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 the journal Nature Communications questions this scenario. The authors, including Cem Berk Senel and Özgür Karatekin of the Royal Observatory of Belgium, used groundbreaking empirical [...]
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 sky. At this stage, it has already had a significant impact on our knowledge of the structure, composition and dynamics of the Milky Way. [...]
In 2024, 141 earthquakes were located by the Royal Observatory of Belgium in or near Belgium.
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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 Belgium. Compiling the seismic impact on Belgium was rendered possible by reviewing all testimonies of the Belgian population to the ROB on how they experienced [...]
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, from the same institute, won the prize in the 2024 annual competition of the Class of Sciences. [...]
Earthquakes in Europe and Minor Asia from 284 to 1550
In 2024, the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB) published a new book in historical seismology, written by Pierre Alexandre and Dominique Alexandre-Lamotte. In this work 2,489 critical sources and a catalogue containing 1,507 earthquakes that took place in the Middle Age and Renaissance are presented. The book is free to download. [...]
“Signal received.” After a smooth launch that was postponed by one day, operators and scientists waited to receive a first sign of life from the Proba-3 satellites. [...]
ASPIICS onboard Proba-3 – Belgian research in the shadow of a satellite
Proba-3 is the latest ESA mission to be launched on December 4, 2024. Proba-3 consists of not one, but two satellites that will fly in precise formation around the Earth. One satellite will cast a shadow onto the other during 6 hours of the orbit, allowing the latter to [...]
November 2019: the Solar-Terrestrial Centre of Excellence (STCE) launches an unprecedented service that alerts pilots and air traffic controllers when navigation and communication systems may experience problems, or when the health of passengers and crew is at risk due to space weather. This was the very first time such messages have been sent out.
PECASUS is a global civil aviation service [...]
The Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB), the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the National Museum of Natural Sciences of Spain (MNCN-CSIC) joined forces in a field campaign to measure earthquakes and ambient seismic noise in the Paliki peninsula of the Ionian Island of Kefalonia in Greece to better understand the subsurface of this area. [...]