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The fourth division (BP4) of The Fundamental Research Department (Departament Badań Podstawowych) deals with research in astrophysics and astronomy, mainly their observational aspects. The BP4 division is located in Warsaw at 7 Pasteura street.
The research conducted at the Astrophysics Laboratory includes:
- Cosmology: CMB, large structures of the Universe, dark matter, non-standard cosmology and gravitational lensing
- Gravitational waves: Multi-messenger astronomy, new tools for cosmology
- Physics of galaxies: Formation and evolution of galaxies, AGN, quasars and gamma-ray burst
- Interstellar medium: Star formation, neutron stars and white dwarfs
The BP4 division is also involved in several international projects. Check our Scientific Projects page for more information.
Seminars
Upcoming seminars for all of NCBJ can be found here.
The seminar archive for NCBJ can be found here.
Latest News
Scroll down for the latest news about the research done by our division or click here.
Telescope Success
JWST
Darko Donevski and Giuliano Lorenzon from the Astrophysics Department BP4 - National Centre for Nuclear Research have been awarded, as co-investigators, 13 hours of time on the largest space instrument - James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). They participated in the highly competitive Cycle 4 JWST proposal competition, which received a total of 2377 submissions. The project, led by Prof. A. Man (UBC Vancouver), aims to obtain the deepest-ever mid-infrared spectroscopy of a brightest cluster galaxy at z = 0.4. Darko and Giuliano will contribute to interpreting the interplay between warm and cold dust emission in this exceptional system, which harbours one of the most extended reservoirs of dust and gas observed to date.
Grant Success
NAWA Bekker
Congratulations to Margherita Grespan, a PhD candidate from the Astrophysics Department, who has been awarded the Bekker NAWA Fellowship! Over the next two years, she will join Oxford University’s Department of Physics to conduct research on anomaly detection in astronomical surveys, leveraging advanced machine learning techniques, including active learning. Her work will focus on uncovering rare phenomena, such as strong gravitational lenses, within the vast datasets produced by new-generation telescopes such as Euclid and Vera C. Rubin.
Also congratulations to Dr. Darko Donevski, who also received a Bekker NAWA Fellowship. Over the next 18 months, Dr. Darko Donevski will be conducting visiting research with the Astrophysics Group at SISSA (Trieste, Italy). He will lead a project exploring dust re-formation in galaxies that undergo strong outflows of gas. The project will combine theoretical approaches with cutting-edge data from the James Webb and Euclid space telescopes, as well as data from large ground-based observatories such as JCMT, ALMA and NOEMA, where Dr. Darko Donevski serves as PI or co-PI.
NCN OPUS
Congratulations to Kasia Małek, who received the OPUS 27 grant! The project is of course focused on dust: "DUSTiny: dust influence on galaxy properties in new generation surveys." (CLICK HERE for more info) Soon, we will open the call for a postdoc and a PhD; stay tuned!Conference Participation
BP4 participate in may national and intersectional conferences. We share our cutting edge research and enthusiasm with other astronomers across the world. Below are pictures from our trips across the globe over the last year or so.
London, UK
13 December 2024
Barcelona, Spain
23-26 September 2024
La Palma, Spain
16-20 September 2024
Warsaw, Poland
9-11 September 2024
SLAC in Menlo Park, California, USA
22-26 July 2024
Kraków, Poland
9-11 July 2024
Padova, Italy
1-5 July 2024
Chongqing, China
16-19 May 2024
Aspen, USA
31 March - 5 April 2024
Latest News
Can dust evaporate in harsh interstellar environments?
Dust represents an important component of the interstellar medium of galaxies and is involved in various physical processes. As a consequence, it is crucial to understand the factors that influence its formation and destruction. In a recent study, a team of scientists led by dr Ambra Nanni of the NCBJ’s Astrophysics Division analysed the effect of photo-evaporation on the survival of dust in the interstellar medium of galaxies.
In the Universe, appearance matters: Dusty shapes of colourful galaxies
Can we see what is hidden in a cloud of dust without the aid of infrared vision? Scientists involved in the largest optical survey of the sky this decade, the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), led by a group from the NCBJ’s Astrophysics Division, in a paper published in April in Astronomy & Astrophysics, propose a novel method to extract information about dust in galaxies without actually observing its infrared light.
New observations of the outer Milky Way help to understand the star formation process
Having an accurate understanding of the star formation process is essential to comprehend the formation and evolution of galaxies, and this requires to unveil the impact of environment on star formation. In a new study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, scientists used a new survey of the outer Galaxy to refine the distance and properties of star-forming clumps and study how star formation behave in comparison with the inner Galaxy.
Dr. Michael Romano receives prestigious award from Astronomy & Astrophysics
Dr. Michael Romano, a researcher at the Department of Astrophysics of the National Centre for Nuclear Research (NCBJ), has been honored with the prestigious "Early Career Research Award" by the journal "Astronomy & Astrophysics" (A&A). The "Early Career Research Award" is bestowed annually upon young scientists who have demonstrated exceptional accomplishments in the field of astrophysics.
Gas on the run – ALMA spots the shadow of a molecular outflow from a quasar when the Universe was less than one billion years old
Theoretical predictions have been confirmed with the discovery of an outflow of molecular gas from a quasar when the Universe was less than a billion years old. The results obtained from the observations of the ALMA telescope are of great importance for understanding the processes of star formation in galaxies. Dr. Darko Donevski from the NCBJ Astrophysics Division participated in the work of the research team.
Midlife Crisis of the Universe: Galaxies’ interactions did not affect interstellar dust
A new study has shed light on the intricate cosmic dance between interstellar dust in galaxies, properties of galaxies, and their environments. For a very long time, the relations between dust and the galaxies was investigated. However, the link between dust properties and the neighborhood of galaxies was poorly understood. In the newest work published in Astronomy&Astrophysics, the scientists studied the relationship between the amount of stellar light absorbed by dust, and the environments of galaxies.
