Netherlands Astronomy Conference 2026

The Near-Ultraviolet eXplorer (NUX) is a proposed wide-field (~67 square degrees) ground-based observatory, designed to explore the shortest UV wavelengths (300 to 350 nm) observable from Earth's surface. NUX’s primary goal is to deepen our understanding of fast (hours to days) and hot transient phenomena, including shock-breakout emissions from supernovae and electromagnetic sources...

Jupiter’s famous banding reflects powerful jet streams that probe deep atmospheric and interior processes. Since arriving in 2016, NASA’s Juno spacecraft, in a series of close, polar perijove passes, has returned high-precision gravity measurements from its Gravity Science experiment (tracking Doppler shifts of the spacecraft), alongside complementary data from the Microwave Radiometer and...

To understand the origin of heavy elements, it is crucial to understand early star-forming activity. Observations with the James Webb Space Telescope have unveiled more early galaxies than expected, highlighting the need for complementary tracers of obscured star-formation in the early Universe.
(Sub)millimetre spectroscopy provides direct access to dust emission and far-infrared...

Several extragalactic Fast X-ray transients (FXTs), detected as bursts of soft X-ray photons with durations of hundreds of seconds by the Einstein Probe mission, have recently been linked to the collapse of a massive star. For those FXTs, the ensuing supernovae are similar to those associated with long gamma-ray bursts (long-GRBs). Under the fireball model for long-GRBs, the collapse of a...