Here's an animation of the first observation field of our PLATO Mission with ESA. The animation is based on the newly released PLATO Input Catalog: youtu.be/rU3fas8NFHY?... Soundtrack produced with my dear friend Achim Rust in an overnight synthesizer session.

Die Vorlesung "Astronomie für Studierende aller Fakultäten" an der Uni Göttingen (Fakultät für Physik) ist jetzt zur Anmeldung freigeschaltet. Info: bit.ly/Astro2026UniVZ Anmeldung: bit.ly/Astro2026Stu...

The number of known exoplanets doubles every 30 months. Here's the latest cumulative count (1989 - 2025) with an updated fit. Original paper: arxiv.org/abs/1911.12114. See last week's Nature News Feature "THE SCIENCE OF 2050" (doi.org/10.1038/d415...). Credit: exoplanet counts from exoplanet.eu

We confirm a non-transiting planet in the stellar habitable zone around the nearby (35 ly) M dwarf L 98-59. The planetary mass is ~3 Earth masses, the orbital period is 23 d. We also find evidence for another non-transiting planet at just ~1.7 d. doi.org/10.1002/asna...

PLATO Science Ground Segment Progress Meeting at ESTEC (European Space Research and Technology Centre), Netherlands. 25-26 Nov we discussed recent progress (software development, documentation, milestones) plus upcoming system integration test towards Ground Segment Readiness Review in summer 2026.

4 days left for abstract submission to "Observation and Characterization of Extrasolar Planets" at the 2025 AG Annual Meeting in Görlitz (16-17 Sep 2025). Abstract submission: ag2025.astronomische-gesellschaft.de/abstracts.php. Session details: ag2025.astronomische-gesellschaft.de/view_splinte...

Hi exoplaneteers! Please consider submitting an abstract for the Observation and Characterization of Extrasolar Planets session of this year's meeting of the German astronomical society (deadline is 31 July, you first need to register). ag2025.astronomische-gesellschaft.de/view_splinte...

New fascinating images of Saturn‘s clouded moon Titan! The picture on the left shows an overlay of three infrared exposures of Titan in different wavelengths. The photos were taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, a space mission of NASA, ESA, and CSA. www.esa.int/Science_Expl...

Just a normal day working for a European space mission.

The Service Module of the #PLATO spacecraft arrived at the OHB space technology company in Oberpfaffenhofen (Germany). Also, 18 out of 26 PLATO cameras have now been installed on the Payload Module. 🚀 Image Credit: OHB

„Toxicologist Matthew Campen […] estimates that he can isolate about 10 grams of plastics from a donated human brain; that’s about the weight of an unused crayon.“ nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00405-8 Trump signs order shifting US back toward plastic straws. bbc.com/news/articles/c2k574ydyyqo.amp

I know the situation is bad, but I keep forgetting just HOW bad the gender imbalance among laureates of the Nobel Prize is. Physics is particularly terrible... [says a physicist] www.nature.com/articles/d41...

This week’s Cambridge meeting of ESA‘s (@esa.int) Science Operations Center & the #PLATO Mission Consortium. Less than 2 years before launch, we’re nearing the Mission Critical Design Review. Also, I found a transcript of Tycho Brahe’s 1570s observations in the @cambridgeastro.bsky.social library.

ESA and Arianespace signed a contract to launch our PLATO spacecraft on an Ariane 6 in late 2026 (esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Plato/Planet_hunter_Plato_to_fly_on_Ariane_6). Here's the Ariane 6 maiden flight in 2024 as seen from inside a Rafale military jet: youtu.be/3w48YAOWNYY&t=137.