Nominations for the 8th Paolo Farinella Prize now open
A call for nominations has been issued for the 8th Paolo Farinella Prize. This year, the Prize will be awarded to a researcher working in the field of “Giant planets satellite systems”. The candidates should have international and interdisciplinary collaborations and should be not older than 47 years, the age of Paolo when he passed away, at the date of May 4th, 2018. Nominations must be sent by email not later than May 4th, 2018. Full details of the call are below:
8th “Paolo Farinella” Prize, 2018
To honor the memory and the outstanding figure of Paolo Farinella (1953-2000), an extraordinary scientist and person, a prize has been established in recognition of significant contributions given in the fields of interest of Paolo, which span from planetary sciences to space geodesy, fundamental physics, science popularization, security in space, weapons control and disarmament.
The prize has been proposed during the “International Workshop on Paolo Farinella, the scientist and the man”, held in Pisa in 2010, and is supported by the following Italian Institutions: University of Pisa, ASI, INAF, IFAC-CNR.
Previous recipients of the “Paolo Farinella Prize” were:
• 2011: William F. Bottke, for his contribution to the field of “Physics and dynamics of small solar system bodies”
• 2012: John Chambers, for his contribution to the field of “Formation and early evolution of the solar system ”
• 2013: Patrick Michel, for his contribution to the field of ” Collisional processes in the Solar System”
• 2014: David Vokrouhlicky, for his contribution to the field of “Non gravitational forces in the Solar System”
• 2015: Nicolas Biver, for his contribution to the field of “Dynamics and physics of comets”
• 2016: Kleomenis Tsiganis, for his contribution to the field of “Applications of celestial mechanics to the natural bodies of our solar system”.
• 2017: Simone Marchi, for his contribution to the field of “Physics and dynamics of the inner planets of the solar system and their satellites”.
The eighth Paolo Farinella Prize is devoted to planetary sciences and specifically to studies on the “Giant planets satellite systems”. The award ceremony will be hosted by the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) meeting in Berlin, Germany (16th to 21st of September 2018).
For the 8th “Paolo Farinella” Prize the terms and rules are as follows:
1. A competition is announced to award the “Paolo Farinella” Prize for the year 2018. The prize consists of a plaque, a certificate and the amount of 1500 €. The winner is expected to give a Prize lecture at the EPSC awards special session.
2. The winner will be selected on the basis of his/her overall research results in the field of “Giant planets satellite systems “.
3. Nominations must be sent by email not later than May 4th, 2018, to the following addresses: paolo.tortora@unibo.it and david.lucchesi@iaps.inaf.it
4. The nominations for the “Paolo Farinella” Prize can be made by any researcher that works in the field of planetary sciences following the indications in the attached form. Self nominations are acceptable. The candidates should have international and interdisciplinary collaborations and should be not older than 47 years, the age of Paolo when he passed away, at the date of May 4th, 2018.
5. The winner of the prize will be selected before May 31th, 2018 by the “Paolo Farinella” Prize Committee composed of outstanding scientists in planetary sciences, with specific experience in the field.
6. The Prize Committee will consider all the nominations, but will be entitled to autonomously consider other candidates.
Europlanet Webinars – Your Web-Based Link to Europe’s Planetary Researchers
26 March 2020: To assist those looking for STEM learning resources during the Covid-19 outbreak, we are updating some of our past webinars with subtitles in other languages.
You can find Italian educational resources on the INAF IAPS communication site.
Ever wanted to hear a first-hand account of what planetary researchers are actually working on and what their research is all about? How about the opportunity to ask them directly and have them answer your questions? Europlanet is offering monthly webinars with topics ranging from current Mars missions, astrobiology, analogue field expeditions to many other aspects of exploring and understanding our Solar System. These online presentations are an authentic and exciting way to experience cutting-edge science and talk to the researchers involved, sometimes directly from their laboratories and field missions.
Who is it for and how does it work?
We welcome anyone interested in planetology, especially school classes – this is also a chance to interact with the researchers. You simply need to go to the website indicated in the announcement on social media, or this site directly.
If you have a topic in planetary sciences you would like to address, drop us an email and maybe we can arrange a webinar with the specialists in exactly that field! Email: webinars@europlanet-eu.org
Tuesday 30rd July 2019 at 13:00 BST / 14:00 CEST with Dr Amelia Ortiz-Gil of the University of Valencia
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 of touch to teach everyone, including blind people, about the planets and the Universe. However, there are other senses that can also be used to enjoy and, at the same time, learn about astronomy. This can be especially useful for people with special needs.
June 2019
Monday 3rd June at 14:30 BST / 15:30 CEST with Dr Ashley Davies of NASA’s JPL
Volcanoes have helped transform the surfaces of the Earth, the other terrestrial planets, and the Moon. The biggest volcanic eruptions in the Solar System are taking place not on Earth, but on Io, a moon of Jupiter. This wonder of the Solar System is a fascinating volcanic laboratory where powerful volcanic eruptions result from tidal heating, a process that also affects the ice-covered moon Europa. Despite multiple spacecraft visits and spectacular new observations of Io with large Earth-based telescopes, some of the biggest questions about Io’s extraordinary volcanoes remain unanswered. Getting the answers requires an understanding of the difficulties of remote sensing of volcanic activity; a new, innovative approach to instrument design; and ultimately a return to Io. In this webinar, Ashley describes how studying volcanoes on Earth leads to a clearer understanding of how Io’s volcanoes work and how best to study them from spacecraft.
May 2019
Monday 13th May at 13:00 BST / 14: 00 CEST. “Volcanism and Mars” with Dr Petr Brož of the Institute of Geophysics, Czech Academy of Science .
Mars is a terrestrial planet whose surface was significantly modified by the volcanic activity throughout its history. The volcanism left many evidences in the form of variously sized volcanoes, endless lava fields, or volcanic rocks widely spread over the surface. In the webinar, Petr will discuss evidence of the volcanic history of Mars and explain the importance of volcanism on the evolution of the Red Planet.
April 2019
Monday 29th April at 13:00 BST / 14: 00 CEST. “Searching for Life Outside of Earth: Perspectives of Science Fiction vs. Reality” with Dr Julie Novakova.
Julie Novakova is an award-winning Czech author of science fiction and detective stories. She published seven novels, one anthology and over thirty stories in Czech. She started publishing short stories in English in 2013 and her work has appeared in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld and other magazines and anthologies. Some of her works have been translated into Chinese, Romanian and Estonian. She’s also active in science outreach and education, nonfiction writing and translation. She is currently a PhD student of evolutionary biology at the Charles University in Prague.
January 2019
Monday, 21 January 2019, 13:00 GMT / 14:00 CET. “The atmospheres of exoplanets” with Dr Joanna Barstow of UCL.
Over the last five years, we’ve gone from knowing only a handful of planets around other stars to having detected over 3,000. These exoplanets provide us with an opportunity to understand how planets and their atmospheres evolve, but most of them are too close to their bright parent stars for us to be able to directly study them. Instead, we infer their presence when they pass in front of the star and block some of the starlight. A tiny fraction of the starlight is filtered through the planet’s atmosphere, emerging with a fingerprint of the atmospheric structure and composition, and we can observe this using the Hubble Space Telescope and future observatories such as the James Webb Space Telescope and ARIEL. In this webinar, Joanna explains how we are using these measurements to start to build a picture of how planetary atmospheres vary under different conditions.
