News

A distant quasar – a pulsating firestorm burning brighter than a trillion suns, half the universe away from Earth – harbours a supermassive black hole. And we can now see it with unprecedented clarity, thanks to a team of researchers from the global Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration.

The EHT team conducted the highest-resolution measurements yet of a quasar called 3C 279, using the same interconnected global array of telescopes they utilized to capture the now-iconic image of a black hole, published in April 2019.

WCA researcher, Professor Michael Balogh was recently awarded a Canadian Space Agency grant aimed at supporting analysis of data from Astrosat (which carries a Canadian instrument, UVIT).  This money will be used to support a new grad student, Cameron Morgan, who is joining us in September.

WCA researcher, Brian McNamara was awarded NASA’s Group Achievement Award as a member of the Lynx Astrophysics Large Mission Study Team for “the substantial and effective scientific, technical, and management work in developing the Large Mission Concept Studies for the 2020 Astrophysics Decadal Survey.”  

 "The strength of gravitational wave "echoes" following the merger of two neutron stars on 17 August 2017. We see a significant signal at frequency of 72 Hz, 1 second after the merger."

Originally published by the Perimeter Institute

The Buchalter Cosmology Prize recognizes “ground-breaking theoretical, observational, or experimental work in cosmology that has the potential to produce a breakthrough advance in our understanding.”

DESI opens its 5,000 eyes to capture the colours of the cosmos

Congratulations to Avery Broderick and other team members of the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration for winning the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics!  Read more: https://breakthroughprize.org/News/54

I just spent the past week at the Dunlap Institute Summer School for Astronomical Instrumentation. Students came from all over the world - five continents in total!

Chandra's 20th anniversary image release

Exploring a physics lab as an undergraduate student, Crystal Senko didn’t realize she was about to set forth on a future career path in quantum research. Intrigued by a forest of optics on the table of an atomic physics lab, she entered the world of experimental research and hasn’t looked back. Read more.

The Waterloo Centre for Astrophysics unveils logo for its new Centre.

We are proud to be launching a new visual identity for the Centre that will help steward future conversations for building a Centre, recruiting talent and providing a unique identify on the global stage.