News
“I am constantly on the lookout for new locations for the pillars”
In communication and in outreach, we are always confronted with one challenging question: How do we reach new audiences that have never heard of us before? One of the media that carries the content and messages of NCCR PlanetS to the outside world are the 10 exoplanet pillars – 5 German versions, 3 English versions […]
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General Assembly 2019
The 5thNCCR PlanetS General Assembly will take place from Monday, 28 January to Wednesday, 30 January 2019. For the second phase of the NCCR the organizers decided to choose a new venue – Beatenberg instead of Grindelwald where the last 3 General Assemblies took place. The main attraction of Beatenberg is its location. “From our […]
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Milestone for SAINT-EX project
SAINT-EX is a 1 meter robotic telescope under construction at the National Astronomical Observatory of Mexico in San Pedro Martir. It is designed to look for earth-sized, potentially habitable planets orbiting ultra-cool stars. The telescope being built by the ASTELCO company is funded by the Center for Space and Habitability CSH at the University of […]
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CHEOPS launch slot announced
The CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite, CHEOPS, will target 15 October to 14 November 2019 for launch as the European Space Agency ESA announced on 23 November 2018. CHEOPS will lift off on a Soyuz rocket operated by Arianespace from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, sharing the ride into space with a satellite that is part of the […]
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Encouraging prospects for moon hunters
Astrophysicists of the University of Zürich, ETH Zürich and the NCCR PlanetS show how the icy moons of Uranus were born. Their result suggests that such potentially habitable worlds are much more abundant in the Universe than previously thought. The unprecedentedly complex computer simulations were performed at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) in Lugano. […]
Continue ReadingPostdoctoral research position: Mass of transiting extrasolar planets
The exoplanet team of Geneva University has an opening for a postdoctoral researcher to work on the mass characterization of transiting exoplanets through high-precision radial velocity measurements. Focusing on the low-mass range of exoplanets and using the high-precision spectrographs CORALIE, SOPHIE, HARPS, HARPS-N, SPIROU, ESPRESSO and NIRPS, our team is strongly involved in the follow-up […]
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Two wheels for a new instrument
The Laboratory for Astronomical Instrumentation at ETH Zürich has shipped its first cryogenic wheels that were developed for the new infrared instrument ERIS on the ESO Very Large Telescope. These mechanisms will hold various filters and masks that provide unique capabilities for direct imaging and characterization of exoplanets. The Laboratory for Astronomical Instrumentation (part of […]
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Editorial
Dear Reader, Yes! BepiColombo started on October 20 its seven-year journey to planet Mercury. After considerable technical difficulties and years of delay, the ESA satellite was successfully launched on an Ariane 5 from Kourou in French Guyana. Going to Mercury is just not easy. Being much closer to the sun than the Earth, a spacecraft […]
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BELA – The Bern altimeter’s launch to Mercury
BepiColombo blasted off to investigate Mercury. Nicolas Thomas, Co-Principal Investigator of the instrument BELA and Director of the Physics Institute of the University of Bern, experienced the launch first hand. Here are his impressions. By Nicolas Thomas On the way BepiColombo will launch from Kourou in the morning (European time) of October 20 2018. Having […]
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Forming Mercury by Giant Impacts
The smallest planet in our Solar System has a large iron core. How come? According to the most popular theory, Mercury lost big parts of its rocky mantle in a collision. Alice Chau and her colleagues at the University of Zürich simulated different scenarios with a super computer. Their result: Forming Mercury by giant impacts […]
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