November 2018
Tuesday, 27 November 2018, 13:00 GMT / 14:00 CET. “Working the Magic of Visual Effects on Raw Space Data” with Matt Brealey, a freelancer who is using tools and techniques from the Visual Effects Industry to process raw space data.
There are decades of raw planetary science data available for free download online, through services such as the Planetary Data System, and individual mission outreach websites like UAHiRISE and MissionJuno. However much of this data exists in rather obscure formats, sometimes requiring a high level of processing to view successfully. Matt Brealey aims to make this data accessible to those without technical knowledge of the projects involved. In this webinar Matt shows how techniques from the Visual Effects Industry can help visualise planetary data.
October 2018
Tuesday, 30th Oct 2018 at 14:00 CEST: “BepiColombo Mission to Mercury” with Indhu Varatharajan, PhD Research Fellow at German Aerospace Center (DLR).
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.
September 2018
Tues, 25 September 2018 at 16:00 CEST: “Europlanet webinar: Biosphere 2″ with Kevin Bonine, Biosphere 2’s Director of Education and Outreach.
In our September webinar Kevin Bonine joins us to talk about how we might be able to live on other planets or moons. Kevin shares the work being conducted at the world’s largest controlled Earth science research facility: Biosphere 2.
Biosphere 2 is the world’s largest controlled Earth science research facility. Built in the late 1980s, the 2 ha structure has helped us better understand planet Earth, and how we might be able to live on other planets or moons. Under glass, we have a tropical rainforest, a large-scale research ocean, a mangrove estuary, several other biomes, human living quarters, laboratories, and our enormous Landscape Evolution Observatory (LEO) for studying the details of water, carbon, and energy cycling. This inspirational research and education facility would cost about $1 billion to build today; the University of Arizona has been using the facility since 2007, gaining ownership in 2011.
The questions we can ask and answer are fundamentally important. We can manipulate the combination of precipitation, temperature, and carbon dioxide to see how plant communities respond. We can elevate the temperature of the ocean, or decrease the pH, in order to study the resilience of coral communities. In LEO, we can observe how volcanic rock weathers, how carbon sequestration changes over time, and how microbial communities underground contribute to atmospheric gas composition under different precipitation patterns. In short, we can stress systems at large scale, but with control and precision, to see how projected future climate variation might impact the ecosystems we all share on planet Earth. We can also learn more about what it takes to grow food, recycle water, and maintain oxygen levels – all while measuring energy consumption.
Each year, 100,000 visitors come to Biosphere 2, 10% of whom are school children. The dual mission of research and education facilitates better understanding and appreciation of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) across audiences. By connecting virtually to schools around the world, we can share our inspiring stories, our scientific understanding, and our vision for the future – and what technological or biological solutions have yet to be invented. Teachers can bring students for professional educator-led offerings in many lesson subject areas, all aligned with Next Generation Science Standards. Teacher training programs include hands-on, residential professional development. Learn more at biosphere2.org.
June 2018
Wed, 27 Jun 2018 at 11:00 CEST: “Hayabusa2 Mission to the Asteroids” with Dr. Elizabeth Tasker, JAXA.
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) joined 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.
April 2018
30th April 2018, 12:00 GMT / 14:00 CEST: “Exploring Mars on Earth”, with Joao Lousada, Austrian Space Forum (OeWF)
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. In this webinar, Joao and host, Rosa Doran, discuss the work of the OeWF and Joao’s experiences exploring Mars on Earth
March 2018
5th March 2018, 14:00 GMT / 15:00 CET: “Back to the Moon”, with James Carpenter, European Space Agency (ESA)
As Apollo and Luna programmes in the USA and the Soviet Union drew to a close, an era in Solar System exploration came to an end. The Moon remained unvisited for decades and a pervasive idea took hold: that we’d “been there, done that”; that we’d learned that there was to learn, the Moon had given us what it had to offer and that it was time to focus on other things and other destinations. In recent years, however, there has been a renaissance in lunar exploration as new missions from orbit and a fresh look at lunar samples has shown us that we have barely scratched the surface and that the scientific riches of the Moon are yet to be discovered or understood.
It has also become evident that if humans are ever to become a space-faring species, able to live and work in space and harness the full opportunities that it offers, then the Moon is the only place we can begin to learn how to do it. With this in mind, the agencies of the world and the private sector are collectively recognising that returning to the Moon is essential. In this webinar, James Carpenter explores some of the scientific themes to have emerged from the beginnings of a new era of exploration, look forward to what may be coming and discuss the opportunities and approaches that Europe is taking to be a part of what’s coming next.
January 2018
30th January 2018, 14:00 GMT / 15:00 CET: “Creating a hotspot for understanding Venus – the Planetary Emissivity Laboratory” with Dr Jörn Helbert.
Although Venus is a similar size to Earth and sometimes called its twin planet, it’s a very different place. Venus is surrounded by a thick atmosphere of mainly carbon dioxide and clouds of sulphuric acid that make it very difficult to study the planet’s surface. Until recently, it was thought that a lander was needed to analyse the chemical composition of rocks on the ground. But with surface temperatures averaging 462 degrees Celsius – twice as hot as most household ovens – and pressures equivalent to nearly a kilometre’s depth in Earth’s oceans, landing on Venus is a huge challenge. No spacecraft has touched down on the surface since the Soviet Union’s Vega probes in 1985.
In recent years, planetary scientists have taken advantage of “spectral windows” in Venus’s atmosphere that are transparent to certain wavelengths of infrared light. Observations using Venus Express’s Venus Monitoring Camera (VMC) and Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) instruments have revealed chemical variations that can be related to geological features on the surface of Venus. Because different chemical compounds emit radiation at specific electromagnetic wavelengths, every mineral has a unique “spectral fingerprint” of emission lines. This means that, to interpret their observations and work out which rocks are present, planetary scientists need reference catalogues showing these fingerprints acquired under conditions matching those on the surfaces being studied.
For more than 40 years, planetary scientists have been attempting to create these libraries. Now, Dr Jörn Helbert and colleagues have come up with an effective solution. The Planetary Spectroscopy Laboratory (PSL) at the Deutschen Zentrums für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) is a facility able to carry out routine analysis of Venus analogue materials over the whole range of Venus surface temperatures and at the key wavelengths for the transparent spectral windows in Venus’s atmosphere.
In this webinar Dr Helbert explains the challenges and solutions for simulating Venus and what measurements using the PSL facility will enable scientists to find out about the surface of Earth’s extraordinary twin planet.
December 2017
13th December 2017, 14:00 GMT / 15:00 CET: “Diamonds – Precious time capsules from the deep Earth” with Dr Janne Koornneef.
