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.

Título:  Navegación automática de imágenes planetarias [Europlanet 2024]

Centro:  Grupo de Ciencias Planetarias - Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU

Tipo:  Otros/Others

descripción: 

El Grupo de Ciencias Planetarias de la UPV/EHU en Bilbao, España, ofrece un breve puesto de trabajo de 10 meses (prorrogables) para trabajar con imágenes planetarias de los planetas del Sistema Solar en la base de datos PVOL en http://pvol.ehu.eus. El contrato está financiado por Europlanet 2024 RI como parte de sus actividades VESPA y no requiere doctorado, siendo un trabajo de carácter técnico  e iniciación a la investigación. El objetivo del proyecto es trabajar en un sistema de navegación automática de imágenes de planetas obtenidas por astrónomos amateur para producir masivamente mapas de planetas como Júpiter a partir de imágenes seleccionadas por su calidad. Estos mapas se cargarán en la base de datos PVOL y se utilizarán para investigar los cambios en las atmósferas de los planetas. Una parte del trabajo consistirá en realizar animaciones de los cambios atmosféricos en Júpiter a partir de las mejores observaciones obtenidas cercanas a la oposición del planeta y disponibles en PVOL pudiendo desarrollar una parte de outreach.

La navegación de imágenes se realizará utilizando el sistema ElKano diseñado en Python y utilizando el sistema SPICE. Se formará a la persona contratada en los dos ámbitos (ElKano y SPICE). Se busca una candidata o candidato con buenas capacidades de programación en Python y se valorarán en la selección conocimientos de astronomía y ciencias del espacio.

Los interesados ​​deberán escribir a Ricardo Hueso (e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

El procedimiento formal de solicitud desarrollado en la UPV/EHU se abrirá y cerrará en marzo y las fechas oficiales serán comunicadas por Ricardo Hueso a los candidatos interesados una vez la UPV/EHU fije dichas fechas.

País:  Spain

Dear colleagues,

We are pleased to announce a China-ESA Mars School, to be run in May 2023 in Huairou, Beijing, China. It is jointly organised by the International Space Science Institute - Beijing (ISSI-BJ) and the European Space Agency (ESA), co-sponsored by National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences(NSSC, CAS).

Inspired by the scientific investigations conducted by an ever-growing fleet of missions, the Mars School aims to provide a broad overview of Martian planetary science, from its interior and surface to its atmosphere and interactions with space. Lectures will cover theoretical background & modelling to observation techniques & datasets, as well as the search for past or present life. The week will also include breakout discussions, social excursions, a poster session and potentially also a hands-on session with Mars mission data.  

The workshop will cover topics including: 

• Interior structure & evolution, Volcanism & tectonism, Mineralogy and climate evolution, Aqueous surface processes, Geomorphology,
• landscape evolution, Atmospheric dynamics, Atmospheric chemistry, Upper atmosphere,
• thermosphere, Aeronomy (airglows, aurorae etc), Space weather & radiation environment, Ionosphere,
• solar wind interaction & escape, Habitability and the search for life on Mars,
• Chinese & European Mars missions.

Lecturers and participants will be drawn both from Chinese and European Mars science communities.

Organization of the conference had been on hold due to coronavirus pandemic, but the recent changes of travel policy in China means that we now feel confident in being able to proceed with the conference. Accordingly, we will be opening application within the next week, with a foreseen application deadline of 24^th Feb 2023. This short deadline is in place to leave sufficient margin for selection of financial aid (see below) and subsequent visa support & travel booking.

ESA will provide full travel funding to enable participation by a small number (~12, tbc) of European early career scientists. Priority will be given to those who are no more than three years post-PhD. Applicants will be selected to achieve a balance of representation of ESA member states, of topical areas, and of gender – so we invite a broad range of applications.

All details about the programme, application, and financial support for European participants, will be announced via the conference website at http://marsschool2023.casconf.cn.

Colin Wilson (ESA) & Yang Liu (NSSC), co-chairs of the science committee.

The Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço en la  Universidade de Coimbra has a possibility of a PhD position in planetary science , it has to go through the selection process of “La Caixa” doctoral INPhNIT process. It is associated with the SUPERIOR: SUrface PropERtIes Of tRans-neptunian objects using Webb project. It is lead by Dr. Nuno Peixinho (IA, Univ Coimbra, Portugal),and the graduate student would work with him, with  Pedro Lacerda (IA, Univ Coimbra & IPN, Portugal), and with me, Noemi Pinilla-Alonso (UCF, USA) lead of DiSCo, a large program to study trans-Neptunian objects with the Webb.

Deadline, January 25th.

SUPERIOR
https://finder-fellowships.lacaixafoundation.org/finder?position=6037

http://iastro.pt/ia/jobDetails.html?ID=206

There are other 9 opportunities for those not into planetary science.

Post-doctoral Researcher in Venus Global Climate Modelling

An exciting opportunity for a postdoctoral research position (up to three years) is available at The Open University, UK, to develop and perform experiments with a Venus Global Climate Model in preparation for future missions.

