• An investigation conducted by two researchers from the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC), a research unit of the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC), has been published today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters
• The researchers have found massive black holes in 37 dwarf galaxies and have identified active galactic nuclei not seen until now. These nuclei are similar to the seed black holes that produced the massive black holes
• The study constitutes the widest work so far done in dwarf galaxies using the integral field spectroscopy technique

A project conducted by the Institute of Space Science (ICE - CSIC), a research unit of the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC), has used the integral field spectroscopy technique (also known as IFU - integral field unit) to identify massive black holes in dwarf galaxies. The researchers have found 37 of these phenomena, 23 of which are new as evidence of their presence were not found in previous works of the same galaxies. This is the widest study ever done with this technique in dwarf galaxies. 

The analysis, published today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, is the widest study of active galactic nuclei (AGN) in dwarf galaxies ever done using the almost 5,000 observations of galaxies measured by MaNGA (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory) with the IFU technique.

An AGN is a compact area in the centre of a galaxy that emits energy in its central region, usually generated by a massive black hole, among other elements.

“Thanks to the observations with IFU we have been able to find AGNs that seemed to be hidden in previous works”, emphasises Mar Mezcua, an IEEC researcher at ICE-CSIC. 

The other co-author of the study and ICE-CSIC researcher, Helena Domínguez Sánchez, says: “The advantage of the IFU technique with respect to the classic observations with long-slit spectroscopy, that gives one spectrum per object, is that it allows us to obtain multiple spectra, sometimes more than one thousand per galaxy, in different regions”. “This way”, she adds, “we can study with much more detail the stellar populations, their gas and the kinematics of both.

The “light echo” from the black hole has been captured by the spectroscopy

From the 1,609 dwarf galaxies that have been studied, the researchers have found AGNs in 37 of them, 23 of which are new cases that had not been previously identified.

“The classic spectroscopy has the limitation that it detects only the dominant energy source”, clarifies Domínguez, “meaning that in galaxies where the energy emerging from the stellar formation dominates its total emission, the AGN would be left «hidden»”.

The factors that explain the difficulty of observing these nuclei could be related to their activity or their location. On one hand, it can be that the AGN is no longer active and the IFU technique detects its last emission, the “light echo”, generally very weak. On the other hand, the AGN can be active but outside the centre of the galaxy.  At the same time, it could be that the nucleus is active and in the centre of the galaxy, but the stellar emission from the central region is brighter than the active nucleus, which makes its observation more difficult.  

“With this investigacion we conclude that the IFU technique allows us to identify the last emission from nuclei that are no longer active, something that can not be done with other techniques”, says Mezcua. “Moreover, the active nuclei found are much weaker than those known until now”.

Searching for active nuclei in dwarf galaxies to understand the beginning of the Universe

These active nuclei could contain the vestiges of the first black holes formed in the early Universe, those which did not grow until becoming supermassive. The search for AGNs or massive black holes in dwarf galaxies allows us to increase our knowledge about the origin of the Universe, because they are considered to be the type of galaxies most similar to the first ones.

“It is believed that the black holes powering the AGNs are very similar to the seed black holes, the ones that were first formed”, notes Mezcua. The researcher adds that the scientific community considers that the supermassive black holes, those with one-million-times larger mass than that of the Sun, could have grown from these seed black holes.

Links
- IEEC
- ICE
- CSIC

More information
This research is presented in a paper entitled “Hidden AGN in dwarf galaxies revealed by MaNGA: light echoes, off-nuclear wanderers, and a new broad-line AGN”, by Mezcua, M. & Domínguez Sánchez, H., and it has appeared in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters,  2020, ApJL, 898, L30, on 28 July 2020. 
The Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC  — Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya) promotes and coordinates space research and technology development in Catalonia for the benefit of society. IEEC fosters collaborations both locally and worldwide and is an efficient agent of knowledge, innovation and technology transfer. As a result of over 20 years of high-quality research, done in collaboration with major international organisations, IEEC ranks among the best international research centers, focusing on areas such as: astrophysics, cosmology, planetary science, and Earth Observation. IEEC’s engineering division develops instrumentation for ground- and space-based projects, and has extensive experience in working with private or public organisations from the aerospace and other innovation sectors.  
IEEC is a private non-profit foundation, governed by a Board of Trustees composed of Generalitat de Catalunya and four other institutions that each have a research unit, which together constitute the core of IEEC R&D activity: the University of Barcelona (UB) with the research unit ICCUB — Institute of Cosmos Sciences; the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) with the research unit CERES — Center of Space Studies and Research; the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) with the research unit CTE — Research Group in Space Sciences and Technologies; the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) with the research unit ICE — Institute of Space Sciences. IEEC is integrated in the CERCA network (Centres de Recerca de Catalunya).

