On Mars 12 2025, at 13:51 (Belgian local time), the ESA Hera mission for planetary defence made a close flyby of the planet Mars and its moons Deimos and Phobos. Scientists took the opportunity to... Read more...
Recent restrictions on science and scholarship brought by the new US administration executive orders have prompted the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities (ALLEA) to respond with a statement calling for their members,... Read more...
Brussels, 17 February 2025 – A recent five-year study has uncovered new insights into the properties of Yellow Hypergiants, a heavy star class known for their dramatic outbursts. Scientists focused on Rho Cassiopeiae (Rho Cas),... Read more...
Today is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. Let’s put those in the research fields of the Royal Observatory of Belgium in the spotlight. According to data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics,... Read more...
Previous studies posited that the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs was caused by large volumes of sulfur released from rocks within the Chicxulub crater following the asteroid impact. A new paper published in... Read more...
Over a period of 10 years and a half (which is 2 times the mission’s nominal duration), Gaia has provided more than a million of gigabytes of data for some 2 billion objects in the... Read more...
In 2024, 141 earthquakes were located by the Royal Observatory of Belgium in or near Belgium. In 2024, 141 natural earthquakes occurred in a zone between 1° and 8°E longitude and 49° and 52°N latitude (Figure... Read more...
How many earthquakes were experienced in your municipality? In 2024, the Seismology and Gravimetry section of the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB) published a new paper presenting an overview of a century of felt earthquakes in... Read more...
On Saturday 14 December 2024, Jérémy Rekier of the Royal Observatory of Belgium was awarded the Mailly Prize by the Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium. His colleague Sébastien Le Maistre,... 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...