Diamonds are gemstones made of pure carbon. On Earth, they can form only under the high pressure and temperature conditions deep within the Earth’s mantle. The diamonds that we find on (or near) the surface have been transported from great depths at enormous speeds by explosive magmas. Since their first discovery, geologists have been fascinated by how, why, and when diamonds form. However, answering these questions is difficult because a diamond’s pure carbon composition makes dating diamond itself almost impossible.
Dr Janne Koornneef and colleagues at the Vrije Universteit in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, have recently developed techniques that make it possible to date diamonds by studying mineral ‘inclusions’ trapped within the diamond structure. These techniques allow researchers — for the first time — to determine precisely when and by what process diamonds form. The results have led to great surprises, including that some diamonds can form at a much younger geological age than previously expected.
In this webinar, Dr Koorneef explains what we currently know about diamond formation and the mysteries that geologists still hope to solve about these iconic and beautiful gemstones.
November 2017
28 November 2017, 14:00 GMT / 15:00 CET: “Impact cratering – the most important geological process in our Solar System” with Dr Anna Losiak
Impact cratering is currently the most important geological process in our Solar System and (most probably) on most of exoplanets. It is modifying planetary surfaces by creating gigantic scars on its surface, and it can also induce planetary-scale changes such as formation of our own Moon or changing the direction of Venus rotation. It is known to influence the life on Earth, most famously by killing dinosaurs, but also by fostering life thanks to delivering water and organic material to our planet. Despite the importance of this geological process, we know relatively little about it. It is partially due to the fact that it is a relatively young field in geology – the first crater was accepted as being formed by an asteroid hitting the Earth only in 1960’s. Moreover, because of Earth’s very active surface geology removing signs of such extra-terrestrial encounters, we currently know about only 190 impact structures on Earth – ranging from 13 m in diameter and only 10-year-old Carancas crater in Peru, up to 300 km in diameter and 2,1 Gy old Vredefort crater in the Republic of South Africa. What can we learn by studying impact craters on Earth? And how can we avoid the fate of dinosaurs?
October 2017
31 October 2017, 15:00 CET (14:00 CET): “Chasing the devil – what do dust devils on Earth tell us about Mars?” with Dr Jan Raack, Open University. Dr Raack discusses field campaigns to China and Morocco to investigate dust devils, small whirlwinds common on Earth as well as on Mars. During the webinar, he presents some of the latest scientific results he and his colleague have gained about dust devils’ erosional capacity, their internal structure, and their meteorological properties — and what this tells us about Mars. In addition, he explains what it’s like to take part in a field campaign and how he has made some of the unusual instruments he uses to study dust devils on Earth.
September 2017
13 September 2017, 16:00 CEST (14:00 UTC): Cassini-Huygens and The Lord of the Rings with Dr Sheila Kanani, Royal Astronomical Society. The flagship robotic orbiter, Cassini, and lander, Huygens, have provided us with a wealth of information about Saturn, its moons and its rings. By the time it ‘crashes’ into Saturn in September 2017, Cassini will have been in space for almost 20 years. Join Sheila in celebrating the incredible spacecraft’s amazing mission and some of the breath taking discoveries it made, including a hexagonal storm that rages at Saturn’s north pole and an icy moon that could harbour life.
30th May, 11:00 CEST (09:00 UTC):Saturn Live! Exploration of Saturn’s Icy Moons as Possible Habitats, with Dr Athena Coustenis, Observatoire de Paris-Meudon and hosted by Rosa Doran of NUCLIO. Athena discusses the exploration of Saturn’s icy moons as possible habitats and European involvement in the Cassini mission.
April 2017
25 April, 15:00 CEST (13:00 UTC):Tales of Geology and Education in Ethiopia, with Dr Barbara Cavalazzi from the Department of Biological, Geological and EnvironmentalSciences at the University of Bologna and hosted by Rosa Doran of NUCLIO. Barbara discusses the unique geological aspect of Ethiopia and the country’s education system, as well as the outreach programmes that she has developed in Ethiopia.
The special webinar is a part of ‘Global Astronomy Month’ 2017 and organised by NUCLIO with a focus on science teachers and educators.
January 2017
11 January 2017, 14:00 CET:Astrobiology – the quest for life in the universe. With Christine Moissl-Eichinger, Medizinische Universität Graz. Mutating microbes on the space station? Is there life hundreds of meters below the surface of our planet? Christine Moissl-Eichinger is studying the genome of microbial life forms under extreme conditions: what makes them survive under harsh conditions deadly to any human and why could that be relevant to the search for life in our Solar System?
October 2016
20 October 2016:ExoMars – Europe’s journey to Mars, with Jonathan Merrison/Aarhus Univsreiyt, Denmark – recreating Mars in the laboratory in preparation for the ExoMars mission.
19 April 2016:Europlanet Mercury Transit Hangout: Part 2, with David Rothery (Open University), Valentina Galluzzi (INAF), Johannes Benkhoff (ESA) and Jane MacArthur (University of Leicester)
14 April 2016:Europlanet Mercury Transit Live Hangout: Part 1, with Oana Sandu (European Southern Observatory), Remco Timmermans (International Space University), Gabriele Cremonese (INAF-OAPD) and David Rothery (Open University)
Europlanet presents: ‘Space Detectives – The case of the rocks from space’.
Europlanet’s latest animated video, “Space Detectives – the case of the rocks from Space” will be premiered at the Europlanet stand on Thursday, 12th April at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) at 15:00 CEST.
The video, designed in a film noir style by the award-winning Science Office, is a creative look at how planetary scientists investigate meteorites and samples returned by missions to find out more about our Solar System and its origins, and how techniques developed to analyse planetary samples are used by the police to solve crimes and identify bodies.
Europlanet is committed to building a diverse, inclusive planetary science community in Europe and to ensuring that individuals within that community experience equal opportunity, regardless of gender, disability, ethnicity, religion or belief, sexual orientation, marital status, age, nationality or socioeconomic background.
Europlanet Diversity Working Group
Following a ‘Diversity Breakfast’ event at the 2017 European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) in Riga, Latvia, where delegates discussed issues of discrimination and inequality in planetary science, a Diversity Working Group was formed, made up of people from a range of backgrounds. We are developing Terms of Reference for the group working within the Europlanet organizational structure, are developing short- and long-term objectives, hold monthly online meetings to work on these and hope to effect significant changes within the planetary science community. Short term, we have been discussing and implementing measures to facilitate inclusiveness at EPSC 2018 in Berlin, Germany.
For the longer term, we are collating resources including scientific papers, articles, organisation details, and videos pertaining to the promotion of equality in STEM. We plan to research and make use of existing initiatives that can benefit the Europlanet Society in the future, and identify areas within the Society that would benefit from the development of new initiatives to improve inclusivity in planetary science for all. We believe that individuals, groups, and planetary scientists in general would benefit from a commitment to equity and diversity, and we would like to ensure that EPSC and Europlanet overall become exemplars of these benefits.
Jacqueline Campbell of the Diversity Working Group is presenting a poster at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science (EWASS) 2018 on Thursday 4th and Friday 5th April.
Are you an early career researcher or amateur astronomer that would like to develop your science communication skills, as well as learning more about making ground-based observations in support of space missions?
