Erik Rosolowsky (U Alberta), Joan Wrobel (NRAO)
Graphics credit: Image by Sophia Dagnello (NRAO/AUI/NSF)
ngVLA NSF Conceptual Design Review
After a four day review in early September in Washington, DC, the ngVLA (https://ngvla.nrao.edu) project successfully passed its Conceptual Design review. The project sends it thanks to its numerous colleagues worldwide, including in Canada, who contributed their time and talent to help propel the ngVLA past this important milestone. The ngVLA project will now be considered by the US National Science Foundation for entry to the next phase – Preliminary Design – to further advance the project’s definition and execution plan. A press release is forthcoming.
Key Science Goals for the Next Generation Very Large Array (ngVLA): Update from the ngVLA Science Advisory Council (2024)
In 2017, the next generation Very Large Array (ngVLA) Science Advisory Council (https://ngvla.nrao.edu/page/sciencecouncil), together with the international astronomy community, developed a set of five Key Science Goals (KSGs) to inform, prioritize and refine the technical capabilities of a future radio telescope array for high angular resolution operation from 1.2 – 116 GHz with 10 times the sensitivity of the Jansky VLA and ALMA. The resulting KSGs, which require observations at centimeter and millimeter wavelengths that cannot be achieved by any other facility, represent a small subset of the broad range of astrophysical problems that the ngVLA will be able to address.
This document (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2024arXiv240814497W/abstract) presents an update to the original ngVLA KSGs, taking account of new results and progress in the 7+ years since their initial presentation, again drawing on the expertise of the ngVLA Science Advisory Council (https://ngvla.nrao.edu/page/sciencecouncil) and the broader community in the ngVLA Science Working Groups (https://ngvla.nrao.edu/page/workinggroups). As the design of the ngVLA has also matured substantially in this period, this document also briefly addresses initial expectations for ngVLA data products and processing that will be needed to achieve the KSGs.
The original ngVLA KSGs endure as outstanding problems of high priority. In brief, they are: (1) Unveiling the Formation of Solar System Analogues; (2) Probing the Initial Conditions for Planetary Systems and Life with Astrochemistry; (3) Charting the Assembly, Structure, and Evolution of Galaxies from the First Billion Years to the Present; (4) Science at the Extremes: Pulsars as Laboratories for Fundamental Physics; (5) Understanding the Formation and Evolution of Stellar and Supermassive Black Holes in the Era of Multi-Messenger Astronomy. Importantly, the ngVLA KSGs are part of the wider science applications that are discussed in the ngVLA Science Working Groups (https://ngvla.nrao.edu/page/workinggroups).
Follow the Monarchs to Old Mexico
The conference on “Follow the Monarchs: A Journey to Explore the Cosmos at (Sub)milliarcsecond Scales with the ngVLA” will be held November 11-14 in person in Morelia, Mexico. The conference coincides with the Monarch butterflies completing their migration journey from Canada and the US to the historic Morelia area. A program of 67 talks has been announced (http://go.nrao.edu/ngvla24). The deadline for cost-saving registration and poster abstract submission is October 1. To take action, see the conference website (http://go.nrao.edu/ngvla24).
IAU Focus Meeting in South Africa
The focus meeting on “A Coherent View of Atomic and Molecular Gas from Infrared to Radio Wavelengths” was held August 6-7 in person in Cape Town, South Africa. The program (https://iaugas2024.astro.umd.edu/index.html) of 36 talks and 81 posters explored how work informed by existing facilities is shaping our understanding of the interstellar medium in the Milky Way and external galaxies, and how this work is re-framing the science to be addressed by the remarkable capabilities of future radio observatories. To broaden information sharing, presentations may be viewed for days 1 (https://astronomy2024.org/day-1-august-6/) and 2 (https://astronomy2024.org/day-2-august-7/), and proceedings will be published soon (https://astronomy2024.org/conference-proceedings/).