Last Monday, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) released a new Picture of the Week. It is an image of a pair of stars and its surrounding nebula. The two stars constitute the binary system AFGL... Read more...
The Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB) and Belnet are delighted to announce that – as part of the BOOSTED project – the first span of the Belgian time and frequency network is operational since December 4, 2025. BOOSTED aims to... Read more...
In 2025, 137 earthquakes were located by the Royal Observatory of Belgium in or near Belgium. On Belgian territory, no earthquake was large enough to have been felt. In 2025, 137 natural earthquakes were measured by the... Read more...
December 5, 2024 – 1 year ago, the duo satellite Proba-3 left Earth to head to space. The telescope ASPIICS, whose task is to make perfect total solar eclipses from space, was onboard. The launch went... Read more...
Brussels, 3 December 2025 – By measuring the rate at which young stars grow, astronomers discovered that contrary to earlier expectations, young stars appear to grow much faster in the later stages of their formation than at... Read more...
November 12, 2025, very early in the morning. Colleagues from the STCE, the Belgian Space Weather Centre, admired the northern lights from their terrace in Brussels and are amazed by the show of colours. After... Read more...
Tuesday, September 30, 2025, marked the beginning of a 3-day workshop gathering international members from the BELA and MORE experiments onboard the BepiColombo mission to Mercury. The joint ESA and JAXA mission was launched in 2018... Read more...
On 26 September 2025, come to the free WiseNight festival at the Planetarium of the Royal Observatory of Belgium. WiseNight is a fun and inclusive event that aims to bring science and scientists in interactive... Read more...
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has revealed new details in the core of the Butterfly Nebula, NGC 6302. From the dense, dusty torus that surrounds the star hidden at the centre of the nebula... Read more...
This Operational Directorate (OD1) contributes to the elaboration of reference systems and timescales, integrates Belgium in the international reference frames, and studies the interior, rotation, dynamics, and crustal deformation of the Earth and other terrestrial planets and moons of our solar system. Read more...
The main mission of this Operational Directorate (OD2) is studying seismic activity, its causes and its consequences in western Europe. In support of this scientific research and to provide the authorities, the media and the public with relevant information about the seismic activity in real time in our region, this operational direction develops and maintains a network of seismic monitoring in Belgium. Read more...
This Operational Directorate (OD3) conducts scientific research in astronomy, especially in the field of stellar physics and the study of objects of the solar system. Research themes include astrometry, stellar evolution and asteroseismologie. Read more...
This Operational Directorate (OD4) studies the outer layers and the atmosphere of the Sun, with a particular focus on solar activity and the influence it exerts on the Earth and its space environment (space weather). On the ground, the observations are obtained using the Uccle Solar Equatorial Table (USET). Read more...
