A positive leap second must be introduced on December 31, 2016
The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) informs us that a positive leap second must be introduced on December 31, 2016. [...]
19
Dec 16
News
15
Dec 16
Galileo goes live
On Thursday December 15 the European Commission declares officially the start of the initial services of the Galileo system. [...]
14
Dec 16
ROB Goes Social!
The Royal Observatory of Belgium has now its Facebook page and its Twitter account. [...]
14
Dec 16
Véronique Dehant got the AGU 2016 Whitten Medal
The American Geophysical Union (AGU) has named its 2016 class of medallists, awardees, and prize recipients. Thirty-two individuals are recognized this year for their dedication to science for the benefit of humanity and their achievements in Earth and space science. They have been elected from the 60 thousand members of AGU.
This year in particular, the Charles A. Whitten Medal has [...]
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Nov 16
First determination of Saturn’s deformation by tides
Using several thousand images of Saturn’s moons recorded by the Cassini orbiter (NASA/ESA), an international team of scientists called ENCELADE, which includes researchers from the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB), has detected small fluctuations in the gravitational field of Saturn. Available online in the journal Icarus, these results follow from a series of extremely detailed investigations undertaken by this team [...]
09
Nov 16
Thirteenth European Space Weather Week (ESWW13)
November 14-18, 2016, Oostende (Kursaal), Belgium
From November 14 to November 18, the 13th European Space Weather Week (ESWW) will be held at Oostende (Kursaal) in Belgium. The ESWW is the international conference par excellence when it comes to space weather. Already for the 11th time, its organisation is in the hands of the Solar-Terrestrial Centre of Excellence (STCE). Once again, [...]
12
Oct 16
ExoMars 2016 arrives at destination
10 October 2016 – The first mission of the ExoMars programme, launched successfully on the 14th of March this year, is about to arrive at Mars. ExoMars 2016 consists of two components: the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and the Entry, descent and landing Demonstrator Module (EDM), also known as Schiaparelli. The main objectives of this mission are to search for [...]
29
Sep 16
Saturn’s moon Dione harbors a subsurface ocean
A subsurface ocean lies deep within Saturn’s moon Dione, according to new data from the Cassini mission to Saturn. Two other moons of Saturn, Titan and Enceladus, are already known to hide global oceans beneath their icy crusts, but a new study suggests an ocean exists on Dione as well.
In this study, researchers of the Royal Observatory of Belgium show [...]
20
Sep 16
Gravity variations induced by the transpiration of the trees
A Belgian-French study has evidenced variations of gravity induced by the transpiration of the trees. During sunny summer days, each tree transpires a few hundred litres of water into the atmosphere. Assessing the evapotranspiration of ecosystems remains a key challenge in hydrology.
The authors found that the water mass loss can be directly inferred from continuous gravity measurements: as water evaporates [...]
16
Sep 16
Homage to the Corresponding Astronomers of the Royal Observatory of Belgium on September 19, 2016
The Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB) wishes to pay homage to some of its highly estimated external collaborators. Hence the ROB proposes to award them the title of “Corrresponding Astronomer”. In the past, this honor was already given to Dr R.J. Anderle, Prof. C. De Jager, Sir H. Jeffreys, Prof. J. Kovalevsky, Prof. P. Ledoux, Prof. H. Moritz and in [...]