14-05-2012"European" radio astronomy transcends borders; South Africa's NRF joins JIVE

The National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa has been welcomed as new member of the joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE).

JIVE is a scientific foundation that supports the operations of the European VLBI Network (EVN) of radio astronomy facilities. The EVN collaborates with international facilities to conduct Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), an astronomical technique that uses widely separated radio telescopes in conjunction with each other to simulate a single telescope hundreds or thousands of kilometres in diameter. This technique produces the clearest, highest resolution images of some of the most distant and energetic objects in the Universe.

NRF's Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) has been an active member of the EVN since 2001, and its 26m dish has participated in EVN observations for an even longer time. "The formal addition of the NRF as a full JIVE member signals NRF’s commitment to VLBI and to the future of our collaboration in the EVN in particular," says JIVE Director Huib van Langevelde.

Further Information

JIVE website announcment