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On the variety of asteroid interiors
Asteroid interiors in the early solar system – from fluffy snowballs to internal magma oceans In the nascent solar system, the building blocks of terrestrial planets – asteroids of dozens of kilometers in size – were internally heated by the decay of radioactive elements. The amount of radionuclides present in a single asteroid determined its […]
Continue ReadingCaSSIS camera: first images from space
Since its launch on March 14, 2016, the ExoMars probe is on its way to Mars. The spacecraft with the high resolution camera onboard will arrive at the red planet next October. The researchers are already confident that CaSSIS works. The high-resolution camera system sent first pictures from space. The technically extremely complex camera system […]
Continue ReadingThinking out of the box
On May 24th and 25th the Geneva Observatory will have the honour to host the 2nd PlanetS site visit. I expect this event to be again an occasion to share the outcomes of PlanetS’ exciting activities with SNSF representatives and the world-renowned members of the Review Panel. The site visit will coincide with another exceptional […]
Continue ReadingPlanetS seeks Planet9
Following the proposal of Stéphane Udry at the General Assembly of Grindelwald, all members of PlanetS eager to explore the paths of a possible discovery of Planet9 met in Geneva on the 10th of March. About thirty astronomers were present in the lecture hall and via teleconference to listen and discuss with colleagues the constraints […]
Continue ReadingWhat makes a good science talk?
Impressions from the General Assembly 2016 (Photos: Sylviane Blum) In Fall 2015, the first yearly PlanetS Professional Development workshop for PhDs students and postdocs took place. The first topic we looked at was giving a science talk. In the slides below, you will find a […]
Continue ReadingEntering another world
“As an astrophysicist you have a lot of abilities and skills that are very important in and transferable to the professional world outside of science,” says Sascha Quanz who has worked as management consultant at McKinsey & Company before returning to astrophysics. He is now lecturer at the ETH Zürich and leader of the PlanetS […]
Continue ReadingFacebook author’s workshop
On Tuesday, March 22nd, nine young scientists together with the PlanetS communication team discussed about the new PlanetS Facebook profile. The official launch of the Facebook page will be on Monday, April 18th 2016. Altogether twelve volunteers from our Zürich, Geneva, and Bern sub-projects will continuously produce and submit new Facebook posts, covering several aspects […]
Continue ReadingWhen a dream comes true
When Antonio Gracia Berná was featured as PlanetS collaborator of February 2016 he wrote: „To me, there is a major discovery I’d like to see during my lifetime: the trustable detection and confirmation of the gravitational waves predicted by A. Einstein’s work.“ A very timely statement since on 11 February 2016 researchers affiliated with the […]
Continue ReadingNew PlanetS mailing lists
To facilitate communication among PlanetS members we created new mailing lists. They all belong to the domain nccr-planets.ch and can be used by sending emails to LIST_NAME@nccr.planets.ch, where LIST_NAME is one of the lists presented below. Currently, all mailing lists are set to “non-moderated”, which means that emails sent to the list are forwarded to […]
Continue ReadingPreparing the site visit
This year the visit of the expert panel mandated by the SNSF will be held at the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Geneva, co-leading house of the NCCR PlanetS, on 24 and 25 May 2016. The first day will begin with the annual report of the Director and will be followed by presentations of […]
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