News - Trottier Space Institute at McGill

Over 500 new FRBs detected in single year due to CHIME telescope

Jun 9, 2021, McGill Newsroom

Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, blaze for a few milliseconds before vanishing without a trace. Their origins are unknown, and their appearance is unpredictable. In the decade following their discovery in 2007, only 140 FRBs had been seen. Now, thanks to the launch of a large stationary telescope in the interior of British Columbia in 2018, the number of new FRBs detected has almost quadrupled – for a total of 535. Moreover, the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME/FRB), a McGill-led inter-university collaboration, has put together the first CHIME/FRB catalogue, which will be presented this week at the American Astronomical Society Meeting.

Victoria M Kaspi and Chryssa Kouveliotou Receive the 2021 Shaw Prize in Astronomy

Jun 1, 2021, IAU Newsroom

The Shaw Prize in Astronomy 2021 is shared equally by Victoria M. Kaspi, Professor of Physics and Director of McGill Space Institute, McGill University, Canada and Chryssa Kouveliotou, Professor and Chair, Department of Physics at George Washington University, USA for their contributions to our understanding of magnetars, a class of highly magnetised neutron stars that are linked to a wide range of spectacular, transient astrophysical phenomena. This prestigious award is one way in which the Shaw Prize Foundation seeks to promote astronomy, a mission shared by the IAU and one which the two organisations have ongoing collaborations to pursue.

McGill students honoured by SWAAC

May 20, 2021, McGill Reporter

MSI PhD student Emilie Parent is one of three winners of this year's Graduate Student Award of Merit from the Senior Women Academic Administrators of Canada (SWAAC). The award recognizes women graduate students who have demonstrated outstanding leadership in the university or general community while maintaining exemplary academic records.

Abstract podcast Ep. 46: Cosmic Strings and the Early Universe ft. Bryce Cyr

Apr 11, 2021, Abstract Podcast

MSI grad student Bryce Cyr was featured on Ep. 46 of the Abstract podcast (created by McGill alumnus Jeremy Ullman). Episode description: Our guest this week, Bryce Cyr, is completing his PhD in Cosmology at McGill University. He's studying the theoretical structures known as cosmic strings (unrelated to string theory, but we discuss that too). They might shed light on the nature of the early universe and the origin of dark matter!

Ziggy Pleunis receives the 2021 Plaskett Medal

Mar 11, 2021, CRAQ Newsroom

Recent MSI alumnus Ziggy Pleunis was awarded the 2021 J. S. Plaskett Medal for the most outstanding doctoral thesis in astronomy or astrophysics from the Canadian Astronomical Society (CASCA).

AAS Names 31 New Fellows for 2021

Feb 2, 2021, AAS Newsroom

Vicky Kaspi named fellow of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) for her innovative work in the field of neutron stars and pulsars.

A ‘super-puff’ planet like no other

Jan 22, 2021, McGill Reporter

A Canadian-led team of astronomers, including MSI Prof. Eve Lee, discover that the core mass of exoplanet WASP-107b is much lower than previously thought possible for a gas-giant planet.

Ice sheets on the move: how north and south poles connect

Nov 25, 2020, McGill Newsroom

New modelling of ice sheet changes during the most recent glacial cycle by MSI Prof. Natalya Gomez's team offers a clearer idea of the mechanisms that drive change than had previously existed and explains newly available geological records

Surveying the Universe (MSI Special Lecture)

Nov 17, 2020, MSI

On November 17, 2020, MSI had the honour of (virtually) hosting a public talk by Steven M. Kahn, Cassius Lamb Kirk Professor in the Natural Sciences, Stanford University, and Director of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. Prof. Kahn described the design and development of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, a new and unique major astronomical facility under development in Chile with funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Energy. The Rubin Observatory is a large-aperture, wide-field ground-based telescope designed to perform a ten-year, time-domain survey of the entire southern hemisphere of sky in six optical colour bands. He walked us through how the observatory will photograph every part of the southern sky nearly 1,000 times over its planned decade of operations. He expects that it will discover nearly 20 billion new galaxies, and a comparable number of stars – the first time in human history when we will know of more objects in the Universe than there are people on Earth. A diverse array of distinct science investigations will be enabled by the resulting database, ranging from studies of small moving bodies in the solar system to the structure and evolution of the Universe as a whole. The talk was followed by a Q&A where we took questions from our very enthusiastic audience, so many that we ran out of time!

CIFAR fellows narrow in on origin of Fast Radio Bursts

Sep 16, 2020, CIFAR

New results from fellows in CIFAR’s Gravity & the Extreme Universe program and the CHIME telescope collaboration continue to provide unique astrophysical insights