The European Southern Observatory
ABOUT
TIMETOJOIN was a volunteer-driven campaign that successfully encouraged the Irish Government to join The European Southern Observatory. The ESO has been in existence since 1962, and it is one of the largest centres of advanced astronomy in the world. Member states have unparalleled access to its array of telescopes across the globe.
Ireland’s excellence in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM), access to research, and our chance to search the cosmos will benefit greatly from ESO membership.
WHY JOIN THE ESO
SUPPORTERS
It is my view that ESO offers an outstanding opportunity for Ireland. ESO is uniquely able to provide Irish astronomy world-leading astronomical infrastructure, and in that way, to be world-leading in astronomical discovery. I believe it is the best possible option for Irish astronomy, and I have no reservations in my support.”
Prof Brian Schmidt – Nobel Laureate – Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University
Science and the pursuit of knowledge underpins so much of today’s society. We need to promote, foster and encourage research, and astronomy does that in a very powerful way. That is why we in Eir are involved in ILOFAR, and that is why Ireland should join the ESO.
Richard Moat – CEO eir
“”Talent development pipelines come in many forms and involvement in the ESO is of strategic importance to Ireland. Allowing students, researchers and professionals interact and work on cutting edge scientific, technical and communications projects – which membership of one of the world’s foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisations would allow – can only bode well for meeting the skills demands of our ever growing technology sector.”
Paul Sweetman – Director, Technology Ireland
It’s important that Ireland join international consortium which promote Science and Engineering in Ireland. ESO is an example of one of a number of consortium Ireland should be considering joining.
James O’Riordan – CTO S3 Group
IBM is involved in a number of large scale Astronomy projects globally including Square Kilometre Array and Lofar. The software tooling developed for consortium like ESO benefit society as some of the techniques developed are applied to other challenges within the software industry.
Bill Kearney – VP IBM Ireland
As an employer in the Tech sector, I believe that ESO membership will give Ireland’s future engineers a competitive advantage. Not only that, investment in research allows Ireland to lead the way for future discoveries, patents and innovations.
Joe Hogan – Founder CTO Openet Telecom
As one of the few countries in Western Europe that is not a member of ESO, Ireland is missing out in many ways. Astronomy is a exciting discipline that links fundamental science with cutting-edge technology and deep human culture. It inspires many young people to choose careers in engineering and science. The economic rationale for joining ESO is clear. ESO’s revolutionary Extremely Large Telescope will result in a large number of high-tech contracts many of which Irish-based companies are well-placed to win. In my view Ireland can’t afford not to participate in this great 21st century European adventure.
George Miley – Leiden University
European science is strong because we all collaborate in order to be able to fund world-leading facilities. This is especially true in astronomy, where ESO provides us with the world’s best optical telescopes. Ireland has a strong astronomical tradition going right back to the 19th century. It seems anomalous that Ireland isn’t already in ESO: I hope the country will indeed soon join the rest of us in this world-leading organisation.
Martin John Rees – Astronomer Royal
Participation in programmes like the ESO will not only broaden the appeal of the sciences to the young generation, but will provide an interesting platform through which our young talent can build their scientific and technological skills, not just in astronomy per se but in physics, maths and the computational sciences such as data analytics. It will also deepen Ireland’s relationships with the global scientific and technological community.
Karl Flannery – CEO, Storm Technology
It is crucial that Ireland join ESO so that we can contribute to the building and development of the Extremely Large Telescope and reap the benefits of this involvement. The E-ELT is the largest eye on the sky in history and therefore one of the most technologically difficult and innovative scientific projects ever undertaken.
Dr Emma Whelan – Researcher in Star and Planet Formation – Maynooth University
As an academic who has worked abroad I endorse membership of ESO in order to bring Ireland into the wider research community where it deserves to be better represented. As a lecturer, I can also see the importance of ESO’s world-leading research and technology programmes such as exoplanet searches and adaptive optics for stimulating Irish students to get engaged with physics and engineering: these students will be our future researchers and innovators and we should try harder to give them a future here.
Brian Espey – Associate Professor in Astrophysics – School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin
ESO offers the opportunity for Irish researchers to move from the fringes of European astronomy to full participation in one of the world’s leading scientific endeavours. Joining ESO offers Ireland a straightforward way to secure and deepen scientific links with the rest of Europe, while also developing the country’s technological base
Dr. Matt Redman, Director, Centre for Astronomy NUI Galway
FRIENDS
Business Friends of JOIN THE ESO
Academic Friends of JOIN THE ESO
I-LOFAR
The Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) is an international network of state-of-the-art telescopes used to observe the Universe in unprecedented detail at low radio frequencies. LOFAR is one of the largest astrophysics projects in Europe, consisting of 11 international stations spread across Germany, Poland, France, UK, and Sweden, with additional stations and a central hub in The Netherlands, operated by the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON). The network uses state-of-the-art data processing and storage systems as well as sophisticated computing techniques to combine the entire network into a telescope with the effective size of the European continent.
