Bulgaria's first polar astronomical project will take place in 2024-2025. "Impact of solar activity on ionospheric dynamics and high-energy particle fluxes over Antarctica" is the title of the first Bulgarian polar astronomical research project which will be carried out in 2024-2025 on the territory of the Bulgarian Antarctic Base on Livingston Island. The team of scientists from the Institute of Astronomy with NAO at BAS, the Technical University - Sofia and the Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy which will work on its implementation is headed by Associate Professor Dr. Kamen Kozarev. The research project has been approved in the competition for funding of polar research of the National Centre for Polar Studies at Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski”. Research on the Sun and solar activity is [...]

The European Commission approved the establishment of LOFAR ERIC (European Research Infrastructure Consortium), in which Bulgaria is a full founding member. The main task of LOFAR ERIC is to provide the European astronomical community with a coordinated exploitation of LOFAR (Low Frequency Array), the world's largest radio telescope at low frequencies below 250 MHz. The LOFAR ERIC aims to position LOFAR as a world-leading research infrastructure that will, in the long term, maintain global leadership positions in radio astronomy. LOFAR is an extremely versatile modern radio telescope that can be used to observe the most ancient stars and galaxies as well as our Sun and the dynamics of the Earth's ionosphere. In essence, it is a pan-European infrastructure for low-frequency radio astronomy observations with antenna [...]

  collage drawing showing high-energy ions from the Sun interacting with the Earth's magnetosphere and attacking the electronics of satellites in orbit around the Earth "A review of Solar Energetic Particles prediction models" - under this title, a publication appeared on ScienceDirect, Elsevier's leading platform for peer-reviewed scientific literature. The international team of authors in the study includes scientists from the Institute of Astronomy with NAO - BAS: Assoc. Prof. Kamen Kozarev, Assoc. Prof. Rositsa Miteva, Sen. Asst. Prof. Momchil Dechev and the PhD student from Egypt Mohamed Nedal. Solar Energetic Particles (SEPs) are streams of protons, electrons, and ions accelerated to high energies in the huge eruptions on the Sun's surface and which spread throughout the solar system, "surfing" on the interplanetary [...]

  Prof. Garo Mardirosian from the Space Research and Technologies Institute (SRTI) of BAS was awarded the "Inventor of the Year - 2023" prize of the Union of Inventors in Bulgaria. He received the prestigious award for 4 inventions in the field of protection from disasters and accidents, two of which were for critical infrastructure: the "Kinematic System for Early Warning of Earthquakes for Critical Infrastructure Facilities" and the " Early Warning about Floods along River Beds near Artificial Lakes Barrages ". The application of the first invention is in anti-seismic protection of critical infrastructure facilities - for example nuclear power plants, dam walls, etc., from the effects of destructive seismic waves. It is based on the difference in velocities between the longitudinal and transverse [...]

  Sen. Asst. Prof. Yanko Nikolov, PhD from IA with NAO is a lead researcher in an international team Research conducted with the 2-m telescope at NAO Rozhen with lead researcher Sen. Asst. Prof. Yanko Nikolov, PhD, from the Institute of Astronomy with National Astronomical Observatory, tracked the eruption of the symbiotic star RS Oph as a nova on August 8, 2021. Astronomers from Bulgaria, Argentina and the USA have participated in the study. The results have been accepted for publication in the prestigious scientific journal Astronomy & Astrophysics and can be found with open access at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.11288. The research will be presented by astronomer Yanko Nikolov to a wide audience at the Varna Science Festival on 29 October. Novae eruptions occur in binary star [...]