Véronique Dehant, Doctor Honoris Causa of the Paris Observatory

Véronique Dehant works at the Royal Observatory of Belgium, where she is responsible for the Operational Directorate “Reference Systems and Planetary Science”. She is also Extraordinary Professor at the Université Catholique de Louvain.
She was or is involved as Principal Investigator (PI) or Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI) or Co-Investigator (Co-I) of several radioscience space experiments aiming at planetary geodesy and at physics [...]

European Space Weather Week – High Mass for Space Weather

More than 350 scientists from all over the world will gather in Liège, Belgium to discuss the newest insights in space weather. They try to predict solar storms and understand how these storms travel through space and can impact the Earth. Space weather is not only of interest to scientists, but it is also important for companies that, for example, [...]

The satellite PROBA2, launched on 2 November 2009, celebrated its fifth anniversary in space

PROBA2 is an ESA satellite built in and operated from Belgium. Its main purpose is to study the Sun and space weather. To this end, it successfully uses of a number of new and experimental technologies. David Berghmans, of the Royal Observatory of Belgium, is one of the researchers at the origin of the PROBA2 project. He explains: “The ‘A’ [...]

Strong Solar X1.1 Flare on 19 October 2014

This morning, at 05:03UT, The Sun produced a strong solar flare. Based on the curretnly available data, the consequences remain limited for Belgium. Updates (in English) are available at the website of the SIDC. [...]

Mimas, a Middle-Sized Icy Moon of Saturn, Could Harbour a Subsurface Ocean

An international team of researchers from France, the United States, and Belgium, including Attilio Rivoldini of the Royal Observatory of Belgium has measured the rotation of Mimas by studying data provided by the spacecraft Cassini orbiting Saturn. Their study suggests its cratered surface hides one of two intriguing possibilities: either the moon’s frozen core is shaped something like a football, [...]

Open Doors 2014

The days of open doors, which took place the weekend of 11 and 12 October 2014, was a success!

Throughout the weekend, more than 7,000 visitors were counted, including nearly 5,000 for Sunday afternoon. [...]

Strong Solar Flare

On 10 September, the Sun produced a powerful X-class (“eXtreme”) solar flare. The consequences for Belgium are limited for the time being. High-frequency (HF) radio-communication at the Earth’s dayside (USA and South-America) was probably disturbed. A plasma cloud was ejected into space and is expected to arrive at Earth on 12 September around 21:00UT (+/- 12 uur).

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Go for the scientific mission of ESA satellite Gaia

Gaia is now ready to begin its five-year science phase.

Read all about it on the ESA webpages. [...]

The satellite Gaia observed asteroids

The satellite Gaia observed asteroids: (54) Alexandra, (4997) Ksana and others.

Gaia asteroid observations will be processed using the software pipeline designed and implemented by Coordination Unit 4 (CU4) of the DPAC, running at the CNES processing centre (Toulouse, France).

Dr. Thierry Pauwels of the ROB is a member of CU4.

Information can be found on the web pages of ESA. [...]

Water-building molecule in planetary nebulae

Using ESA’s Herschel space observatory, astronomers, including Peter van Hoof, Griet Van de Steene and Martin Groenewegen, have discovered that the molecule OH+, vital for creating water exists in planetary nebulae, the burning embers of dying Sun-like stars.

Their results are the subject of an ESA press release. [...]