News

Thierry Camelbeeck: 2021 Laureate of the Van den Broeck medal!

Thierry Camelbeeck will be awarded the Van den Broeck medal in Tervuren during the 7th International Geologica Belgica Meeting. The Van den Broeck medal was created in 1987 in honour of the first General Secretary of the Société belge de géologie. Geologica Belgica, i.e. Belgium’s current society for geologists, awards this medal to a scientist to honour his/her career work [...]

The Sun at a Glance – Infographics Contest for Schools

The European Solar Telescope (EST) project is organising an international contest for secondary schools called ‘The Sun at a glance’. 14 to 16 year-old students from all over Europe are invited to create an infographic on a subject related to our star and help build the EST Solarpedia, an open educational resource about the Sun. [...]

Two scientists of the Observatory in the top 2% most-cited researchers in the world

Stanford University recently released a list that represents the top 2% of the most-cited scientists in the world in various disciplines. It was created to provide updated analyses and a publicly available database of top scientists. Updated databases and code are freely available in Mendeley (https://dx.doi.org/10.17632/btchxktzyw).

This list of the top 2% most-cited scientists is composed of 159,684 researchers, of which 1,413 [...]

Mars Interior Structure Revealed by InSight Seismic Data

Brussels, July 23, 2021 – New results from the NASA InSight mission on Mars are published today in the Science magazine, to which Attilio Rivoldini, researcher of the Royal Observatory of Belgium, contributed. Based on more than two years of data from the InSight seismometer, Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), and using existing geophysical models of Mars interior, the researchers were [...]

[Challenge finished] Eclipse challenge

This challenge is finished. Congratulations to the winners and thanks for participating!
For the answers to the questions, see the webpage https://proba2.sidc.be/EclipseChallenge.

Solar eclipses have fascinated people since ancient times and also today many people will gaze up in wonder to witness the spectacle of a solar eclipse. In parts of Russia and Canada one can witness it as an annular eclipse. [...]

Follow the solar eclipse of June 10, 2021

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 [...]

[Teaser] Eclipse challenge

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 [...]

EUI First Light – 1 year!

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. [...]