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The fourth division (BP4) of The Fundamental Research Department (Departament Badań Podstawowych) deals with research in astrophysics and astronomy, mainly their observational aspects. The BP4 division is located in Warsaw at 7 Pasteura street.
The research conducted at the Astrophysics Laboratory includes:
- Cosmology: CMB, large structures of the Universe, dark matter, non-standard cosmology and gravitational lensing
- Gravitational waves: Multi-messenger astronomy, new tools for cosmology
- Physics of galaxies: Formation and evolution of galaxies, AGN, quasars and gamma-ray burst
- Interstellar medium: Star formation, neutron stars and white dwarfs
The BP4 division is also involved in several international projects. Check our Scientific Projects page for more information.
Seminars
Upcoming seminars for all of NCBJ can be found here.
The seminar archive for NCBJ can be found here.
Latest News
Scroll down for the latest news about the research done by our division or click here.
Telescope Success
JWST
Darko Donevski and Giuliano Lorenzon from the Astrophysics Department BP4 - National Centre for Nuclear Research have been awarded, as co-investigators, 13 hours of time on the largest space instrument - James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). They participated in the highly competitive Cycle 4 JWST proposal competition, which received a total of 2377 submissions. The project, led by Prof. A. Man (UBC Vancouver), aims to obtain the deepest-ever mid-infrared spectroscopy of a brightest cluster galaxy at z = 0.4. Darko and Giuliano will contribute to interpreting the interplay between warm and cold dust emission in this exceptional system, which harbours one of the most extended reservoirs of dust and gas observed to date.
Grant Success
NAWA Bekker
Congratulations to Margherita Grespan, a PhD candidate from the Astrophysics Department, who has been awarded the Bekker NAWA Fellowship! Over the next two years, she will join Oxford University’s Department of Physics to conduct research on anomaly detection in astronomical surveys, leveraging advanced machine learning techniques, including active learning. Her work will focus on uncovering rare phenomena, such as strong gravitational lenses, within the vast datasets produced by new-generation telescopes such as Euclid and Vera C. Rubin.
Also congratulations to Dr. Darko Donevski, who also received a Bekker NAWA Fellowship. Over the next 18 months, Dr. Darko Donevski will be conducting visiting research with the Astrophysics Group at SISSA (Trieste, Italy). He will lead a project exploring dust re-formation in galaxies that undergo strong outflows of gas. The project will combine theoretical approaches with cutting-edge data from the James Webb and Euclid space telescopes, as well as data from large ground-based observatories such as JCMT, ALMA and NOEMA, where Dr. Darko Donevski serves as PI or co-PI.
NCN OPUS
Congratulations to Kasia Małek, who received the OPUS 27 grant! The project is of course focused on dust: "DUSTiny: dust influence on galaxy properties in new generation surveys." (CLICK HERE for more info) Soon, we will open the call for a postdoc and a PhD; stay tuned!Conference Participation
BP4 participate in may national and intersectional conferences. We share our cutting edge research and enthusiasm with other astronomers across the world. Below are pictures from our trips across the globe over the last year or so.
London, UK
13 December 2024
Barcelona, Spain
23-26 September 2024
La Palma, Spain
16-20 September 2024
Warsaw, Poland
9-11 September 2024
SLAC in Menlo Park, California, USA
22-26 July 2024
Kraków, Poland
9-11 July 2024
Padova, Italy
1-5 July 2024
Chongqing, China
16-19 May 2024
Aspen, USA
31 March - 5 April 2024
Latest News
Katarzyna Małek, Head of the Astrophysics Division was awarded the title of Professor
Katarzyna Małek, Head of the Astrophysics Division of the National Centre for Nuclear Research, was awarded the title of Professor of Natural Sciences in the discipline of astronomy in March 2025. Our sincere congratulations!
ALMA observations unveils the chemical composition of galaxies in the early Universe
New research indicates that early galaxies contain large amounts of gas and dust, essential for star formation, more than theoretical models would indicate. In a recently published paper, a team of scientists from the NCBJ Astrophysics Division used observations from the ALPINE-ALMA program to investigate the presence of gas and dust in galaxies that formed within the first billion years after the Big Bang.
The kick-off of the Astrophysics Centre for Multimessenger studies in Europe ACME, an EU-funded project built by and for the astroparticle and the astronomy communities
With 40 world-class collaborating institutions from 14 countries, ACME brings together the astroparticle and astronomy communities in a joint effort to forge a basis for strengthened long-term collaboration between these research infrastructures irrespective of location and level up access opportunities across Europe and beyond. The National Centre for Nuclear Research node is one of the most active partners of the ACME consortium.
Last year's best achievements in basic research
On Monday, June 24, 2024, a Special Colloquium of the Fundamental Research Department of the National Centre for Nuclear Research was held, during which awards for achievements in 2023 were presented. The jury distinguished research on low brightness galaxies and for attempts to explain phenomena occurring during collisions of relativistic ions. Popular science stories and essays in which the author managed to hide his fascination with discovering the universe were also honored.
Barely visible galaxies are the key to understanding the Universe
When we look at the night sky, we cannot free ourselves from questions. We wonder if it is possible to count the stars. We imagine how great a distance separates us from them. When we realize what a light year actually is, we are surprised to discover that we are actually looking into the further or closer past. Scientists from the National Center for Nuclear Research experience a similar fascination, looking for answers to these and other questions about how the Universe looks and works. In the coming years, this search will be able to be more effective thanks to the project „ Barely visible: low surface brightness galaxies in the LSST era” under the supervision of Prof. dr hab. Agnieszka Pollo financed by the National Science Center under the MAESTRO program.
Smashing galaxies into dust
Dr William James Pearson will investigate how we can more reliably identify galaxy mergers using their morphologies and how mergers influence their dust content, dust attenuation, and metallicity. This will be done by combining artificial intelligence (AI) with more traditional methods to detect galaxy mergers as well as use state of the art. observations and techniques to study the galaxies’ dust and metal. Exploration of this fascinating topic will be possible thanks to a grant from the National Science Center under the SONATA programme.
