Europlanet Society promotes the advancement of European planetary science and related fields for the benefit of the community and is open to individual members and organizations. Anyone with an active interest in planetary science (whether academic or industrial, professional or hobbyist) is welcome to join the Society.

Our objectives:

• Expand and support a diverse and inclusive planetary community across Europe through the activities of our 10 regional centers.
• Build the profile of our sector through outreach, education and policy activities.
• Support Europe's key role in planetary science by developing links at the national and international level.

The Society is the parent body of the annual Europlanet Scientific Congress (EPSC), the largest annual meeting on planetary science in Europe. Launched in September 2018, Europlanet Society builds on the 15-year legacy of Europlanet projects funded by the European Commission and provides a sustainable platform for the infrastructure, virtual access facilities, tools and services developed through these. activities.

The Europlanet Society is governed by an elected Executive Board and its activities are supported by Committees and Working Groups drawn from its members. The Executive Office of the Society is hosted and administered by the European Science Foundation in Strasbourg.

The Spain & Portugal Regional Hub is the Europlanet Society node for the Iberian Peninsula. Created in 2019, its purpose is to promote and facilitate the achievement of the objectives of the Europlanet Society in Spain and Portugal by developing links between them and with the rest of Europe through the creation of collaborative work networks in these areas.

The composition of the Committee that coordinates the Iberian Node is:

• Chair: Alejandro Cardesín Moinelo (ESAC)
• Representative for Spain: Adriano Campo Bagatín (Univ. Alicante)
• Representative for Portugal: Elisa Delgado Mena (IA-U Porto)
• Secretary: Francisco González Galindo (IAA/CSIC)
• Early Career Rep. Spain: Juan Luis Rizos (University of Maryland)
• Early Career Rep. Portugal: Daniela Espadinha (IA, Lisbon)
• Outreach & Communication Spain: Juan Ángel Vaquerizo (ISDEFE-CAB)
• Outreach & Communication Portugal: João Retre (IA, Lisbon)
• Industry Officer (Spain): Andrés Catalán (PAE, Madrid)
• Industry Officer (Portugal): Marta Gonçalves (Portugal Space, Lisbon)
• Diversity Officer: João Faria (IA, Porto)
• Policy Officer (Spain): Carlos García Sacristán (CDTI, Madrid)
• Amateur Community Officer: Joaquín Álvaro (FAAE/AstroCuenca)

Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Title: INPHINIT PHD FELLOWSHIP: Computer science applied to the minor bodies in the solar system

Center: Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía

Type: Predoctoral

Description:

The doctoral fellowship programme INPhINIT ”la Caixa” is devoted to attracting talented Early-Stage Researchers of any nationality to pursue their PhD studies in the best Spanish and Portuguese research centres and units with excellence distinction.

Research Project / Research Group Description

Historically the study of the physical properties of minor bodies in our solar system was done doing planned ground-based and space observations.Telescopes likes Hubble, Spitzer, Wise or Herschel were used. Then, most recently, large ground-based and space-based stars and/or galaxies surveys were planned with diverse objectives but were used by the minor bodies community to study the background minor bodies. That means, the telescope was pointing to a field of view to study some galaxy, star cluster or specific star and diverse minor bodies can be identified and studied in that pointing. The first large data release of minor bodies published using this technique was the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Moving Object Catalog. The catalog lists astrometric and photometric data for moving objects observed during the Survey. The advantage of these kind of data is that there are ready to use in the databases where the survey’s team applied the pipeline to extract the data from the observations. Other current examples of this kind of catalogues are: Wise, K2, Tess, Gaia and in a near future the LSST. Another huge source of data are the ground-based observations, where again, are planned with diverse objectives and a minor body can be found in the background. We want to extract the information on these minor bodies that appears on the images that were not planned to observe these bodies. We will use all the databases of minor bodie´s observations from the last 20 years, together with the observations made by our group, and extract as much information as possible. The challenge in analyzing the data lies in the heterogeneity of the data, the different observing conditions, formats, and timing of the data. The project aims to use data analysis tools to interpret the physical properties of these minor bodies observed in such different conditions and times. The developed tools can be used in the analysis of other databases in the future.

Title: Massive navigation of planetary images from the PVOL database

Center: Universidad del País Vasco

Type: Postdoctoral

Description:

The Planetary Sciences Group at UPV/EHU in Bilbao, Spain, offers a short post-doc position of 10 months (extendable) to work with amateur images of Solar System planets in the PVOL database at http://pvol.ehu.eus. The contract is funded by the Europlanet 2024 Research Infraestructure as part of its VESPA activities.

The goal of the project is to develop a system to massively map in a semi-interactive way selected ground-based images of the planets, with the main target being Jupiter. These maps will be uploaded into the PVOL database and will be used to investigate changes in the atmospheres of the planet. While most of the work will be technical, science objectives will be linked to: (1) analysis of zonal winds and atmospheric changes on different time-scales; (2) improvement of spatial resolution by combining information of different maps from different observers. In addition, movies of the maps will show the planet’s dynamic atmosphere for outreach purposes.

