External Newsletter
PlanetS in the Shopping Mall
As soon as the pillar about exoplanets has been set up in the lobby of the planetarium of the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne, people are gathering. They want to know what there is to see. They are especially attracted by the rotating planet on top of the pillar. Around the planet there is […]
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Purely for exoplanet science
Next week, about 240 scientists from Europe and the US will gather in Davos to present and discuss all aspects of exoplanet science from observations to characterisation and theory. The conference “Exoplanets I” is organized by Kevin Heng, director of the Center for Space and Habitability (CSH) at the University of Bern and a subproject […]
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Open house day
On the occasion of the inauguration of its new building, the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Geneva invites you to an open house on 2nd July 2016. You will be able to visit the new clean room in which the Observatory is building a high-resolution spectrograph measuring the mass of planets identical to ours. […]
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NCCR PlanetS
Dear Reader, The year 2016 barely began when the claim was made that there is evidence for a yet undiscovered planet (Planet 9) within our solar system. You would think that nothing could stir more the astronomy community and the general public…. But here comes the direct detection of gravitational waves and the excitement reaches […]
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Swiss camera flies to Mars
On 14 March 2016, a new Mars mission will be launched from Baikonur in Kazakhstan. Aboard the European spacecraft is a camera built at the University of Bern – in a record time as team leader Nicolas Thomas explains. Originally, the team in Bern was selected by NASA to provide a Swiss-built telescope for an […]
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Focus on Planet Nine
Members of PlanetS have joined the worldwide race to spot the alleged ninth major object in the outer Solar System. Researchers at the University of Bern study the evolution of such a planet and estimate its visible magnitude. “And if PlanetS also gets into the search of the 9th planet” enthusiastically exclaims Stéphane Udry , […]
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How a cosmochemist works
Maïa Kuga studies noble gases trapped in meteorites in order to better understand planet formation. Have a look at the laboratory at the ETH Zurich to find out how the PlanetS postdoc works.
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Looking for life elsewhere
How do we define what “habitable” means on another planet and how do we look for life elsewhere in the Universe? These are questions the Center for Space and Habitability (CSH) at the University of Bern wants to answer. Its new director Kevin Heng is an expert in the atmospheres of exoplanets and also leader […]
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Find out more about alien worlds
They regularly appear in the news: exoplanets. But what exactly are they? And what do they have to do with Switzerland? With special information pillars, which are set up at various locations in Switzerland, the scientists of the NCCR PlanetS want to show to the general public that they are a leading organisation worldwide dedicated to […]
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Last call for “Exoplanètes”
The exhibition “Exoplanètes” of the Geneva Museum of Natural History comes to an end and according to numbers provided by the museum, some 300,000 people have visited it, one month before its scheduled closure on 4 April. “Exoplanètes” then will hand over to dinosaurs, a unique topic capable of drawing in as many or even […]
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