External Newsletter
Bye-bye ESPRESSO
After almost 10 years of studies, construction, problems, efforts and sleepless nights, the ESPRESSO spectrograph left at the end of August the clean room of the Geneva Observatory to be installed on the 4 VLTs of the ESO Observatory at Paranal in northern Chile. A journey that has turned into a real saga. The problem […]
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“I am convinced there is life on a distant planet”
The astronomer Willy Benz is the first Swiss to lead a space mission. At the end of 2018, the CHEOPS satellite will be launched into the Earth’s orbit where it should characterise distant planets – and help to search for life in space. The following interview was part of the series “Wissenschaft persönlich” on 20 June […]
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Revival of a cancelled space mission?
The characterization of habitable or even inhabited exoplanets is one of the ultimate goals of modern astrophysics. Reviving the concept of a space mission that was cancelled ten years ago would be most promising. This is the conclusion of a paper by PlanetS scientists Jens Kammerer and Sascha Quanz of ETH Zürich. Their simulations show […]
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Bern’s journey into space
From a historic Zenit rocket and the famous Apollo solar wind experiment to the Mars camera CaSSIS and the CHEOPS space telescope: Many of the 9000 visitors of the event «Nacht der Forschung» on 16 September 2017 at the University of Bern had a look at 50 years of space research. «We have carried the […]
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Pioneer in astrochemistry
«Building stars, planets and the ingredients for life in space» is the title of a public lecture by the renowned Dutch astronomer Ewine van Dishoeck on 20 October 2017 at the University of Bern. «Ewine van Dishoeck is one of the pioneers in astrochemistry and a driving force behind the groundbreaking ALMA observatory,» says Kevin […]
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Stellarium Gornergrat
Dear Reader, In a previous writing, I have already stressed the commitment by PlanetS to education and outreach and mentioned a few of our activities (exhibits, planetarium show, etc.) inviting you to check them out by yourself. Today, I am particularly proud to introduce to you the latest project, the Stellarium Gornergrat. After several years […]
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The Stellarium Gornergrat officially starts operations for schools
The Center for Space and Habitability at the University of Bern (CSH), the University of Geneva (UNIGE), and their partners built and configured a remote-controllable telescope facility at the Gornergrat. Its primary use is dedicated to education and outreach and its dedicated pedagogical portal just became operational. This way, schools all over Switzerland get access […]
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Assembling the flight model
After the engineers at the University of Bern integrated and tested models of the CHEOPS space telescope, they are now working on the hardware that will actually be sent into space. In the clean room especially built for CHEOPS they are assembling the flight model of the instrument. «We are proceeding well,» says Willy Benz, […]
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«We will find Planet 9 in less than a decade»
With his bright red colored hair Konstantin Batygin looks more like a rock musician than an astrophysicist. In fact, he is both: Assistant Professor of Planetary Sciences at Caltech, US, and leader of the hard rock band “The Seventh Season”. He made headlines worldwide in 2016, when he predicted together with Mike Brown the existence […]
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First light in lab for SPIRou
SPIRou is a near infra red instrument mainly designed to detect exoplanets by measuring radial velocities of M dwarf stars and to study star and planet formation measuring the magnetic fields of these objects. It is led by France with participation of members of PlanetS. SPIRou (Spectro Polarimètre Infra Rouge) is a near infra red […]
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