Chile Earthquake Measured by the Belgian Seismic Station in Antarctica

See http://seismologie.oma.be

and http://www.antarcticstation.org

Mars Express in closest flyby of Phobos

The radioscience team of the Royal Observatory of Belgium will analyze the data from the flyby of MarsExpress spacecraft near the small Martian moon, Phobos. On March 3, 2010 at 21h55m of our time, MarsExpress flew by Phobos at approximately 65km above the surface! A rare and extremely close flyby allowing them to better understand the origin of Phobos.

See http://webservices.esa.int/blog/blog/7/ and http://planets.oma.be/MARS/marsexpres_phobos_en.php

Launch of the 'Solar Dynamics Observatory'

On February 11 2010, NASA launched a new space mission, the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), to take the most detailed observations of the Sun ever, and understand the complex weather and storms of our own star.SDO will provide solar observations of superlative quality, producing extreme amounts of data.

The Royal Observatory of Belgium located in Uccle will be the only European institute that receives all SDO data directly from the US, but it will serve as a relay and redistribute images further in Europe. The scientists anticipate that over its five-year mission, SDO will revolutionize our understanding of the Sun.

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Corresponding Astronomers

Read about our Corresponding Astronomers in Dutch or French.

PROBA2 Launch

November 2, 2009, will be a red-letter day for the Belgian space industry and space sciences. A rocket containing PROBA2 will be fired off at 02:50 Belgian time from a Russian launch base in Plesetsk. PROBA2 will be the first ESA space weather mission dedicated to observing the Sun. Another important item: the satellite was built in Belgium.

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Tuesday 13 October 2009, 18h58: a bright fireball above Belgium and the Netherlands

more... (fr)