Press release

Published on July 17, 2018
Press release published by CNRS / CNES

Our Universe would be well constituted to 95% of matter and dark energy whose nature remains unknown.
In 2013, ESA’s Planck mission unveiled a new image of the cosmos: an all-sky survey of the microwave radiation produced at the beginning of the Universe. This first light emitted by the Universe provides a wealth of information about its content, its rate of expansion, and the primordial fluctuations in density that were the precursors of the galaxies. The Planck consortium publishes the (…)

Published on July 02, 2018
Press release published on July 2, 2018 by ESO

SPHERE, a planet-hunting instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, has captured the first confirmed image of a planet caught in the act of forming in the dusty disc surrounding a young star. The young planet is carving a path through the primordial disc of gas and dust around the very young star PDS 70. The data suggest that the planet’s atmosphere is cloudy.
Astronomers led by a group at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany have captured a spectacular snapshot of (…)

Published on June 18, 2018
Press release published on june 13, 2018 by the ESO and CNRS

Two independent teams of astronomers have used ALMA to uncover convincing evidence that three young planets are in orbit around the infant star HD 163296. Using a novel planet-finding technique, the astronomers identified three disturbances in the gas-filled disc around the young star: the strongest evidence yet that newly formed planets are in orbit there. These are considered the first planets to be discovered with ALMA.
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) — the gas- (…)

Published on May 28, 2018
Press release published by the Fondation Université Grenoble Alpes

Collecting ice cores from glaciers most at risk from climate change and storing them in Antarctica for future generations of scientists: that is the goal of ICE MEMORY, an international programme aimed at preserving the climate and environmental memory of glaciers.
Following the two successful drillings in the Col du Dôme glacier in French Alps in August 2016 and on the Illimani glacier in Bolivia in June 2017, two further drilling expeditions will be conducted in Russia in May and June (…)

Published on May 21, 2018
Press release published by Irstea / UGA

The results of the first global study of the contribution that intermittent rivers make to carbon cycling
A collaborative study involving 94 international partners was led by researchers from IRSTEA, the Laboratoire d’écologie alpine / OSUG (LECA) , the University of the Basque Country and the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries. This research, published on May 21st in Nature Geoscience, represents the first global study of the contribution that intermittent (…)

Published on March 06, 2018
Press release published by UGA/CNRS/USMB

By comparing the genome changes observed in goat and sheep, researchers has taken the first step towards characterising the genetic basis underpinning the ‘domestication syndrome’.
During domestication processes, humans have shaped the characteristics of wild species in order to exploit them. The genetic mechanisms behind induced changes are still poorly understood to this day, including those that would explain the occurrence of similar traits in different domestic species. However, by (…)

Published on July 07, 2017
Press release published by the CNRS

The astronomical instrument SPHERE, installed since 2014 on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile, has made its first discovery of a planet around a star other than the Sun, known as an exoplanet.
Only a handful of the 3,600 exoplanets detected since 1995 have been observed directly in this way. With a mass between 6 and 12 times that of Jupiter, HIP65426b is a young massive planet orbiting around a bright star in rapid rotation, located in the (…)

Published on June 20, 2017
Press release published by the Fondation univeristé Grenoble Alpes

The second expedition of the ICE MEMORY project, took place on the Illimani glacier (Bolivia) from May 22nd until June 18th, 2017. It just ended with full success! The international team at work has successfully extracted two ice cores down to bedrock, at more than 6,300 m above sea level, despite extreme climatic conditions. One of the ice cores will be analyzed while the other one with join the first world heritage vault of ice cores (in Antarctica) obtained from glaciers under threat due (…)

Published on June 04, 2017
Press release published by CNRS / CNES the CNRS

A shield that protects us from solar wind, the Earth’s magnetic field is used as a bearing for airplanes, spacecrafts and even deep-well drilling. A better understanding of the physics behind our planet’s magnetic field, shaped in the outer core 3,000 km beneath our feet is therefore essential.
Like many planets and most stars, Earth produces its own magnetic field, primarily through a dynamo effect caused by the movement of an electrically conducting fluid – in this case, a mix of melted (…)

Published on April 25, 2017
Press release published by the ESO

Transiting rocky super-Earth found in habitable zone of quiet red dwarf star. An exoplanet orbiting a red dwarf star 40 light-years from Earth may be the new holder of the title “best place to look for signs of life beyond the Solar System”. Using ESO’s HARPS instrument at La Silla, and other telescopes around the world, an international team of astronomers discovered a “super-Earth” orbiting in the habitable zone around the faint star LHS 1140. This world is a little larger and much more (…)