Mercury is the innermost terrestrial planet. Its formation and evolution are important for understanding the formation of our Solar System. On 20th October 2018, ESA/JAXA’s BepiColombo mission blasted off on a seven year journey to Mercury. The spacecraft’s various instruments include a thermal/mid-infrared imaging spectrometer, the Mercury Radiometer and Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (MERTIS), that will allow new and unique insights into the evolution of one of the least explored terrestrial planets.
The NASA MESSENGER mission, which orbited Mercury between 2011 and 2014, discovered that despite forming so close to the Sun, Mercury is richer in “volatiles” (chemicals that evaporate easily) than previously expected. Theory suggests that sulphur in the interior of Mercury can be brought to the surface in the form of sulphides through volcanic activity as slag deposits in Mercury hollows and pyroclastic deposits. To verify this, researchers need to be able to accurately map the mineraology of Mercury’s surface and compare observations to a comprehensive spectral library of sulphide minerals measured under hot Mercury surface conditions — something that has not been available until recently.
Over the past decade, the Planetary Spectroscopy Laboratory (PSL) at German Aerospace Center (DLR) Berlin has obtained thermal emissivity measurements of analogue materials under controlled and simulated surface conditions of Mercury from 100° to 500°C under vacuum conditions. The resulting spectral library will support measurements from MERTIS, once BepiColombo arrives at Mercury. The spectral library includes measurements from a range of minerals, including major silicates such as olivine, and labradorite, rocks like tektite, and synthetic powdered sulphides such as magnesium sulphide, iron sulphide, titanium sulphide etc.
In this talk, Indhu will explain how she and colleagues at have been using laboratory measurements and machine learning techniques at the PSL to understand the surface mineralogy of Mercury and prepare for analysis of data collected by MERTIS during BepiColombo’s mission.
About Indhu Varatharajan
Indhu Varatharajan is from a southern state of India called Tamil Nadu. She did a bachelors in Geoinformatics Engineering at the College of Engineering Guindy (CEG) in the capital city, Chennai. She travelled to London for her Masters in Planetary Science at University College London (UCL), funded by a Commonwealth fellowship.
Her background in Geoinformatics and major in Planetary Science paved the way for her to work on an exciting opportunity (via a DLR/DAAD funded project) to evaluate new spectral analysis techniques to study the hot surface of Mercury with the MERTIS (MErcury Radiometer and Thermal infrared Imaging Spectrometer) instrument onboard ESA/JAXA’s BepiColombo mission. MERTIS will be the first instrument to image the emissivity of Mercury surface in a hyperspectral mode at mid-infrared (MIR) spectral range. MERTIS will map the Mercury at the spatial resolution of 500m/pixel and spectral resolution of 200nm.
As BepiColombo will reach Mercury orbit in 2025, Indhu’s PhD work has focused on a variety of aspects of MERTIS data science such as:
Building the specialised spectral library at Planetary Spectroscopy Laboratory (PSL) where the analogue materials are measured for their emissivity at hot Mercury surface conditions
Machine learning approach to separate out mixed spectra in available medium-infrared telescope spectra of Mercury using this specialised spectral library
Data mining of synthetic MERTIS images constructed using the specialised library.
Indhu is currently pursuing her second year PhD at German Aerospace Center (DLR), Berlin. She is also the Chair of Europlanet Early Career (EPEC) Committee, which through the EPEC network aims to build a stronger community of early career researchers and future leaders of planetary exploration within Europe.
The ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission to Mercury will launch at 01:45 GMT (03:45 CEST) on 20 October 2018.
Members of the Europlanet community involved in the mission will be sharing updates from the launch site in Kourou, French Guiana, and at ESA’s mission control in Darmstadt, Germany on our website, Twitter and Facebook.
The ESA website has all the latest information and news. If you have any BepiColombo-related outreach resources (like this VR teaser) that you would like us to share, let us know by email or Twitter.
Diversity and inclusion were topics for discussion at the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) 2018 at Berlin. On Friday 21st September, we held a networking lunch where participants were asked to discuss questions on how Europlanet can ensure that its activities, events, facilities and services are accessible and inclusive for the whole research community, how the new Europlanet Society, with its network of regional hubs, can address issues around diversity and inclusiveness.
We had a fantastic turnout and responses are now being evaluated by the Europlanet Diversity Committee and will be used to develop an Action Plan for the Europlanet Society.
Gender and participation in missions
At future EPSC meetings, we hope to have full sessions dedicated to diversity and inclusion. At EPSC 2018, we had a preview of this with a poster presentation by Arianna Piccialli on a preliminary study analysing the historical trend of participation of women scientists in ESA solar system missions.
Piccialli and her colleagues counted the science team members of 10 ESA solar system missions over a period of 38 years and determined the percentage of women on each team.
The results are striking: several missions had no women as Principal Investigators (PI), the highest participation of women as PI is 23% for ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, but there is no upwards trend towards women’s participation as PI over the years. Preliminary findings indicate that the percentage of women’s participation as Co-Investigators (Co-I) is always less than 18%.
The study of gender breakdown for ESA mission and instrument teams follows on from an analysis of participation of women in US planetary science missions by Julie Rathbun et al and uses the same methodology to provide consistency between the two studies.
Participation of women scientists in ESA solar system missions: an historical trend. Arianna Piccialli et al
The authors encountered some difficulties in identifying team members, particularly for older missions, and hope to use the presentation at EPSC 2018 as an opportunity to promote further discussions, refine numbers and collect personal stories from the planetary scientists involved.
If you would like to find out more, or have information or stories to contribute, please contact Arianna Piccialli or download the poster.
Highlights of the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) 2018
We had a fantastic meeting in Berlin at EPSC 2018! Here is our pick of some of the highlights of the week:
The biggest EPSC to date! EPSC 2018 was our largest stand-alone meeting to date with 1018 participants from 44 countries, breaking the record of 960 at EPSC 2013 in London. Next year, we will be bigger still as we join forces with the American Astronomical Society’s Division of Planetary Sciences (DPS) for our third EPSC-DPS joint meeting. Join us in Geneva, Switzerland from 15 to 20 September 2019.
EPSC 2018 took place from 16-21 September 2018 at TU Berlin. Credit: L. Giacomini/Europlanet
The launch of the Europlanet Society. It was fitting that Berlin, the city where we launched EPSC back in 2006, was the venue for the launch of the Europlanet Society, which will provide a sustainable structure to support planetary science in Europe for decades to come. The Society is open to individual and institutional members. If you want to join, the membership sign-up form will go live in early November.
The General Assembly at EPSC 2018 approves the launch of the Europlanet Society. Credit: L. Giacomini/Europlanet
Science Flash Challenge. Once again, early career scientists were challenged to present their work in a fun and original way in 180 seconds with just one slide. Congratulations to the winners of Science Flash 2018: Julia Marin-Yaseli (Spain), Giovanni Poggiali (Italy) and Adhithiyan Neduncheran (India).
