Europlanet Society Executive Board Elections Closing date for nomination of Candidates: 22 August 2019 The elections for the Executive Board, which will oversee the governance of the Europlanet Society, will be held at the General Assembly on 19 September 2019, in Geneva. The Executive Board will consist of five Officers (President, two Vice-Presidents, Secretary and Treasurer) and six Board […]

Inspiring Stories – Sailing Across the Stars In this EPEC Inspiring Outreach Story, José Eduardo Oliveira Silva from the Observatorio Astronomico de Lisboa tells us how he embarked on an outreach voyage along the coast of Portugal to bring the joy of science to people living on the coast. In August 2016, the Ciência Viva institution […]

Europlanet webinar: Multisensory Astronomy 30th July, 13:00 BST / 14: 00 CEST Join us in another fascinating webinar where the Europlanet 2019 Prize winner, Dr Amelia Ortiz-Gil of the University of Valencia, will show us how to reach for the Moon – literally! In recent years, projects like “A Touch of the Universe” have used the sense […]

50 years on from Apollo, European students plan return to the Moon with IGLUNA 50 years ago today, Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. It was an iconic event for humanity that required the contribution of 400,000 people, including many Europeans. With plans to return humans to the Moon in the next five years, questions […]

Inspiring Stories – A Space Rendezvous in Rome In this EPEC Inspiring Outreach Story, Melissa Mirino from the Open University in the UK, tells us how she is helping to organize meetings where the public can meet planetary scientists! In February 2018, during the lunch of the first SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch, a group of […]

2nd Planetary Mapping and Virtual Observatory Workshop The 2nd Planetary Mapping and Virtual Observatory Workshop took place from 1-3 July 2019, Domaine de St. Paul, Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse, France. The workshop aimed to bring together the geologic, geospatial and VO communities at European scale to progress knowledge, tools and standards for mapping the Solar System.The programme included […]

Making the Case for Astronomy at EWASS 2019 The European Week of Astronomy and Space Science (EWASS) is the annual conference of the European Astronomical Society (EAS) and the largest meeting on astronomy held in Europe. For the past three years, Europlanet 2020 RI has collaborated with the EAS, ESA and the RAS to convene […]

Europlanet Summer School 2019 From 11-21 June, Europlanet 2020 RI once again welcomed 21 students, early career researchers and amateur astronomers to a summer school at the Molėtai Astronomical Observatory in Lithuania. The 2019 course was the 20th anniversary of the inaugural summer school organised by the University of Vilnius at MAO and the third time […]

EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019 – 1st Media Announcement The 2019 Joint Meeting (www.epsc-dps2019.eu) of the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) and the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) will take place at the Centre International de Conférences de Genève (CICG), Geneva, Switzerland, from Sunday 15 to Friday 20 September 2019. […]

In this EPEC Inspiring Outreach Story, Hannah Sargeant from the Open University in the UK tells us how she launched a stratospheric balloon with the help of school children in an attempt to spark their love for the space exploration. Since winning the I’m a Scientist competition I did a lot of research into space balloons and how to […]

Report on 2nd EPEC Annual Week The 2nd EPEC (Europlanet Early Career network) Annual Week was held at the University of Lisbon, Portugal from 20th-24th May 2019. 44 early career professionals from all over the world and across the Europlanet community gathered to discuss current and future space activities in Europe. The workshop brought together […]

The Aarhus Mars Simulation Wind Tunnel featured as ESA Technology Image of the Week The Aarhus Mars Simulation Wind Tunnel, which is part of Europlanet 2020 RI’s programme to offer researchers transnational access to state-of-the-art planetary simulation facilities, has been featured as ESA’s ‘Technology Image of the Week‘: Part of Aarhus University’s Mars Simulation Laboratory in Denmark, […]

The first study of ultra-small bacteria living in the extreme environment of Ethiopia’s Dallol hot springs shows that life can thrive in conditions similar to those thought to have been found on the young planet Mars. An international team of researchers lead by Dr Felipe Gómez from Astrobiology Center in Spain (CAB (CSIC-INTA)) has found […]