Contacts
IEEC Communication Office
Barcelona, Spain
Ana Montaner Pizà
E-mail: comunicacio@ieec.cat 

Institute of Space Science (ICE - CSIC)
Barcelona, Spain
Mar Mezcua
E-mail: mezcua@ice.csic.es

Institute of Space Science (ICE - CSIC)
Barcelona, Spain
Helena Domínguez Sánchez
E-mail: dominguez@ice.csic.es



 

ESA’s Euclid mission to study more than a billion galaxies is a step closer to launch as its two instruments are now built and fully tested, including the complex Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer (NISP) instrument delivered by an international consortium coordinated by France, with partners from Italy, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Norway and the United States.

Once Euclid is launched from French Guiana in 2022, the NISP instrument will feed the world largest near infrared wide field camera put into space and will deliver near-infrared photometry, spectra and redshifts of tens of million distant galaxies providing a detailed description of the 3-dimensional structure of the Universe, and its evolution as function of look back time.

Euclid has a 1.2-metre mirror telescope that is designed to work at both visible and near- infrared wavelengths. It will collect light from distant cosmic objects and feed it into NISP and the second instrument, the VISible instrument (VIS), both working in parallel and observing the exact same regions of the sky at each exposure of the telescope.

Euclid will survey the 3-D distribution of galaxies and dark matter and map the geometry of the Universe with the aim of making accurate measurements of the mysterious Dark Matter and Dark Energy, which make up most of the cosmos. No-one yet knows what Dark Energy is, and Euclid will be the yet most powerful tool for cosmologists and astronomers looking to find out.

Dr Yannick Mellier (Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, CNRS/Sorbonne Université and CEA/IRFU, Saclay), lead of the 1500-strong Euclid Consortium of which NISP is a part, said “Euclid will revolutionise our knowledge of the Universe by making the most accurate measurements of Dark Matter and Dark Energy, testing whether Einstein's theory of General Relativity requires modification, weighing neutrinos, and exploring the details of how galaxies evolve.”

NISP is composed of several subsystems that were designed, built, and tested by a team of astronomers and engineers from several laboratories of the Euclid Consortium with the help and supports from the Centre National d’Etudes Spatial (CNES, France), the Astronomy and Particle Physics Departments of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS, France),the Institute for Research on the Fundamental laws of the Universe (IRFU) Research Division of the Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique (CEA, France), the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI, Italy), the Istituto Nazionale Astrofisica (INAF, Italy), the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN, Italy), the Deutsches Zentrum für LuftundRaumfahrt (DLR, Germany), the Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterestrische Physik (MPE, Germany), the Max-Plank-Institut für Astronomie (MPIA, Germany), the Ministerio de Economia y Competividad (MINECO, Spain), the Institut de Física d’Altes Energies - The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (IFAE-BIST, Spain) and the Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya - Institut of Space Science (IEEC-ICE-CSIC, Spain), Universidad Politecnica de Cartagena (Spain), the University of Oslo (UiO, Norway), the Norwegian Space Agency (Norway), the Niels Bohr institute (Denmark), the technical University of Denmark (DTU, Denmark), and NASA / JPL (USA).

Thierry Maciaszek (CNES/LAM), NISP instrument project manager, said, "The international NISP team in the Euclid Consortium and industries has made an incredible quasi perfect job to design, develop and test this challenging complex instrument. The delivery of NISP is however not the end of the story for the NISP team. Many major activities have to be completed with NISP at satellite level. We are looking forward to seeing the first light in flight demonstrating the excellent performances of the instrument."

