Archive | Research Highlights 2018 – 2016

2018/10/17

© ESA

Journey to Mercury with Involvement from Bern

On Saturday 20 October 2018, at 03:45 a.m. CET, the BepiColombo space probe is to set off on its journey to Mercury from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. On board the European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)’s joint space probe are instruments which were designed and built at the Physics Institute of the University of Bern: the laser altimeter BELA – the largest and most sensitive instrument of the mission – and the innovative mass spectrometer STROFIO.

2018/09/28

© ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM

Two Years after Rosetta

On September 30, 2016, the active phase of the ESA’s Rosetta mission came to an end with the controlled crash landing of the probe on the surface of the comet Chury. Due to the key experiment of the University of Bern, ROSINA, more information regarding the origin of our solar system was acquired. However, over 2 million data records are still awaiting evaluation.

2018/08/27

© NASA/JPL/UArizona

Jupiter had growth disorders

Researchers of the Universities of Bern and Zürich and of ETH Zürich show how Jupiter was formed. Data collected from meteorites had indicated that the growth of the giant planet had been delayed for two million years. Now the researchers have found an explanation: Collisions with kilometer-sized blocks generated high energy, which meant that in this phase hardly any accretion of gas could take place and the planet could only grow slowly.

2018/08/15

© Denis Bajram

Iron and titanium discovered in the atmosphere of an exoplanet

For the first time, researchers of the universities of Bern and Geneva have proven the presence of iron and titanium in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. The existence of these elements in gas form was theoretically predicted by a team led by the Bernese astronomer Kevin Heng and has now been confirmed by Geneva-based astronomers.

2018/06/25

© University of Bern

Where Medical Technology and Astrophysics Meet

At the University of Bern, astrophysicists of the Center for Space and Habitability (CSH) teamed up with medical technology researchers to develop a new method to analyse spectra of atmospheres of planets beyond our solar system. The unusual collaboration applied an artificial intelligence tool to study the chemistry of exoplanetary atmospheres.

2018/02/05

What the TRAPPIST-1 planets could look like

State-of-the-art mass measurements of the TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets

Led by CSH senior researcher Dr. Simon Grimm, researchers at the University of Bern obtained the most accurate estimates of the masses of the seven Earth-sized exoplanets orbiting the TRAPPIST-1 red dwarf star. Dr. Grimm performed state-of-the-art calculations that combined N-body dynamics with a genetic algorithm to analyze transit timing variations (TTVs) of the TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets.

2018/01/18

Release of Report on Ultraviolet Direct Imager

Former CSH visitor Dr. Ian Parry led the proposal to ESA of a new idea for a direct imager of habitable exoplanets in the ultraviolet range of wavelengths.

2017/02/22

Seven terrestrial exoplanets around a nearby star

Seven terrestrial exoplanets around a nearby star

An international team of astronomers, including Marko Seskovic and Prof. Dr. Brice-Olivier Demory of the CSH, has discovered a compact analogue of our inner solar system about 40 light-years away with the data collected from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.

2016/09/30

Rosettas Landeplatz
© Photo: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team

Rosetta’s momentous end

Rosetta’s mission is over: After the last signal at 13:20, the spacecraft was crash-landed on comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, with the ROSINA instrument from Bern taking measurements right until the very end. At the University of Bern, hundreds of people watched with interest as they followed the end of one of the most successful missions of the European Space Agency (ESA) live.