The winners of the EPSC Science Flash Challenge 2018. Credit: Europlanet
BepiColombo. One month before BepiColombo’s planned launch, the ESA-JAXA mission was showcased at EPSC on ESA’s exhibition stand, in the Mercury sessions and at a press conference with the BepiColombo team.
Joe Zender and Johannes Benkhoff at the ESA stand with the BepiColombo model. Credit: ESA
OpenPlanetary Data Café. We hope you grabbed a coffee and joined our workshops on Tuesday and Thursday for discussions, tutorials, hacks and talks on data analysis tools and techniques.
OpenPlanetary Data Cafe. Credit: Angelo Pio Rossi
Mars! EPSC 2018 had two days of sessions relating to ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) mission, as well as a day of sessions celebrating 15 years of Mars Express. Although many TGO results are still being prepared for publication, we were able to share some new images from TGO and Mars Express at EPSC, in addition to views of a dust storm and results from the FREND instrument about the radiation risks for future travellers to Mars.
TGO CaSSIS image of frosty crater on Mars. Credit: ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Press briefing on Astrobiology and Society in Europe Today. Credit: Europlanet
Agency Night. The first full day of EPSC 2018 wrapped up with Agency Night. The session was moderated by Jean-Pierre Lebreton, EPSC Chair and Athena Coustenis (Europlanet Deputy Coordinator) and included speakers from DLR, ESA, NASA and IKI.
Agency Night at EPSC 2018. Credit: JP Lebreton
Inspiring the next generation. On Wednesday 19 September, 1000 teenagers participated in a special session at EPSC 2018 on planetary research, space missions and a talk by astronaut Gerhard Thiele.
EPSC 2018 schools event, organised by TU Berlin and DLR. Credit: TU Berlin/PR/Oana Popa
Prizes. Congratulations to Francis Nimmo, who was awarded the 2018 Farinella Prize for his work on Giant Planets’ Satellite Systems and Amara Graps, who was awarded the Europlanet Prize for Public Engagement at EPSC 2018
Francis Nimmo was awarded the Farinella Prize by the Chair of the EPSC Scientific Organising Committee, Maria Cristina De Sanctis. Credit: A. Postiglione/Europlanet
The first (very) full day of the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) 2018 wrapped up with Agency Night. The session was moderated by Jean-Pierre Lebreton, EPSC Chair and Athena Coustenis (Europlanet Deputy Coordinator) and included speakers from national and international space agencies:
Dr Christian Gritzner (DLR Space Agency)
Prof. Heike Rauer (Director, DLR Institute of Planetary Research)
Dr. Luigi Colangeli (Head of the Science Coordination Office, ESA)
Mr. David Schurr (Deputy Director, Planetary Science Division, NASA HQ)
Dr Alexei Malakhov(Senior Scientist, IKI)
In spite of the late timeslot (8-10 pm), more than 100 EPSC participants attended the session, interacted with the panel and asked so many questions that the session overran by 15 minutes. The representatives presented the space programmes related to planetary science from the different agencies and highlighted the importance of the scientific inputs and the value of the Europlanet actions in federating laboratories and other facilities to complement their actions.
The organisers would like to thank the speakers for excellent presentation and for answering the numerous questions from the audience.
Imagine being on Mercury, flying over its craters and dust. You turn around, the sunlight is really strong, but you can see a new arrived probe, BepiColombo. Big solar panels catch your attention and you start notice more and more details of the instruments it has onboard. And the journey has just begun.
This is the vision for using BepiVR, a proposed application for Android that aims to introduce the public to the ESA BepiColombo mission using the Virtual Reality (VR) technology and has been presented at EPSC in Berlin.
“BepiColombo is one of first ESA mission where the science teams will be able to use immersive experiences to visualize data for analysis” says Romolo Politi, from INAF, Italy. “This new technology could be also used for public outreach associated to the mission, by offering an appealing experience and a wide variety of information on the mission”.
The project is quite ambitious. BepiVR will be structured as a visit to a virtual ESA Museum, where different floors are dedicated to different ESA missions. In a first version of the app, only the floor dedicated to BepiColombo will be accessible, and each instrument of the probe will have a dedicated room. To find out more about the technology behind the mission, visitors will be able to interact with the Principal Investigators (PI) of each instrument in a ”PI Gallery” and hear them talk about their work.
“BepiVR is a special project: all the people involved are working on the real instruments onboard, providing an exemplar of researchers who also dedicate their time to outreach.”adds Politi.
For the moment, a teaser has been released by the group that is freely accessible at the link: https://youtu.be/wX5pMHCKeT0, and provides a great idea of the immersion that will be achieved by the final product. You can have a look at the teaser during the EPSC 2018 Poster Session on Tuesday, from 18:15 to 20:00.
From 1-10 August, we returned to the beautiful Molėtai Astronomical Observatory in Lithuania for the Europlanet Summer School 2018. Following the success of the 2017 Summer School, we again offered a programme combining hands-on experience of making observations of stellar variability and exoplanet transits (and analysing the data) with theoretical and practical modules in science communication.
Students participating in the Europlanet Summer School 2018. Credit: Andrius Zigmantas
The Class of 2018 included 21 students from 9 countries and a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences, including young scientists (post-doctoral researchers, PhD students, Masters students and undergraduates) studying astronomy and other disciplines (software engineering, mechanical engineering and museum studies), amateur astronomers and teachers.
Each night, the students took part in observations with the Molėtai Astronomical Observatory’s telescopes, under the supervision of Sarunas Mikolaitis, Edita Stonkute, Erika Pakstiene and Justas Zdanavičius of Vilnius University’s Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astronomy. Spectroscopic instruments mounted on the largest telescope in northern Europe enabled participants to analyse the chemical composition of their chosen stars. By studying changes in the intensity of light, they learned to detect the variability of stars and to observe planets in distant solar systems (exoplanets) crossing in front of their host stars to complete a transit. For international space missions, such as NASA’s TESS exoplanet hunter and the European Space Agency’s CHEOPS and PLATO missions, these ground-based observations are an important resource for investigating exoplanets.
The science communication training sessions were led by Pedro Russo (University of Leiden), Thilina Heenatigala (Europlanet/Science Office), Rosa Doran (Nuclio), and Anita Heward (Europlanet/Science Office), with modules that covered basics of science communication, engaging with the media, public and schools, social media and evaluation. A press release written by students about the summer school was published on the University of Vilnius website. As part of their evaluation of the Summer School, students were asked to keep photo diaries – Alexandra Fratti and Andrius Zigmantus have been kind enough to share theirs with us.
Over the weekend mid-way through the course, the students were joined by members of the public for a talk on “Stars and Exoplanets – the breakthrough of research” by Hans Kjeldsen of Aarhus University in Denmark, and took an excursion to Lithuania’s historic capital city, Vilnius, and the island castle of Trakai.
To find out more about the Europlanet Summer School 2018, see the evaluation report for the science communication training modules and the image gallery.
