news from the lab 2016

The Mars Camera, CaSSIS, on the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter captured its first high resolution images of the Red Planet last week.

Based on computer simulations, Astrophysicists at the University of Bern conclude that the comet Chury did not obtain its duck-like form during the formation of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago. Although it does contain primordial material, they are able to show that the comet in its present form is hardly more than a billion years old.

Empa researchers have pulled off a masterstroke of ceramics research: as of now, a dark-red ceramic bezel adorns a Swiss luxury watch - a world premiere and stunning example of top-flight materials science.

Young giant planets are born from gas and dust. Researchers of ETH Zürich and the Universities of Zürich and Bern simulated different scenarios relying on the computing power of the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) to find out how they exactly form and evolve. Astronomers set up two theories explaining how gaseous giant planets like Jupiter or Saturn could be born.

Computer simulations by astrophysicists at the University of Bern of the formation of planets orbiting in the habitable zone of low mass stars such as Proxima Centauri show that these planets are most likely to be roughly the size of the Earth and to contain large amounts of water.

University of Bern's Laser Altimeter BELA has been successfully tested during the last weeks and the last components will be delivered to ESA on 5 October.

The Rosetta mission is coming to an end, but the next expeditions across our solar system are ready for lift-off, carrying with them a number of state-of-the-art devices made in Switzerland.

The little Swiss satellite was launched on 23 September 2009 and continues to send back regular reports.

In his General Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein predicted gravitational waves over a century ago; this year, they were detected directly for the first time: The American Gravitational Wave Obser

A new web service provides real-time information and forecasts of water temperature and surface water currents.

Normally computers speed up calculations. But with his new pen-and-paper formula Kevin Heng of the University of Bern gets his results thousands of times faster than using conventional computer codes. The astrophysicist calculates the abundances of molecules (known as atmospheric chemistry) in exoplanetary atmospheres.

Media releases, information for representatives of the media Media Relations (E) The Mars Camera CaSSIS on the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter captured its first images of the Red Planet this week.

Media releases, information for representatives of the media Media Relations (E) Ingredients crucial for the origin of life on Earth, including the simple amino acid glycine and phosphorus, key components of DNA and cell membranes, have been discovered at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The possibility that water and organic molecules were brought to the early Earth through impacts of objects like asteroids and comets have long been the subject of important debate.

26. In addition to high precision and a desire to tidy things up, another Swiss value enters the space world: milk chocolate.

Media releases, information for representatives of the media Media Relations (E) Astrophysicists at the University of Bern have modelled the evolution of the putative planet in the outer solar system.

14. The Trace Gas Orbiter, which will search for traces of biological life on the red planet, was launched into space this morning.

Media releases, information for representatives of the media Media Relations (E) A camera designed and built at the Center of Space and Habitability (CSH) of the University of Bern was launched with the ExoMars space on 14 March and started its journey to Mars.

12.02.16 - 1.3 billion years ago, two black holes collided in an enormous explosion of energy. The massive event sent gravitational waves across space-time. The waves finally passed through Earth last September, to be detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the United States.

10. Using a new computer program, EPFL researchers offer unusual insight into the universe of Star Wars, which includes more than 20,000 characters spread among 640 communities over a period of 36,000 years. Do you think you know all there is to know about Star Wars? You may change your mind after reading this article.

Mars's southern hemisphere has a tumultuous past that was marked by significant volcanism. Now an ETH researcher has discovered that these many volcanoes are not distributed randomly but in fact lie along specific lines. These could well correspond to different paths taken by mantle plumes. Planetary scientist Giovanni Leone at ETH Zurich's Institute of Geophysics has lost count of the hours he has spent poring over high-resolution satellite images to study structures on the surface of Mars.