On Monday, September 15, at the Nicolaus Copernicus University Astronomical Observatory in Piwnice, Prof. Wojciech Macyk, PhD, Vice-Rector for Science at the Jagiellonian University, signed an agreement establishing the Polish Consortium for the SKA Observatory project.

Extragalactic jets, which are among the most powerful astrophysical phenomena, are collimated streams of gas ejected at high speeds from astronomical objects, in particular active galactic nuclei (AGNs). They can create huge clouds of matter bright at radio wavelengths, extending far beyond the boundaries of their host galaxy. If such sources reach sizes larger than 0.7 megaparsecs, we call them Giant Radio Galaxies (GRGs). Here we present an unusual object of this kind – a radio source J1350-1634 with two visible pairs of lobes, hosted by LEDA 896325 – the largest GRG hosted by a spiral galaxy known to date.

On the last Friday of September, you are welcome to visit our Observatory.

The Planetary Science Conference 2025 will be held on October 23–25, 2025, at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. This international scientific conference is dedicated to planetary science and space exploration. The event will be held in a hybrid format, and participation is free of charge, but requires prior registration.

Relativistic jets are observed across the entire electromagnetic spectrum in a variety of astrophysical systems, such as active galactic nuclei (AGNs), gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), and some black hole X-ray binaries, being launched from compact objects (black holes or neutron stars) typically surrounded by accretion discs. They are well-collimated outflows of plasma and fields, propagating with velocities close to the speed of light. Relativistic jets are supersonic, producing shocks that lead to a turbulent magnetic field, which can play an important role in acceleration of jet particles. They are also sources of kinetic instabilities driven by currents and shears as well as magnetic reconnection.

On July 31, 2025, the University of Tokyo completed excavation of the colossal cavern that will house the main detector volume of Hyper-Kamiokande, a next-generation, ultra-large water Cherenkov detector currently under construction in Hida City, Gifu, Japan.

On November 23, 2023, the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) collaboration detected GW231123, a gravitational-wave signal likely caused by the merger of two black holes with the highest combined mass the LVK collaboration has ever observed. These black holes would have been spinning incredibly fast, and their individual masses appear to fall into a range that challenges existing theories about how massive stars evolve and end their lives.

Object from outside the Solar System is just passing through it at high speed.