Special thanks to Gražina Tautvaisiene, Renata Minkevičiūtė, Arnas Drazdauskas and all the Local Organising Committee for their work in organising the Summer School and creating a memorable event!
Summer School “Basics of Astrobiology”, 17-18 August 2018
This guest post has been contributed by Theresa Lüftinger and Manuel Güdel of the University of Vienna, Austria, and members of the SOC and LOC for the “Basics of Astrobiology” Summer School.
Our summer school on ”Basics of Astrobiology”, associated with IAU Symposium 345, was a big success. On Friday and Saturday, 17/18 August, more than 80 international researchers met with twelve expert speakers at the Department of Astrophysics of the University of Vienna to learn about the processes that eventually lead to life in the universe.
The school connected various sciences to discuss the intricate mechanisms, feedback loops and timescales required for life. The scientific areas discussed during the two days included astrophysics, space sciences, geophysics/Earth sciences, atmospheric sciences, and pre-biotic chemistry.
Muriel Gargaud opened the school explaining the aims of the science of astrobiology, its historical development, and the key international organisations that foster collaborations across the disciplines. Theresa Lüftinger from the University of Vienna then explained how the central star acts as the engine to drive many processes on terrestrial planets. A key point are magnetic fields that induce high-energy radiation and probably also stellar winds.
The planets themselves form in protoplanetary disks. Inga Kamp from the University of Groningen explained how disks evolve and act as chemical factories in which chemical reactions lead to crucial pre-biotic molecules.
The next two speakers explained how planets form, starting in protoplanetary disks. Nader Haghighipour and Eiichiro Kokubo discussed the intricate processes that lead from micrometer dust to final planets from different perspectives, pointing to barriers in planetary growth that remain to be understood. They explained how transport of water to a terrestrial planet involve complex collisions between planetesimals.
An enthusiastic crowd of students, researchers, speakers and organizers.
Doris Breuer from DLR/Berlin presented our knowledge of planetary interiors and in particular the appearance of water inside planetary bodies and on their surface. She focused in particular on the question of plate tectonics and the requirements before such processes start.
The final talk of the first day by Jorge Vago from ESA/Netherlands discussed the efforts to search for life in the solar system, and especially focused on Mars exploration. The next few years will bring new attempts and new methods, including drilling into the ground, to search for organic matter and perhaps even primitive life forms.
The day concluded with a highlight of another kind: A visit to a traditional local restaurant in the vineyards of Vienna, a so-called Heurigen. Refreshing drinks and a diverse selection of food motivated participants to make the evening long and the night short!
The next day started with a presentation on the star formation process at galactic scales. Bruce Elmegreen from the United States informed the audience about how the ISM turns into molecular clouds that converge to filaments in which eventually stars and their disks form and evolve. Manuel Güdel from the University of Vienna got back to stellar physics explaining how two seemingly disconnected issues, namely stellar rotation and habitable atmospheres of planets, are closely related.
A big astrobiology sandwich at lunch break.
Addy Pross from Israel then went into a detailed discussion of new ideas about how pre-biotic chemistry manages to build up complex molecules that eventually become self-organized living things. He introduces the concept of dynamical kinetic stability that is rooted in continuous reproduction, as opposed to thermodynamic stability.
Vladimir Airapetian from the US could unfortunately not attend in person but delivered his presentation via a video session. He connected atmospheric chemistry and stellar output and its evolution to the formation of habitable environments on a planet.
In the lecture hall.
The school was concluded with a visit to the Vienna Natural History Museum (NHM). NHM has the largest meteorite collection world-wide on display. NHM director Christian Koeberl gave a lively introduction into impacts on Earth, their traces and new findings. All participants then had the opportunity to visit the meteorite collection and get additional information.
The summer school was very successful and enjoyable. Given the limited space available, we had to select participants on a first come-first served basis, from a total of about 190 applicants. We had a good mix of people from all around the world showing up in the lecture all.
The school was made even more enjoyable by rich coffee breaks and meals organized by our two institute secretaries, Jeannette Höfinger and Linda Gleissner. A big thank you to both! Many thanks also to the local organizing committee, the speakers, Bruce Dorminey (US) as the press representative, Laurence Honnorat (France) who recorded the presentations that will soon be online (linked to our web-page at: http://ninlil.elte.hu/boa/), and Thilina Heenatigala (Sri Lanka) representing Europlanet 2020 RI that offered generous financial support for the summer school.
“Touching the Planets, Evaluating Excellence” – Report on Europlanet Outreach Workshop, Athens, 2-3 July 2018
Measuring the impact of outreach activities can help you improve the effectiveness of your activities and help convince your supervisors or funders that your time and resources have been well spent. However, collecting this information can be a challenge!
From 2-3 July, 18 amateur astronomers, teachers, early career researchers and outreach providers gathered in Athens for a workshop, “Touching the Planets, Evaluating Excellence”, to share their experiences of running outreach activities and their hone their evaluation skills. Europlanet has been developing a set of easy-to-use evaluation tools to support outreach providers and educators in measuring and appraising the impact of their activities. The Europlanet Evaluation toolkit is intended to provide advice and resources that can be simply and easily integrated into normal outreach and education activities. The kit includes 14 tools, as well as a number of variations, that are suitable for a variety of audiences and activity formats. The Athens workshop included an introduction to the toolkit by one of its creators, Dr Jen DeWitt from UCL, plus an opportunity for participations to try out four of the tools during interactive sessions. Feedback from the participants will be incorporated into the final version, which will be launched at the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) 2018 in September.
The workshop was part of a series of conference sessions and stand-alone workshops provided through the Europlanet 2020 RI project for outreach providers and science communicators working both professionally and voluntarily to engage the public with planetary science. The workshops aim to build networks, share resources and best practice, brainstorm in order to develop new ideas for effective communication, and to keep in touch with the latest scientific achievements through contact with the broader scientific community.
“Touching the Planets, Evaluating Excellence” took place in the beautiful surroundings of the Kostis Palamatis Building at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. At the end of the first day, the workshop participants were treated to an evening at the National Observatory of Athens’s Thissio visitor centre on the Hill of the Nymphs, overlooking the Acropolis. Following a tour of the library and museum, which includes historical instruments and a model of the Antikythera Mechanism, the dome of the Doridis telescope was opened up and the group had the opportunity to observe Jupiter and Saturn through the 40cm telescope.
Many thanks to Jen DeWitt for leading the sessions, to the Local Organising Committee, Nantia Moutsouroufi, Dr Eleni Chatzichristou and Prof Ioannis Daglis for organising the workshop, to Stratos Koufos for taking pictures of the event, and to Panagiotis Evangelopoulos for the tour of the National Observatory of Athens.
Europlanet Funding Scheme 2018: Connacht Schools Planetary Radio Telescope Network
Europlanet is delighted to announce that it will be supporting the Connacht Schools Planetary Radio Telescope Network through the 2018 round of its Outreach Funding Scheme.
