Universe, stars, planets: origins and future

Located at an altitude of 2,500 metres on the Bure plateau in the Alps, the Noema international observatory is the most powerful radio telescope in the northern hemisphere. Thanks to the data collected by its twelve antennas pointed in the same direction, astronomers can study the disks of gas and dust that precede the birth of stars and their planets.

NASA's new James Webb Telescope (JWST) is expected to revolutionise space observation. It was launched on 24 December 2021 from Kourou, French Guiana. After a 30 day journey, it reached the Lagrange point L2 at 1.5 million kilometres from the Earth in the opposite direction to the Sun. The long-awaited successor to Hubble, Webb is three times larger and has a mirror spanning more than six metres, becoming the world's largest orbital observatory. It took international teams more than 25 years to…

The SPHERE (Spectro Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch) instrument project is implemented on one of the 4 large telescopes of the VLT (Very Large Telescope) located in the Atacama Desert in Chile. Its main objective is to locate and characterize exoplanets, i. e., planets outside our solar system. SPHERE is a state-of-the-art instrument that uses advanced technologies such as adaptive optics, which compensates in real time for the effects of distortions due to atmospheric…

The most reflective mirrors of the world are at the LMA laboratory (Laboratoire des Matériaux Avancés/laboratory of advanced materials) in Lyon. Up to two years is needed to integrate gravitational wave detectors like LIGO or VIGO. As key elements in these detectors, they are among the most accurate optical components ever produced in the world. Each of their processing steps must be conducted under stringent temperature, hygrometry and cleanliness conditions to reach the most perfect end…

Masterstroke for physics: by detecting gravitational waves for the first time, the LIGO and Virgo collaborations were also first in observing a collision between two black holes, thus opening a new window to the Universe.

Within 35 minutes the film explores the inspiration and the story behind MUSE, why it was needed how it came into life over a nine year long development phase. It highlights the needed international European cooperation to realise the project and the participation of some of the hundreds of researchers, technicians and engineers involved. The innovative technology of MUSE and the front-line science done with it are discussed as well. Also the delicate installation process and the moment of…

The Planck satellite started to observe the universe in August 2009. In 2013, the images collected enabled scientists to extract information about the structure of the universe, focusing their research on polarization in 2014. It is a property attributed to light which is the latest testimony of the interaction between light and matter. François Bouchet, cosmologist and Jean-Loup Puget, astrophysicist give a mid-term report on the results of Planck. They answer the following questions: - Does…

Data from the European Space Agency's (ESA) Planck satellite has allowed researchers to create the latest map of the Universe. It shows fossil radiation, the oldest light in the Universe, but with new information: the polarization of this radiation.

In this animated video, discover the SuperCam instrument, developed by teams from the CNRS, the CNES and their French and international partners, and embarked on the Perseverance rover scheduled to land on Mars on February 18, 2021.

The Planck satellite started to observe the universe in August 2009. In 2013, the images collected enabled scientists to extract information about the structure of the universe, focusing their research on polarization in 2014. It is a property attributed to light which is the latest testimony of the interaction between light and matter. The photos made by Planck provide a high quality atlas of the universe showing matter clusters. Scientists explain what the universe is made of, and what is at…

The LSST, or Large Synoptic Survey Telescope will conduct a 10-year survey of the sky that will deliver a 500 petabyte set of images and data products that will address some of the most pressing questions about the structure and evolution of the universe and the objects in it.

En 2017, la Médaille d'or du CNRS a été décernée à Thibault Damour et Alain Brillet, dont les travaux respectifs ont permis la détection d'ondes gravitationnelles par les détecteurs LIGO le 14 septembre 2015. L'existence de ces infimes ondulations de l'espace-temps, décrites en 1915 par Albert Einstein dans sa Théorie de la relativité générale, n'avait jusqu'alors jamais pu être démontrée de facto. C'est en 1970 qu'Alain Brillet, alors récemment diplômé de l'ESPCI, entre au CNRS comme…

A l'occasion de sa médaille d'or 2017, décernée par le CNRS, Thibault Damour retrace son parcours. Physicien et théoricien, il entre au CNRS en 1977, au sein du département d'astrophysique relativiste et de cosmologie de l'observatoire de Paris. Ses travaux, menés sur les ondes gravitationnelles, ont permis la détection indirecte de ces ondes, dans les années 1980, et de façon directe plus récemment. Le 14 septembre 2015, les détecteurs de la collaboration LIGO-Virgo ont enregistré le passage…

Portrait de Julien Billard, lauréat de la médaille de bronze 2019 du CNRS. Chercheur en physique des astroparticules, spécialisé dans la recherche de matière noire et la physique des neutrinos de basse énergie, à l'Institut de Physique des deux infinis de Lyon (DR07).

