*** IAU Division D Bulletin N. 9: April 1st, 2016 ***

 

INDEX:

 

* First direct detection of gravitational waves

* Launch of Hitomi (Astro-H)

* 14th Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Proposals with INTEGRAL

* Upcoming Meetings

* Dr James Terrell: Obituary

 

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* First direct detection of gravitational waves

 

February saw the momentous announcement of the first direct detection of gravitational waves, from two merging black holes. This represents the culmination of decades of hard work by a huge number of scientists and engineers, and the dawn of a new field of gravitational wave astronomy! We would like to extend our hearty congratulations to all of the members of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration on this incredible achievement.

 

https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20160211

 

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* Launch of Hitomi (Astro-H)

 

February 17 saw the launch by JAXA of the X-ray astronomy satellite Astro-H, now renamed Hitomi. Hitomi is expected to provide breakthrough results in scientific areas as diverse as the large-scale structure of the Universe and its evolution, the behavior of matter in the gravitational strong field regime, the physical conditions in sites of cosmic-ray acceleration, and the distribution of dark matter in galaxy clusters.

 

On March 26 a communication anomaly was experienced, the nature of which is still under investigation.  For updates on Hitomi's status, see this website:

 

http://global.jaxa.jp/projects/sat/astro_h/

 

 

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* 14th Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Proposals with INTEGRAL

 

The INTEGRAL AO-14 call for observing proposals is open. The deadeline for proposal submission is Friday 8 April 2016, 14:00 CEST. For more information see

 

http://integral.esac.esa.int

 

 

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* Upcoming Conferences, Meetings, Workshops and Schools

 

Contested Astrophysics

12-14 April, 2016

DIAS, Dublin, Ireland

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/contested-astrophysics-tickets-20101919382

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XMM-Newton: The Next Decade

May 9-11, 2016

European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), Madrid, Spain

http://xmmworkshop.esa.int

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Compact Stars in the QCD phase diagram V

23-27 May 2016

L'Aquila, Italy

http://agenda.infn.it/event/compact-stars

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28th IUPAP International Conference on Computational Physics (CCP2016)

10-14 July, 2016

St George’s Hotel and Conference Centre in Irene, Gauteng, South Africa

http://events.saip.org.za/event/ccp2016

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IAU Symposium 324: New Frontiers in Black Hole Astrophysics

12-16 September, 2016

Cankarjev dom, Ljubljana, Slovenia

http//blackholes2016.si/

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Breaking the limits: Super-Eddington Accretion on Compact Objects

September 19-23, 2016

Arbatax (OG), Sardinia, Italy

http://matteobachetti.github.io/supereddington2016

 

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* Dr James Terrell : Obituary

 

We were recently informed of the sad news that Dr James Terrell, a member of our Division, passed away in 2009. A copy of his obituary can be found here:

 

http://www.lamonitor.com/content/terrell

 

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If you wish to share with IAU Div D any information about matters that may be relevant to the activities of Div D Members, please send an e-mail to A.L.Watts@uva.nl by *** June 21st, 2016 ***. This will appear in the next Bulletin issue, due to be sent out on or just before July 1st, 2016. Thank you in advance for your inputs, and best regards.

 

Anna Watts
Secretary of IAU Div D Steering Committee
Associate Professor, University of Amsterdam
A.L.Watts@uva.nl
http://staff.fnwi.uva.nl/a.l.watts/