Locations of participating schools
The project will install eight dual dipole antenna radio telescopes on the grounds of rural secondary schools in Ireland. Each radio telescope will be used by teachers and students to observe the aurora of Jupiter, and contribute to the larger network of NASA’s Radio Jove facilities used to monitor the giant planet’s active magnetosphere. The ‘temperate’ Irish climate is ideally suited to these observations and the low population density around Galway means that there is limited radio-frequency interference. Each observatory will feed real-time data to a server at the National University of Ireland.
Project leader, Aaron Golden, explains: “Practical activities in astronomy have great potential for inspiring school students with STEM. However, there are limited opportunities due to the need for specialised equipment and facilities, to work at unsocial hours and, of course, clear skies, certainly for optical astronomy. Radio astronomy offers a very cost effective means alternative for teachers and students to participate in actual observations of radio-bright objects such as the Sun and the planet Jupiter, particularly at decameter wavelengths.”
The next call for the Europlanet Funding Scheme will be launched at EPSC 2018 in September. Look out for details on social media and on our website.
This guest post is by Prof Lidia Pokrzycka, who took part in a Europlanet Expert Exchange aimed at journalists, teachers of journalism and science communicators. Applications to an open call of this programme can now be submitted any time up until 31st December 2018, with visits taking place before 30th April 2019.
The main objective of the visit was to promote links between journalists/media relations and members of the planetary science community. An additional goal was to establish cooperation in the promotion of scientific activities through social media and possible publications in a scientific journal in Poland.
First of all I visited Eugenides Foundation and Planetarium, hosted by Dr. Manos Kitsonas (director of Planetarium), to talk about the Planetarium’s activities. I was shown elements used for professional promotion of this institution, including educational films. I also had the opportunity to learn about the planetarium’s history and development plans.
Next, at the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens Sect. of Astrophysics, Astronomy, Mechanics (Hosts: Dr. Kosmas Gazeas, Mrs. Nantia Moutsouroufi) I met with the “Space Gates” team of staff and students, who are active in many outreach projects, and we discussed their activities. Then I presented a lecture about media relations and science journalism. In practice I demonstrated public relations tools, role of media relations, social media and main principles of science journalism. I showed some examples of the PR strategies of science institutions and case studies connected with science articles published in national daily papers in Great Britain and Iceland. The Space Gates team then presented to me some of their activities connected with Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and science marketing events taking place in Athens. We discussed possibilities for cooperation and decided to write science articles about “Space Gates” activities in science journal “Cognitivistic and media in education” in Poland. This will be an opportunity for the students at the University of Athens (from “Space Gates” and “Planets in your hands”) and young scientists. I showed them some examples of this kind of article connected with PR and marketing stategies in universities and special scientific projects.
I visited the University of Athens Observatory (UoAO). Staff and students gave presentations about research, educational and outreach activities at UoAO. We talked about public outreach and educational activities in the frame of “Planets in your hands“, a specific outreach project carried out by a team of students. The main idea of the project includes the construction of planetary surface models in square frames, giving a visual and tangible representation of a wide range of environments in Solar System. These models will be exhibited in schools, universities and private institutes. The project will be complemented with a specially developed website, including information all about the Solar System and the exhibited planets. The planetary surface frames will form a portable exibition, while all the information is going to be translated in several languages; thus, the entire project will have a wider European impact, as it can be easily transported or repeated to other European cities. The group presented the project to me and showed me the elements that have been already created, as well as forms of promotion used so far. During the discussion, we came to the conclusion that activities should be promoted more extensively, also in the form of scientific articles, giving students participating in the project points to opening the way for further academic careers.
I visited National Observatory of Athens, Thissio (Hosts: Dr. Anastasia Metallinou, Dimitrios Tsimpidas) and I had a tour of the telescopes. We discussed with the outreach team about history of Observatory and possibilities of cooperation. At the National Observatory of Athens, IAASARS (Hosts: Dr. Evangelos Kolokotronis, Dr. Olga Sykioti), located in Penteli, I had a tour of the telescopes and then we discussed about forms of effective promotion and PR strategies in astronomy.
My visit was very short but effective. I had an opportunity to visit The National Observatory of Athens (NOA), Eugenides Foundation and Planetarium, the Gerostathopouleio Observatory of the University of Athens and the National Observatory of Athens, Visitor Center in Penteli. The IASA team arranged meetings with scientists that are engaged both in planetary research and in relevant public outreach. I presented workshops on public relations and effective media contacts. I plan to write publications about the visit in the Maria Curie Sklodowska University journal “Wiadomości Uniwersyteckie”. I met students and faculty staff members involved in observational astrophysics, optical instrumentation and public outreach. I met the strong motivated team who share a strong interest in the communication of planetary and space science, astronomy and astrophysics to the general public through various channels and activities. They will closely cooperate with me to effectively promote projects, research/events. The IASA team arranged meetings with scientists from other institutions in Athens, who are engaged both in planetary research and in relevant public outreach. We exchanged experiences and we want to cooperate closely in the field of effective marketing and scientific activities.
Europlanet Transnational Access visit to IPAG, October, 2017
This guest post is by Jacqueline Campbell, a member of the Europlanet Diversity Working Group and a PhD Student in the Imaging Group at Mullard Space Science Laboratory, who participated in a Europlanet Transnational Access visit to the Institut de Planetologie et d’Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG) in October 2017.
In 2017, I was fortunate enough to receive funding through the Transnational Access opportunities within the Europlanet 2020 Research Infrastructure program to carry out laboratory experiments in support of my PhD research.
I study dynamic features on Mars, and am interested in the composition of dust exposed by seasonal changes in the Martian South Polar Cap, in order to search for organic material. My experiment proposal involved mixing Mars dust analogues with organics and ice, and putting the materials in a chamber that emulates Mars conditions.
My chosen facility was the Institut de Planetologie et d’Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG), under the supervision of Bernard Schmitt.
Institut de Ppanétologie et d’astrophysique de Grenoble
With the help of two other scientists at IPAG, Olivier Brissaud and Pierre Beck, we measured the spectra of our organics, Martian soil analogue and ices separately and then set to work mixing them together to analyse their changes over time.
We used an instrument called the Spectro-gonio Radiometer to look at the infrared spectra of the materials, along with the CarboN-IR environmental cell, which can simulate Mars surface pressures and temperatures. We then made up our mixtures of ices and dusts with organic molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are thought to be important in theories of how life originated.
In order to keep the ice from sublimating away while we mixed out organics and dust together, we had to wear ski-jackets and gloves and sit in room at up to -20°C, before putting the mixture into the chamber at -100°C and sealing the door to the environmental cell as swiftly as possible to prevent condensation and sublimation of the sample.
Sample of CO2 ice in Carbon-IR Environmental Cell
Throughout the week we analysed several different mixtures, and were able to obtain new results for spectra of organics pertinent to Martian astrobiology, and establish the detectability limit of the organics in ices. I was also able to spend some time learning about other projects at IPAG, and look around Grenoble.
