early Universe to be addressed. After taking up the Jansky Fellowship in September, Huib Intema intends to develop his new technique further and apply it to improve data from several other radio telescopes throughout the world.
For additional information please visit the NRAO website: http://www.nrao.edu/news/newsletters/enews/enews_2_3/enews_2_3.shtml#jansky