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The Cassini mission begins a series of flybys of Saturn’s moon, Enceladus

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Image credit: ESA
Image credit: ESA

Update 19.10.2015: The first images of the north pole of Saturn’s icy moon, Enceladus, provided by the Cassini mission following the 14 October 2015 flyby are available here.

The Cassini mission begins today a series of three close encounters with Saturn’s moon Enceladus with first images expected within the next days. From more than a billion kilometers away on Earth, the Cassini team is able to send the spacecraft hurtling past Saturn’s moons at closest approach distances as small as 25 kilometers to perform flybys, which are are a critical part of the Cassini mission, for both science and navigation purposes. When Cassini last approached Enceladus the north of the moon was shrouded in darkness during its winter but now that it is summer there, the Sun is shining on the high northern latitudes.

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ALICE experiment precisely compares light nuclei and antinuclei

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alice-2The ALICE experiment at the world’s largest particle accelerator, Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, has made a precise measurement of the difference between ratios of the mass and electric charge of light nuclei and antinuclei. The result confirms a fundamental symmetry of nature to an unprecedented precision for light nuclei. The measurements are based on the ALICE experiment’s abilities to track and identify particles produced in high-energy heavy-ion collisions at the LHC.

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The Institute of Space Science joins the JEM-EUSO international collaboration

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JemEUSOThe Institute of Space Science has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and officially joined the JEM-EUSO international collaboration, whose objective is the development of the first space mission dedicated to studying the nature of ultra-high energy cosmic rays and to identifying corresponding astrophysical sources. With this MoU, Romania becomes the 16th member state of the JEM-EUSO collaboration and will contribute to all the technical and scientific objectives of the mission.

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ISS researcher, finalist in the national fellowships program UNESCO – L’Oreal „For Women in Science”

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L'Oreal event-458PhD. Paula Gina Isar, Scientific Researcher tier II at the Institute of Space Science and institutional representative (ISS) at the Pierre Auger Observatory, was one of the finalists in the sixth edition of the national fellowships program L’Oréal – UNESCO „For Women in Science”.

Organised in order to support the local scientific community, the program was dedicated to Romanian female researchers under the age of 35, who are either PhD students or have obtained a PhD and are undergoing a postgraduate training program, and offered two grants: one for the Life Sciences and one for Physical Sciences sections.

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The improvements of ALICE experiment for LHC’s second run

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Image credit: Maximilien Brice / CERN / ALICE Collaboration

Starting from 3 June, the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), including ALICE, are back in action, taking data for the accelerator’s second run.

ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment), which studies quark-gluon plasma – the matter present in the first moments of the universe’s existence – has now improvements to most of its 19 subdetectors. One of these was the electromagnetic calorimeter, which measures the energy of the electrons, positrons and photons produced by the collisions.

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The LHC Season 2 officially starts today

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ALICE
Image credit: CERN / ALICE Collaboration

Following a series of test collisions conducted from March until now, the largest and most powerful particle accelerator in the world, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, officially begins today the second cycle of operations at the record energy of 13 teraelectronvolts (TeV). The first collisions at this energy took place for the first time during the night between 20 to 21 May and confirmed that the systems that protect the accelerator and detectors work properly, therefore LHC is ready to explore new realms of particle physics in the next three years.

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Andrea Danu — Primul cercetător ISS care participă la turele de monitorizare la CERN în această perioadă

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Ada_CERNCercetător Științific de grad III cu specializare în Fizică Nucleară, Andrea Danu a urmat cursurile Universităţii din Bucureşti – Facultatea de Fizică, unde a susţinut atât teza de licenţă, cât şi pe cea de Masterat şi de Doctoratat sub îndrumarea domnului Profesor Universitar Călin Beşliu. După cum recunoaşte chiar ea, dumnealui a fost cel care i-a insuflat interesul pentru Fizica Nucleară la Energii Înalte şi pentru Fizica Particulelor Elementare, astfel încât angajarea în cadrul Institutului de Ştiinţe Spaţiale încă din timpul facultăţii a venit ca un lucru absolut firesc. Aici, Andrea s-a alăturat Laboratorului de Astofizică şi Fizica Energiilor Înalte, făcând parte totodată din grupul ALICE@ISS.

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ISS researchers are monitoring the ALICE experiment at CERN

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Echipa_ISS-ALICE
Image credit: ISS-ALICE

Now that operations have been resumed at the world’s largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider – LHC, researchers from the Institute of Space Science (ISS) are running data quality monitoring shifts at the ALICE experiment (A Large Ion Collider Experiment), one of the seven LHC experiments at CERN (The European Organisation for Nuclear Research).

The five physicists from the Institute of Space Science who will be present in the ALICE control room at CERN during May-November 2015 are: Andrea Danu, Ciprian Mitu, Cătălin Ristea, Adrian Sevcenco and Ionel Stan.

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„Life in the Universe” – an interdepartmental initiative at ISS

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Image credit: Eumetsat
Image credit: Eumetsat

An interdepartmental group of specialists from the Institute of Space Science (ISS) put together their experience in space microbiology, cosmic ionizing radiation, management of space threats and also in space applications for the health and safety of persons and communities, to launch the scientific website „Life in the Universe”.

This initiative aims to promote certain areas of research and important achievements at the Institute of Space Science and to send an invitation to interdisciplinary cooperation towards institutions and independent experts in the country and abroad, in order to develop joint research and projects regarding 

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ISS researchers will hold seminars for students at the Faculty of Physics

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afisStarting April 2015, researchers from the Institute of Space Science (ISS) will hold a Seminar in Astrophysics dedicated to students in the I, II and III year of study at the Faculty of Physics, University of Bucharest. Dr. Ioana Dutan, Dr. Gina Isar and Dr. Valeriu Tudose will present current topics related to research in astrophysics alongside researchers from the Institute of Geodynamics of the Romanian Academy (IGAR) and the Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering – Horia Hulubei (IFIN-HH).

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