New "Christmas" comet discovered by a Czech, named C/2024 Y1 (Mašek).

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Update 1. 1. 2025 A new comet was spotted on the night of 24–25 December 2024 by scientist Martin Mašek from the Institute of Physics over the western horizon in Argentina. He operated the telescope online from Liberec (city in the Czech Republic). This is the first Czech discovery of a comet where the observer was not physically present in the observatory, and the first Czech discovery from the southern hemisphere. The comet will not appear above our horizon until late February or early March. 

From rare components to new paradigms in physics

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On (not only) open questions in physics with David Hlaváček

In the "Open Questions in Physics" interview series we introduce you to different research areas and personalities of the Institute of Physics. At the Department of Astroparticle Physics, David Hlaváček is involved in the design of one of the control modules of the upcoming LISA space mission, which aims to capture gravitational waves possibly dating back to the very beginning of the universe. In addition, he is also involved in the outreach and philosophy of science. Where does he see physics going, what will LISA tell us about the cosmos and why is it important to inspire new generations of scientists?

Showers of cosmic rays may reveal new physics

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On open questions in astroparticle physics with Jakub Vícha

Where do high-energy cosmic ray particles come from and how can we even learn what they are? Can they open up an opportunity for us to discover completely new physical processes? And can cosmic rays influence the weather? These questions have not been answered yet, but research by Jakub Vícha from the Department of Astroparticle Physics at FZU is bringing us closer to unravelling these mysteries.

The Galaxy as never seen before: surprising discoveries through SST-1M telescopes

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The sensitivity of the SST-1M pair of Cherenkov telescopes at very high energies exceeds that of any existing Cherenkov imaging telescope in the world. This surprising news was presented at a conference in Milan by Jakub Jurýšek. At the Institute of Physics, together with his team, he is developing software that allows stereoscopic reconstruction of observed cosmic gamma-ray showers and subsequent imaging of the sources of these gamma photons in space. 

Atacama Desert will get hundreds of thousands of tons of water placed into. Scientists are looking for sources of cosmic rays

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The first ground-based wide-field observatory designed to detect very high to ultra-high energy gamma rays in the Southern Hemisphere will be built in the Atacama Astronomical Park in Chile. The observatory will study radiation from space that is emitted by the most extreme objects in the universe, such as black holes and neutron stars, gamma-ray bursts and supernovae.

Czech physicist Jakub Vícha's method helps determine what cosmic rays consist of

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The highest energy cosmic ray particles are likely to penetrate much deeper into the atmosphere than previously thought. The incoming particles are therefore likely to be much heavier. New and fundamental insights emerge from a method that generalises the approach to predicting models of cosmic particle collisions with the Earth's atmosphere. The accuracy of Jakub Vícha's method has been confirmed by hundreds of international scientists at the Pierre Auger Observatory, as shown in a study published these days in Physical Review D.

The European Space Agency has greenlit the LISA mission. The satellite construction is contributed to by Czechs

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The European Space Agency has approved the so-called adoption of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission with a budget of €1.75 billion. A mission adoption is an important milestone in the development of space projects, where the European Space Agency takes a project from the assessment phase to the actual implementation of concepts and technologies.

Eva Maria Martins dos Santos of the FZU received the Auger Impact Award 2023

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Dr. Eva Maria Martins dos Santos of the FZU received the Auger Impact Award 2023 on November 17 in recognition of the outstanding efforts on Monte-Carlo simulation coordination, which has a tremendous impact on the results published by the Pierre Auger Observatory but is not necessarily visible, and for her extremely responsive and service oriented attitude.

One of the brightest gamma-ray bursts was observed by Czech telescopes

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On the night of June 19-20, 2021, visible light from a source 10 billion light-years away from Earth was captured by three telescopes. Two of them – robotic telescopes – are operated by Czech institutions – the D50, located in Ondřejov, is managed by the Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, while the other, FRAM-ORM, is located on the Spanish island of La Palma. The third telescope, Mini-MegaTORTORA, is installed in Nizhny Arkhyz, Russia. An international team has published a study of this extraordinary source in the May issue of Nature Astronomy.

IDPASC summer school in particle and astroparticle physics and cosmology for the first time in the Czech Republic

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Top lecturers from 6 European countries and the United States of America come together at the Joint Laboratory of Optics of the Palacký University in Olomouc and the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences to organize the 11th installment in the series of summer schools by the International Doctorate Network in Particle Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology (IDPASC).