A great explorer of the cosmos and a specialist in galaxies, Françoise Combes is an astrophysicist at the Laboratoire d'études du rayonnement et de la matière en astrophysique et atmosphères (Lerma; Paris Observatory - PSL/CNRS/Sorbonne University/Cergy-Pontoise University) and a professor at Collège de France. In 2020, she received the CNRS Gold Medal, one of the most prestigious French scientific distinctions, for her exceptional career and international influence. …

The first part of this series on the most important research of 2020 is devoted to black holes. Astrophysicist, Nelson Christensen talks about the discovery from the ARTEMIS laboratory where he is working on the detection of gravitational waves and the observation of two stellar black holes merging into an intermediate black hole. Astrophysicist and 2020 CNRS Gold Medalist, Françoise Combes explains why it is essential to study large black holes, particularly "supermassive" black holes, to…

Portrait de Émilie Schibler, lauréate de la médaille de cristal 2019 du CNRS. Ingénieure de recherche en mécanique au sein de l'Institut de physique des deux infinis de Lyon (DR07), spécialisée dans le développement d'instruments et de détecteurs utilisés sur accélérateurs de particules, pour l'étude de l'infiniment petit.

The Youtube channel Zeste de science explores all aspects of scientific research, proving that even the most complicated scientific facts can be explained in less than 5 minutes, and that even the most seemingly trivial events of everyday life, if thoroughly studied, can contribute to the biggest technological advances. Episode 4: Powerful computers have enabled scientists to create cosmological simulations able to reenact the evolution of the Universe. These simulations provide…

Two hundred million years ago, a meteorite crashed to Earth and formed a crater 20 kilometres in diameter, one of the largest in the world, in the heart of present-day French department Haute Vienne. Although the impact zone is today totally invisible to the naked eye, evidence of the cataclysm can be detected in the composition of the soil and by observing local relief. Now home to the village of Rochechouart, this area is of particular interest to geophysicists. A thorough study of soils in…

The Youtube channel Zeste de science explores all aspects of scientific research, proving that even the most complicated scientific facts can be explained in less than 5 minutes, and that even the most seemingly trivial events of everyday life, if thoroughly studied, can contribute to the biggest technological advances. Episode 24: What happens when two planets collide? The smaller one desintegrates but the bigger one survives, even though some…

The aim of several scientists is to trace the changes of a comet during its journey through the solar system by reproducing the thermal and light characteristics of the cosmos in the laboratory. This will enable them to understand where the elements that formed the Earth came from and to track down the first traces of life.

Contrary to popular belief, what if water had always been present on Earth? This is the theory of Laurette Piani and Yves Marrocchi, two CNRS cosmochemists who caused a sensation with their article published in the Science journal in August 2020. By studying enstatite chondrites, minerals very similar to the meteorites that made up the Earth, they realised that from its creation, our planet would have contained all of the elements necessary to create water. This discovery could significantly…

NOEMA (NOrthern Extended Millimeter Array) is the most powerful millimetre radio telescope in the northern hemisphere. Located on the Bure plateau, in the Hautes-Alpes, the observatory will eventually consist of 12 antennae that will form a single large radio telescope capable of revealing the invisible thanks to interferometry. Equipped with a new generation of receivers and electronics, these antennas will be able to capture the coldest light emitted by the universe, around 250°C. The…

The Gaia satellite is dedicated to astrometry and was launched by ESA in 2013 to map our galaxy in 3D. A team of engineers and researchers from the Paris Observatory based in Meudon is taking part in this mission to try to find out the position and movement of the stars. The probe scans the universe continuously and sends a large amount of data a part of which is studied and analysed by the Observatory team. The results of the European Gaia mission are published in a catalogue and help us to…