NISP was designed, built and tested under the lead of the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM, France).
The NISP instrument consists of three main assemblies:

• The NISP Opto-Mechanical Assembly (cooled to 130K) made of:
  • A silicon carbid estructure, developed by LAM, with elements provided by UiO, supporting the different NISP subsystems and interfacing with the Euclid Payload module.
  • The NISP Optical Assembly (built by MPE) made of a Correction Lens and a 3-lens focusing optics.
  • Three near infrared Y, J, and H broad band filters (MPIA) are mounted on a dedicated rotating wheel (IFAE, IEEC, ICE-CSIC & CEA/Irfu).
  • Four near infrared grisms developed by LAM (grism is a grating and a prism used for spectrometry) are mounted on a dedicated rotating wheel (INAF and CEA/Irfu).
  • A calibration Unit having 5 near-infrared LEDs (MPIA).
• The NISP detector system, composed of:
  • 16 high quality detectors cooled to 95K (NASA/ESA).
  • 16 electronics dedicated to detector controlling (NASA/ESA) o A detector/electronic support structure (LAM).
• The NISP warm electronic units composed of:
  • The Instrument Control Unit (Universidad Politecnica de Cartagena and Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain). The software of the ICU is developed by INAF.
  • The Data Processing Unit managing the detector electronics and performing detectors onboard data processing (ASI, OHB-I, SAB,TEMIS). The software of the DPU has been developed by INAF.

The detector system has been deeply characterized in Europe by the Centre de Physique des Particules de Marseille (CPPM) and the Institut de Physique des 2 Infinis de Lyon (IP2I).
The NISP integration and cold functional / performances tests were performed at LAM in a large cryochamber, in collaboration with all the partners. A complex optical setup has been developed by LAM and Niels Bohr / DTU institutes for the NISP cold performance verification. The NISP ground commanding setups are under INAF/INFN responsibility. The NISP vibration testing were done at the Centre Spatial de Liège (CSL, Belgium).

Dr Anne Ealet, NISP Spectroscopy Instrument Scientist said “NISP will provide the photometry of a billion distant galaxies in 3 photometric bands (Y, J, H) and the spectra of tens of millions distant galaxies using a slitless multi-object spectrograph”. “NISP will reveal the large-scale distribution of galaxies and how cosmic structures formed under the complex combined effects of gravity, dark matter, and dark energy over the last ten billion years” added Dr Knud Jahnke NISP Photometry Instrument Scientist.

The NISP instrument, which is being built by a consortium of nationally funded institutes led by the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM) in France, is dedicated to making distance measurements and near infrared photometry of galaxies. With the VIS instrument, it will allow Euclid’s data to be turned into the largest, most accurate 3D survey of the Universe ever conducted.

Now that the instruments have been delivered to ESA, Thales Alenia Space and Airbus Defense and Space, they will be integrated first with the telescope, and next with the rest of the payload module and the satellite, which will take several months to ensure everything is precisely aligned and electronically communicating.

It has been a long journey getting this far. Euclid was selected for implementation in 2011, having already undergone almost five years of studies. While there is still a lot of hard work and testing ahead, the delivery of the instruments and telescope means that the spacecraft is now really beginning to come together.

Notes to Editors
For more information or to speak to the researchers involved, please contact: NISP technical: Thierry Maciaszek (thierry.maciaszek@lam.fr / thierry.maciaszek@cnes.fr
NISP science: spectroscopy : Anne Ealet (anne.ealet@cppm.fr), Photometry : Knud Jahnke (jahnke@mpia.de)
For information about the Euclid Consortium or the Euclid mission please contact Audrey Le Reun (audrey.le_reun@iap.fr, +33 (0) 173 775 523) or Yannick Mellier (mellier@iap.fr).

