IRAM : Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique

IRAM is an international research institute for radio astronomy. Its overall objective is to explore the universe and to study its origins and evolution.

Founded in 1979, IRAM’s headquarters are located in Grenoble. With a staff of more than 120 scientists, engineers, technicians and administrative personnel, IRAM maintains and develops two observatories: the 30-meter telescope located on Pico Veleta near Granada in Spain, and the NOEMA interferometer (an array of currently ten 15-meter telescopes) in the French Alps. Both instruments are prime facilities for radio astronomy and among the most powerful observatories today operating at millimetre wavelengths. [...]

September 10, 2019
IRAM Conference, Multi-line Diagnostics of the Interstellar Medium - 30 March - 01 April 2020
The conference aims to bring together scientists from a wide interdisciplinary community to address recent advances, current challenges and future directions in the field. The conference will feature three days of contributed and invited talks as well as posters on the topic of multi-line observations, analysis and modeling research.

September 5, 2019
IRAM scientists share in 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics
The EHT telescope collaboration has won the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. Hundreds of researchers on the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) team, including an important number of IRAM scientists will share the Breakthrough prize in fundamental physics for their image of the black hole at the heart of Messier 87, a galaxy 55 million light years from Earth. Congratulations to the entire team, across 60 institutions and 20 countries!

May 27, 2019
9th IRAM 30-meter Summer School - register now!
Register now for the 9th IRAM 30-meter Summer School on Millimeter Astronomy that will take place in September, 6-13 in the ski resort of Pradollano, in the Spanish Sierra Nevada, at only 15 minutes driving distance from the IRAM 30-meter telescope.

May 20, 2019
Filaments around the Horsehead Nebula are still too young to form stars
An extensive observational survey of the Orion B molecular cloud shows why so few stars are forming in its dense gaseous filaments, despite the fact that the cloud shares similarities with other star forming regions.

10 avril, 2019
La toute première image d'un trou noir
La toute première image d’un trou noir a été obtenue avec l’Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), un réseau de huit radiotélescopes sur 4 continents différents, conçu à cet effet et qui inclut le télescope de 30-mètres de l'IRAM. Cette image dévoile l’ombre du trou noir supermassif situé au cœur de la galaxie M87.

April 10, 2019
First-ever picture of a black hole
The first ever image of a black hole has been obtained with the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a dedicated array of eight radio-antennas over four continents, which includes the IRAM 30-meter telescope. This image reveals the shadow of the supermassive black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy.

10. April 2019
Das erste Bild eines schwarzen Lochs
Das allererste Bild eines Schwarzen Lochs ist mit dem Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) aufgenommen worden. EHT ist ein zu diesem Zweck gegründeter Verbund aus 8 Radioteleskopen auf 4 verschiedenen Kontinenten, zu dem auch das IRAM 30-Meter-Teleskop gehört. Dieses Bild zeigt den Schatten des supermassiven Schwarzen Lochs im Zentrum der Galaxie M87.

March 21, 2019
3D rendering of the environment of a red supergiant star
An international team of astronomers led by Dr. Miguel Montargès from KU Leuven has succeeded in reconstructing the 3D geometry of the environment surrounding the red supergiant star μ Cep. The material expelled by the star during its late evolutionary stage provides the building blocks for future planetary and star forming systems. The rate at which the material is expelled is key to understand the further evolution of the star to its next stage, a supernova.

March 11, 2019
9th IRAM 30-meter Summerschool
This is the first announcement of the 9th IRAM 30-meter Summer School on Millimeter Astronomy that will take place in September, 6-13 in the ski resort of Pradollano, in the Spanish Sierra Nevada, at only 15 minutes driving distance from the IRAM 30-meter telescope.

January 21, 2019
Lifting the veil on the black hole at the heart of our Galaxy
With a worldwide array of telescopes that includes the IRAM 30-meter telescope, astronomers have found that the emission from the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* at the center of our Galaxy comes from a smaller region than previously thought. This may indicate that a radio jet from Sagittarius A* is pointed almost toward us...

December 3, 2018
The Emerald: a jewel to understand the evolution of early massive galaxies
Using NOEMA and the IRAM 30-meter telescope, an international team of astronomers just witnessed how the sites of the most intense star formation in the early Universe communicate with their surroundings through rapid gas exchange. Their findings offer unprecedented insights into the most rapid evolutionary phase of massive galaxies, about 11 billion years ago...

September 19, 2018
Halfway mark for NOEMA
IRAM and its partner institutes celebrate the succesful completion of NOEMA phase 1. Four years after the inauguration of the first NOEMA antenna, the array counts currently 10 antennas and has provided first groud-breaking scientific results...

