Author Archive
Looking for our interstellar roots
Maria Drozdovskaya wants to know what our „astrochemical ancestral tree“ looks like. The incoming Fellow of the Center for Space and Habitability (CSH) at the University of Bern has just won a prestigious award that she will bring to her new host institution: The Gruber Foundation (TGF) Fellowship. It is one of the oldest and […]
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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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Thinking 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 […]
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PlanetS 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 […]
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What 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 […]
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Entering 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 […]
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Facebook 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 […]
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When 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 […]
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