News
A commitment to planetary science
By Michael R. Meyer, Leader Academic Platform From where did your passion for planetary science come? Mine came in part from Carl Sagan and the Cosmos television series in the early 1980s. The program seized upon my love for adventure and made the search for life in the Universe seem accessible to someone from a […]
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Successful site visit
The tension in the audience was palpable when Prof. Jamie Gilmour stood up to summarize the conclusions reached by the members of the expert panel after their first PlanetS site visit – a two-day process held on May 19th and 20th, 2015 in Bern. With a quiet, almost monotone voice the speaker of the expert […]
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Equality and equity
“We strongly encourage women to apply.” This is definitely not a statement of equal treatment, writes Audra Baleisis, Academic Platform Coordinator Education, Professional Development, and Diversity of PlanetS. With the following essay, she wants to start a lively discussion about a hot topic. By Audra Baleisis, ETH Zurich A few months ago, my attention at […]
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Ten times better than HARPS
Developers and future users of ESPRESSO gathered in Geneva to discuss the challenges raised by the new instrument and its outstanding accuracy. By Pierre Bratschi, Geneva While engineers and opticians are busy building ESPRESSO, astronomers and physicists are already asking questions how to use this successor to HARPS. For both groups, the challenge is daunting, […]
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Operation on HARPS’ open heart
In 10 years we have learned to improve the performance of optical fibers including giving them an octagonal shape. A team at the Geneva Observatory built of researchers, opticians, and technicians led by Francesco Pepe, the leader of PlanetS project 3, has decided to replace the conventional fibers that transport the light into the HARPS […]
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It rained on the NGTS
The Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) witnessed a rare event for a site like Paranal in Chile. The rain fell into the NGTS building and on other telescopes, an incident which showed the flaws of warning systems based on the measurement of moisture. The weather was beautiful that day at Paranal, the VLT site in […]
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Next General Assembly
As a member of PlanetS you are already booked to spend some time in the Bernese Oberland at the end of January 2016. The next General Assembly will take place from January 25th to 27th, 2016 in Grindelwald. «It’s a central location that everybody can reach within reasonable time,» Yann Alibert, science officer of the […]
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Puzzle
To bring order to PlanetS chaos click on one of the image tiles next to the empty field and repeat this process thinking of the consequences.
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How comets were assembled
Rosetta’s target «Chury» and other comets observed by space missions show common evidence of layered structures and bi-lobed shapes. With 3D computer simulations Martin Jutzi of PlanetS at the University of Bern was able to reconstruct the formation of these features as a result of gentle collisions and mergers. The study has now been published […]
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Investigating alien oceans
Great honour for Nicolas Thomas from PlanetS at the University of Berne: The scientist was selected as part of the imaging team for NASA’s Europa Clipper mission. The mission will help to answer the question whether there is life in the oceans of Jupiter’s moon, Europa. Europa Clipper is a mission under study by the […]
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