Increased cooperation Dutch and Chinese astronomy

21 January 2010

De ondertekening van intensievere samenwerking tussen Nederlandse en Chinese astronomie The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Shanghai Observatory (ShAO), part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have signed an agreement on 20 January 2010 to increase their cooperation in the field of astronomy. This will lead to closer cooperation between one of China’s biggest observatories and the JIVE institute in Dwingeloo, which combines data from telescopes throughout the world into a single large virtual telescope. This consolidation of strengths must lead to better ICT applications for astronomy. NWO is making 720,000 euro available for this project.


This increased cooperation will strengthen China’s links with JIVE (Joint Institute for Very Long Baseline Interferometry) at both a scientific and policy level. Many researchers from ShAO, including the current director professor Xiaoyu Hong, have started their career at JIVE. The two institutes will work together on the further development of correlators; supercomputers which provide the necessary processing power to combine and analyse the data from different telescopes. This technique, one of the specialities of the Chinese scientists, yields high-resolution images with a greater sensitivity, which astronomers can use to produce more detailed maps of the cosmos.

Space navigation system
China wants to be one of the world’s 5 leading knowledge based economies. Consolidating the strengths of JIVE and ShAO is an important step forwards for China’s national network of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). This VLBI shall, among other things, be used for developing a navigation technique in space for China’s space missions to the moon, Mars and other planets.
JIVE wants to use the cooperation to further develop its expertise in the use of large bandwidths for the transmission of data and to link even more telescopes. Moreover, with this step JIVE can develop towards a Eurasian expertise network for VLBI correlator developments and the analysis of the associated data. A greater knowledge of the technique is also important for the pilot studies for the Square Kilometre Array project (SKA), a powerful radio telescope composed from a huge number of antennae. The Netherlands, and in particular the NWO institute ASTRON that hosts JIVE, is playing a leading role in this pilot study.

Budget
The first researchers shall start work immediately and the project has an expected duration of four years. NWO makes 720 k€ available for this project. NWO Division for the Physical Sciences, also one of JIVE’s cofunders, shall supervise the project. The funding will enable a greater exchange of researchers and will finance the Dutch contribution to the project.

Work visit
Intensifying the cooperation with China is a key aspect of NWO policy. The cooperation was officially endorsed during a working visit of a NWO delegation to China, when NWO visited 20 expertise centres and institutes with a view to strengthening the possible cooperation within the disciplines of astronomy, chemistry, computer science and mathematics. In the presence of representatives from the Dutch Embassy, dr. Louis Vertegaal, director of NWO Division for the Physical Sciences, and prof. Xiaoyu Hong, director of ShAO, signed the agreement of cooperation during a visit of the delegation to ShAO. Vertegaal expressed his hope for a long-term cooperation: “We are currently in the Golden Age of astronomy, and radio interferometry plays an important technological and scientific role in this. I hope that this agreement marks the start of a long and successful cooperation between ShAO and NWO at the cutting edge of VLBI research.”

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