Author Archive
Retrospective on 2023 public events
The year 2023 has been rich in events for the NCCR PlanetS. It was mainly the occasion to meet with the public, but also with specific groups, schools and students in first place. Here is a short recap of the year events. US Ambassador visit United States Ambassador Scott C. Miller visited the University of […]
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An ever-growing series of prizes for CaSSIS Mars demystified
Take a space instrument orbiting mars, turn its Principal Investigator (PI) into a detective, add a hint of comic-style images, and you obtain… CaSSIS Mars demystified – a science short film winning a plethora of the awards around the world! The first episode of CaSSIS Mars demystified focused on dust devils, those sort of weak tornado-looking […]
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Searching for meteorites in Antarctica
Finding meteorites is no easy task. Despite this, a team of scientists including NCCR PlanetS member Prof. Maria Schönbächler from ETH Zürich, were successful on an expedition. Their secret? Going to Antarctica where they found several new meteorites between December 2022 and January 2023, including a unique piece weighing 7.6 kilograms. Looking for a needle […]
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Exoplanets’ climate – it takes nothing to switch from habitable to hell
The Earth is a wonderful blue and green dot covered with oceans and life, while Venus is a yellowish sterile sphere that is not only inhospitable but also sterile. However, the difference between the two bears to only a few degrees in temperature. A team of astronomers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and members […]
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An astronomical waltz reveals a sextuplet of planets
An international collaboration between astronomers using the CHEOPS and TESS space satellites, including NCCR PlanetS members from the University of Bern and the University of Geneva, have found a key new system of six transiting planets orbiting a bright star in a harmonic rhythm. This rare property enabled the team to determine the planetary orbits […]
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An ammonia trail to exoplanets
With the help of the James Webb Space Telescope, a team of researchers including members from the NCCR PlanetS at the Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics, ETH Zurich, measured ammonia in the atmosphere of a cold brown dwarf, showing that the isotopic abundance of ammonia can be used to study how giant gas planets […]
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Mystery of the Martian core solved
Mars’ liquid iron core is smaller and denser than previously thought. Not only is it smaller, but it is also surrounded by a layer of molten rock. This is what ETH Zurich researchers, including NCCR PlanetS project leader Paolo Sossi, conclude on the basis of seismic data from the InSight lander. For four years, NASA’s InSight […]
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Looking out of the bubble
An ambitious space mission could open the way to a better understanding of our heliosphere and of cosmic dust. NCCR PlanetS project leader Dr Veerle Sterken and her team recently published a paper in support of such an ambitious mission which was detailing potential science outcomes for the dust and heliospheric sciences, as well as […]
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Robot Team to Explore the Moon
Swiss researchers are equipping legged robots with scientific instruments to search for minerals and resources on the Moon. One major strength of these robots is their ability to work as a team: even if one robot fails, the mission continues. On the Moon, there are raw materials that humanity could one day mine and use. […]
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Elusive planets play “hide and seek” with CHEOPS
With the help of the CHEOPS space telescope an international team of European astronomers managed to clearly identify the existence of four new exoplanets. The four mini-Neptunes are smaller and cooler, and more difficult to find than the so-called Hot Jupiter exoplanets which have been found in abundance. Two of the four resulting papers are […]
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