News
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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First Circumbinary Planet System with Disc
Planet-hunting SPHERE Images First Circumbinary Planet System with Disc HD 106906AB is a double star located in the constellation of Crux (The Southern Cross). Astronomers had long suspected that this 13 million-year-old stellar duo was encircled by a debris disc, due to the system’s youth and characteristic radiation. However, this disc had remained unseen — […]
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PlanetS in Grindelwald
At the second General Assembly of the NCCR PlanetS the members presented project highlights and discussed future interdisciplinary ventures. “People were interacting a lot”, says NCCR scientific officer Yann Alibert: “The meeting was very successful although packed and quite exhausting.” “This is it”, summarized PlanetS director Willy Benz: “The one time in the year where […]
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Planets and Exoplanets – Thinking across boundaries
Interdisciplinarity is a highly topical word in science these days, which also made the cover page of high impact journals such as “Nature” in 2015. What does it mean? In dictionaries “interdisciplinarity” is referred to as “relating to, or involving two or more academic disciplines that are usually considered distinct”. The study of planets and […]
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Why looking forward to Grindelwald
More than 100 PlanetS members and associates will travel to Grindelwald to the second General Assembly that is taking place at the Hotel Sunstar from 25 – 27 January 2016. Michel Mayor and Brian Schmidt of the PlanetS’ advisory board have also registered. “The location of the hotel is great”, says Janine Jungo, NCCR project […]
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“Life is great – why change anything?”
Judit Szulagyi likes hiking, Nicolas Blind is passionate about analog photography, and Sebastian Daemgen spends most of his free time with his six month-old son. What they all have in common: They are new members of PlanetS. “My work uses direct imaging for the discovery and characterization of planetary and brown dwarf companions to nearby […]
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Conflict management within the NCCR PlanetS
Following the recent, widely reported case of harassment in the exoplanet community, it seemed important for us to remind everyone that PlanetS aims to establish working environments based on mutual respect and trust between all the collaborators. However, recognizing that conflicts can happen, PlanetS would like to ensure that every collaborator has the possibility to […]
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Espresso in the clean room
With 216 square meter of cleanliness, the new clean room of the Geneva Observatory is the largest in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. It was approved on 16th December and received ESPRESSO, its first tenant, early January. This clean room, located in the new Observatory building (to be completed in June 2016) is Atmosphere Zone […]
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