Europlanet 2020 (RI) and the Molėtai Astronomical Observatory (ITPA VU) are holding an international research summer school, Space missions: ground-based observations and science communication, from 1st-10th August at the Molėtai Astronomical Observatory in Lithuania. Morning sessions will focus on ground-based observations required by space missions and the afternoons will be devoted to science communication training, with sessions on writing for the media, engaging with schools, engaging with the public, and social media. The Summer School is also an opportunity to explore beautiful Lithuania, with an excursion to Vilnius and Trakai.
Each week, the Europlanet Facebook page highlights a planetary science resource for educators, teachers and students.
These resources are high quality educational activities to be used in and out of the classroom. The resources feature activities from the peer-reviewed Europlanet Collections published on IAU astroEDU, covering topics from planetary maps, the solar system and planetary exploration to asteroids and comets.
If you’d like to feature your planetary science resource in our Facebook campaign, write to us at social@europlanet-eu.org.
Planetary Science Resource of the Week: 19th June
Children’s Planetary Maps: Pluto & Charon. Using the maps specifically designed for children, students will have an insight to the geography, environmental conditions, astrobiological potential and exploration opportunities of Pluto & Charon. http://astroedu.iau.org/en/activities/1644/childrens-planetary-maps-pluto-charon/
Activity by Henrik Hargitai and Mátyás Gede, Eotvos Lorand University, published on IAU astroEDU.
Planetary Science Resource of the Week: 12th June
Sun, Earth and Moon Model: students build a model of the Sun-Earth-Moon system, exploring how the Moon revolves around the Earth, and the Earth around the Sun. Students play a memory game and learn some characteristics about the three objects. http://astroedu.iau.org/en/activities/1614/sun-earth-and-moon-model/
Children’s Planetary Maps: Titan. Using the maps specifically designed for children, students will have an insight to the geography, environmental conditions, astrobiological potential and exploration opportunities of Titan.
Activity by Henrik Hargitai and Mátyás Gede, Eotvos Lorand University, published on IAU astroEDU.
Planetary Science Resource of the Week: 22nd March
Meteoroids, Meteors and Meteorites: Learn about formation of meteroids. Through this activity, students will experimentally learn how meteoroids are formed. They will melt a comet, learning about its composition, and break apart asteroids. They will also learn about the effect meteors can have on Earth. http://astroedu.iau.org/en/activities/1638/meteoroids-meteors-and-meteorites/
Activity by Jorge Rivero González, Leiden Observatory; Ronan Smith, Cardiff University; Christian Eistrup, Leiden Observatory, published on IAU astroEDU.
Planetary Science Resource of the Week: 15th March
Planetary Maps for Children: The Moon – an up close look at our own satellite. Using maps of planets and moons specifically designed for children, students will have an insight to the geography, environmental conditions, astrobiological potential and exploration opportunities of the Moon. http://astroedu.iau.org/en/activities/1720/childrens-planetary-maps-the-moon/
Activity by Henrik Hargitai and Mátyás Gede from Eotvos Lorand University, published on IAU astroEDU.
Planetary Science Resource of the Week: 9th March
Impact Craters: A literal Earth-Shattering experiment! Through this activity, the students will learn about recent meteor strikes and the effects they can have. They will then examine their significance in the history of the planet, and what they do to the surface of a planet when forming a crater. The students will then experimentally determine how the size and impact velocity of a meteorite determine the size of the crater. http://astroedu.iau.org/en/activities/1641/impact-craters/
Activity by Ronan Smith, Cardiff University; Christian Eistrup, Leiden Observatory, published on IAU astroEDU.
Planetary Science Resource of the Week: 23rd February
Children’s Planetary Maps: Venus – Learn more about our nearest neighbour, Venus, using maps specially designed for young students. You will have an insight to the geography, environmental conditions, astrobiological potential and exploration opportunities of Venus. http://astroedu.iau.org/en/activities/1722/childrens-planetary-maps-venus/
Activity by Henrik Hargitai and Mátyás Gede from Eotvos Lorand University, published on astroEDU.
Planetary Science Resource of the Week: 15th February
Planetary Science Resource of the Week: 8th February
Children’s Planetary Maps:Mars – Using the map of the Mars specifically designed for children, students will have an insight to the geography, environmental conditions, astrobiological potential and exploration opportunities of that body. http://astroedu.iau.org/en/activities/1721/childrens-planetary-maps-mars/
“PhysisArt – Photography of Danakil Exhibition” travels to Chieti
The Danakil Depression – an extreme landscape between volcanoes and salty deserts – is the subject of a photographic exhibition with images and works by the artist, Samantha Tistoni, who accompanied Europlanet researchers for a field trip to Danakil in January 2017.
Dr. Barbara Cavalazzi, a researcher at the Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Bologna, and photographer Samantha Tistoni will tell the story, secrets and colours of the fascinating Danakil region. The Danakil Depression lies close to the sea, at the far north of the triangle of Afar, between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Danakil is perhaps the most active branch of the African Rift Valley and is a place where everything is dramatically influenced by the geology of an oceanization process that began some tens of millions of years ago. These incredible geological features make this a place where you can study the extremes of life, biological adaptation, and better understand the deep geobiological interactions. Discovering Danakil is a key to understanding alien life.
The exhibition, which was launched on 21 October in Bologna, will be on display in Chieti from 8-21 March. The opening will be held at:
11 am Thursday, 8 March 2018 – Museo Universitario, Università “G. d’Annunzio” Chieti e Pescara, Piazza Trento e Trieste, Chieti
Dr Barbara Cavalazzi will give a talk, “Ethiopia on Mars”.
Spotlight on Outreach – World Space Week and 60 Years of Space Exploration
The Astrophysics, Astronomy and Mechanics Department of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens organised two large-scale events for young and old to celebrate some space milestones.
World Space Week 2017
On Sunday 8th October, 2017, more than 200 people attended an event to celebrate World Space Week. Activities included:
Observation of the Sun with telescopes and provision of information about the solar photospheric and chromospheric phenomena.
Lecture by Petros Dagdilellis, “Overcoming gravity – the first steps”, about the first human attempts to travel to space.
Presentation of the movie “The amazing adventures of Rosetta and Philae” about ESA’s Rosetta mission.
Construction and launch of improvised rockets by compressed air and water.
Interactive theatre play “Space Explorers”.
Craft, painting and building workshops for kids.
The evening ended with a tour at the University of Athens Observatory, with observations of the night sky and a presentation on how the telescope works. See full event report and more images.
60 Years of Space Exploration
On Sunday 17th December, more than 500 people attended the Department of Physics for an event to celebrate 60 Years of Space Exploration. Activities included:
• Observation of the Sun with telescopes and information about the phenomena of the solar photosphere and chromosphere.
• Lecture by Dr. Kosmas Gazeas entitled “60 years of space exploration”.
• “Control Room” interactive game, based on the idea of “Escape Room”.
• “Astropoly” interactive game, based on the idea of “Monopoly”
• Space quiz for everybody.
• Crafts, painting and constructions for kids.