Additional material

Websites:

• European Space Agency main site: http://www.esa.int/esaCP/index.html
• European Space Agency Euclid site: http://sci.esa.int/science- e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=102
• Euclid Consortium main site: https://www.euclid-ec.org/
• CNES Space Agency site: https://cnes.fr/en
• ASI Space Agency site: https://www.asi.it
• DLR Space Agency site: https://www.dlr.de/EN/Home/home_node.html NASA Space Agency site: https://www.nasa.gov
• INAF site: http://www.inaf.it/it
• INFN site: https://www.infn.it
• CEA/Irfu site: http://irfu.cea.fr
• CNRS site: https://www.cnrs.fr
• CPPM site: https://www.cppm.in2p3.fr/web/en/index.html DTU site: https://www.dtu.dk/english
• Institut de Física d'Altes Energies: https://www.ifae.es
• Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya: https://www.ieec.cat
• Institute of Space Sciences, IEEC-CSIC site: https://www.ice.csic.es
• IP2I site: https://www.ip2i.in2p3.fr/?lang=en
• Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias site: https://www.iac.es/en
• JPL site: https://jpl.nasa.gov
• LAM site: https://www.lam.fr/?lang=en
• MINECO site: https://mineco.gob.es
• MPE site: http://www.mpe.mpg.de/main
• MPIA website: http://www.mpia.de/en
• Niels Bohr site: https://nbi.ku.dk
• Norwegian Space Agency site: https://www.romsenter.no
• Universidad Politecnica de Cartagena site: https://upct.es
• University of Oslo site: https://www.uio.no/english/

The Institute of Space Sciences (ICE) is looking for a Software engineer for space and ground-based instrument control applications to beef up the engineering department.

ICE is participating in different space missions and experiments (i.e., ARIEL, LISA, CTA, CARMENES, SKA, and Nanosats) and there is a significant contribution and leadership focused on software developments on most of them (LISA, CTA, ARIEL, CARMENES). See the ICE web page for more details (http://www.ice.csic.es/en/content/96/capacities).

The software engineer will contribute to different space missions (LISA, ARIEL) and ground experiments (CTA, CARMENES, SKA) at the level of a senior developer. He/she will participate in the definition and deployment of the system engineering practices and will contribute to the high-level design and development of software modules.

The appointed engineer will participate as a senior developer in all the aforementioned projects and will carry out different kind of tasks according to the development phase of the project:

• He/she will be the supervisor of software developers for those projects running development or prototyping/TDA phase (CTA, Nanosats, SKA-PAF).
• He/she will coordinate the software engineering practices at the systems engineering level (documentation, development cycle, configuration control, etc.) for all projects.
• He/she will participate in mission and experiment meetings (internal and external to ICE) and eventually lead tasks in the mentioned projects and at the Consortium level.
• He/she will identify new funding opportunities and collaborate in the preparation of proposals to respond to EU, ESA, national funding calls.
• He/she will contribute to fostering the participation of institute researchers in the construction of new space missions and experiments. The contract will be for a period of 2 years. Candidates with BSc or MSc degree in computer science will be considered. The candidate should have a good background and experience in programming with the following programming languages and operating systems: C/C++, Python, Java, RTEMS. He/she should have experience in software engineering management, in developing under Linux and with the software development life cycle: requirements, design, implementation, documentation, and testing. Knowledge of basic positional astronomy and astronomical instrumentation will be valued. Candidates should possess English language skills.

Selection process:
The selection process, according to the number of applicants, will consist of curricular pre-selection and interviews.
Applications (including CV and letter of interest) should be forwarded to:
Ms. Noemí Cortés (Assistant to the Director)
Email: cortes@ice.csic.es
Subject: Software engineer for space and ground-based instrument control applications

• IEEC scientists at ICE (CSIC) have led a study that has found a baby pulsar, the youngest such object ever found. 
• The pulsar is located 15,000 light years away and it contains remnants of an ancient massive star. It is also a magnetar, with a magnetic field a thousand billion times stronger than that of the Earth.
• The discovery supports the idea that the pulsars found in the Milky Way are mostly magnetars.
• The baby pulsar may also help explain the origin of the Universe's most powerful explosions.

A team of scientists from the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC  — Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya) at the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE, CSIC) has led the discovery of a pulsar[1] shortly after its birth. Located about 15,000 light years away, within the Milky Way, it is the youngest pulsar found so far. It consists of the remnants of an ancient massive star and it is also a magnetar, with a magnetic field a thousand billion times stronger than that one of the Earth. The discovery was made possible by observations from the European Space Agency's (ESA) XMM-Newton X-ray telescope, NASA's Swift and NuSTAR satellites, and the Sardinia Radio Telescope (Italy).

