News
Preparing the CHEOPS spacecraft platform and simulating mission operations
In our previous update, we reported on the delivery of the CHEOPS telescope from Florence to Bern. While the scientific payload is being assembled in Switzerland, work in Spain has focused on preparing the spacecraft platform that will carry the payload and provide power, propulsion, communications, and thermal cont
Continue Reading
First discovery of an exoplanet with SPHERE/VLT
An international team of astronomers, including PlanetS members and associates at the universities of Bern and Geneva, and at ETHZ , discovered an exoplanet by direct imaging using SPHERE, an instrument designed and developed by a consortium of 12 European institutes on the Very Large Telescope ESO, based in Chile. The instrument, which corrects in […]
Continue Reading
Switzerland in pole position in ESA’s new mission
ESA launches Europe’s largest exoplanet research mission, with partners from the Universities of Geneva and Bern. PLATO, the largest European exoplanet research mission, was adopted today by the European Space Agency at the ESA Scientific Programs Committee meeting. Switzerland, through the Universities of Geneva (UNIGE) and Berne (UNIBE), is heavily involved in this mission, which should enable […]
Continue Reading
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 […]
Continue Reading
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 […]
Continue Reading
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, […]
Continue Reading
«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 […]
Continue Reading
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 […]
Continue Reading
Balancing work and life
Ravit Helled is professor at the University of Zürich and Leader of the Academic Platform at the NCCR PlanetS. Find out more about her life as a scientist and mother by clicking on the small magnifying glasses that you see on the rectangular areas on the image of her office. To go back to the […]
Continue Reading
Astronauts visit the Geneva Observatory
There are only 550 in the world who, having carried out at least one orbit around the Earth, have the right to wear the title of “astronaut”. The majority of them are Americans and Russians, only 49 are Europeans. Of these 49, twelve of them traveled to Geneva to visit the astronomical observatory of the […]
Continue Reading
