2021 News

The conference aims to bring together scientists from a wide interdisciplinary community to address recent advances, current challenges and future directions in the field. The conference will feature three days of contributed and invited talks as well as posters on the topic of multi-line observations, analysis and modeling research.

Understanding the composition of proto-planetary disks, which are the cradles of planetary systems, remains a key step towards elucidating the mechanisms of planet formation. An international team of researchers used the NOEMA observatory to detect the CCS molecule in the disk surrounding the triple star GG Tau.

Prof. Reinhard Genzel honored IRAM by a visit and presented his last research results to the scientific community of Grenoble. The recordings of his scientific presentation "Galactic Center, a forty year journey" are now available for download.

IRAM is proud to announce the scientific presentation "Galactic Center, a forty year journey", held by the 2020 Nobel Laureate in Physics, Prof. Reinhard Genzel. A long-lasting member of the IRAM Executive Council, Prof. Reinhard Genzel will honor the Grenoble research institute by a visit and is ready to present his last research results to the scientific community of Grenoble.

This is the first announcement of the 10th IRAM 30-meter School on Millimeter Astronomy. Due to the special circumstances derived from the COVID-19 pandemic, the 10th edition will be held on-line, on 15-19, 22 and 23 November. On-line registration will open shortly.

A multidisciplinary team of researchers involving astrophysicists, astrochemists and biochemists, has reported the detection of the prebiotic molecule ethanolamine in space, which could have been incorporated into the early Earth. This species forms the simplest head of phospholipids that make up the membranes of all present-day cells.

Two astronomy networks are coming together to form Europe’s largest ground-based astronomy collaborative network: the OPTICON-RadioNet PILOT (ORP). The ORP will provide scientists with access to a wide range of instruments, promote training for young astronomers, and open the way to new discoveries.

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration, who produced the first ever image of a black hole, has revealed today a new view of the massive object at the centre of the M87 galaxy: how it looks in polarised light. This is the first time astronomers have been able to measure polarisation, a signature of magnetic fields, this close to the edge of a black hole. The observations are key to explaining how the M87 galaxy, located 55 million light-years away, is able to launch energetic jets from its core.

The EHT collaboration, including an important number of IRAM scientists, has been granted the Royal Astronomical Society's 2021 Group Achievement Award. In its citation, the RAS stated that the EHT image of the black hole shadow of M87 is "one of the finest examples of an achievement resulting from close collaboration by researchers from around the World". The image "represents an important milestone in human ingenuity and scientific endeavour, and is opening new doorways to study the physics of accretion around super-massive black holes in completely unprecedented ways.”