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. [...]
Brussels, 11 October 2024 – This is not a Brussels folk festival, but a scientific research project. OMMEGANG, an acronym for ‘Observing dark Matter and MEteoroids with Gravimeters ANd GNSS’, is aimed at detecting mini black holes passing close to the Earth using data from GNSS positioning satellites (including the GPS and GALILEO systems) and superconducting gravimeters. These mini black [...]
By the STCE, the Belgian space weather institute
On October 9, 03:56 Belgian time, the Sun released an extreme solar flare of category X. This is an intense light flash. We define 5 categories: A,B,C,M and X. An X-flare is 10000 (!) times stronger than an A-flare. A solar flare has an immediate impact on radio communication on the day side [...]
Brussels, 30 September 2024 – To protect Earth from asteroids, the Royal Observatory of Belgium participates in the European Space Agency’s Hera mission, which is set to launch on Monday, 7 October 2024 at 16:52 Belgian time (first day of the launch window). [...]
Belgian researchers are involved in a study lead by an international multidisciplinary team
In September 2023, a mysterious, globally observed and unprecedented 9-day-long seismic signal was caused by a massive landslide in Greenland. 25 million m³ of rock and ice fell into the Dickson Fjord and, in turn, caused a 200-metre-high mega-tsunami that continued sloshing back and forth – a phenomenon [...]