From 6-11 September 2026 the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) will be organised in the Amare venue in The Hague. The 2026 edition marks the first time that this major European meeting will be held in the Netherlands. The event brings together 900-1200 attendees from various planetary science backgrounds from Europe and beyond. The two co-chairs …
The Netherlands Space Office (NSO) has announced two new calls targeting proposals for extending Expertise Networks and supporting Principal Investigators. 1. Call for expertise networks The first new call for proposals targeting the support of existing Expertise Networks has been opened: ‘Strengthening knowledge cooperation in space research‘. This programme aims to support Expertise Networks whose …
Summary: Mountainous areas and hillslopes on both Earth and Mars are actively being eroded by various sediment transport processes. On Earth, one of the dominant processes causing change on hillslopes are debris flows. These fast-moving masses of soil, rock and water carve deep valleys and transport sediment from mountain peaks to the valleys. How debris …
Read more “PhD defence: Dynamic planetary hillslopes, Lonneke Roelofs”
Stéphanie Cazaux and Niels Ligterink have received funding from NWO under the National Science Agenda (NWA) for their research project “The Search for Life on Icy Moons.” This project, part of NWA Route 15: Origins of Life – on Earth and in the Universe, focuses on how to sample material from the plumes escaping Enceladus’ …
Read more “TU Delft researchers receive NWO funding to study life on icy moons”
Edgar Steenstra from TU Delft has been awarded the Vening Meinesz Prize for Earth and Environmental Sciences. He receives the €10,000 prize for his innovative research on the formation and evolution of planets, particularly Venus and the Moon, as well as his role in international planetary missions. The award was presented on 20 March 2025 …
TU Delft is expanding its space research capabilities with the launch of four new and upgraded Space Engineering laboratories. These state-of-the-art facilities will provide researchers, students, and industry partners with advanced tools to push the boundaries of space exploration, planetary science, and satellite technology. Each laboratory serves a distinct purpose, from simulating extreme planetary environments …
Read more “TU Delft launches Space Engineering labs including the Delft Planetary Laboratories”
The NWO Domain Board Science has awarded twenty-one grant applications in the Open Competition Domain Science-M programme. M-grants are intended for innovative, high-quality, fundamental research and/or studies involving matters of scientific urgency. One of these projects was awarded to Dr. Edgar Steenstra (TU Delft) to invest in lab facilities study the origin of the largest …
Read more “Experimental insights into the origin of the largest lava river flows on Venus”
How can we detect if a planet or moon has the potential to harbour life? A new expertise network funded with 690 kEuro by the Netherlands Space Office will allow a consortium of Dutch researchers to find out during the next five years. The involvement of various research groups illustrates the broad, interdisciplinary nature of …
Read more “Kick-off for expertise network that will study habitability of planets and moons”
The interdisciplinary research consortium PRELIFE has been awarded an NWA grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) to investigate the origin of life on Earth and in the universe, one of science’s greatest unsolved puzzles. The consortium will receive €6.7 million to explore this question and comprises scientists from sixteen universities and research institutes across …
Read more “PRELIFE consortium receives NWA funding to investigate the origin of life”
Planetary scientist Sebastiaan de Vet of the Planetary Exploration group at TU Delft has received a Comenius Teaching Fellowship for his proposal to start developing a ‘Planetary Analogue Rock Collection’ (PARC) for use in courses of the Planetary Exploration MSc profile. By allowing students to work with terrestrial rocks and minerals that also occur on …
Read more “Comenius grant to develop planetary rock collection supports educational innovation”
Funding within the second call of the programme ‘Use of space infrastructure for Earth Observation and Planetary Research (GO)’ from 2022 will be divided among nine research projects. The funded research proposals encompass studies on, for example, air quality and climate models or the evolution and origin of Mercury. Various national and international space organisations …