Fine dust from pulverized rock generated by the Chicxulub impact likely played a dominant role in global climate cooling and the disruption of photosynthesis following the event. This is suggested by a new study published in Nature Geoscience, in which researchers Cem Berk Cenel, Özgür Karatekin and Orkun Temel of the Royal Observatory of Belgium contributed. [...]
Brussels, 26 October 2023 – The analysis, by a team of scientists involved in the InSight mission, of seismic data recorded on Mars after a meteorite impact that occurred in September 2021 drastically changes our view of the internal structure and evolution of the Red Planet. Based on these results and previous geophysical data, a study published on October 26 [...]
Christine Verbeke, who until recently worked at the space weather prediction centre of the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB), is competing in the final of the Flemish PhD Cup.
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Brussels, 10 October 2023 – Today the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Gaia collaboration teams are publishing new data in the form of five Focused Product Releases. The results are very promising, making of this delivery a first teaser of what will be the fourth version of the Gaia catalogue (Gaia DR4), expected by the end of 2025.
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This year marks the 550th anniversary of the birth of Nicolaus Copernicus (Mikołaj Kopernik). To mark the occasion, the Polish Institute Brussels renovated the bust of this famous Polish astronomer in July 2023. [...]
The EUI and SWAP/LYRA PI teams welcome research proposals for the 2024 round of its Guest Investigator Program for research based on EUI, SWAP or LYRA data analysis by scientists outside the PI teams. [...]
Mark your calendars: the weekend of the 9th and 10th of September 2023! Join us at the Radio Astronomy Station of Humain, in Wallonia, to celebrate Belgium’s rich and diverse heritage. [...]
ESA’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft has discovered a multitude of tiny jets of material escaping from the Sun’s outer atmosphere. Each jet lasts for between 20 and 100 seconds, and expels plasma at around 100 km/s. These jets could be the long-sought-after source of the ‘solar wind’. [...]
Brussels, 23 August 2023 – The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has recorded breathtaking new images of the iconic Ring Nebula, one of the best-known planetary nebulae. Those images were publicly released this month by an international team of astronomers, which includes Griet Van de Steene and Peter van Hoof, researchers of the Royal Observatory of Belgium. In a paper [...]
A joint scientific team led by the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB) and the KU Leuven has found that high-frequency magnetic waves could play an essential role in keeping the Sun’s atmosphere at millions of degrees. This finding sheds a new light on the most intriguing solar mystery: what makes the Sun’s atmosphere hotter than its surface? [...]