Grenoble
Grenoble’s transport system has 100% disabled access, and the Université Grenoble Alpes is well known for its excellent facilities and support services. The Europlanet TA program was a fantastic opportunity for me to meet new collaborators, and carry out novel experiments, and I have applied for this year’s program so that I can return to Grenoble to continue my experiments pertaining to other dynamic regions on Mars that may contain present-day liquid water. We have a paper in preparation for publication on our results that will be published later this year.
Europlanet webinar: Hayabusa2 Mission to the Asteroids
How do you send a spacecraft to an asteroid thousands of miles kilometres away and return to Earth with some samples? This month Dr. Elizabeth Tasker is an associate professor and science communicator at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will join the Europlanet Webinar series to discuss the Hayabusa2 mission.
Hayabusa2 is a space mission led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to visit an asteroid and return a sample to Earth. The spacecraft launched in 2014 but is now rapidly approaching asteroid Ryugu. Ryugu is a C-type asteroid, meaning that it formed in the early days of the Solar System and has changed very little during that time. This makes the space rock kin to meteorites that rained down on the young Earth, possibly bringing water and the first organics to our planet. Hayabusa2 will arrive at Ryugu at the end of June (!) and will analyse the asteroid remotely, take three samples and drop a lander and three small rovers to the asteroid surface. It is due to return to Earth in 2020. While led by JAXA, there is strong European involvement in the mission, with the lander (MASCOT) being designed and built by the German and French space agencies, the same team that designed the Philae lander on the Rosetta mission.
Pro-Am collaborations showcased at ‘New Views of Jupiter’, RAS-Juno Europlanet workshop
Nearly 50 of the world’s leading observers of Jupiter, members of NASA’s Juno mission team, and citizen scientists from across the globe took part in a workshop at the Royal Astronomical Society/Linnean Society in London on 10-11 May. ‘New Views of Jupiter: Pro-Am Collaborations during and beyond the NASA Juno Mission’, was supported through Europlanet 2020 RI’s NA1 networking activity. Participants presented new observations and imagery from JunoCam and ground-based facilities, updates on the Juno mission and plans for future observing campaigns.
Exhibition of historical Jupiter images
John Rogers of the British Astronomical Association and Sian Prosser, the Librarian of the Royal Astronomical Society, curated an exhibition of historical views of Jupiter from their archives:
Jupiter by T.E.R. Philips and others (BAA archive)
Jupiter by T.E.R. Philips and others (BAA archive)
Jupiter (1879-83) by Nathaniel Everett Green (RAS archive)
Jupiter (1876) by Miss Hirst (RAS archive)
Jupiter (1879-83) by J.G. Barclay (RAS archive)
Jupiter (1875) by Miss Hirst (RAS archive)
Interviews with participants
With the support of the Royal Astronomical Society’s Helen Klus and Morgan Hollis, we filmed short interviews with a number of the participants:
Scott Bolton, Juno Mission PI
JunoCam PI Candy Hansen
Glenn Orton, coordinator of the Juno Groundbased Campaign
Making the Case for Astronomy – Engaging with Policy Makers
Terry O’Connor, Nathalie Meusy and Clare Moody at EWASS 2018.
Last year at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science (EWASS), we started a discussion on best practice in astronomy-related public and policy engagement. At EWASS 2018, held jointly in Liverpool this April with the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting, we held a follow up session on “Making the Case for Astronomy”. This year’s session was led by a panel of speakers with different perspectives on the dialogue between the astronomy community, policy makers and the public. The panel comprised Terry O’Connor (STFC), Nathalie Meusy (ESA) and Clare Moody MEP and was chaired by Mike Bode of the European Astronomical Society. The panel’s presentation was followed by a lively discussion session.
Why should they care? Engaging political audiences with frontier science – Terry O’Connor
Terry O’Connor, Communications Director, Science and Technology Facilities Council, explained how astronomers are viewed by policy makers: “You are respected but not understood. It’s your responsibility to improve the understanding of politicians. Be united – it’s a good excuse not to listen if you are saying something different. Be clear about messaging (“Give us some money!” is not good enough). Make sure that what you are saying is understandable by someone else.”
Terry went on to put the financial challenges that astronomers face into a wider context: “Funding for astronomy is good but could be better. We have a growing community but flat funding sources, so the competition is getting worse. Compared to other areas, we have it not so bad. The glass is more than half full for astronomy. We are starting from a solid base. You need to understand what policy makers think of you, and they think you are doing OK.”
Surveys of public attitudes to science, e.g. by Eurobarometer and IPSOS/Mori-BEIS, can help in shaping a message to policy makers that they will find relevant and resonate with their constituents. Terry explained: “Politicians read polls and know that science is popular and like it. What matters to them is their constituents, their party and colleagues, their country… What makes a policy maker’s face light up is skills development – this is what [astronomers] do!”
Overall, Terry summarised his messages as follows:
Key messages for astronomers engaging with policy makers
Key messages for astronomers to present to policy makers
Astronomers are respected but not understood
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You are the problem solvers
You are science (don’t make artificial distinctions)
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You are collaborative problem solvers
Be clear in what you want – strategic objective
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You want to be recognised as problem solvers
Understand what your audience thinks of you
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You want to be thought of as the solution, not the problem
Nathalie Meusy, of the European Space Agency (ESA) Strategy Department, presented her experiences in devising and implementing a “Citizens’ debate”, which took place on 10th September 2016. During the day, ESA held 23 debates in the 22 ESA Member States and in 17 languages. Over 2000 people took part, ranging in age from 15 to 89 years old.
Nathalie explained: “When Jan Woerner was elected, he wanted to bring ESA to a broader audience – to nurture the future space strategy of space in Europe with elements of inspiration and information coming from European Citizens. Within ESA, there were concerns about a lack of visibility of the space sector and a changing environment where the roles of ESA, the EU and other players is confusing. For ESA, this exercise was an opportunity to engage in participatory democracy with Europe’s citizens in a process that would enrich and support ESA’s institutional decision-making process.”
The debate was modelled on an exercise for the Paris Conference on Climate Change, COP21, which brought together 10,000 citizens in 76 countries on 6th June 2015. ESA was a partner in this event and was so convinced by the exercise that it decided to hold its own event.
To provide trustworthy outcomes, the mix of participants needed to reflect demographic diversity and include citizens with varying levels of interest in space. Following a recruitment process via social media, the final participants were selected from the list of registered persons in each country to ensure diversity of age, gender, occupation and of level of interest in space issues. About one-third of the participants had no preliminary interest in the subject, about half of the participants had an existing interest and about 10% were people whose professional activity is related to space.
Participants were sent a 4-page document about ESA activities in advance of the debate. On the day, participants were shown videos, divided into discussion groups and given opportunities for individual votes. Outputs were uploaded live and a first analysis of the quantitative results was published within 72 hours.
The findings include responses to open and closed questions. Full details of the results can be found in Nathalie’s slides.
Overall, ESA has produced this short summary of findings:
Be global. Participants see themselves as citizens of the world, part of humanity, and consider space should address societal challenges such as burning environmental issues. For them, space is a common good for humanity.