The success of the events, led by Dr Kosmas Gazeas was primarily thanks to the efforts of the following students: P. Alexakis, M. Atsalis, K. Vavouraki, G. Gaggadis, T. Gerasopoulou, A. Gogou, J. Dimitriadi, T. Dimitriadi, G. Theodoropoulou. G. Theodorou, C. Karathanasis, S. Karampotsiou, A. Karipis, P. Katsiavria, S. Kerasioti, E. Kefala, K. Kefala, D. Koutsiou, M. Konstantaki, A. Konstantinou, G. Loukaidou, L. Bakogianni, S. Boula, S. Palafouta, A. Papadami, M. Petropoulou, A. Pitsari, E. Samara, V. Samara, L. Tzouganatos, I. Florou, P. Tsiapi, C. Chatzichristodoulou, V. Chliaras, I. Choleva, E. Christopoulou.
As Apollo and Luna programmes in the USA and the Soviet Union drew to a close, an era in Solar System exploration came to an end. The Moon remained unvisited for decades and a pervasive idea took hold: that we’d “been there, done that”; that we’d learned that there was to learn, the Moon had given us what it had to offer and that it was time to focus on other things and other destinations. In recent years, however, there has been a renaissance in lunar exploration as new missions from orbit and a fresh look at lunar samples has shown us that we have barely scratched the surface and that the scientific riches of the Moon are yet to be discovered or understood.
It has also become evident that if humans are ever to become a space-faring species, able to live and work in space and harness the full opportunities that it offers, then the Moon is the only place we can begin to learn how to do it. With this in mind, the agencies of the world and the private sector are collectively recognising that returning to the Moon is essential.
In this webinar, we will explore some of the scientific themes to have emerged from the beginnings of a new era of exploration, look forward to what may be coming and discuss the opportunities and approaches that Europe is taking to be a part of what’s coming next.
We regret to inform you that this special webinar has been cancelled to a technical issue at the Oman desert centre. We will try to organise another webinar end of February. Stay tuned!
AMADEE-18 is a Mars analogue mission by the Austrian Space Forum in partnership with the Oman National Steering Committee for AMADEE-18. During February, a small field crew will prepare for future human missions to Mars by conducting experiments in the fields of engineering, planetary surface operations, astrobiology, geophysics/geology, life sciences and other. More than 200 people from 25 nations are involved in this 4-week Mars analogue simulation. For this special webinar, our host, Rosa Doran, will be joined by:
Gernot Groemer, Austrian Space Forum, field commander and AMADEE-18 project lead
Olivia Haider, Austrian Space Forum
Analogue astronauts, Austrian Space Forum
Clementine DeCoopman, Space Generation Advisory Council.
Conducting field research in a representative environment is an excellent tool to gain operational experience and understand the advantages and limitations of remote science operations on other planetary bodies. This field mission is designed to be:
an opportunity to study equipment, procedures and workflows under Mars analog conditions with humans-in-the-loop.
a platform for testing life-detection or geophysical techniques, terrain tests for rovers and increase the situational awareness of remote support teams,
studying the test site as a model region for Martian deserts and extreme life,
serving as an outreach platform to enhance the visibility of planetary sciences
Although Venus is a similar size to Earth and sometimes called its twin planet, it’s a very different place. Venus is surrounded by a thick atmosphere of mainly carbon dioxide and clouds of sulphuric acid that make it very difficult to study the planet’s surface. Until recently, it was thought that a lander was needed to analyse the chemical composition of rocks on the ground. But with surface temperatures averaging 462 degrees Celsius – twice as hot as most household ovens – and pressures equivalent to nearly a kilometre’s depth in Earth’s oceans, landing on Venus is a huge challenge. No spacecraft has touched down on the surface since the Soviet Union’s Vega probes in 1985.
In recent years, planetary scientists have taken advantage of “spectral windows” in Venus’s atmosphere that are transparent to certain wavelengths of infrared light. Observations using Venus Express’s Venus Monitoring Camera (VMC) and Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) instruments have revealed chemical variations that can be related to geological features on the surface of Venus.
Because different chemical compounds emit radiation at specific electromagnetic wavelengths, every mineral has a unique “spectral fingerprint” of emission lines. This means that, to interpret their observations and work out which rocks are present, planetary scientists need reference catalogues showing these fingerprints acquired under conditions matching those on the surfaces being studied.
For more than 40 years, planetary scientists have been attempting to create these libraries. Now, Dr Jörn Helbert and colleagues have come up with an effective solution. The Planetary Spectroscopy Laboratory (PSL) at the Deutschen Zentrums für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) is a facility able to carry out routine analysis of Venus analogue materials over the whole range of Venus surface temperatures and at the key wavelengths for the transparent spectral windows in Venus’s atmosphere.
In this webinar we will talk about the challenges and solutions for simulating Venus and what measurements using the PSL facility will enable scientists to find out about the surface of Earth’s extraordinary twin planet.
View inside the PEL chamber at a target temperature of 480°C. On the left you see the starting point – the glow of the stainless steel cup necessary for the induction heating illuminating the whole chamber. On the right you see the situation now with the newly developed ceramic enclosures. The background is effectively suppressed and a good signal is obtained from samples. Credit: J Helbert/DLR
It’s been another busy year for Europlanet. Here are the outreach team’s picks of some of the project highlights from the past 12 months.
December – Europlanet steers a path to the future
The first meeting of a Steering Group that will oversee the establishment of a new Europlanet Society, open to individual and institutional members, was held on 20th December at the European Science Foundation in Strasbourg. The Society, which will be launched in 2018, will ensure the longterm, sustainable future for Europlanet in supporting the European planetary science community.
November – PhysisArt
PhysisArt exhibition opening in Bologna. Credit: ALMA MATER STUDIORUM – Università di Bologna
This autumn saw the launch of PhysisArt, an exhibition of images and works by the artist, Samantha Tistoni, who accompanied Europlanet researchers for a field trip to Danakil in January 2017. The exhibition has been supported by a series of talks on Danakil and planetary science by Dr. Barbara Cavalazzi, a researcher at the Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Bologna, who also took part in the field trip. Following its launch in Bologna in October, the exhibition went on display in Modena from 18-26 November. You will have further chances to catch the exhibition in Chieti and Pescara in March 2018. Read more
October – Planetary Space Weather Services
Evolution of a solar flare through the inner Solar System. Credit: Futaana/Swedish Institute of Space Physics
Space weather – the monitoring and prediction of disturbances in our near-space environment and how they are controlled by the Sun – is an important aspect of understanding our Earth and protecting vital assets such as orbiting satellites and power grids. Europlanet’s Planetary Space Weather Services (PSWS) virtual access facility provides toolkits for tracking planetary or solar events through the Solar System to assist researchers and industry planning for space missions. In October, PSWS held a workshop to review observations of planetary space weather and space climate obtained by space missions, as well as to identify ways to improve modelling of space weather and space climate in our Solar System. A topical issue of Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate about planetary space weather will be published in the spring of 2018 summarising the presentations at this workshop and sessions at EPSC and the 14th European Space Weather Week. Read more
September – European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) 2017, Riga, Latvia
The registration team at EPSC 2017. Credit: Mareks Matisons / LSM.lv / LMT
The European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) 2017, held from 16-22 September in Riga, Latvia, was attended by 808 participants from 40 countries. This was the first time EPSC had been held in the Baltics. EPSC 2017 was a very successful meeting, not just for the science presented but also for the public and political engagement activities around the event. Read our highlights
August – Anticipating our Astrobioloby animation
In August, we prepared to launch our third animation, “Astrobiology – Life in the Universe”, which shows how planetary scientists are looking for signs of life on other planets and using our very own Earth as a laboratory. Read more
July – Europlanet Summer School 2017
Participants at the Europlanet Summer School 2017. Credit: Andrius Zigmantas
Europlanet’s outreach activity joined forces with its science networking activity to run the 2017 Europlanet Summer School “Space missions: ground-based observations and science communication” from 18-28 July at the Molėtai Astronomical Observatory in Lithuania. The summer school was attended by 21 students from 13 countries who carried out observations of exoplanet transits and variable stars, as well as taking part in science communication training workshops. Read more
June – Europlanet Prize Announcement 2017
“Comets – The Rosetta Mission” Exhibition at the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin. Credit: CD Werbeagentur/Eventfotograf Gerald Schmidt.
