News

Asteroids did not bring oceans to Venus

Within an EoS (Excellence of Science) project, Véronique Dehant, researcher at the Royal Observatory of Belgium, participated in a study on the formation and the evolution of the atmosphere of Venus under the influence of asteroid impacts. This study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, concluded that the asteroids that contributed to the end of the accretion of Venus, and [...]

The EUI telescope is waking up

The Solar Orbiter spacecraft was launched on February 10, 2020 from Cape Canaveral, carrying onboard the space telescope Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI). On February 25, EUI got the wake up call. At this stage we can happily report that EUI is awake: its temperature is ok, its computer has been successfully powered on and completed the self-tests and EUI could [...]

Planet Mars: first results of the InSight mission published in Nature Geoscience

Brussels, February 24, 2020 – The NASA InSight mission to Mars has benefited from a significant contribution from scientists of the Royal Observatory of Belgium since its inception. They have located the landing site, reconstructed the landing trajectory and helped interpret the seismic data. The journal Nature Geoscience just published a series of articles that present these results, obtained after [...]

10 February 2020 — Launch of Solar Orbiter

NASA will launch the Solar Orbiter spacecraft from Cape Canaveral, with 10 scientific instruments on board, including the space telescope Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI). Solar Orbiter is an ESA mission, with an important contribution from NASA, which will study the Sun from close up. The EUI instrument was built by a European consortium under the leadership of the Centre Spatial [...]

Seismic Activity in/around Belgium in 2019

In 2019, 45 earthquakes and 14 induced earthquakes were located by the Royal Observatory of Belgium in or near Belgium. One earthquake, one induced event and one quarry blast were felt in Belgium. The largest event occurred on 23 June 2019 in Dessel (Belgium, ML=2.1). No damages have been reported this year in Belgium.  [...]

The Vanderlinden Prize awarded to Sebastien Le Maistre

Sébastien Le Maistre, researcher at the Royal Observatory of Belgium, will receive the Georges Vanderlinden Prize from the Royal Academy of Belgium (Science Class). This distinction, which will be awarded to him on Saturday December 14, rewards his years of research in data processing for Martian missions. [...]