An annular solar eclipse will take place on Thursday 10 June 2021 and will be partially visible in Belgium. In Uccle, the eclipse will be visible between 11:17 (first contact) and 13:25 (last contact), and its maximum will take place at 12:19 in Belgian time (UTC + 2 h). At that moment, in Brussels, about 26% of the Sun’s diameter will be [...]
Between 2 and 5 solar eclipses occur every year. The PROBA2 satellite has been in orbit for almost 12 years and has witnessed a good number of eclipses in that period. To observe an eclipse from Earth, you need to be in the right location at the right time. However, because the PROBA2 satellite orbits the Earth, it is in [...]
The 3 telescopes of the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) onboard Solar Orbiter opened their doors on May 12, 2020, to photograph the Sun. This is exactly 1 year ago. This ‘First Light’ was a crucial step to get the EUI telescopes up and running and pave the path to research. [...]
The Belgians Gilles Denis and Nathan Goffart collaborate with scientists from the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB), the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), the Université de Liège (ULiège) and the Geological Survey of Greenland and Denmark (GEUS) for climate research on the occasion of their future sport challenge in Greenland in April 2022. [...]
In 2020, 52 earthquakes and 11 induced earthquakes were located by the Royal Observatory of Belgium in or near Belgium. There were no felt earthquakes on Belgian territory.
In 2020, 52 natural earthquakes occurred in a zone between 1° and 8°E longitude and 48° and 52°N latitude (Figure 1). During the same period, the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB) also measured [...]
Brussels, December 28, 2020 – The Royal Observatory of Belgium and EMXYS (Spain) have been selected by the European Space Agency to provide a gravimeter for the Juventas spacecraft that will land on asteroid Dimorphos as part of the European Space Agency’s planetary defence programme.
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On 3 December 2020, ESA makes public the newest map of our Galaxy. It is based on almost three years of observations collected by the Gaia satellite.
This Early Data Release 3 (EDR3) contains the highly accurate position and brightness of a staggering 1.8 billion stars. It includes stars that are a million times fainter than what can be seen with [...]
On Saturday October 10, from 2 p.m. to 5:10 p.m., seven women scientists in Belgium will tell you about their research during the first Soapbox Science event in Brussels, which will be exceptionally held online due to COVID-19.
Soapbox Science is a science outreach initiative that aims to promote the visibility of women scientists and their research by bringing them on the [...]
On 14 September 2020, the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS) awarded Véronique Dehant, researcher at the Royal Observatory of Belgium, the Dr. De Leeuw-Damry-Bourlart Prize in Fundamental Exact Sciences, one of the FNRS Quinquennial Prizes. These prizes reward researchers from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation.
Link (in French): https://www.frs-fnrs.be/fr/l-actualite-fnrs/1243-le-fnrs-recompense-l-excellence-de-la-recherche-et-decerne-ses-5-prix-quinquennaux-2020 [...]
The reference date and amplitudes of the minima and maxima of the 11-year solar cycle are established on the base of the sunspot number maintained and distributed by the SILSO World Data center since 1981 at the Royal Observatory of Belgium.
Over past years, the rather weak cycle that had peaked in 2014 has been progressively declining, heralding the approach of [...]