News and Events

First Announcement and Call for Applications and Abstracts

10 – 12 June 2022, Prague

Call for a Medium-size and a Fast mission opportunity in ESA’s Science Programme

1: Call for a Medium-size and a Fast mission opportunity in ESA's Science Programme

The ESA Director of Science solicits the scientific community in ESA's Member States for proposals for both a "Fast" mission opportunity (to be launched in the 2030-2031 timeframe) and for a Medium mission opportunity (to be launched around 2037). The new long-term scientific plan - Voyage 2050 - for the Science Programme of the European Space Agency (ESA), has been issued in June 2021, following a broad consultation of the scientific community and a peer review process, with final recommendations issued by an independent scientific Senior Committee. The plan includes three Large (L) missions in selected science themes (Moons of the Giant Planets, From Temperate Exoplanets to the Milky Way, and New Physical Probes of the Early Universe) and a set of Medium (M) and Fast (F) missions. The definition of the F and M space missions is based on a competitive, peer-reviewed selection process. Even though the Voyage 2050 plan identifies a set of possible themes for the Medium missions, proposals in all fields of space science will be considered, with no prejudice.

Full details can be found at: https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/call-for-missions-2021/
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2: Call for Membership in the Expert Committee for the Large mission covering the science theme “Moons of the Giant Planets”

The Director of Science at the European Space Agency (ESA) has issued a Call for Membership in the Expert Committee for the Large mission covering the science theme “Moons of the Giant Planets” that will support the initial definition of space mission concepts to fulfil the goals set for the “Moons of the Giant Planets” science theme. This is the first scientific theme identified in the new long-term scientific plan (Voyage 2050) for the ESA Science Programme for the large mission following Athena and LISA. “Moons of the Giant Planets” addresses issues such as habitability, biosignatures, prebiotic chemistry, etc., to be implemented through a planetary probe to one of the moons of either Jupiter or Saturn.

Deadline for receipt of applications is 18 January 2022

Full details can be found at: https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/call-for-expert-committee-for-moons-of-the-giant-planets/
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I would be grateful if you could bring these two Calls to the attention of the Spanish space science community. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about these.

Europlanet Telescope Network Science Workshop

February 9 - 11, 2022

Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure project and the Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astronomy of Vilnius University are pleased to announce the international conference „Europlanet Telescope Network Science Workshop“.

The Europlanet Telescope Network (EPN-TN), launched in 2020, is a network of small telescope facilities to support planetary science observations by professional and amateur astronomers. The EPN-TN currently comprises 16 observatories with 46 telescopes ranging from 40 cm to 2 m in size. The network can be accessed free of charge to carry out projects on a wide variety of scientific studies about the Solar System and exoplanets, as well as related astronomical investigations.

The goal of this workshop is to encourage community-led proposals and to highlight scientific results achieved with EPN-TN and other medium size and small telescopes. We invite interested astronomers and amateurs to participate, to learn more about the instruments offered, their capabilities, and scientific potential.

The EPN-TN is operated by the EUROPLANET 2024 Research Infrastructure project which is funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 871149.

Sessions will be distributed over three half days. They will be dedicated accordingly:

Day 1 - Solar System planets
Day 2 - Exoplanets
Day 3 - Minor Solar System Bodies

The sessions will be followed by brainstorming meetings on the Discort platform.

Registration free of charge and with no deadline.

Participants are encouraged to submit a short abstract describing the science questions and topics they would like to address with EPN-TN. We anticipate a talk length of 12+3 min for contributed presentations and by 2-3 min for poster presentations.

The deadlines for abstract submissions:

oral presentations - 7 January 2022 23:59:00 UTC (notification of acceptance by 14 January 2022)
poster presentations - 21 January 2022 23:59:00 UTC

For Application and registration form follow this link

Splinter Online Meetings in the EPSC 2021

As many of you know September will have another edition of the Europlanet Science Congress which runs as a Virtual Meeting from 13 to 24 September online at https://www.epsc2021.eu/

This meeting has a strong amateur astronomy session organized in the last few years by Marc Delcroix with co-conveners well known in this list such as John H. Rogers and talks given by both amateurs and professionals. Most of these talks will be later available online on Vimeo for wider diffusion.

I would like to announce and advertise a set of Splinter Online Meetings organized during this meeting and directly focused into professional and amateur collaborations. These splinter events DO NOT require registration in the EPSC meeting and will be held as a set of Zoom meetings with prominent speakers from the amateur and professional side. They will also have time for questions and open discussion. Please find bellow details of these events which you are all cordially invited to participate if they fit in your schedule. Recordings of the sessions will also be made available after the meeting but please come and join us in these topics with our speakers and join in the discussions.