The baby pulsar, named Swift J1818.0-1607, was first observed by NASA's Swift observatory in March. What the instruments of the XMM-Newton have now picked up is an explosion coming from the pulsar. These explosions are often preceded by smaller bursts. 

Swift J1818.0-1607 is not only the youngest of the 3,000 known pulsars in our galaxy, but it also belongs to a strange category of cosmic objects with the strongest magnetic fields in the Universe - a magnetar.

The magnetar has more features that make it special. It is one of the fastest rotating objects ever observed, rotating once every 1.36 seconds, despite containing the mass of two Suns and having a diameter of only 25 kilometres. Additionally, the object  is one of the few magnetars that also emits radio waves.

Not so unusual objects

"Magnetars are fascinating objects and this baby seems especially intriguing because of its extreme characteristics. The fact that it can be observed in both radio waves and X-rays provides us with a key clue to resolving the current scientific debate about the nature of a specific type of stellar remnant: pulsars," says IEEC researcher at ICE (CSIC) Nanda Rea, who has led the ESA and NASA observations.

Until now, magnetised pulsars were believed to be rare in the Universe with only about 30 detected so far. Scientists assumed that these objects were different from other types of pulsars that are shown in the form of powerful radio emissions. But researchers working with X-rays have long suspected that magnetars are much more common than it is generally believed. Now this finding could confirm the theory that the pulsars discovered in the Milky Way are mostly magnetars.

"The fact that this magnetar formed recently, around 240 years ago, indicates that this idea is well founded", explains Alice Borghese, another IEEC researcher at ICE (CSIC) and co-author of this study. "A large number of magnetars have been discovered in the last decade, doubling the population of magnetars we know of. It is as if these objects fly under the radar when they are dormant and are only discovered when they wake up, as demonstrated by this baby magnetar, which was much less luminous before the big explosion that led to its discovery," clarifies Borghese. 

Transient events

Transient events are gamma ray bursts, supernova explosions and rapid radio wave bursts. These energetic events are potentially linked to the formation and existence of young, heavily magnetised objects, such as the one now discovered by this team of astronomers.

"Magnetars are already interesting by themselves but they are important on a wider scale, as they could play a key role in the transient events we see in the Universe. Scientists believe that these events are somehow connected with magnetars during their birth or in the early stages of their life", explains Francesco Coti Zelati, another of the IEEC scientists at the ICE (CSIC) who have participated in the discovery.

According to scientists, findings like this shed light on the understanding of the starry content of the Milky Way and reveal the complexity of phenomena occurring throughout the Universe.

"The entire group at ICE has contributed to this great discovery and we continue to study pulsars, magnetic and gravitational monsters that surprise us every day," concluded Rea.

Notes
[1] Pulsars are among the most unusual objects in the universe. They form at the end of the lives of massive stars through violent supernova explosions. These extreme events leave behind extreme stellar remnants: hot, dense, magnetized remnants that emit radiation in unpredictable ways, sending powerful X and gamma rays into space over periods of time ranging from milliseconds to years.

Links
- IEEC
- ICE

More information
This research is presented in a paper entitled “A very young radio-loud magnetar”, by P. Esposito et al., to appear in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters on 17 June 2020.

The Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC  — Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya) promotes and coordinates space research and technology development in Catalonia for the benefit of society. IEEC fosters collaborations both locally and worldwide and is an efficient agent of knowledge, innovation and technology transfer. As a result of over 20 years of high-quality research, done in collaboration with major international organisations, IEEC ranks among the best international research centers, focusing on areas such as: astrophysics, cosmology, planetary science, and Earth Observation. IEEC’s engineering division develops instrumentation for ground- and space-based projects, and has extensive experience in working with private or public organisations from the aerospace and other innovation sectors.  