The candidate will work with Artificial Intelligence techniques to identify the planet’s limb on the image files and fit an ellipse to the planet. Navigation will be provided by using the SPICE system. Formal training on SPICE will be given at the host institution. Most technical challenges will be related to pattern recognition (identifying the planet position and orientation on PVOL images).

Interested candidates should write to Ricardo Hueso (e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

Title: Radio emission from star-planet interaction

Center: Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC)

Type: Predoctoral

Description:

The doctoral fellowship programme INPhINIT ”la Caixa” is devoted to attracting talented Early-Stage Researchers of any nationality to pursue their PhD studies in the best Spanish and Portuguese research centres and units with excellence distinction.

Research Project / Research Group Description

This project has two main goals. First, to search for radio emission arising from starplanet interaction in nearby stars with confirmed exoplanets. The detection of starplanet radio emission would allow us to use it as an independent tracer for future searches of habitable planets. The second main goal is to test star-planet interaction scenarios via radio observations for a number of stars. We will focus on M stars, which are the most abundant type of stars in our galaxy and, due to their low mass, are ideal for searching Earth-type planets. We intend to exploit the fact that the magnetic interaction between this type of stars with planets close enough can lead to radio emission that can be detectable from Earth.

This project has a strong observational component, and the successful candidate will become proficient in the use of radio interferometry techniques, including the software needed to reduce the radio data, which the main workhorse of the project. The candidate will work with radio interferometry data collected so far from state-ofthe-art interferometers, including the the Jansky Very Large Array (JVLA), the Giant Metre Wave Ratio Telescope (GMRT), the MeerKAT interferometer, the e-MERLIN, or the international LOFAR telescope. The successful candidate will become part of the CARMENES collaboration, and is expected to lead additional radio proposals from the planets that will be discovered, searching for signals of radio emission from the most promising targets to show star-planet interaction. The successful candidate will also become familiar with the physics behind the radio emission from exoplanets, and from star-planet interaction, as well as with magneto-hydrodynamic simulations to study the potential habitability of exoplanets around host stars. The overall goal of this project is to advance in our understanding of the origin of radio emission in exoplanets, tying it to the physical properties of the exoplanets and their host stars.

The official magazine of Europlanet, the European community for planetary science.

This first issue has a strong focus on Mars, including European contributions to current missions, experimental research in labs and in the field, and outreach initiatives to engage the next generation. We look back at the origins of Europlanet and its links to the Cassini-Huygens mission at the beginning of this century. We also have updates on the Winchcombe meteorite and on several new partnerships to support planetary science.

Please check out Issue 1 and share with your networks to help us spread the word.

The second issue highlights some of the exciting science supported by Europlanet's transnational access program, including an experimental project to recreate Martian flows in the lab, field campaigns in Botswana and Greenland, and virtual access to facilities in Korea.

Teachers, science communicators, we need you!

Find out about the interdisciplinary educational resources we offer and help us improve their content.

Please take this short survey.

In recent years, the education and outreach teams in the Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure (RI) project, the Europlanet Society’s Outreach Working Group and the Europlanet Early Careers (EPEC) network have developed a number of resources to support teaching of science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) subjects. Among these, we have created ready-to-use planetary science and astrobiology lessons and associated hands-on activities.

As teachers, educators, and science engagement practitioners, we need your expertise and opinion on the most recent resources we have developed. We would also like to understand your interests and use of planetary science resources, and if/how your needs and practices have changed since the Covid-19 pandemic.

We would very much appreciate your help by filling this short survey!

We thank you in advance for your valuable help in making this consultation successful!

The Europlanet Education Team.
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This network currently provides access to 16 different telescope facilities distributed all over the world, with telescopes up to 2 meters in diameter, 14 of which are either robotic or provide service observations, and continue to operate despite COVID-19. Proposals are invited on any topic broadly related to Solar System or exoplanet observations. Short proposals (max 3 pages) and can be submitted at any time; decisions on funding are made on a bi-monthly basis.

Further details on the call and on how to apply can be found at the call website [https://bit.ly/2Br5LDt]; our telescope table [https://bit.ly/31zYpa1] holds a broad range of information and contact data on all the facilities in the network. To apply, please contact the relevant facilities first, agree on observing time, and then submit your funding proposal. If you have further questions on the call or if you are interested in organizing a coordinated observations campaign that would like to make use of the Europlanet Telescope Network, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Proposals are also invited for support to host workshops on any topic related to observational planetary science. Europlanet is particularly keen to support meetings bringing together professional and amateur astronomers, and/or on observations supporting space missions, but all relevant topics will be considered. Contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to propose ideas or for more information.