news 2023

After more than three years in orbit, the mission of the CHEOPS space telescope has just been extended. Led by the University of Bern in collaboration with the University of Geneva, CHEOPS is a joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and Switzerland. On March 7th, ESA-s Science Programme Committee has confirmed its continued operations to 2026 and an indicative extension to 2029, contingent upon ongoing commitments from national contributors and partners.

A team from the University of Geneva and UNIBE reveals that the distribution of planets can be organised in four different ways around a star. Astronomers have long been aware that planetary systems are not necessarily structured like our solar system. Researchers from the Universities of Bern and Geneva, as well as from the National Centre of Competence in Research PlanetS, have now shown for the first time that there are in fact four types of planetary systems.

Interstellar molecular clouds are considered to be the birth sites of planetary systems. With the help of the James Webb Space Telescope, an international research team including the Center for Space and Habitability (CSH) at the University of Bern and the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS discovered the deepest and coldest ice ever detected in such a molecular cloud.

A team from the University of Geneva reveals the eventful migration history of planets bordering the Hot Neptune Desert, these extrasolar planets that orbit very close to their star. All kinds of exoplanets orbit very close to their star. Some look like the Earth, others like Jupiter. Very few, however, are similar to Neptune.

Does life exist elsewhere in the universe? There's a good chance it does - though it might look very different to life on Earth. Scientists may soon be able to offer a definitive answer. Twenty-seven years ago, at the University of Geneva, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz - now a professor at ETH - discovered the first extrasolar planet orbiting a Sun-like star.