In June, we announced that the Europlanet Prize for Public Engagement 2017 had been awarded to the team behind the outstandingly successful exhibition, “Comets – The Rosetta Mission: Journey to the Origins of the Solar System”, at the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin. Ulrich Köhler, Dr. Barbara Stracke and Dr. Ekkehard Kührt, of the DLR Institute of Planetary Research, accepted the award on behalf of the exhibition’s curation team at EPSC 2017 in Riga. The calls for the 2018 prize and Europlanet public engagement funding scheme are open until the 31st January.
May – Europlanet passes its mid-term review
In May, the Europlanet 2020 Research Infrastructure (RI) had its first mid-term review at the European Commission in Brussels. Before the review, we submitted a 190 page report covering our progress since the project started on 1st September 2015. Some of the achievements by the end of the reporting period (28th February) include:
181 applications to our Transnational Access programme, with 31 visits having taken place, supporting the work of over 140 researchers.
32 tools available online in VESPA, the virtual planetary observatory , 21 of which were developed during the first 18 months of Europlanet 2020 RI. A further 10 services are being developed, and the tools and services will be increased and enhanced throughout the rest of the project.
Workshops, meetings and conferences engaging more than 3000 researchers organised through Europlanet 2020 RI.
33 press releases, 2 animations, 13 briefings with politicians, 2 collections of educational resources disseminated through Europlanet’s outreach activity.
The review went very well. In her report, the reviewer commented on the “significant results” delivered by Europlanet so far. Our next review will be in October 2018, at which point we will have many more updates for you on our activities during the next phase of the project.
April – Mapping surfaces workshop
Participants at the workshop in Roscoff
Europlanet’s science networking activities has a wide ranging programme of workshops and meetings on planetary topics, technology foresight and engaging with amateur astronomers. In April, Europlanet held a workshop in Roscoff, France, on planetary mapping, as well as using and enhancing the “VESPA” virtual observatory. There were 30 participants on site and 7 people took part remotely in presentations, discussions, tutorials, hands-on sessions and hackathons. Read more
March – Monthly Webinars
School in Mozambique participating in Europlanet monthly webinar.
February – First publication on new technique for sample analysis
Diamonds with inclusions. Credit: M. Gress, VU Amsterdam
In February, the first paper was published on Europlanet’s joint research activity to improve capabilities for analysing the mineralogical, geochemical and isotopic composition of rare or unique samples, such as material from sample return missions or meteorites. By allowing for the analysis of smaller samples, this work is expected to open up totally new areas of research providing new understanding of planetary formation and evolution. The peer-reviewed paper in “Earth and Planetary Science Letters” reported a study of tiny mineral ‘inclusions’ within diamonds from Botswana, which showed that diamond crystals can take billions of years to grow. Read more
January – New Transnational Access sites
The Danakil Depression. Credit: B Cavalazzi, U. Bologna
In January, the Europlanet team returned to the Danakil Depression in Ethiopia to complete characterisation of the site as a planetary analogue of Venus and the early Earth. The process of characterisation for both Danakil and Lake Tirez, a new martian analogue site in Spain, has included the creation of biological distribution maps that will help understand the processes that control the interaction between biology and geology of the habitat. Danakil and Lake Tirez can now be visited by the wider scientific community through Europlanet’s transnational access scheme, along with other field sites and laboratory facilities. Read more
Article by Anastasia Kokori, who has participated in a Europlanet expert exchange programme with the department of astrophysics at UCL.
It has been more than twenty-five years since the first planet was detected beyond our Solar System. Today, we have discovered nearly 4,000 exoplanets, varying from small rocky planets like the Earth to gaseous giants like Jupiter.
Prof. Giovanna Tinetti, a researcher in the field of exoplanets working at UCL (University College London) explained: “Now we know that, statistically, we should expect at least one planet around every star in our Galaxy. We are literally talking about billions of exoplanets. So, with this information, the questions we have now in mind are what do these planets look like, and how do they form and evolve. These are, I think, the kind of questions we will try to address in the next decade.”
Anastasia Kokori with Prof. Giovanna Tinetti at UCL
Small planets like the Earth are many times more common in our Galaxy
It is beyond doubt that the Kepler mission was a big breakthrough that brought us closer to answering fundamental questions. It discovered more than 4000 candidate exoplanets before the end of its mission in 2013.
Prof. Dimitar Sasselov from Harvard University, a co-investigator of the Kepler mission, said: “Kepler was trying to find the statistics about how common are planets like the Earth. Small planets like the Earth are many times more common in our galaxy than we even dreamed before. So, the planets that we know about that belong to the habitable zone are many more now.”
Being in the habitable zone, however, doesn’t mean that these planets are habitable or that they host life. Prof. Sasselov added: “If we don’t understand the basic geochemistry of these planets we can’t even understand the search of evidence for life.”
There are many questions to be answered and many mysteries to be solved in the following years.
Anastasia Kokori with Prof. Sasselov at UCL.
It is important to study the atmospheres of exoplanets
Knowing that there are a huge number of exoplanets out there, we now need specifically designed missions that can devote their time to exoplanet research. As yet, we don’t have much information on exoplanets’ compositions, their atmospheres and other details that could help us answer our main questions. Investigating a large number of planets is now possible with the technology we have developed and we are starting to be able to provide answers and develop a taxonomy of planets — an organized list of planet categories.
Artist’s impression of a transiting hot jupiter. Credit: NASA/ESA/G. Bacon (STScI)
One such dedicated mission will be ARIEL (Atmospheric Remote-sensing Exoplanet Large-survey), one of three candidate missions currently being considered by the European Space Agency (ESA) for launch in 2026. The main goal of the mission is to study the atmospheres of hundreds of planets and understand how they form and evolve. The main difference compared to other missions is that ARIEL will not detect new planets, but it will focus on the atmospheric composition of already known exoplanets.