IEEC is a private non-profit foundation, governed by a Board of Trustees composed of Generalitat de Catalunya and four other institutions that each have a research unit, which together constitute the core of IEEC R&D activity: the University of Barcelona (UB) with the research unit ICCUB — Institute of Cosmos Sciences; the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) with the research unit CERES — Center of Space Studies and Research; the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) with the research unit CTE — Research Group in Space Sciences and Technologies; the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) with the research unit ICE — Institute of Space Sciences. IEEC is integrated in the CERCA network (Centres de Recerca de Catalunya).

Contacts
IEEC Communication Office
Barcelona, Spain
Rosa Rodríguez Gasén
E-mail: comunicacio@ieec.cat 

Lead Researcher at IEEC
Barcelona, Spain
Nanda Rea
Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC)
Institute of Space Science (ICE, CSIC)
E-mail: rea@ice.csic.es

CSIC Communication Office
Madrid, Spain
Alda Ólafsson
E-mail: alda.olafsson@csic.es 

Press Release created by the IEEC Comunication Office with the collaboration of Science Wave
 

Se ofrece un puesto de trabajo a tiempo completo como “Responsable de Comunicación” del Instituto de Ciencias del Espacio. El puesto será inicialmente por un año, con renovación pendiente de disponibilidad de fondos y del desempeño de la labor.

Titulación requerida: Grado en física o astronomía, periodismo, o diseñadores gráficos. En todos los casos se valorará la experiencia en trabajos de comunicación relacionados con física y astrofísica, siendo un requisito imprescindible el dominio de inglés.

Trabajos a realizar:

• Elaboración y ejecución inicial del Plan de Comunicación y Divulgación.
• Coordinación con las Oficinas de Comunicación del CSIC y del IEEC.
• Diseño, elaboración y distribución de materiales de comunicación y periodístico (vídeos cortos, notas de prensa, etc.).
• Elaboración de material gráfico para informes internos.
• Mantenimiento de cuentas en medios sociales (twitter, youtube).
• Elaboración de material gráfico para divulgación.
• Presentación del instituto en foros diversos (congresos de astrofísica y astronomía profesionales y amateurs, ferias industriales, foros de política científica, eventos de divulgación científica), así como en medios periodísticos de radio, televisión y escritos.
• Colaboración con los científicos del instituto para la elaboración de material gráfico. 

Los interesados deben enviar su CV a cortes@ice.csic.es indicando 'Outreach officer' en el asunto.

La posición está abierta y se valorarán los curriculum recibidos hasta cubrir la plaza, en el marco de los trámites legales del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.
Salario: en la escala de titulados superiores (Grupo 1 de convenio) del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.

 

El ICE-IEEC necessita cobrir una plaça de tècnic superior en gestió de projectes i suport a Gerència.
 
CARACTERISTIQUES DEL CONTRACTE:
- Contracte d’obra i servei amb una duració determinada.
- Jornada reduïda 25 hores/setmana 

IMPRESCINDIBLE:
- Llicenciatura en Econòmiques o similar
- Alt nivell d’angles 

FUNCIONS A DESENVOLUPAR:
 
- Controlar el cicle complet de gestió de subvencions i de col·laboracions amb institucions publiques o privades d’àmbit autonòmic, estatal i europeu 
- Recerca de finançament pels projectes de l’organització. 
- Realització del seguiment de la despesa executada. 
- Preparació i presentació de memòries de justificacions econòmiques 
- Preparació d’al·legacions i resposta als requeriments de subsanació. 
- Preparació d’auditories de tancament dels projectes. 
- Altres funcions de suport a la Gerència que li siguin encomanades. 


Les persones interessades envieu el currículum a: gerència.ice@csic.es
 

The Fundació Banc Sabadell grants the prize Sciences and Enginnering 2020, the fourth edition, to Nanda Rea, researcher of ICE. 

With deep regret, we inform of the untimely loss of our friend & colleague Lluis Gesa
Lluís has been involved in essentially all large projects of the Institute of Space Sciences and Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya in the last decade, and he will be missed as much for his kind character as well as for his expertise.

Due the Covid-19 the face-to-face Euclid Meeting 2020 was cancelled, but around 500 people are participaiting from home. Five plenary sessions and 17 splitted sessions are joining during these days the researchers of Euclid. We haven't the sun of Sitges (Barcelona, Catalonia), but we have the heat of 500 enthusiastic scientists of the world.

