The people of ASTRON and NOVA in Dwingeloo work every day to unravel the secrets of the universe. Driven by curiosity and passion, they bring the unknown closer.
In the TV series ‘Explorers of the Universe’, documentary makers Ronald Pras and Marjolein Lauret show what drives the people of ASTRON and NOVA to look beyond our imagination.
In the second episode we see how astronomer Joeri van Leeuwen dissects the universe like a car mechanic. “I regularly tinker with my old car. Then I want to know how something works. This is also how the complicated processes and phenomena that occur in the universe can be approached.”
One such special phenomenon, which Van Leeuwen had been looking for for years and recently found, are the Fast Radio Bursts. A millisecond radio burst from a young neutron star. The discovery was made with the Westerbork telescope.
“Such a burst occurred five billion years ago in the distant, deep universe. That signal arrives in our telescope. Isn’t that incredible?”
When the first Fast Radio Burst arrived, Van Leeuwen was far away. “At that moment I was lying in a tent in Canada,” laughs Van Leeuwen. “I was woken up in the middle of the night by one of the team members: ‘We’ve got it, we’ve got it!’
In order to continue making discoveries, it is important that the bandwidth on which radio astronomers work remains free. Emma van der Wateren from ASTRON is fighting for this. “Large international telecom companies worldwide are preying on that same piece of band. The question is always which wins: the interest of science or the interest of big money.”
Van der Wateren is also involved in research into the origins of the universe. The far side of the moon plays a major role in this. How exactly does that work?
Watch the second episode of ‘Explorers of the Universe’ here.