According to Prof Tinetti, the principle investigator of the mission: “ARIEL will use spectroscopy to analyse infrared light from distant solar systems. This is a different focus from other space missions that have been planned and approved by the ESA or NASA to date. Additionally, it will study the atmospheres of several hundreds of exoplanets. These are the characteristics of ARIEL that make it unique.”
ARIEL will focus on the atmosphere of exoplanets, which is the only directly observable part from which scientists can extract additional information beyond the size, the mass of the planet and its distance from the host star.
Prof. Tinetti added that: “The atmosphere is made of gas and the molecules in it make it transparent to some types of light and opaque to some others. In this way, we can understand from a remote view what is going on, because we can basically observe the spectral “fingerprints” of the molecules in the atmosphere.”
Detecting more planets in our neighbourhood so we can study them better with ARIEL!
Artist’s impression of TESS. Credit: NASA
While we have detected a significant number of planets, this still remains tiny given the large scales of our Galaxy and the Universe. Certainly, it is important to detect more planets. The principal goal of TESS (The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), a NASA mission planned for launch next year, is to detect small planets within the solar neighbourhood. These planets will be very good targets for detailed characterisation of their atmospheres.
Prof. Sessalov said: “TESS is trying to discover the nearest planets that we can study with the telescopes we have. TESS is simply a machine providing targets for the biggest telescopes and for the ARIEL mission. TESS finds the planets, ARIEL studies them. That’s essentially the role of TESS. They work in synergy, but what they do is completely different.”
Searching for life beyond Earth is not an easy task
The realisation that Earth-like planets are very common in the Galaxy, lead to the development of TESS, a telescope that will do a whole-sky survey to find the nearest planets. However, not all earth-like planets should be considered habitable worlds or as the only potential planets for supporting life.
Prof. Tinetti, clarified that: “What we see out there is a huge diversity, and thinking that habitable worlds need to look like the earth is, to my opinion, quite geocentric and probably wrong.”
ARIEL is a mission that will provide scientists with a large database of hundreds of exoplanets and will give insights into the conditions for habitability as well.
Prof. Tinetti highlighted that: “Before we focus our questions on what habitable planets should look like, we need to try understand what is going on with planets. In order to do that, we really need to have a larger sample, not simply tens. At the end of the day we still don’t know what the normality of planets in our Galaxy is. You can’t say “this is a really weird exoplanet” at the moment. It’s weird perhaps compared to our planet but, if you don’t know what planets look like in general, then it is very hard to make any judgement.”
Additionally, Prof. Sasselov pointed out that we don’t know how difficult it is for life to exist, even if the conditions are right. “Some people say that if the conditions and the climate are there, which will be the case for some Earth-like planets, life starts. On the other hand, it may turn out that the Earth is a precious little planet with life on it and there are only maybe a few thousand more in the Galaxy. We don’t know the answer to that and this is essentially what the “origins of life” research is also trying to answer.”
Prof. Sasselov giving a guest lecture at UCL
Water is very common in the Universe – you cannot avoid it!
So far, the research in our galaxy has shown that water is very common in the Universe. Usually, water is considered essential for life and habitability. But is this the case?
Prof. Sasselov said that: “Life on Earth works with water as a solvent. The molecules require water as a solvent. But this may not be the only pathway. Until we know whether this is unique or just one of many options, we can’t say anything.”
Essentially, the reason why we find water in our Galaxy very often is that it exists in very large amounts. Water has been found in hot Jupiters, giant planets orbiting very close to their host star. However these worlds cannot be habitable because their temperature is extremely high.
Prof. Tinetti added: “The life as we know it requires liquid water on the surface. Whether this is a real requirement or there are other forms of life not necessarily connected with liquid water, is still a question.”
Exciting collaborative missions such as TESS and ARIEL will hopefully bring us closer to answering fundamental questions of science and society: How do planets form? Are there other planets like the Earth? Could they host life? Is there any other type of life?
The answers will help us better understand the Earth’s and our position in the Galaxy, and the Universe as a whole.
Europlanet Webinar: “Diamonds – Precious time capsules from the deep Earth” with Dr Janne Koornneef
13th December 2017, 14:00 GMT / 15:00 CET
Diamonds are gemstones made of pure carbon. On Earth, they can form only under the high pressure and temperature conditions deep within the Earth’s mantle. The diamonds that we find on (or near) the surface have been transported from great depths at enormous speeds by explosive magmas. Since their first discovery, geologists have been fascinated by how, why, and when diamonds form. However, answering these questions is difficult because a diamond’s pure carbon composition makes dating diamond itself almost impossible.
Dr Janne Koornneef and colleagues at the Vrije Universteit in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, have recently developed techniques that make it possible to date diamonds by studying mineral ‘inclusions’ trapped within the diamond structure. These techniques allow researchers — for the first time — to determine precisely when and by what process diamonds form. The results have led to great surprises, including that some diamonds can form at a much younger geological age than previously expected.
In this webinar, Dr Koorneef will explain what we currently know about diamond formation and the mysteries that geologists still hope to solve about these iconic and beautiful gemstones.
Europlanet expert exchange for journalists and science communicators:
Anastasia Kokori visits UCL
In May, Europlanet issued a special call of its expert exchange programme with the aim of inviting journalists, science communicators or lecturers in journalism to spend a few days in a Europlanet 2020 RI laboratory. The objective of the programme is to enable participants to find out more about planetary science, how science is carried out and the life of scientists, and also help scientists to understand how the media works and the world of journalism.
In the first of these expert exchanges, Anastasia Kokori visited University College London (UCL) in November 2017.
My name is Anastasia Kokori and I am a recent graduate with a masters’ degree in Science Communication from Dublin City University (2017). In the context of my post-graduate studies, I carried out my internship at Blackrock Castle Observatory (Cork, Ireland) as a science communicator and also I conducted my master thesis entitled “Engaging society with science: The case of Danakil Depression”. In my thesis, I developed strategies for an effective communication of contemporary scientific topics such as astrobiological issues and experiments on the extreme limits.
In addition, during my undergraduate studies in the School of Primary Education of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2015), I used the astronomical equipment that belongs to the Holomon Astronomical Station in the context of my undergraduate thesis entitled “Extrasolar Planetary Systems”.
I also hold a Journalism Diploma (2015) and I love popularizing scientific topics to the public, especially in the field of space and astrophysics. Today, I am involved in efforts that bring the public closer to science through innovative projects where people can participate in real research and get informed about extrasolar planets and life on other planets. My main work and research interests include the public engagement with astronomy and astrobiology and the development of effective strategies to communicate astronomy to the public.
In the context of the expert exchange project in the department of astrophysics at UCL, I’ve met various researchers of the astrophysics department and discussed their research, and science communication as well. I’ve attended astrophysics seminars and I’ve interviewed scientists belonging to different groups. I will be writing articles based on their research in relation to upcoming space missions with the aim of bringing their scientific work closer to the public. I’ve also visited the UCLO (observatory) where I met the co-ordinators and we started to develop a fruitful conversation on public engagement and astronomy outreach.
This expert exchange has been funded through the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 654208, Europlanet 2020 Research Infrastructure.
