Alpbach Summer School, July 2000
7 April 2000
Extragalactic Astronomy & Cosmology from Space, July 18 - 27, 2000 Alpbach/Tyrol - AustriaThe theme of this year's Alpbach Summer School is 'Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology from Space' which has acquired growing importance with the advent of large ground based facilities and ambitious space missions, altogether spanning a wide wavelength range from the far infrared to the gamma-ray band. As a result, a very active worldwide community of astrophysicists has developed which is now actively involved in the exploitation of recently launched space missions and the preparation of new and more ambitious ones.The Summer School is co-organised by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Transport and the Austrian Space Agency (ASA) and co-spon-sored by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the national space authorities of its member states. It is supported by the Government of Tyrol.
Programme In the period 1999-2008 ESA's Horizons 2000 Programme for Space Science will launch a number of major space missions which will address the general theme of the school both in the high energy range (XMM and Integral missions) as well as in the infrared to mm-wave band (FIRST, Planck, and NASA's NGST mission). XMM has just been successfully launched on 10 December and by the time of the school will have started to produce data. The other missions will be launched in sequence starting with INTEGRAL in 2001, followed by FIRST and Planck in 2007, and finally NGST in 2008.
A number of specific scientific topics will be emphasized during the school. These will be: extragalactic sources (Active Galactic Nuclei, Super Novae, Black Holes, Gamma Ray Bursts and other point sources), unresolved extragalactic sources, clusters of galaxies, starburst activity, and cosmology, most of which will be addressed by one or more of the above space missions.
Lectures devoted to systems engineering, science instrumentation and operations related to these missions, will also be given. The aim of the Summer School is to offer advanced training and working experience to European graduate and post graduate students, on subjects which are not usually part of the academic curricula. Lectures will be given by well known scientists on the subjects related to the above topics. The programme is so structured that the students will first acquire basic scientific knowledge. They will then be provided with information on the scientific instruments used in space astronomy exploration as well as on the engineering tools related to the design of space missions.
Deadline for applications: 21 April 2000
For full details and national contacts visit the Alpbach Summer School homepage
