Astronomical News
Staff at ESO
Eleonora Sani I had taken the first step, but still had to choose the topic for my degree thesis I’ve always been fascinated by natural (and thus, once more, an important chal- behaviour — why things work in one way lenge for the future). I was interested in rather than another. But, sincerely, I observational work on Solar spectroscopy hadn’t thought to become an astronomer. and had already contacted one team, I started to be interested in astronomy since the Observatory of Arcetri (where just by chance when I was in my late I was supposed to finish my Masters) teens. Walking in the city centre I saw an had a great tradition in such studies. But amateur telescope in a shop and thought, then I had a meeting with the director, “Well it would be nice to look at stars and Professor Franco Pacini, and he con- galaxies with such a thing!” vinced me that working in extragalactic astronomy with a recently formed team I became enthusiastic about going of young researchers would be really around the countryside camping and stimulating. So once more I changed my looking at the sky with my brand-new plans and started a curriculum centred telescope, but still astronomy was on supermassive black holes and their not my first choice for future studies. co-evolution with galaxies. My PhD and I started studying physics at the Univer- my first postdocs were great periods, sity of Florence with some vague idea during which I started my own project of taking a Masters in quantum physics based on Very Large Telescope data and Eleonora Sani or something related to the super-small had the opportunity to visit the Max Plank world. But then, when I had to choose Institut für extraterrestrische Physik in support astronomers, who appeared to my specialisation I realised that astro- Garching to work on both satellite and me as super-heroes! physics is the most complete discipline, interferometric data. because it spans the range from atomic Now I have become part of this team, physics, Solar studies, radiation pro- My first experience with an 8-metre-class supporting VLT Unit Telescope 1 and cesses, plasma physics and complex telescope came when I went to Paranal I am in training as the instrument scien- dynamics to cosmology, and entails to observe with the Infrared Spectrometer tist for the K-band Multi-Object Spectro- the use of many different kinds of tech- and Array Camera (ISAAC) for my own graph (KMOS), a jewel of infrared tech- nologies, from ground-based facilities project. I remember how nervous and nology. I am not a super-hero for sure, to satellites and many more. How can excited I was at the same time because but will face new challenges and exciting a researcher desire more than having of the scientific challenge and I was times in the future with the new genera- almost all these fields rolled into one? also a bit fascinated by the skills of the tion of facilities.
Fellows at ESO
Matthieu Béthermin men attracted me. But this was nurtured up kids. A few months later, we moved only through reading books and watching to the south of France. There, I discovered I was born in Paris in 1985 and grew up TV documentaries. why people say the night sky is black in Suresnes in the western suburbs. and I saw the Milky Way for the first time. From there, the night sky was a sort of One of the main events that pushed This was beautiful. I started to explore bright orange haze caused by all the me towards astronomy, paradoxically, this new world with binoculars and then sodium streetlights. The city of light was happened on a crowded urban highway with a small telescope. After observing certainly not the best place to enjoy the in the south of Paris. I was ten years the Andromeda Galaxy and reading that faint and diffuse Milky Way. At a young old. After being stuck in a traffic jam for the light from there had travelled 2.5 billion age, I was already fascinated by the three hours trying to re-enter Paris after years before hitting my retina, I was so question of our origins. Everything about a weekend, my parents had decided fascinated that I decided I wanted to astronomy, dinosaurs, and prehistoric that Paris was no longer a place to bring study the cosmos.