Prof. Nick Achilleos (left), Anastasia Kokori (centre) and Dr. Patrick Guio (right) at UCL.
Article by Anastasia Kokori, who has participated in a Europlanet expert exchange programme with the department of astrophysics at UCL.
The Cassini mission, a collaborative effort between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency, said goodbye on the 15th of September 2017. The mission reached an end after 13 years of orbiting around Saturn, proving us with a large legacy of data that is still being analysed, and will keep scientists occupied for many years to come.
The research of the Planetary Plasma Physics Group at UCL focuses on the two gas giant planets of our Solar System, Jupiter and Saturn. The team, which currently consists of five members, studies the magnetic fields of these planets by applying models which help us better understand the observations made by spacecraft like Cassini.
Prof. Nick Achilleos highlights that one of the major discoveries of Cassini was the observation of water plumes erupting from Enceladus, the sixth largest moon of Saturn. Until Cassini arrived there, it was not known that Enceladus was a very geologically active moon.
“The discovery of water plumes in Enceladus, in essence, was a magnetometer discovery. Enceladus is considered to be a potential habitat for life. Now we know that the principal source of the material, known as plasma, in Saturn’s magnetosphere, are the plumes on Enceladus,” said Prof. Achilleos.
Artist’s impression of the Cassini mission at Saturn. Credit: NASA
Another question that Cassini is helping to address is why the magnetic and the rotational poles of Saturn coincide.
“In a magnetized planet, such as Saturn, physical theory says that we shouldn’t expect to see this phenomenon. This remains a mystery – although there are interesting theories as to why the planet’s field is so symmetric, some dating back to the Voyager era,” said Prof. Achilleos.
Space missions such as Cassini are also important for studies focusing on the phenomenon of space weather – the interaction between a planet’s magnetosphere and the solar wind. Saturn and Jupiter, like the Earth, are magnetized planets and their magnetic fields act as ‘umbrellas’ which mainly protect them from the solar wind. The magnetic field of our planet thus acts as a natural shield and protects us from much of the impacting material in the solar wind.
Dr. Patrick Guio explained, “Data from Space missions helps us understand how space weather affects engineering systems and infrastructure on the Earth, a new and important aspect of risk assessment and management.”
Prof. Achilleos added that the technology that is developed for pure science exploration and which is used in space missions, often finds practical application in other areas. In particular, he pointed out that, “Our job as scientists, and I think as a civilization, is to be curious about what we see and try to explain it. And when we do so, quite often what we find is that the science and the technology that we develop for this purpose, finds its way to other applications, so everything is interconnected in an unpredictable way.”
Cassini can be considered as a successful space mission that helped humanity investigate different aspects of planetary science and the Solar System in which we live. Now that we have a better understanding of the giant planet, Saturn, the question is what the next step will be.
JUICE (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer), one of our future space exploration projects, is the first large-class mission in ESA’s Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 programme, and is planned for launch in 2022. The UCL Planetary Plasma Physics Group is part of this effort through its participation with the JUICE magnetometer team. The mission will focus on Jupiter, the largest of the planets and has an even larger magnetosphere than Saturn – in fact, if we were able to see Jupiter’s magnetosphere in the night sky, it would have a similar size to our Moon.
JUICE will also fly by the moons Callisto and Europa, but the radiation environment particularly around Europa is very harsh, thus limiting the time it will spend there. The mission’s principal target will be Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon, which is also considered to be a potential habitat for life. Ganymede is the only moon in the Solar System that has a significant internal magnetic field of its own, but the field we have observed at Ganymede has contributions from many different sources. This is quite challenging for the magnetometer team, who are aiming to ‘tease out’ a small part of the complex field in Ganymede’s environment – specifically, the induced field which is generated by currents in Ganymede’s subsurface ocean. To help us attain this goal, JUICE will finish its mission by spending several months as a dedicated orbiter of Ganymede.
Despite the challenges, Prof. Achilleos highlighted that at the end of the day, “We try to understand reality by using models of reality, and improving our models and our understanding is a never-ending quest – particularly since space missions often raise just as many new questions as they answer.”
We stay tuned, waiting for missions such as JUICE to contribute to humanity’s efforts towards answering scientific questions, relevant not only to our giant planet neighbours, but also to our own home, the planet Earth.
This expert exchange has been funded through the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 654208, Europlanet 2020 Research Infrastructure.
Europlanet Webinar: Impact cratering – the most important geological process in our Solar System with Dr Anna Losiak
28 November 2017, 14:00 GMT / 15:00 CET
Impact cratering is currently the most important geological process in our Solar System and (most probably) on most of exoplanets. It is modifying planetary surfaces by creating gigantic scars on its surface, and it can also induce planetary-scale changes such as formation of our own Moon or changing the direction of Venus rotation. It is known to influence the life on Earth, most famously by killing dinosaurs, but also by fostering life thanks to delivering water and organic material to our planet. Despite the importance of this geological process, we know relatively little about it. It is partially due to the fact that it is a relatively young field in geology – the first crater was accepted as being formed by an asteroid hitting the Earth only in the 1960’s. Moreover, because of Earth’s very active surface geology removing signs of such extra-terrestrial encounters, we currently know about only 190 impact structures on Earth – ranging from the 13-metre diameter and only 10-year-old Carancas crater in Peru, to the 300-kilometre diameter and 2.1 billion-year-old Vredefort crater in the Republic of South Africa. What can we learn by studying impact craters on Earth? And how can we avoid the fate of dinosaurs?
The discussion highlighted that there are many different viewpoints and approaches. There is also a clear need for more information, including shared best practice, case studies and social science research, which could help us engage more effectively with our target audiences – and understand the motivations and needs of our own community too.
Read more about Dr Losiak’s work on dating the age of craters in Estonia in this press release from EPSC 2017.
Europlanet webinar: “Chasing the devil – what do dust devils on Earth tell us about Mars?” with Dr Jan Raack, Open University
31 October 2017, 14:00 GMT / 15:00 CET
Hosted by NUCLIO, Europlanet’s October 2017 webinar will discuss how Dr Jan Raack chased dust devils on Earth to understand Mars.
When it comes to planetary science, people often think about sophisticated laboratory experiments, complicated remote sensing analysis from space missions, and/or numerical calculations/modelling. But there is another side of planetary science sometimes forgotten by the majority: terrestrial investigations in the field – tangible work in interesting harsh regions on Earth! This work is absolutely mandatory for our understanding of processes happen on other planetary bodies, and also for laboratory experiments, remote sensing analysis, and numerical modelling.
Dr Raack will present some interesting field campaigns to China and Morocco which he has carried out together with a colleague, to give insights into the work of a planetologist on Earth and to tell you why are the results so important for planetary science (Mars in particular). During their field campaigns, they investigated dust devils, which are small whirlwinds common on Earth as well as on Mars. During the webinar, he will not only present the scientific results they have gained from the field campaigns (about their erosional capacity, their internal structure, and their meteorological properties), but give a ‘bigger picture’ of how field campaigns can look like, what for (sometimes self-made and unusual) instruments we have used, and what these investigations tell us about dust devils on Mars.
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.
