Archive | Research Highlights 2024

2024/12/17

© NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona

Rockfall Loctions on Mars

A team lead by Bernese researchers has used a neural network to identify 1383 rockfall sites on Mars. More than half of these were previously unknown. The discovery is also relevant for future Mars missions.

2024/10/18

© NASA/JPL-Caltech

Researchers from the University of Bern involved in NASA mission

NASA's Europa Clipper was launched on October 14, 2024, on its mission to conduct a detailed study of Jupiter's moon Europa. It will determine if the icy moon currently has habitable conditions. Four researchers from the University of Bern are members of the scientific teams for the mission cameras, the Europa Imaging System (EIS), and the mass spectrometer MASPEX on board the spacecraft.

2024/10/01

© ESO/M. Kornmesser

A sub-Earth detected around our neighbouring star Barnard

A team of scientists including researchers from the University of Bern, the University of Geneva and the NCCR PlanetS used the ESPRESSO Spectrograph to discover a sub-Earth mass exoplanet orbiting Barnard's star, the second-closest star system to the Sun. This discovery helps to understand planetary formation around red dwarfs and provides insights into the diversity of planetary systems in our cosmic neighbourhood.

2024/08/08

Sometimes, salt deposits on Mars just seem to smile back at you

Last week, a new paper published in Nature's Scientific Data journal revelead never-seen-before data that helps us better understand the distribution of water in ancient Mars.

2024/07/30

(this image was created using AI)

Astronomers clarify how organic macromolecules are formed

An international team of researchers led by the University of Bern has used observation-based computer modelling to find an explanation for how macromolecules can form in a short time in disks of gas and dust around young stars. These findings could be crucial for understanding how habitability develops around different types of exoplanets and stars.

2024/06/27

© ESO/L. Calçada/spaceengine.org

The density difference of sub-Neptunes finally deciphered

The majority of stars in our galaxy are home to planets. The most abundant are the sub-Neptunes, planets between the size of Earth and Neptune. Calculating their density poses a problem for scientists: depending on the method used to measure their mass, two populations are highlighted, the dense and the less dense. Is this due to an observational bias or the physical existence of two distinct populations of sub-Neptunes? Recent work by the NCCR PlanetS, the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the University of Bern (UNIBE) argues for the latter.

2024/06/10

© ESA/DLR/FU Berlin

First detection of frost on the Solar System's tallest volcanoes on Mars

For the first time, water frost has been detected on the colossal volcanoes on Mars, which are the largest in the Solar System. The international team led by the University of Bern used high-resolution color images from the Bernese Mars camera, CaSSIS, onboard the European Space Agency's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter spacecraft.

2024/06/05

© ESO/G. Vecchia

High-performance spectograph for giant telescope

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has started the design and construction of the ArmazoNes high Dispersion Echelle Spectrograph (ANDES) with an international consortium involving the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the University of Bern (UNIBE), the two host institutions of the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS. This spectrograph will be installed at the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), currently under construction in Chile. ANDES will enable amongst others, to probe the atmosphere of exoplanets looking for traces of life.

2024/05/20

NASA's JWST Cracks Case of Inflated Exoplanet

A warm Neptune's methane reveals core mass and vigorous atmospheric mixing. Further information in a paper published in Nature with Dr. Elspeth Lee, Ambizione & CSH/Bernoulli Fellow as a co-author.

2024/05/08

© NASA/ESA/CSA/Ralf Crawford (STScl)

Hints of a possible atmosphere around a rocky exoplanet

Researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope may have detected an atmosphere surrounding a rocky exoplanet 41 light-years from Earth. Brice-Olivier Demory, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Bern was part of the international research team that just published the results in Nature.

2024/04/15

© University of Bern, Illustration: Thibaut Roger

How Pluto got its heart

The mystery of how Pluto got a giant heart-shaped feature on its surface has finally been solved by an international team of astrophysicists led by the University of Bern and members of the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS. The team is the first to successfully reproduce the unusual shape with numerical simulations, attributing it to a giant and slow oblique-angle impact.

2024/03/04

© ESA

The University of Bern's journey to Comet Chury

The ESA space probe Rosetta began its journey to Comet Chury on March 2, 2004. On board: the ROSINA mass spectrometer from the University of Bern. On the 20th anniversary of the launch of the European Space Agency's Rosetta space mission, uniAKTUELL looks back on the most important milestones and research highlights of this space adventure, in which Bern was involved.

2024/02/26

© Sabina Raducan

DART impact might have reshaped Hera's target asteroid

ESA's Hera spacecraft for planetary defence is being prepared for a journey to the distant asteroid moon Dimorphos orbiting around its parent body Didymos. One of the first features Hera will look for is the crater left on Dimorphos by its predecessor mission DART, which impacted the asteroid to deflect its orbit.

2024/02/09

© Thomas Müller (MPIA)

Possible solution to an exoplanet mystery

Computer simulations by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and the University of Bern show that the migration of icy, so-called sub-Neptunes into the inner regions of their planetary systems can explain the ominous gap in the size distribution of exoplanets. With increasing proximity to the central star, vaporizing water ice forms an atmosphere that makes the planet appear larger than in its frozen state. At the same time, smaller rocky planets lose part of their original gas envelope over time, causing their measured radius to shrink.

2024/01/18

Moon rocks with unique dust found

A research team from the University of Münster, including CSH Fellow Valentin Bickel, has discovered for the first time meter-sized rocks on the surface of the moon that are covered in dust and presumably have unique properties - magnetic anomalies, for example. The findings help to understand the processes that form and change the lunar crust. The study has now been published in the "Journal of Geophysical Research - Planets".