I-LOFAR has been the Irish addition to this network and the 12th international station built in Europe. It allows Irish astrophysical research to be integrated into one of the most sophisticated telescopes on the planet. The location of this Irish station is in the centre of the country on the grounds of Birr Castle, Co. Offaly.
GALLERY
Some of the images taken using ESO’s Telescopes
CASE STUDIES
NUI Maynooth input to design of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)
The main focus of this research study conducted by NUI Maynooth’s astrophysics department was the examination of optics in the far-infrared/THz band.
Over the last few years NUI Maynooth’s astrophysics department have been part of the team of scientists involved with the European Space Agency missions Planck and Herschel, also being part of many other working groups in relation to proposed missions.
NUI Maynooth’s researchers also take part, quite extensively, in on the ground cosmic microwave projects.
Researchers in Maynooth also were key members of the team of scientists, associated with the SRON (Space Research Organisation of the Netherlands), that worked on the design of one of the ESO’s most productive projects ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) band 9 receivers.
Source:NUI Maynooth input to design of the Atacama Large Millimeter/ submillimeter Array (ALMA) http://www.iopireland.org/publications/iopi/file_63462.pdf
TCD studies of cold molecules using ALMA
- The research group at Trinity College Dublin have had a programme involving the study of cold molecules in space accepted and will you use ALMA in order to conduct this detailed study.
- They will also focus on the presence of faint dust emission near the star Betelgeuse.
- This is an important study in the field of stellar astrophysics and could potentially answer one of sciences unanswered questions.
- It is an important study into the link between molecules and dust formation, which could unearth a range of knowledge on the creation of stars and also potentially planetary systems.
- The research group will couple data taken form ALMA with data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
Source: TCD studies of cold molecules using ALMA http://www.iopireland.org/publications/iopi/file_63462.pdf
NUI Galway and Adaptive Optics Research
A research group in the field of applied optics at NUIG are global leaders in adaptive optics technology.
This technology is a very important element in modern day observing facilities.
with such expertise on hand NUIG would be uniquely placed to make strong bids for E-ELT contracts.
Pulsars, which are the result of supernova explosions could be investigated using instruments such as the SFI-funded Galway Astronomical Stokes Polarimeter (GASP).
Joining the ESO could potentially enable the GASP to be put onto one of the VLT telescopes and further increase scientific returns from this instrument.
Home to the Irish Centre for High End Computing, NUIG is in an ideal position to compete for Big Data and Virtual Observatory contracts currently up for grabs by ESO.
Source: NUI Galway and Adaptive Optics Research http://www.iopireland.org/publications/iopi/file_63462.pdf
NUI Galway and Adaptive Optics Research
A research group in the field of applied optics at NUIG are global leaders in adaptive optics technology.
This technology is a very important element in modern day observing facilities.
With such expertise on hand NUIG would be uniquely placed to make strong bids for E-ELT contracts.
Pulsars, which are the result of supernova explosions could be investigated using instruments such as the SFI-funded Galway Astronomical Stokes Polarimeter (GASP).
Joining the ESO could potentially enable the GASP to be put onto one of the VLT telescopes and further increase scientific returns from this instrument.
Home to the Irish Centre for High End Computing, NUIG is in an ideal position to compete for Big Data and Virtual Observatory contracts currently up for grabs by ESO.
Source: NUI Galway and Adaptive Optics Research http://www.iopireland.org/publications/iopi/file_63462.pdf
Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies – How did the Sun and planets form?
Star Formation Group based at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) has been involved in the study of the birth of stars such as the Sun over the last few years.
Remarkably up until a decade ago scientists knew more about the first 3 minutes of the Universe than about the first 3 million years in the life of our own Solar System.
However, with the development of new space observing facilities, and in particular developments in infrared and longer wavelengths, we can now penetrate the thick cloud of gas and dust that surrounds newborn stars.
This group is also involved with the development of software for GRAVITY, the next generation interferometer for the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and is also a member of a consortium which built the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) through Ireland’s membership of ESA.
This means that it has received guaranteed time on the JWST when launched in 2018.
ESO membership has allowed the group to be involved in the construction of cutting-edge instruments for the largest telescopes in the world.
This could in turn provide excellent training opportunities for postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
It also has the potential to connect with detector development and build up long-term and lasting collaborations with national institutions such as the Tyndall Institute and CRANN in Trinity College Dublin.
Source: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies – How did the Sun and planets form? http://www.iopireland.org/publications/iopi/file_63462.pdf
TIMETOJOIN was a volunteer-driven campaign to encourage the Irish Government to join the ESO. The ESO has been in existence since 1962, and it is one of the largest centres of advanced astronomy in the world.
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