The NPP joined the ESTEC Open Day on 12 October and what a success it was! This year, ESTEC celebrated its 50 year existence, drawing close to 10,000 people to the technical heart of the European Space Agency to Noordwijk, the Netherlands. The annual open day also marked the ending of the NL Space Week. …
Is life possible – or has it ever been possible – on other planets? The (Origin of) Life Marker Chip (LMCOOL) seeks the answer. This innovative chip is being developed by a Dutch consortium led by Dr Niels Ligterink of TU Delft, with funding from the NSO Instruments Programme. A Dutch-built instrument capable of detecting …
Read more “Small chip, grand mission: searching for signs of extraterrestrial life”
Minerals are key indicators for habitable environments on rocky planets and they can be detected at multiple scales, from detailed lab measurements, to rocks at outcrops and by remote detection by satellites. But how are the signatures related across these contrasting measurement scales? During Summer 2025 a field team from the University Twente and TU …
They’re older than our Earth, as small as a grain of sand, and might just be lying in your gutter: micrometeorites. Every year, tons of space dust enter our atmosphere, and a small portion of it lands on Earth—as tiny pebbles that can tell us something about the formation of the solar system, and perhaps …
Read more “What are the odds of finding a meteor on your roof?”
Several icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn harbour subsurface oceans potentially suitable for life. In contrast, our knowledge of Uranian moons is limited, as Voyager 2’s 1986 flyby remains the only visit. To improve our understanding, Dr Marc Rovira Navarro (TU Delft) has received a Veni grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) that will …
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When we send a rover to Mars, a Martian mudslide or landslide could bring a sudden end to years of hard work and investments. Scientists are therefore eager for more detailed knowledge about the nature of these landslides. But Martian gravity is much lower than Earth’s, and we don’t know how that affects mudslides on …
The oceans of several moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn are considered among the most promising environments for finding extraterrestrial life. Buried beneath kilometres of ice, the moons’ surfaces may carry crucial information about the oceans below. Dr. Stéphanie Cazaux has received an ERC Advanced Grant to study the interaction between the moons’ oceans and their …
Read more “ERC Advanced Grant for unveiling the hidden oceans of Jupiter and Saturn’s moons”
Applying the detailed empirical understanding gleaned from the terrestrial planets of our own Solar System is crucial in our interpretation of exoplanetary systems. The Rocky World meeting series will help build the collaborations that will pave the way for the next decade of rocky exoplanet discovery and characterisation. The next Rocky Worlds 4 meeting will take place …
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”