Onsala Space Observatory provides scientists with equipment to study the Earth and the rest of the Universe. Facilities for radio astronomy are described here.
LOFAR
The Swedish LOFAR (Low Frequency Array) station is located at Onsala Space Observatory. It is one of 14 LOFAR stations in Europe complementing the thirty eight stations concentrated in the north-east of the Netherlands. The LOFAR project is lead by Astron in the Netherlands.
Onsala 20 m telescope
The 20 m diameter, radome-enclosed, millimetre wave telescope in Onsala is equipped with receivers for frequencies up to 116 GHz. It is used for observations of, e.g., comets, star forming regions, circumstellar envelopes, the interstellar medium, and active galactic nuclei.
APEX
APEX, the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment, is a 12 m diameter submillimetre telescope at 5100 m altitude on Llano Chajnantor in Chile. Starting in 2023, the APEX telescope is operated solely by Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie (MPIfR).
SKA regional centre
Onsala Space Observatory is developing the Swedish SKA Regional Centre node as part of the collaborative global network, SRCNet, in collaboration with Chalmers e-Commons.
Nordic ALMA Regional Centre node
Odin
The Odin satellite – an observatory for sub-millimetre wave spectroscopy – was launched from Svobodny in far-eastern Russia on February 20, 2001. Odin was designed for research in both astronomy (for example studies of the star formation process in our Galaxy) and aeronomy (for example studies of the depletion of the ozone layer in Earth's atmosphere).