Be cleaner & protect space. Space should be kept clean (and space debris cleaned) and protected as a “lifeboat” for future generations.
Be innovative. Through space exploration projects that can benefit to our daily lives as well as to the Earth and the future of humanity all together. A first step should be to come back to the Moon (ex.: Moon village).
Be communicative and interactive. ESA should keep opening up the dialogue with citizens and all its stakeholders (including other space agencies), share information (also considering digital agenda), and develop various communication and marketing actions, as well as large inspirational missions (that can also be participative).
Communication to and through politicians – Clare Moody MEP
Clare Moody during the “Making the Case for Astronomy” session at EWASS 2018.
Clare Moody MEP gave advice on the best way of talking to a politician: “Analyse what you want. Be strategic in engaging with the political world – politicians can’t know what’s going on in your head. Let politicians know who you are, what you do and where you can be found if needed. Bring the two worlds together so that you are part of the conversation.”
She went on to remind us that politicians are people too: “Don’t assume that everyone else knows what you know. Recognise your strengths. Astronomers have a huge reach into people’s lives. When space is on the TV screens in people’s living rooms, there is a huge amount of warmth coming back. So make the most of opportunities like Tim Peak, Cassini or Rosetta. Someone described Philae’s mission to me as landing a washing machine on Weston-Super-Mer but millions of miles away. Celebrate the modern genius that is space –but get that recognition. Understand the agenda of politicians and work with the grain of that agenda. Get them excited but understand the context – remind them that a high STEM skilled workforce is needed and Tim Peake can help deliver that by encouraging schools to grow mustard seeds.”
Clare advised the astronomy community to identify advocates in policy making: “Find people that will act for you, who are already engaged and will help you to deliver what you want.”
She also encouraged the community to make contact with policy makers that are not already engaged with STEM or space to build support: “Go beyond the obvious areas. Talk to the Treasury. Commissioner Moedas is already engaged – we need to engage the other Commissioners. Horizon 2020 has provided funding but also stability. It supports people and international collaboration. These are the things that we need to preserve for the community. You are a success story. You’ve done amazing things. Now is the time to double down and fight.”
Many thanks to the panel and to the session’s co-conveners, Robert Massey of the Royal Astronomical Society, Mike Bode of the European Astronomical Society and Karen O’Flaherty of the European Space Agency.
This guest post is by Lukasz Lamza, who took part in a Europlanet Expert Exchange aimed at journalists, teachers of journalism and science communicators. Applications to an open call of this programme can now be submitted any time up until 31st December 2018, with visits taking place before 30th April 2019.
My name is Lukasz Lamza, I took part in the Europlanet Exchange Programme in January, 2018. I’m a journalist (I work for the Polish magazine “Tygodnik Powszechny” as an editor/author of the scientific section), but also an academic teacher (I teach philosophy in Krakow, specializing in philosophy of science and cosmology) – so the program was doubly interesting. I’ve spoken to a number of scientists before, both as a member of the Academia, during conferences, research projects and such, and as a journalist, interviewing them. Quite honestly, however, I had not yet had a chance to visit a large research community of space scientists in their labs. Those people were on their own ground, the shelves were filled with their books of choice, and their lab benches had all the dents and scratches of their own making. This is something different. I wasn’t there for the interview, we weren’t in ties, and nothing was recorded.
The visit lasted three days, during which I have visited, successively, the University College in London, the Open University in Milton Keynes and UCL’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory, southwest of London, located in a picturesque Surrey countryside. I won’t detail my schedule, also for the simple reason that by day two my head was spinning. I met a couple of dozen people, and, being the space science and astrophysics freak that I am, and also feeling sort of obliged as a journalist, I made it a point of honor to read at least a single recent paper by each of the people I was to meet, and to let everybody talk as long as they felt like. If I were to write a book about the theory and practice of planetary science, now I might as well, based on the sheer amount of issues that I’ve been introduced to. From elementary particle physics, through applied solar physics to pure, good ole engineering (there were rolls of silver scotch tape all over the place). I’ve heard a great deal about how to find the right people for organizing a solar mission, how to squeeze a sufficient number of cameras into a rover, and how to make money using your image analysis software or your miniature mass spectrometer. I’ve seen the actual folders that hold the actual raw images from the surface of Mars, and folks that analyze them for a living. Each person had their own story, job and interests. I haven’t met a single person who wasn’t willing to let me a little bit into their work and responsibilities – and yet I wasn’t even working on a material. I wasn’t promising their name in the paper and their face on TV. I was basically a random guy stopping them from their work and asking them a bunch of question, most of them probably more or less naïve. The welcoming atmosphere was quite inspiring.
With a fistful of cards, I returned home and started processing all the information. If the idea was to inspire me to write more, and better, and smarter, and deeper about planetary science, then the idea worked great. I definitely want to do that now. I wholeheartedly recommend the Europlanet Exchange Programme to anyone who deals professionally with the relevant subjects would like to take a step into the community of people who live and breathe space exploration and/or planetary science. What a trip!
Open Call – Expert Exchange Opportunity for Science Journalists/Science Communicators/Lecturers in Science Journalism
Following our successful pilot of outreach-focused expert exchanges over the last few months, Europlanet 2020 Research Infrastructure (RI) has issued an open call for the expert exchange programme to invite journalists, science communicators or lecturers in journalism to spend a few days (maximum one week) in a Europlanet 2020 RI laboratory. Participants will be able to find out more about planetary science, how science is carried out and the life of scientists, with the aim of also helping scientists to understand how the media works and the world of journalism. Priority will be given to applicants from countries that are under-represented in planetary science*.
Application can be submitted any time until 31st December 2018 and the visits must take place before 30th April 2019.
The main objective of this exchange programme is to promote links between journalists/science communicators and members of the planetary science community.
Three visits took place following the first call in 2107:
Lukasz Lamza visited UCL, Mullard Space Science Laboratory and the Open University in January 2018
Prof Lidia Pokrzycka visited the University of Athens Observatory and Institute of Accelerating Systems and Applications in January 2018.
Details of the institutions and opportunities for this special expert exchange are below. If you are a journalist/science communicator or lecturer in journalism and are interested in participating in the expert exchange, please email the contacts from the facility you would like to visit to discuss potential goals and timings for your visit. Details of how to apply and the application form is online here: http://fmispace.fmi.fi/index.php?id=call311
The Institut für Weltraumforschung (IWF) in Graz. Credit: IWF
The Space Research Institute (Institut für Weltraumforschung, IWF) in Graz has around 90+ employees and is one of the largest institutes of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. IWF has a 40-year heritage of providing scientific participation and hardware for space missions, ranging from magnetometers to onboard data processing for planetary-related missions, including Cluster, Venus Express, COROT, Rosetta and MMS. The visit would be hosted by Manfred Steller, who is leading one of the instrument development teams providing hardware to various missions.
