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Magnetized Plasma around Merging Black Holes Shines and Burst like the Corona of the Sun

What happens when the supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies collide? This is the question explored in a new article by CITA Postdoctoral fellow Sean Ressler, CITA faculty Bart Ripperda, CITA National Fellow Luciano Combi (University of Guelph/Perimeter Institute, and Caltech faculty Elias Most that just came out in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

At the centre of almost…

CITA faculty Maya Fishbach receives this year’s Annie Jump Cannon Award in Astronomy

Assistant Professor Maya Fishbach. Photo: Diana Tyszko.

The American Astronomical Society (AAS), a major international organization of professional astronomers, announced today the recipients of some of its 2025 prizes for outstanding achievements in research and education.

This year the prestigious Annie Jump Cannon Award in Astronomy was presented to CITA faculty Maya Fishbach for her “major contributions to the field of gravitational-wav…

First-Ever Detection of Mid-IR Flares in Sgr A*- the Supermassive Black Hole at the Galactic Center

An international team of scientists, including CITA faculty Bart Ripperda and CITA graduate student Braden Gail, have made the first-ever detection of a mid-IR flare from Sgr A*.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, an international team of scientists among whom CITA faculty Bart Ripperda and graduate student Braden Gail, detected for the first time a mid-IR flare from the supermassiv…

CITA Professor Norman Murray is distinguished as a 2025 Fellow of the American Astronomical Society

CITA Professor Norman Murray has been named a 2025 Fellow of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) for his “seminal contributions to our theories of chaos in the solar system, including planet formation and evolution; and for pioneering new methods for studying the physics of black hole accretion and the effects of stars and supermassive black holes on galaxy formation.” 

The American…

The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration Reports a Spectacular Flare from the Centre of the Messier 87 Galaxy

By Lyuba Encheva (with files from EHT press office)

Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics researchers Bart Ripperda, Ue-Li Pen and Gibwa Musoke, who are part of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration, are among the authors of a paper outlining the results of a multi-wavelength observational campaign conducted in April 2018.

The authors report the first observation…

CITA Fellow James Beattie was awarded close to 100-million-core-hours to explore the nature of turbulence and dynamos

By Lyuba Encheva, Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics

CITA and Princeton Postdoctoral Fellow James Beattie and collaborators were awarded close to a 100-million-core-hours on the German supercomputer at the Leibniz Supercomputing Center, SuperMUC-NG. Beattie will utilize the immense computing power of SuperMUC-NG for the investigation of magnetic field generation in merging binary…

Van Gogh’s depiction of the starry night closely resembles the turbulence found between the stars in our Galaxy

By Lyuba Encheva, Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics
“Van Gogh’s depiction of the starry night closely resembles the turbulence found in between the stars in our Galaxy”, explains CITA/ Princeton Postdoctoral Fellow James Beattie for CNN.
The impressionistic painting of Van Gogh is not just an artist’s rendition of a summer night’s sky. As it turns out, the scrutiny of an…

Job App Hackathon 2024

What?
The CITA mentorship committee is once again hosting a Job App Hackathon! The CITA Job App Hackathon is an opportunity to prepare job application materials and get feedback from peers and mentors, including several CITA, Dunlap, and Physics faculty. In addition to co-writing sessions in the morning and afternoon, attendees will be able to sign-up for short one-on-one meetings wit…

CITA welcomes six Fellows to cohort 2024

CITA extends a warm welcome to our incoming Fellows and National Fellows. In September, we will be joined by four Fellows at our flagship at the University of Toronto and two national fellows at McGill University and the University of Victoria. We are committed to providing post-doctoral training for early career researchers in the field of Theoretical Astrophysics and are excited about t…

Former CITA Postdoctoral Fellow receives the 2024 IAU Astronomy Education Prize

By Lyuba Encheva, Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics

In June the International Astronomical Union [IAU] announced the 2024 winners of three IAU prizes – the IAU Astronomy Outreach Prize, the IAU Astronomy Development Prize, and the IAU Astronomy Education Prize. The three awards recognize individuals and organizations who have made outstanding contributions to the fields of…

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