64 The Messenger 162 – December 2015 I thus started to study physics and metres diameter with a resolution and maths, since this is the first requirement sensitivity in the submillimetre matching towards becoming an astrophysicist. the performance that the Hubble Space I always loved physics and how it con- Telescope can reach in the visible. For nects the world of numbers to reality the first time, the dust in distant galaxies and paradoxically gives sense to events is not seen as a faint blob, but we can through abstraction. I first studied at the study the detail and find surprising mor- Lycée du Parc in Lyon and then at the phologies. Ecole Normale Supérieure in Cachan, near Paris. During this period I had a As an ESO Fellow, I had the honour to six-week internship at the Nançay radio go to observe at ALMA as astronomer telescope studying pulsars under the on duty. The basecamp of ALMA from supervision of Ismael Cognard. I discov- which the telescope is controlled offers ered the large gap between amateur a breathtaking view of the Atacama and professional astronomy. There was Desert and the Andean volcanoes. But no long night-sky observing, but high- the high site at 5000 metres above sea tech instruments and massive use of level, on a gigantic plateau, where the computers. Thus it was decided: I defi- array is installed, is even more incredible. nitely wanted to become astrophysicist! Operating such ultra-high technology facilities in such a tough environment is I then studied for my Masters in astro- challenging. My experience at ALMA was physics in Paris. I discovered far-infrared probably one of the highlights of my surveys during a hands-on session on career as an astronomer, and this was data analysis. I really liked the challenge thanks to the ESO Fellowship! of extracting galaxies in data with a very limited resolution. These surveys were also essential to understanding the star Matthieu Béthermin Ke Wang formation history of the Universe. The subject was scientifically interesting and I grew up in the suburb of Chongqing, challenging and I decided to do my Emanuele Daddi, my collaborator and in southwest China, a place famous for PhD thesis on this topic supervised by I finally managed to identify the galaxies its delicious Sichuan cuisine. There, in Hervé Dole, and in close collaboration at the origin of the infrared background summer, temperatures can reach 40°C, with Guilaine Lagache. and the dark-matter halos which host so families would gather in the front yard them. We found that in the early Universe, after supper to enjoy the cool evening The goal of my thesis was to identify about 10 billion years ago, a large fraction breeze. My brother and I would play with the galaxies at the origin of the cosmic of the stars were formed at a very rapid our dog and cat before falling asleep in infrared background. This background is pace in few very massive galaxies hosted the starry light. It was at that time I the relic of all the dust emission across by massive overdensities. The nature of became fascinated by the charming cosmic time and is very important for the these gigantic star factories, forming beauty of the night skies. Then I started understanding of the formation of stars in 100 times more stars than the Milky Way, a long journey to find out “what these the Universe. The newborn stellar popu- was very hard to explain. shining little dots are”. I conducted my lations emit a lot of ultraviolet light, which first observations using a homemade toy cannot escape the clouds of dust in the After these few years of hard but exciting telescope, targeting the Moon and Jupiter, vicinity where the stars were born. But work, I had the amazing opportunity to without knowing that Galileo Galilei did the dust re-emits the energy of this light come to ESO as a Fellow to pursue my the same thing almost 400 years before. in the far-infrared, allowing us to study own research programmes, aimed at “How great it would be, if I could own a this hidden star formation. unveiling the nature of these galaxies. real telescope,” I thought. Astronomer Being independent so early in a research soon topped the list of my dream careers. Unfortunately, these distant galaxies career is extremely stimulating. I continue Also included in that list were astronaut, cannot be detected directly in the data to use Herschel data and have found athlete, archaeologist and history teacher. of the Spitzer and Herschel far-infrared gigantic gas reservoirs in these giant After running several marathons, my space observatories. I thus developed galaxies in the young Universe. But, a injured meniscus warned me that being statistical tools to detect the signature of revolution in my research field is starting an athlete was not a good option. these distant galaxy populations in the with the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub- faint fluctuations they cause in the cosmic millimeter Array (ALMA). In high school I did well in natural sci- infrared background. After a three-year ences, was interested in many fields, but PhD thesis and a further two-year post- ALMA is especially designed to observe physics was always my favourite. So I doc at the Commissariat à l’énergie the dust in distant galaxies. It is equiva- was really excited to find out that there is atomique (CEA) Saclay (France) with lent to a virtual telescope of up to 10 kilo- a field combining the fun parts of both
