On 15 May 2025, Onsala Space Observatory celebrated its 75th anniversary, with invited guests, many memories and glorious sunshine.
"This is my scientific home. The experiences I had as a young researcher at the observatory have shaped both my career and my view of science", said Susanne Aalto, Deputy President and Deputy CEO at Chalmers, Professor of Radio Astronomy and first on the long list of speakers.
The celebrations began in the morning at Chalmers Campus Johanneberg, where guests visited the Group for Advanced Receiver Development (GARD) to learn more about their work designing and developing super-sensitive receivers for some of the world's most advanced telescopes. Guests also toured Chalmers clean room and its supercomputers.
After a bus ride south, the programme continued in Onsala, with speeches, tours and space-inspired music from the duo Bjarki and Angelina.
Many people were keen to share memories of the past and thoughts on the future of the observatory. SKA Observatory Director Phil Diamond said it was a real pleasure to be back at his old stomping ground, where he first arrived as a young post-doc in 1983.
"Today we celebrate the 75th anniversary, but we also look forward to the next generation of radio astronomy. The fact that the Swedish Parliament voted in favour of Sweden becoming the 13th member state of SKAO the other week was nothing short of fantastic to see that happen!" said Phil Diamond.
Read more about Sweden joining the SKAO.
Susanne Aalto, Vice-Chancellor and Deputy CD at Chalmers and Professor of Radio Astronomy, added:
"The growing network of international partnerships in which Onsala plays a central role is helping to increase our knowledge and understanding of the cosmos".
According to John Conway, director of the Onsala observatory since 2013, we are entering a golden era for radio astronomy. He also told the audience about when, as a new employee at the observatory, he was tasked with climbing up and down the telescopes to "fix things" - despite being afraid of heights. John shared some of the observatory's milestones over the years, noting that many visitors often are astonished by how much has been a achieved at an observatory with such a small staff.
The breadth of research carried out with the observatory's telescopes and instruments - radio astronomy, geodesy, atmospheric studies, sea levels, land uplift and so on - was highlighted by Ylva Pihlström, from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in West Virginia, USA.
"When I was a student at Chalmers, we were bussed out to the observatory to see for ourselves the various applications for telescopes. The fact that students have access to a national infrastructure like this really encourages young students to enter into these research fields", said Ylva Pihlström.
The list of speakers also included
- Laura Sanchez, who heads the collaborative Global Geodetic Observing System,
- Michael Garrett, Director of the Jodrell Bank Centre of Astrophysics, UK,
- Martin Lidberg, Head of Geodetic Infrastructure, Swedish National Land Survey, and
- Aga Słowikowska, director JIV-ERIC
- Paco Colomer, programs director at the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, Spain
- Anton Zensus, director of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Germany
- Jonas Wessel, Director of resource management, Post- och telestyrelsen
- Liz Humphreys, European ALMA Programme Manager and head of the ALMA Division, ESO
- Huib van Langevelde, project director, Event Horizon Telescope at JIV-ERIC, Netherlands
- Cristiana Spingola, astronomer at INAF, Bologna, Italy.
All under the guidance of conference organiser Moa Skan, PhD student at the Institute of Solar Physics, Stockholm University.
The programme concluded with tours and study visits to the various telescopes and instruments, and the visitors also had time to visit a photo exhibition curated by artist and researcher Kerstin Hamilton at the University of Gothenburg.
Read more about the Observatory here on the Chalmers website.
Text: Christian Löwhagen
Photos: Christian Löwhagen and MJ Shahhoseini