Participants in an expert exchange visit to IWF will be able find out how new space hardware is developed, from the first design steps through to the actual assembly of electronics and instruments in IWF clean room, including test phases in one of the in-house thermal vacuum facilities. In parallel, the science behind the mission can be followed in the science teams associated to the missions from developing new concepts, running an actual mission and harvesting the data of IWF instruments currently in space. Participants will have the opportunity to meet and spend time with the engineers that design the test facilities and/or design the instruments, as well as members of the science team, from PhD students making their first steps in the field up to senior scientists heading an international instrument team.
The Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology (IRAP) is a Mixed Research Unity (UMR 5277) of the CNRS and the University Paul Sabatier (PRES University of Toulouse) and is one of the leading facilities of ground-space astrophysics in France, employing around 300 people. The scientific objectives of the IRAP are the study and the understanding of the Universe and its content: the Earth as a planet, its ionized environment, the sun and its planets, the stars and their planetary systems, the galaxies, the very first stars and the primeval Big Bang. IRAP technical capabilities include the conception, construction, integration and operation of ground and space instruments and laboratory experiments leading to characterise physical process.
Participants in an expert exchange visit to IRAP will be able to visit clean rooms with flight/spare models of instruments for the BepiColombo and Solar Orbiter missions, as well as calibration facilities for space plasma instruments, and the Data Center for Space Plasma Archive (CDPP). Participants will be able to find out about the CHEMCAM instrument that is currently operating on the NASA Curiosity Rover on Mars and developments for the the SUPERCAM instrument, which will be carried by NASA’s upcoming Mars 2020 Rover. Participants may also have the opportunity to visit the Pic du Midi Observatory and have a demonstration of the planeterella aurora simulator. Researchers that participants can meet may include (list not exhaustive): Nicolas Andre (CNRS Research scientist), Philippe Louarn (IRAP Director), Vincent Genot (CDPP Director), Michel Blanc (Astronomer/Interdisciplinary scientist, Cassini-Huygens mission), Sylvestre Maurice (Co-PI of Mars 2020/SUPERCAM)
Lecturer in journalism, Prof Lidia Pokrzycka, visited the University of Athens Observatory in January 2018 through a Europlanet expert exchange.
Institute of Accelerating Systems and Applications
The Institute of Accelerating Systems and Applications (IASA) is a University Research Institute that was founded in 1994 in order to promote research and postgraduate studies in the Greek University system. It is affiliated with six University departments: Physics, Informatics, and Medicine of the National Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA); Electrical & Computer Engineering, Chemical Engineering and General Science of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). The Europlanet team of IASA comes from the NKUA Department of Physics and has expertise in solar-terrestrial physics and the space radiation environment of Earth and Jupiter. The team collaborates with most space and planetary scientists in Greek Universities and Research Centres and has contributed to several space missions: NASA/Polar, NASA/THEMIS, ESA/Cluster, ESA/Rosetta (science responsibility for the SREM instrument), ESA/BepiColombo (SERENA instrument suite).
The University of Athens Observatory is located on the roof of the Department of Physics and houses a 0.4 m f/8 telescope, equipped with astronomical CCD cameras and spectrographs for imaging, photometric and spectroscopic observations. The Observatory has both a research and an education mandate and organises regular public talks followed by evening visits to the telescope.
Participants in an expert exchange visit to IASA will be able to visit the Observatory and meet students and faculty staff members involved in observational astrophysics, optical instrumentation and public outreach, including the Director, Prof. I.A. Daglis and Dr. Kosmas Gazeas. There will also be opportunities to meet the vigorously motivated SpaceGates team of graduate and undergraduate students, who share a strong interest in the communication of planetary and space science, astronomy and astrophysics to the general public through various channels and activities.
Finally, the IASA team will be able to arrange meetings with scientists in other institutions in Athens, who are engaged both in planetary research and in relevant public outreach – for example Dr. Olga Sykioti of the National Observatory of Athens (Mars) and Dr. Nick Sergis of the Academy of Athens (Saturn).
Interested exchange visitors should contact Prof. I.A. Daglis (iadaglis@phys.uoa.gr) and Dr. Eleni Chatzichristou (elthchatz@gmail.com) for details on a visit to IASA.
The Open University
Mars Test Faciltiy at OU. Credit: OU
The Open University (OU) hosts one of the United Kingdom’s leading centres for astronomy, planetary and space science. It has a long history of involvement in major Solar System exploration missions through the exploitation of instruments developed at the OU, such as on Cassini Huygens, Stardust, Genesis and, mostly recently, Rosetta where it was responsible for ‘Ptolemy’ the gas analyser on the Philae lander, co-developed with RAL Space. Current mission involvement includes Gaia, Bepi-Colombo and ExoMars whilst also being involved in future missions such as Euclid, Plato and JUICE. Astronomical research incudes the study of exoplanets and both observational and laboratory astrochemistry. The OU also has been at the forefront of developing astrobiology research.
Participants in an expert exchange visit to the OU will be able to find out about the development of space instrumentation, such as spectroscopic and imaging techniques for planetary atmospheres. They will also be able to visit the OU’s extensive range of laboratory facilities that are broadly sub-divided into those used to characterise the chemistry and isotopic composition of matter in the Solar System (e.g. nano-SIMS) or the simulation of Earth and Planetary processes (e.g. Mars atmosphere and surface simulation chambers). They will also be able to meet the team coordinating Europlanet 2020 RI, which is led by the OU, and find out more about building a pan-European community for planetary science.
Science communicator and journalist, Anastasia Kokori, visited UCL through Europlanet’s expert exchange programme in November 2017
UCL is one of the United Kingdom’s leading centres for planetary and exoplanetary science. It houses expertise in understanding planets in our Solar System from their deep interiors, through their surfaces and atmospheres, to their space environment, as well as the characterisation of planets orbiting distant stars. It also leads development of the next generation of space instrumentation. This expertise is complemented by world leaders in astronomy, terrestrial and solar science, life and chemical sciences. Participants in an expert exchange visit to UCL will be able to visit facilities and meet researchers at:
– UCL’s main campus in the historical area of Bloomsbury in the heart of London
– Mullard Space Science Laboratory/Department of Space and Climate Physics (MSSL), the UK’s largest university-based space research group, located in the Surrey Hills
– the UCL Observatory (UCLO) at Mill Hill, one of the best-equipped astronomical facilities for student training and research in the UK.
UCL is involved in future missions to Mars, Jupiter and other Solar System bodies, as well as the ARIEL and Twinkle missions to characterise the atmospheres of planets orbiting other stars (exoplanets). UCL has contributed to recent international space exploration missions, including the Cassini mission to Saturn, the Rosetta mission to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, Venus Express and Mars Express.
Concert with commentary: William Herschel, the Astronomer Composer
The 2012 winner of the Europlanet Prize for Public Engagement, Yaël Nazé, will be providing scientific commentaries on a special concert of works by the astronomer and composer, William Herschel, performed by the Chamber Orchestra of Liège on 14th May at the Théâtre de Liège.