The Messenger 162 – December 2015 65 Astronomical News
fields, called astrophysics. I started to read any book about astronomy that I could find, even though some of them turned out to be science fiction (which I actually enjoyed). Book hunting continued throughout my university study at Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT), where I was usually the only visitor to the astronomy section in the library. However BIT did not have an astronomy group. In the final year of my study at BIT, I became a frequent visitor to the neighbouring Peking Univer- sity (PKU) for seminars in the Department of Astronomy, and naturally conducted my bachelor thesis there, on the habita- ble zones around Solar-like stars. After a Ke Wang valedictory presentation at BIT I was awarded a place in the PhD programme at PKU, exempt from the entry exam. books but also from textbook authors languages. Soon I found myself in the and a Nobel Prize Laureate. It was such Netherlands, but outside Holland, for a Right after my bachelor study I had no a privilege to work with people who had ten-month European Erasmus post idea which topic I would do for a PhD, actually built and maintained a cutting- doctoral fellowship at the Kapteyn Astro- but I knew I would like to observe using edge interferometer: there is no better nomical Institute, University of Groningen. telescopes. Luckily, at PKU we had one way to gain a solid understanding of radio That was before my PhD thesis defense. year to experience the different subjects interferometry. So I felt that it was like In Groningen, I extended my research being studied at the Department before an award to join the SMA remote opera- horizon to another wavelength range, making the decision. During that year I tions team, controlling the telescope using data from the Herschel space tele- made my first observing trip to the Purple array from a comfortable room at the CfA scope. In addition to the iconic tulip fields Mountain Observatory (PMO) 14-metre every week. Early mornings in Boston’s and windmills, I appreciated the Dutch radio telescope and observed molecular wild winters, clearing the heavy snow in enthusiasm for cycling. I was totally lines in a sample of infrared dark clouds front of the rear door in order to enter the shocked at how efficient the sky is over (IRDCs). I was amazed by the (already) building on time for my SMA observa- this land in converting clouds into rain. By gigantic dish and its spherical dome. tions, is a special memory. the end of my fellowship I could handle Although images made by radio tele- sudden rains as elegantly as the locals. scopes are not (yet) as stunning as opti- More enjoyable was of course to fly to cal telescopes, I appreciated the physics Hawaii and drive up to the Martian-like I joined ESO Garching on the occasion one can derive even from a spectrum. landscape of Mauna Kea, home to the of ESO’s 50th anniversary in October Also the fact of “seeing the invisible” (even SMA and a family of world-class tele- 2012. ESO is a unique place in many in the day time!) at radio wavelengths is scopes. Literally above the clouds, aspects, from its international, intergov- attractive. So that’s it, radio astronomer! watching the array of telescopes moving ernmental nature to its internal organi under my command felt so good! I was sation, from the high quality of science it Soon after I returned from the PMO also a frequent user of other interferome- delivers to its frequent exposure in social 14-metre, I was awarded a position in the ters and single-dish telescopes including media. That gives us the opportunities pre-doctoral programme at the Harvard– the Jansky Very Large Array (JVLA), the to witness the, usually hidden, political Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Combined Array for Research in Millimeter- and engineering aspects of a modern (CfA), in the Submillimeter Array (SMA) wave Astronomy (CARMA), the Caltech observatory, and how decisions are group. For the first time I flew outside Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) and made to shape the next decades