The deadline for proposal submission for Cycle 7 was 19 April 2018. 1785 proposals were submitted, including 14 Large Programmes. This is a slight decrease from Cycle 6, although the number of hours requested on the main array is 4.5 more than offered. The oversubscription rate remains high (~6 on the 12-metre array for the European applicants). Detailed proposal submission statistics are available in a dedicated report. The report provides a summary of items such as the number of submitted proposals and time requested, subscription rates, and comparisons with the number of hours requested in previous Cycles.

High-Resolution Spectroscopy in the Era of ALMA, JWST and ELT to be held 22-26 July, at the Sexten Centre for Astrophysics, Italy

The aim of the workshop is to bring together researchers working with one of the leading facilities available today (ALMA) in order to plan for the next generation (JWST, ELT). Key to the motivation for this workshop is that astronomers must harness the high spatial resolution spectroscopic capabilities of each of these facilities, in a multi-wavelength approach, in order to reach their scientific goals.

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration will present the groundbreaking results on 10 April 2019 in simultaneous press conferences worldwide.

The EU conference will be streamed online on the ESO website, by the ERC, and on social media. Questions will also be taken from social media using the hashtag #AskEHTeu.

A total of six major press conferences will be held simultaneously around the globe in Belgium (Brussels, English), Chile (Santiago, Spanish), Shanghai (Mandarin), Japan (Tokyo, Japanese), Taipei (Mandarin), and USA (Washington, D.C., English).

ALMA Development Workshop to be held 3-5 June 2019 at ESO, Garching, Germany

In order to keep ALMA at the forefront of technology, all ALMA partners have a continuous development programme. ESO strives to closely involve the member state institutes in this programme by issuing calls for development studies every three years (see the ALMA European Development webpage).

The next European call is expected to be issued in 2019. To optimally develop the ideas for new studies – especially in the context of the ALMA Development Roadmap, ESO is organizing a workshop in Garching from 3-5 June 2019. This builds on the on the success of the 2016 ALMA Developers’ Workshop.

ALMA2019: science results and cross-facility synergies   

Following conferencences in Puerto Varas (Chile, 2012), Tokyo (Japan, 2014), and Indian Wells (USA, 2016), the ALMA partnership is organizing the ALMA Science Conference in Cagliari (Sardinia, Italy) on Oct 14-18, 2019.