Author Archive
Ready for testing electromagnetic compatibility
At the University of Bern, the CHEOPS team integrated all electrical and electronic parts into a model of the space telescope to test whether the different units and wires operate correctly and don’t interfere with each other. The electromagnetic compatibility test will take place in the second half of February in a special chamber at […]
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ESPRESSO’s schedule
ESPRESSO, the super spectrograph that should be able to measure masses of exoplanets as small as the Earth, is soon ready to be bundled for its final destination: the VLT in Chile. This successor to HARPS, which as its famous predecessor was built at the Geneva Observatory, will undergo its first tests early March in […]
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Heartbreaking disregard of female perspective
In the last edition of the InsiderS, I reported on gender bias in evaluating grant proposals, as heard during a gender conference (http://nccr-planets.ch/gender-bias-erc-grant-evaluation/). Read here about some surprising insights concerning the gender dimension in academic research. By Nadine Afram This is from an interesting presentation about ‘gender equality and the gender dimension in academic research’. […]
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“The University of Bern has given me a lot”
As science director of NASA, Thomas Zurbuchen is one of the world’s most influential scientists. In January 2017, he visited the University of Bern, where he studied and gained his PhD in physics. He talked about his work in a public lecture. “It’s great to come across an instrument that we have talked about for […]
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PlanetS researchers on Euronews
The multilingual news channel Euronews visited the Observatory of Geneva and reports in the new edition of its programme called Space about “Hunting earth-like exoplanets”. Have a look: http://www.euronews.com/2017/01/26/hunting-earth-like-exoplanets http://www.euronews.com/programs/space
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Education and outreach
Dear Reader, Many of you probably remember some privileged moments in your youth when you had a special encounter with science and perhaps thought, be it only for a short moment, that this could be something fun to do in life. Hard to predict what triggers these moments, perhaps reading a book, visiting a museum, […]
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Study and play with real data
What’s more motivating for a student than to participate in research and perhaps make a real discovery. This is what the University of Geneva proposes in its MOOC (Massive Online Open Course) on exoplanets, a MOOC which at its first broadcast in 2015 met a huge success as more than 20’000 people attended this course […]
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«Our telescope in Mexico is really filling a gap»
Brice-Olivier Demory is looking for earth-sized, potentially habitable exoplanets. Part of his research strategy is building a telescope in Mexico. Since August 2016, the 36 year old astronomer has been professor at the Center for Space and Habitability (CSH) of the University of Bern. His professorship is sponsored by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). […]
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New space exhibition and planetarium show
On 24 November 2016, the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne opened the new space exhibition. A few days later, the planetarium show «Out there» celebrated first worldwide premiere. Both the exhibition and the show have been made possible thanks to the support of NCCR PlanetS. Among the speakers at the opening of the new […]
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Spectacular images of Mars
«We saw Hebes Chasma at 2.8 metres per pixel. That’s a bit like flying over Bern at 15’000 kilometres per hour and simultaneously getting sharp pictures of cars in Zurich,» says Nicolas Thomas, principal investigator of the Mars camera CaSSIS and Director of the Physics Institute at the University of Bern. The Bernese instrument made […]
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