of Euro- China and moved to Cambridge, Massa- the Green Bank Telescope (GBT). I used pean and world astronomy. Science wise, chusetts, USA. The CfA is one of the these telescopes to obtain deep, high- I was a little surprised to hear “there is hot spots on the world map of astronomy, resolution images of IRDCs in order to no group at ESO”, but few months later I and the SMA was the first interferometer study the initial fragmentation leading fell in love with the way it is organised: working at submillimetre wavelengths. to the formation of massive stars and everyone belongs to the ESO family. As With the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub- clusters. These observations were later an ESO Fellow, I enjoy the freedom of millimeter Array (ALMA) coming online published by Springer as my PhD thesis. being an independent researcher and at in a few years, I knew I was at a good the same time, the rare opportunity to place at a good time. I dived into the sea Having spent three years in the USA, I work for the largest ever ground-based of knowledge, eagerly learning the fun convinced my girlfriend to venture to astronomy project — ALMA. I have con- damentals and the practical aspects of Europe, a slightly more exotic continent tinued to expand my expertise in radio radio interferometry, not only from text- where we did not understand the local interferometry, gained from the SMA and
66 The Messenger 162 – December 2015 Astronomical News
the JVLA, to a variety of duties at the My ESO Fellowship has just come at the ALMA Operations Support Facility, European ALMA Regional Centre, such to an end, but thanks to the Deutsche my thoughts went back to the yard in as astronomer on duty (on-site observ- Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), I can my childhood. From my toy telescope to ing), contact scientist, data quality assur- continue my research at ESO as an the real telescopes I’ve operated (or ance, software testing, tutoring new Associate. It turns out that I am the first climbed) so far: the PMO 14-metre, SMA, users, etc. ALMA is revolutionising our to successfully bring a DFG grant to ESO! CSO 10-metre, JVLA, GBT 100-metre, understanding of the Universe, and I am Currently I am leading an ESO Public CARMA, the Institut de Radioastronomie proud to be part of the team. Undoubt- Survey towards an all-sky sample of cold Millimétrique (IRAM) 30-metre, Effelsberg edly knowing more details of ALMA ben- molecular clumps discovered by the 100-metre, the Heinrich Hertz Submil efits my own research. On the personal Planck satellite. After all these rewarding limeter Telescope (SMT) 10-metre and side, although I’m allergic to alcohol and years, the time has come when I can ALMA, and I am thankful for the bound- so cannot enjoy the Oktoberfest, we are contribute to the community. less love, help, luck and fortune which, super happy to find the Alps only one combined, have made my childhood hour away! How can one not fall in love Looking up at the crystal-clear sky over dream come true. I look forward to the with skiing in the Alps! Chajnantor on the way to a night shift even more exciting years to come.
Personnel Movements
Arrivals (1 October–31 December 2015) Departures (1 October–31 December 2015)
Europe Europe Agnello, Adriano (IT) Fellow Balestra, Andrea (IT) Software Engineer Arrigoni Battaia, Fabrizio (IT) Fellow Cabrera Ziri Castro, Ivan (VE) Student Bonnefond, Sylvain (FR) Student Chira, Roxana-Adela (DE) Student Bordelon, Dominic (US) Library Technology Specialist Erm, Toomas (SE) Electronics Engineer Johnston, Tania (UK) ESO Supernova Coordinator Geier, Stephan (DE) Fellow Kurowski, Przemyslaw (PL) Software Engineer Haase, Jonas (DK) Astronomical Data Archive & Lu, Hau-Yu (TW) Fellow Pipeline Software Specialist Nilsson, Maria Theresa (SE) Student Jamialahmadi, Narges (IR) Student Stroe, Andra (RO) Fellow klein Gebbinck, Maurice (NL) Software Engineer Oezener, Betuel (DE) HR Advisor Rahoui, Farid (FR) Fellow Zafar, Tayyaba (PK) Fellow Zahorecz, Sarolta (HU) Student
Chile Chile Bellhouse, Callum (UK) Student Duran, Carlos (CL) Electronic Engineer Diaz, Mariano (CL) APEX Site Administrator Parra, Ricardo Nelson (CL) Electronics Engineer Dupeyron, Jorge (CL) Network & Windows Specialist Smeback, Russell (US) JAO Head of Administration Gallenne, Alexandre (FR) Fellow Vigan, Arthur (FR) Operations Astronomer Haeussler, Boris (DE) Operations Staff Astronomer Hibon, Pascale (FR) Operations Staff Astronomer Jaffe Ribbi, Yara Lorena (VE) Fellow Klement, Robert (CZ) Student Lillo Box, Jorge (ES) Fellow Muñoz, César (CL) Student Muñoz-Mateos, Juan Carlos (ES) Operations Staff Astronomer Plunkett, Adele (US) Fellow Vogt, Frédéric (CH) Fellow
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