The role is an exciting combination of numerical modelling to simulate global climate environment of the atmosphere of Venus, and comparison to spacecraft observation data.  Our aim is to develop a new climate model of Venus to identify the most likely cause of the observed sporadic high-altitude occurrences of atmospheric sulfur species and determine the likelihood of a direct link to surface geological activity.  This work is to be performed in preparation of several high-profile missions to Venus in the 2030s, from both NASA and ESA.

The role holder will join a vibrant atmospheric research group within the School of Physical Sciences, making use of the group’s high-performance computing facility based in the STEM Faculty.

The preferred candidate will have a PhD (or close to completion) in atmospheric physics or a closely related field, with knowledge and experience of numerical modelling of planetary atmospheres.  The salary within the specified range will be dependent on PhD award status and commensurate with the level of experience to date.

For more information, please see the job advert at https://www.open.ac.uk/about/employment/vacancies/post-doctoral-research-associate-venus-global-climate-modelling-20724.  Applications will be accepted until 24th February, 12pm UK time.

Tytle:  Tackling Venus atmosphere from different approaches: theory-modelling, observations and space missions Reference of the FPI contract CEX2021-001131-S-20-1

Centre:  Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía - CSIC

Type:  Predoctoral

Description:

Venus is in the spotlight of the public and scientific community after the selection of 3 missions:  DAVINCI and VERITAS by NASA and EnVision by ESA/NASA. It remains an open question how  Venus and the Earth started so similarly but become such different worlds. Thus, studying Venus is essential for understanding the links between planetary evolution and the habitability of terrestrial planets,  including those outside our Solar System. Several Earth-sized exoplanets have been recently detected in short-period orbits of a few Earth days around low-mass stars. Those planets have stellar irradiation levels several times that of the Earth, suggesting that a Venus-like climate is more likely than an  Earth-like. Consequently, the atmosphere of our closest planet Venus represents a relevant case to address observational prospects of rocky close-in orbit exoplanets.

The successful candidate will be in particular involved in EnVision mission, notably, he/she will join the international consortium of the high-resolution spectrographs VenSpec-H and VenSpec- U. She/he will use a sophisticated 3D model for Venus that has been developed since 2010 at LMD/IPSL in France, in the frame of a collaboration between different European institutions, including IAA-CSIC, to analyze and identify potential physical, chemical, or dynamical processes driving the variability of trace gases above the cloud tops of Venus (70 km altitude, approximately). Heterogenous chemical processes will be implemented and studied, and the impact of complex cloud models and scenarios on the water and sulphur species will be interpreted. These model developments will also contribute to the Venus Climate database (VCD), an online platform containing the meteorological fields derived from the Venus 3D Model and provides the scientific community with a climatology for many characteristics of the Venusian atmosphere from the surface to the exosphere, in addition, a similar but simplified condensation cloud model will be implemented into a  “Generic” 3D model, developed for exoplanets and paleoclimate studies, to simulate H2SO4-H2O clouds  “interactively” in the atmosphere of Venus-analogues around both Sun-like and M-dwarf stars, with the primary goal of providing realistic predictions of future observations of cloudy rocky exoplanets foreseen by the Webb Space Telescope and new-generation instruments and facilities (e.g. ELT).

The PhD thesis advisors will be Gabriella Gilli and Luisa M. Lara

Tytle: 3 PhD positions in IA-Porto for exoplanets

Centre:Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço

Type:  Predoctoral

Description:

The positions are offered in the context of the project "FIERCE: Finding Exoearths: tackling the challenges of stellar activity" funded by the European Research Council under an Advanced Grant with the reference 101052347. The work will be developed at CAUP (in the Porto node of the Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço), under the scientific supervision of Nuno C. Santos and/or other members of the scientific team of IA.

Fellowship duration: Each fellowship should start between the 1st of September and the 1st of October 2023, renewable on a yearly basis, and has a maximum duration of 48 months

Work plan: The detection and characterisation of other Earths, planets with the physical conditions to hold liquid water and thus potential life-sustaining environments, is a bold objective of present-day astrophysics. This goal continuously pushes the development of new ground- and space-based instrumentation. However, the quest for other Earths is severely limited by astrophysical “noise” from the host stars, whose signatures distort the spectra used to detect and characterize the planets.

The PhD projects, offered in the context of one Advanced Grant funded by the European Research Council, are related with the development of new methods and analysis tools to tackle the problem of stellar noise in exoplanet research. In particular we expect the successful candidates to contribute to the development and exploitation of data from the PoET solar telescope and ESPRESSO spectrograph (ESO) to:

1) develop new approaches to reach the 10 cm/s barrier in Doppler radial velocity measurements needed to find and characterize other Earths orbiting other Suns;

2) model and correct stellar noise in transmission spectroscopy used to study exoplanet atmospheres.

Exoplanet data obtained with the ESPRESSO and NIRPS (ESO) spectrographs may also be made available.

The projects will have a strong impact on the exploitation of data from future ground-based projects and space-based missions such as ANDES@ELT (ESO) and PLATO (ESA).

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.