EPSC 2021 Professional and Amateur Splinter Workshops

SMW2: Pro-Am collaborations (I): Juno's Extended Mission at Jupiter

Time: Sept. 17, 2021 - 17:30 Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Stockholm, Wien
Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87556952793?pwd=aTM2bmFuS3hvelZnRHNWcWRTMEV2QT09
Meeting ID: 875 5695 2793 Passcode: 985567

Detailed program:

* Introduction - Ricardo Hueso (UPV/EHU)
* Juno Extended mission – Shawn Brueshaber (JPL)
* New JunoCam Views of Jupiter – Candice Hansen (LPI)
* HST /OPAL observations of Jupiter- Amy A. Simon (NASA Goddard)
* Jupiter atmosphere from 2016 to 2021 – John H. Rogers (BAA)
* Jupiter landscapes from Voyager to Juno – Björn Jòhnson

SMW3: Pro-AM collaborations (II): JWST and the exploration of Giant Planets

Time: Sep 24, 2021 - 17:25 Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Stockholm, Wien(16:25 London)
Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89374868296?pwd=U3hoT2hBWnFMUjNhN0lqWUJtTXVBZz09
Meeting ID: 893 7486 8296 Passcode: 240591

Detailed program:

* Introduction – Leigh. N. Fletcher (University of Leicester)
* Gas Giants and the JWST – Leigh. N. Fletcher (University of Leicester)
* Ice giant variability– Mike Roman (University of Leicester)
* Neptune's amateur observations – Marc Delcroix (SAAF)
* Amateur spectroscopy of Uranus and Neptune – Christopher Pellier
* Challenges of Ice Giant imaging – Anthony Wesley

SMW5: Pro-AM collaborations (III): The Europlanet Telescope Network and the ExoClock project

Time: Sept. 22, 2021 - 18:30 Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Stockholm, Wien
Join Zoom meeting: https://oeaw-ac-at.zoom.us/j/91295913963?pwd=dUNxSmgvVlJTMkVac0xOUE9ObERBdz09
Meeting-ID: 912 9591 3963 Code: Eikta2

Detailed program:

* Introduction – Manuel Scherf (Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences)
* The Europlanet Telescope Network – Manuel Scherf (Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences)
* Fireballs collaboration – (speaker to be confirmed)
* Comets Pro-Am observations and collaborations – Helen Usher (BAA - Open University)
* Venus amateur observations: From BepiColombo’s flybys to Envision – Itziar Garate (UPV/EHU)
* ExoClock – Anastasia Kokori (UCL)
* Amateur observations of Exoplanets and ExoClock participation – Yves Jongen

#InspiredByOtherWorlds Arts Contest 2021

Deadline: 6 September 2021

The Europlanet Society Congress 2021 (#EPSC2021) is inviting schools and space enthusiasts of all ages to get creative and share their artworks and performances on the theme of 'Ingenuity' in the #InspiredByOtherWorlds contest.

Find out more here >>
Contest FAQs>>

EPSC - 2021

REGISTRATION

2021 Calls for Europlanet Outreach Funding Scheme and Prize

Application Deadline: 18 August 2021

Dear Colleagues,

Are you looking for funding to kickstart an outreach or education project related to planetary science? Or have you run a successful public engagement project for which you deserve some recognition?

Calls for applications for the Europlanet Outreach Funding Scheme 2021 and nominations for the Europlanet Prize for Public Engagement 2021 are now open.

Apply before August 18th, 2021.

Planetarily yours,
The Europlanet Society

Europlanet Magazine

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.

Call for Abstracts - EPSC 2021

Europlanet Science Congress 2021

Submit your abstract before 26 May 2021

Dear colleagues,

We would like to remind you that the deadline for submiting your abstract to EPSC2021 is next week, on 26 May 2021, 13:00 CEST. This is a strict deadline and will not be extended.

EPSC2021 is the second EPSC to be held as a virtual meeting. While we look forward to face-to-face meeting in the future (2022 in Granada) we believe that virtual meetings are likely to play an increasingly important role in supporting our community, widening participation from under-represented groups and at the same time addressing the global challenge of climate change and reduce our carbon footprint. Building on the success and learning lessons from feedback on our first virtual meeting in 2020, EPSC2021 will have a hybrid format of live sessions and asynchronous scientific oral and poster presentations with an emphasis on live interactions and discussions. The ethos for EPSC2021 is to create a simple, flexible, and inclusive virtual meeting that provides multiple opportunities for interaction, scientific discussion, and networking.

The Scientific Organizing Committee of the EPSC2021 invites all planetary scientists to participate in the congress, submit contributions to the topical sessions and share their research with colleagues and friends.

The current list of sessions is organized around the following Programme Groups:

Terrestrial Planets (TP)
Outer Planet Systems (OPS)
Missions, Instrumentation, Techniques, Modelling (MITM)
Small Bodies (comets, KBOs, rings, asteroids, meteorites, dust) (SB)
Exoplanets and Origins of Planetary Systems (EXO)
Outreach, Diversity, Amateur Astronomy (ODAA)

Detailed instructions on the abstract submission process can be found at:
https://www.epsc2021.eu/abstract_management/how_to_submit_an_abstract.html

The scientific programme and the abstract submission tool are accessible at:

https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPSC2021/sessionprogramme

Please browse the list of sessions and identify the session that most closely matches your area of interest; your abstract can be submitted directly to that session.

