Ireland's LOFAR telescope at Birr Castle in Offaly. Image: Alison Delaney
The LOFAR telescope network has been given a new designation by the EU, allowing it to establish new research infrastructure and boost its support to astronomers.
A new consortium focused on observing the universe and boosting space research has been launched, with Ireland as one of its founding members.
The consortium involves LOFAR – or Low Frequency Array – an international network of state-of-the-art telescopes used to observe the universe in unprecedented detail at low radio frequencies. Ireland officially joined the LOFAR network in 2017.
LOFAR was officially set up as a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) last month by the European Commission, with Ireland as one of its founding members. The consortium was officially launched earlier this week after its first council meeting.
The goal of this consortium is to provide easy access to a wide range of science research services for both Europe and the wider world. The consortium also aims to facilitate a substation upgrade to the radio array and serve the European astronomy community with observing and data-processing capabilities.
The network of LOFAR telescopes have been working on various activities, such as the study of pulsars and learning more about the origin of ultra-high energy cosmic rays.
The new designation means LOFAR ERIC is now a recognised legal entity, can establish new research infrastructure and adopt its own procurement procedures.
Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris, TD, welcomed Ireland’s involvement and said the consortium will facilitate closer international cooperation “in areas such as physics, astrophysics and high-end computing”.
“Ireland has a long-established and internationally recognised heritage in astronomy, and the LOFAR ERIC gives our students and researchers access to the largest low frequency radio telescope in the world,” Harris said.
Prof Peter Gallagher of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) is the head of the Irish LOFAR consortium, which includes various Irish universities such as University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin. He said the broader European consortium will “give us access to the very best low-frequency radio observations of astronomical objects”.
Prof Evan Keane, head of the Irish LOFAR telescope at Trinity, said the LOFAR facility at Birr Castle in Offaly will be upgraded to make more sensitive observations of astronomical objects.
“The upgraded LOFAR will produce ever more enormous volumes of data which makes it an exemplar of cutting-edge big data science,” Keane said.
The founding members of LOFAR ERIC are Bulgaria, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland. This consortium will also have close collaborations with institutes in France, Latvia, Sweden and the UK.
10 things you need to know direct to your inbox every weekday. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of essential sci-tech news.