William Herschel was born in Hanover in 1738. To fulfil military obligations he emigrated to Engalnd, and finally settled there permanently during the Seven Years War. An excellent musician, renowned soloist (violin, oboe, organ), he became Director of Public Concerts in Bath. Herschel was also a respected composer who wrote symphonies, concertos, sonatas and religious music, in a style between Mozart and Haendel. He is responsible for some 40 works, mainly composed during 1759 and 1770.
In parallel, he was passionately interested in astronomy and made numerous observations, together with his sister Caroline, initially using a rented telescope and later through instruments that he built from 1776 onwards. Thanks to these meticulous observations, Herschel discovered a new planet in 1781: Uranus. This discovery earned him a position from King George III that allowed him to focus solely on astronomy. In 1785, he discovered two satellites of Uranus, Titania and Oberon, and in 1787, two satellites of Saturn, Mimas and Enceladus. Along with his sister, Herschel was the author of several catalogues of double stars and nebulae.
Registration is now open for the Europlanet outreach workshop: “Touching the Planets, Evaluating Excellence”, which will be held in Athens on July 2-3, 2018. This year, the workshop will target primarily (but not exclusively) an audience of amateur astronomers and will focus on evaluation of outreach activities.
Europlanet 2020 Research Infrastructure (RI) offers a series of Outreach Experts Workshops, best practice meetings for a broad range of outreach providers and science communicators working both professionally and voluntarily to engage the public with planetary science. The workshops aim to build networks, share resources and best practice, brainstorm in order to develop new ideas for effective communication, and to keep in touch with the latest scientific achievements through contact with the broader scientific community.
Venue
The workshop will take place in the Kostis Palamas building of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, located in downtown Athens. Suggestions for hotels can be found here.
Programme
During the first half of the day, we will present a dedicated evaluation toolkit developed by Europlanet to empower outreach providers and educators in measuring and appraising the impact of their activities. On the second half of the day participants will present the outreach activities they have been engaging with, discussing empirical evidence and best practices. The day will be concluded with a stargazing experience open to participants and the public at the nearby Hill of Nymphs, opposite to Acropolis, where the National Observatory of Athens headquarters are located. On the second day, the experience of the participants will join the expertise of the Europlanet team, to perform practical exercises using the evaluation tools, to do group work on specific themes and focused discussions.
A limited number of participants (30) will be accepted. The workshop is free to attend. Priority in selecting applicants will be widening participation. We will be able to provide financial support for travel and 2 nights accommodation to a limited number of participants, according to specific criteria and budget availability. For further information, contact: europlanet.workshop2018@gmail.com
Preliminary Programme*
Monday July 2
Morning
9:30-10:00: Welcoming the participants. Overview of Europlanet RI 2020 & OEP Activities
10:00-11:00 Jennifer DeWitt: The need for dedicated evaluation tools
11:00-11:30 Coffee Break – Networking
11:30-13:00 Participant presentations
13:00-14:00 Lunch Break – Networking Afternoon
14:00-15:30 Participant Presentations
15:30-16:00 Coffee Break – Networking
16:30-18:00 Participant Presentations Evening
Social Event
21:00-23:00 Stargazing night at the Hill of the Nymphs, Athens
Tuesday July 3
Morning
09:30-11:00 Evaluation Tools Practice
11:00-11:30 Coffee Break – Networking
11:30-13:00 Evaluation Tools Practice
13:00-14:00 Lunch Break – Networking Afternoon
14:00-15:30 Focused Group Work
15:30-16:00 Coffee Break – Networking
16:00-17:30 Plenary Discussion- Concluding Points
Mars is one of the most interesting places in our Solar System when it comes to looking for life outside of our planet. In the past, Mars had very similar conditions to those of Earth, with a moderate climate and liquid water, that could have sustained life as we know it. Whether life really developed on Mars and whether it might still exist, is one of the main reasons to explore the red planet. But Mars comes with many challenges that humankind has not faced before and in order to overcome them we need to study them and learn as much as we can about them, here on Earth. The OeWF does exactly that: look for places on Earth that are similar to Mars and test different technologies and experiments that we hope to use on Mars.
Joao Lousada is an analog astronaut at the OeWF and he is also the deputy field commander for the last OeWF mission: AMADEE18. He studied aerospace engineering and he is also a flight controller for the international space station, where he works together with international teams to help astronauts living and working in space. Join Joao and host, Rosa Doran, for a Europlanet webinar to find out more about the work of OeWF and his experiences exploring Mars on Earth.
This guest post is by Jacqueline Campbell, a member of the Europlanet Diversity Working Group and a PhD Student in the Imaging Group at Mullard Space Science Laboratory.
Following the inception of the Europlanet Diversity Working Group (DWG) after the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) in 2017 in Latvia, our newly formed group came up with an abstract on our plans to make planetary science conferences more inclusive. The abstract was accepted for a poster presentation at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science (EWASS) 2018 meeting in Liverpool.
There were several sessions and discussions on diversity at EWASS, and lots was said about the additional work women in particular are putting in on top of their research commitments to focus on diversity and inclusivity issues. There were a lot of positive responses from the men in the room, and it was good to hear international panel experts talk about their experiences all over the world. It was pointed out that while it’s a positive thing that there is a lot of focus on sexism, we still have a way to go regarding other forms of discrimination, particularly where they intersect.
I spent some time talking to people at the poster session; ours was the only poster on diversity, and so received a lot of attention from those that had attended the oral diversity sessions. We were fortunate to be able to talk to Member of European Parliament, Claire Moody about our plans.
(Left to right) MEP Claire Moody, Jacqueline Campbell, Sheila Kanani, and Robert Massey
A very interesting session on Making the case for European astronomy and space science: public and political engagement had some excellent talks and discussion from panel members Terry O’Connor, Nathalie Meusy and Claire Moody on their thoughts on communication between scientists, politicians and the general public.
The following week at the European Geosciences Union in Vienna, Europlanet had an exhibition stand, where we got to engage with delegates about early career scientist networking opportunities and outreach (Europlanet launched their latest outreach video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8WGlrlVrwY).
(Left to right) Maike Neuland, Lena Noack, Jacqueline Campbell and Livia Giacomini
It was a great experience to attend so many diversity and outreach sessions; people were very enthusiastic and engaged. My only concern was that those who might gain the most from learning more about diversity and outreach may not attend, and it would be great to see more inclusivity issues in opening sessions and keynote talks where they would reach a wider audience. Nonetheless, it is fantastic to see equality and diversity being promoted at large science gatherings, and I look forward to EPSC 2018 in Berlin, where we will showcase some of the measures we are introducing to make planetary science open to all.
Jacqueline Campbell, April 2018
Europlanet 2024 RI has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 871149.
Europlanet AISBL (Association Internationale Sans But Lucratif - 0800.634.634) is hosted by the Department of Planetary Atmospheres of the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB), Avenue Circulaire 3, B-1180 Brussels, Belgium.