You may see all deadlines & milestones of the conference at the following website:
https://www.epsc2021.eu/information/deadlines_and_milestones.html

Please note that an abstract processing fee (APF) of €50 gross per abstract is levied and this is separate from any participation fees. The participation fees have been increased to cover the actual costs of organizing a virtual meeting (EPSC2020 ran at a deficit last year), but are still much lower than for past physical meetings, particularly when travel and accommodation are taken into account. Bursaries will be offered to support students, early career professionals, educators, outreach providers, amateur astronomers and researchers from under-represented states. For more details, see:
https://www.europlanet-society.org/note-on-epsc2021-fees/

A separate online request form for splinter meetings & workshops, as well as tutorials and tools for the online presentations will be available soon on the meeting web site.

Please forward this message to colleagues who may be interested.
We look forward to welcoming you to the virtual EPSC2021 in September.

ETN WORKSHOP

On May 15, a virtual workshop on the Europlanet Telescope Network (ETN) and access to the network by amateur astronomers was held. The workshop was jointly organized by the Europlanet 2024 RI, the Europlanet Society Regional Hub of Spain and Portugal, the Spanish Astronomy Society (SEA) and the Federation of Astronomical Associations of Spain (FAAE) with the additional collaboration of Calar Alto Observatory in Spain. The workshop had the active participation of some 70 people from Spain, Portugal, France and also from Latin America.

The information sessions, dissemination, practical application writing workshop and colloquium, were completed with a night of live remote observation with one of the ETN telescopes, the 1.23m telescope at Calar Alto observatory, during which observations were counducted of two comets, (C2021A1 and C2017K2), the transit of the exoplanet WASP-14b, and Saturn and its satellites covering examples of different topics open to the ETN program within the Pro-Am framework.

- images obtained and calibration shots - (3.8 GB) - (¹)

- enumerative file of images - (.pdf)

(¹) - ZIP file. If you have problems with the direct download, click the right mouse button and select 'download linked file'.

Saturn and moons. Single shot of 0.01 sec. close to sunrise on 05/16/2021 at 04:08:21 (UT)

Recorded sessions

morning session
afternoon session
evening session

During the development of the night session, with observation objectives previously proposed by some of the participants, the raw data was shown, (without calibrating), as it was being generated which, in addition to its undoubted formative and didactic nature, has made this practical session much more enjoyable and highlights the potential of using telescopes, which are generally not available to amateur astronomers, when they become accessible to them.

Many amateur astronomers, who have extensive experience in astronomical data observations and analysis, can make valuable contributions to Pro-Am collaborations from telescopes in the ETN network.

Transit of the exoplanet WASP-14b. Images (not calibrated) treated with FotoDif by Mercè Correa (Sabadell Astronomical Association).

Comet C / 2021A1 astrometry, made from one of the images during the live session by Arnaud Leroy (Société Astronomique de France (SAF), Uranoscope de l'Ile de France).

However, one of the difficulties they may encounter is little or no experience in the subtleties of writing proposals for access to these resources. The main objective of this workshop has been to counteract this disadvantage and has dedicated the second of its sessions to this, in which the public information of the proposals approved so far has been analyzed and examples of studies that can be carried out by fans have been shown. with the telescopes of the network, highlighting the scientific contribution of these observations. Likewise, both the open call and the financing application form and the information that must be reflected in it under the appropriate approach to be accepted have been explained in detail.

A good example of the possibilities of the project are the results obtained during the practical session with the Calar Alto telescope, (in the picture above).

Comets C / 2017K2 (left) and C / 2021A1 (right). Data analyzed by Ramón Navés and Montse Campàs, (Obs. Montcabrer-MPC 213). The images stack 25 and 21 exposures of 2 minutes respectively, taken on the night of 05/16/2021 with the 1.23m and the CCD DLR-MKIII from Calar Alto during the workshop. The colored boxes represent the isophots in both cases.

Transit of the exoplanet WASP-14b based on 2-second exposures with filter I. Data analyzed and calibrated by Mercè Correa, Ramón Navés and Montse Campàs with the Hops software of the ExoClock project from the 1,189 shots taken during the workshop.

Paolo Farinella Prize 2021

Call for Nominations of Paolo Farinella Prize 2021 now open

** DEADLINE: May 15, 2021, 23:59 UT **

To honour the memory and the outstanding figure of Paolo Farinella (1953-2000), an extraordinary scientist and person, a prize has been established in recognition of significant contributions in one of the fields of interest of Paolo, which spanned from planetary sciences to space geodesy, fundamental physics, science popularisation, security in space, weapons control and disarmament.

The prize was proposed during the ‘International Workshop on Paolo Farinella, the scientist and the man‘, held in Pisa in 2010, and the 2021 edition is supported by the Europlanet Society.

The eleventh Paolo Farinella Prize 2021 will be awarded to a young scientist with outstanding contributions in the field of planetary science concerning ‘Terrestrial Planets and Super-Earths’, including work on the physics, dynamics and observations of terrestrial planets inside or outside of our solar system. The award winner will be honoured during the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2021.