News
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 […]
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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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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 […]
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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 […]
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Are there aliens on the dark side of the Moon?
Can you touch the planets? Why can you jump so high on the moon? Ben Moore, together with his wife Katharina Blansjaar, answers a total of 55 galactic questions from children in the new children’s book “Gibt es Aliens auf der dunklen Seite des Mondes?”. The book has recently been published by Kein & Aber. […]
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PlanetS at Fantasy Basel
They were more than 40,000 fanatics of Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings rushing at the gates of the Basel Messe for the 2017 edition of the Fantasy Basel, the biggest convention of its kind in Europe. The 45’000 m2 of Halle 2 of the Messe hosted for three […]
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