• The GPS polarimetric data obtained aboard the PAZ satellite have started dissemination
• The data are suitable to study atmospheric precipitation from a different perspective
• The 1st User Workshop takes place ‘on-line’ with more than 50 participants from three continents

A team of researchers from the Institute for Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC) and Spanish Research Council (ICE, CSIC) has released the data obtained by the experiment with GPS signals on board the Spanish Earth observation satellite PAZ, launched in February 2018. These data sets are the only GPS signals acquired at two polarizations from a spaceborne satellite, a new technique called polarimetric radio occultations (PRO). The researchers had previously confirmed that the recorded polarimetric signals are sensitive to heavy rainfall and other hydrometeors, hypothesis tested in the GPS experiment aboard PAZ.

The Radio Occultation is a technique to observe the atmosphere of a planet using two elements: one that transmits radio or microwave signals (the GPS satellites in this case) and another element that receives them (in this case a device installed aboard the PAZ satellite). The peculiarity of this technique is that, if the transistor and receiver elements are joined in a straight line, it crosses the Earth, that is, the elements are hidden by the Earth. Despite this, the signal continues to be received because the GPS beam bends. The bending of the rays can be measured and related to the vertical structure of the atmosphere. As a result, vertical profiles of temperature, pressure and moist are typically inferred from the GPS radio occultation data.

The novelty of the Radio Occultation and Heavy Precipitation experiment aboard PAZ (ROHP-PAZ) is its capability to quantify the effects suffered by the signals induced by large rain droplets (intense rain) and frozen particles (cloud ice, snow, graupel…). These features are captured through the vertical and horizontal components of the GPS signal, what is called ‘polarimetric observations’, measured for the first time from Space.  The other spaceborne sensors measuring rain and cloud ice look the rainy scenarios from above, in the form of vertical ‘slices’, while the polarimetric radio occultation technique provides horizontal ‘slices’ of the precipitation at reasonable vertical intervals, a side-look that complements the rest of measurements. It is also the only one that can jointly sense precipitation and its thermodynamic properties, important pieces of information to understand the conditions underlying intense precipitation.

After a process of accurate calibration of the data, today the sets are being made publicly available.  The set will be regularly expanded as the PAZ satellite continues its data acquistion, at a rate of approximately new 200 vertical profiles every day.  “Opening the data to other researchers is a major milestone of our activity: it is the only way our research can be verified and new ideas can be tested by other researchers” explains Dr. Estel Cardellach, principal investigator of the experiment. “We are positive the polarimetric radio occultations have potential to contribute to a broad range of geophysical applications, but we cannot do it all by ourselves: scientists working on meteorology, weather forecast or climate have the expertise to generate new uses of these signals, so they need access to the sets”, adds the IEEC/CSIC researcher.
 
Involving other research communities
To celebrate the data release, and to boost the use of these data sets among the meteorology, weather forecast, climate and remote sensing research communities, the first ‘ROHP-PAZ Users Workshop’ is taking place on April 23, 2020. Because of the coronavirus emergency, its format was changed to become a fully on-line event. “Over 50 scientists from Europe, America and Asia have registered to the meeting, coming from different scientific backgrounds” reports Dr. Ramon Padullés,  ROHP-PAZ researcher at IEEC/CSIC. “The interest towards this new technique is increasing, and we hope the on-line workshop will boost new collaborations and science return”.   One of the key questions to be discussed in the meeting is how to use this new type of data to improve the weather forecast and the climate projections, as currently both of them have limited capabilities to conclude about extreme precipitation events. The workshop is organized together with researchers at NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), who also participated in the calibration phase of the mission and who plan to release their own ROHP-PAZ data sets later this year.

The ROHP-PAZ experiment is an experiment funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, and led by the ICE, CSIC/IEEC. In addition to NASA/JPL, the experiment is possible through collaborations with the PAZ satellite owner, operator and exploiter, Hisdesat, the North-American National Oceanics and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR).
 
Information and data access
The ROHP-PAZ web site contains outreach information as well as access to the data: https://paz.ice.csic.es/