The University of Bern is a public research university in Switzerland with a strong focus on space research and planetary sciences. As part of its Physics Institute, the university develops space-grade hardware and scientific instruments for space missions, including mass spectrometers and remote sensing technology. They partner with major space agencies like NASA and ESA, contributing to missions focused on solar system exploration and the search for habitable planets. Key areas of research include the evolution of planetary systems and the interaction of the Sun with planetary atmospheres.
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The University of Bern supplied ion optical components to the Energetic Neutrals Analyzer (ENA), an imaging plasma instrument led by the Swedish Institute of Space Physics.
The joint ESA and JAXA BepiColombo mission is en route to Mercury carrying an advanced payload that includes contributions from the University of Bern.
The BepiColombo Laser Altimeter (BELA), designed and built in part at the Physics Institute of the University of Bern, will operate from an orbit roughly 1,000 kilometers above Mercury's surface to measure elevations with about 10 centimeter precision.
The University of Bern contributed the ion optical system for STROFIO, a NASA mass spectrometer on BepiColombo that will measure the composition of Mercury's extremely thin atmosphere.
Researchers from the Center for Space and Habitability at the University of Bern and the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica performed the first statistical analysis of lineae (bright slope streaks) on Mercury.
Nicolas Thomas is the CaSSIS Principal Investigator at the University of Bern and lead author of the new study regarding the Martian atmosphere.
PLACID is developed by researchers at the University of Bern and the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland in Yverdon.
PLACID is backed by Switzerland's NCCR PlanetS and the University of Bern's Division of Space Research and Planetary Science.