Three researchers of the Nucleus Millennium of Planetary Formation, NPF, were awarded the Joint Committee 2021 fund, constituted by ESO and the Chilean Government, which seeks to finance research projects in astronomy.

One of them was Amelia Bayo, director of the NPF and an academic at the Institute of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Valparaiso. Her project, called “Two Engineers for Light-Weight Astronomical Mirror Development”, seeks to continue with experiments on parallaxing (glass) mandrels and carbon fiber mirrors, and to develop prototype cells to integrate the mirrors – developed in the context of a collaboration with the Scientific and Technological Center of Valparaiso – into telescope mounts.

On the other hand, Matthias Schreiber, deputy director of the NPF and academic of the Physics Department of the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, USM, obtained funds to support a new permanent teaching position in the field of planetary and/or stellar astrophysics at that university, in Valparaíso.

Finally, Laura Perez, associate researcher at the NPF and academic at the Universidad de Chile, was awarded funds to finance a postdoctoral researcher working on high-resolution data from the ALMA Observatory, looking for substructures that can be connected with the presence of planets in formation (the latter not directly visible).