News
PlanetS seeks Planet9
Following the proposal of Stéphane Udry at the General Assembly of Grindelwald, all members of PlanetS eager to explore the paths of a possible discovery of Planet9 met in Geneva on the 10th of March. About thirty astronomers were present in the lecture hall and via teleconference to listen and discuss with colleagues the constraints […]
Continue ReadingWhat makes a good science talk?
Impressions from the General Assembly 2016 (Photos: Sylviane Blum) In Fall 2015, the first yearly PlanetS Professional Development workshop for PhDs students and postdocs took place. The first topic we looked at was giving a science talk. In the slides below, you will find a […]
Continue ReadingEntering another world
“As an astrophysicist you have a lot of abilities and skills that are very important in and transferable to the professional world outside of science,” says Sascha Quanz who has worked as management consultant at McKinsey & Company before returning to astrophysics. He is now lecturer at the ETH Zürich and leader of the PlanetS […]
Continue ReadingFacebook author’s workshop
On Tuesday, March 22nd, nine young scientists together with the PlanetS communication team discussed about the new PlanetS Facebook profile. The official launch of the Facebook page will be on Monday, April 18th 2016. Altogether twelve volunteers from our Zürich, Geneva, and Bern sub-projects will continuously produce and submit new Facebook posts, covering several aspects […]
Continue ReadingWhen a dream comes true
When Antonio Gracia Berná was featured as PlanetS collaborator of February 2016 he wrote: „To me, there is a major discovery I’d like to see during my lifetime: the trustable detection and confirmation of the gravitational waves predicted by A. Einstein’s work.“ A very timely statement since on 11 February 2016 researchers affiliated with the […]
Continue ReadingNew PlanetS mailing lists
To facilitate communication among PlanetS members we created new mailing lists. They all belong to the domain nccr-planets.ch and can be used by sending emails to LIST_NAME@nccr.planets.ch, where LIST_NAME is one of the lists presented below. Currently, all mailing lists are set to “non-moderated”, which means that emails sent to the list are forwarded to […]
Continue ReadingPreparing the site visit
This year the visit of the expert panel mandated by the SNSF will be held at the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Geneva, co-leading house of the NCCR PlanetS, on 24 and 25 May 2016. The first day will begin with the annual report of the Director and will be followed by presentations of […]
Continue ReadingPlanetS Member Quiz
Who said what Here are three of our featured collaborators of the month. Find out who is who and who said what. Fill out the form below with your solution and send it to us. The first three correct entries will win a little prize that will be presented at the site visit at the […]
Continue ReadingPlanet 9 takes shape
Astrophysicists at the University of Bern have modelled the evolution of the putative planet in the outer solar system. They estimate that the object has a present-day radius equal to 3.7 Earth radii and a temperature of minus 226 degrees Celsius. In the far infrared the planet is much brighter than in the visual. How […]
Continue Reading3000 drawings for CHEOPS
Children in Switzerland and all over Europe made thousands of imaginative drawings of stars, planets, rockets, satellites, aliens and CHEOPS. 3000 entries to the drawing campaign organised by the University of Bern will fly into space with CHEOPS, a space telescope being built in collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and Switzerland. You can […]
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