MACRO FALL 2025 UPDATE

The MACRO Consortium just celebrated a milestone—its first peer-reviewed publication has been accepted: “A Multiwavelength View of ρ Oph I: Resolving the X-ray Source Between A and B” (Gunderson et al., ApJ, in press). Using archival Chandra, XMM-Newton, NuSTAR, and VLA data alongside new RLMT imaging, the team shows that ρ Oph B—not A—is the dominant X-ray source, with MACRO undergrads and postbacs among the co-authors.

Beyond that headline, 2024–25 was packed:

• Knox College joined as a full member, bringing engineering/makerspace strength and adding Prof. Nathalie Haurberg to the board.

• The Be Stars flagship program used the RLMT H-alpha grism to acquire 6,000+ spectra of 120+ stars, detecting and modeling dramatic line-profile variability. The inter-campus “Be A Star!” course enrolled 49 students and featured alum “Trailblazers.”

• The MCV (polars) campaign expanded to eight systems with simultaneous RLMT + VLA coverage, revealing ubiquitous, highly circularly polarized, periodic radio pulses and persistent radio–optical phase offsets.

• The MACRO Summer Program (six weeks, five campuses) processed thousands of optical images, 10+ new VLA datasets, and X-ray observations (AR UMa), building cross-wavelength analysis skills.

• Student pathways grew: REU placements, a four-person postbac team leading nightly ops and science coordination, and a new MACRO Preceptor Training course to cultivate future telescope leaders.

• Instrumentation advanced with a compact low-resolution grism spectrometer (R≈370) designed, built, and bench-tested for RLMT use.

• New collaborators across radio, X-ray, and modeling joined to accelerate results.

Read the full newsletter for figures, student spotlights, and how to support MACRO’s next steps.