19 septembre, 2018
Une étape majeure pour la construction du radiotélescope NOEMA
Quatre ans après l'inauguration de la première antenne NOEMA, dix antennes de 15 mètres constituent actuellement l'observatoire et ont donné des résultats scientifiques innovants...

August 28,2018
NOEMA observatory - virtual tour now online
Discover the most powerful millimeter radiotelescope of the Northern Hemisphere. Enjoy panoramic views of NOEMA and its antennas and immerse in daily operation of the observatory at an altitude of 2550 meter above sea level.

August 7, 2018
First detection of a radioactive molecule in interstellar space
An international team of astronomers, based in the US, Poland, Germany, Australia and France has made the first clear detection of a radioactive molecule in interstellar space: the isotopologue of aluminum monofluoride, 26AlF. Recent data – obtained with NOEMA, ALMA, IRAM 30m and APEX – suggest that this radioactive molecule was ejected into space by the collision of two stars, an extremely rare cosmic event that was witnessed on Earth as a nova, in the year 1670.

March 12, 2018
Multiple fibers in the heart of the Orion star-forming region
A unique combination of ALMA and IRAM 30m observations reveals the internal gas structure in Orion with unprecedented detail. The new data show that the gaseous material in this star cradle is highly organized forming a wispy network of filamentary structures prior the formation of stellar embryos.

March 12, 2018
10th IRAM millimeter interferometry school
The 10th IRAM millimeter interferometry school will be held October 1st - 05th 2018 at the IRAM headquarters (Grenoble, France). It is intended for students, post-docs and scientists who want to acquire a good knowledge of interferometry and data reduction techniques at millimeter wavelengths, with a special emphasis on the NOEMA interferometer and its new capabilities.

December 8, 2017
IRAM and two Chinese partner institutions have signed a Scientific Cooperation Agreement in the framework of the NOEMA project
IRAM, the Institute for Radio Astronomy in the Millimeter Range (Grenoble, France) has signed two cooperation agreements with the University of Nanjing (China) and the Purple Mountain Observatory (Chinese Academy of Sciences). The primary goal of these agreements is to strengthen cooperation in the Millimeter Astronomy, and in particular in the framework of NOEMA...

December 6, 2017
The most distant black hole in the cosmos
Astronomers have discovered the most distant quasar known, which is so far from us that its light has taken more than 13 billion years to reach us. We see this quasar as it was a mere 690 million years after the Big Bang, and its light carries valuable information about the early history of the universe...

November 30, 2017
IRAM closes in on NOEMA's full potential: PolyFiX and the Nine Antenna Array
We are very pleased to announce the successful implementation of the wideband high-performance correlator PolyFiX in concert with the nine antenna array. The commissioning of PolyFIX represents the next crucial milestone in the quest for ever higher sensitivity. The very first observations of a line survey at high-redshift in the 3mm-band are given below as a foretaste of NOEMA's full potential that is now within grasp.

September 19, 2017
MEMS & IMAGING Summit 2017
In the framework of the LabEx project FOCUS (Focal Plane Array for Universe Sensing), IRAM will participate to the MEMS & IMAGING Summit 2017 at MINATEC in Grenoble, from September 20 to 22. FOCUS is a French research project...

June 20, 2017
NOEMA continues array upgrade
NOEMA continues its successful array upgrade with the implementation of the 9th antenna this spring. Together with the installation of the new NOEMA wide band receivers in all existing 9 antennas, the array is ready for the installation and commissioning of the new NOEMA correlator Polyfix foreseen for the end of the summer...

March 31, 2017
Une première image du trou noir au centre de notre galaxie?
C’est grâce à un réseau mondial de radiotélescopes qu’une équipe internationale d’astronomes essaiera en avril, une première dans l’histoire de l’astronomie, d’obtenir une image du centre de notre galaxie, là où se trouve un trou noir géant. Ce projet mondial s’appelle Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) et associe des télescopes du monde entier – de l’Europe jusqu’au pôle sud, en passant par le Chili et Hawaii. Le télescope de 30-mètres de l'IRAM est la seule station d'observation en Europe...

March 31, 2017
Imaging the black hole at the center of our Galaxy
An international team of astronomers will join in April and try for the first time in the history of astronomy, to capture an image of the center of our galaxy, where a giant black hole lies. This worldwide project is called Event Horizon Telescope (EHT); it combines telescopes across four continents from Europe to the South Pole, through Chile and Hawaii. The IRAM 30-meter telescope is one of them...