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Between November 2018 and August 2020, I've worked as a communication officer for ESA's Science Directorate, juggling between editing, writing and overall science communication + outreach coordination for all sorts of space science missions.
Here are the links to a couple of recent livestreams I had the pleasure to host (from my desk at home during the covid-19 pandemic) in April 2020:
From April 2010 until November 2018, I worked as a science writer for the European Space Agency (ESA).
I wrote lots of news articles for the Science & Technology website, but also news stories for the Space Science Portal (aimed at general public), feature stories, blog posts, image releases, and the sort.
The topics span all sorts of astronomical objects and virtually all cosmic scales, from the Solar System to stars, gas and dust in our own Milky Way galaxy, all the way to other galaxies and galaxy clusters distributed throughout the Universe...
Lately I also started digging into the history of astronomy and wrote a few features about this super fascinating topic.
A (NON EXHAUSTIVE, BIT OUTDATED) SERIES OF HIGHLIGHTS:
In 2016, the peer-reviewed Communicating Astronomy with the Public Journal published a special issue with papers co-authored by me and my colleagues about the successful public outreach campaign run by ESA and partner institutions to promote the comet-chasing mission, Rosetta. Have a look at the papers here (open access).
I recently curated an ebook collecting over 200 contributions about the meaning and impact of the Rosetta mission on the general public: "Impressions of Rosetta's Legacy". It is available for free download here (pdf, 33 MB).
Since 2015, I've been writing lots about ESA's new technology demonstrator mission, LISA Pathfinder, which will be launched in December 2015 to test technology for future space observatories of gravitational waves.
Read more about this mission: LISA Pathfinder brochure
ONCE UPON A TIME...
I also co-wrote the scripts of the episodes of the greatly popular, award-winning "Once upon a time" cartoon series about Rosetta & Philae: you can find links to view the cartoon episodes here.
And, finally, the film compilation of all cartoon episodes was published! Enjoy here - in 5 languages.
You can also read my poster contribution to a session on science communication at the European Geophysical Union general assembly in 2015, describing how we developed the cartoon series and the two anthropomorphic spacecraft characters.
FEATURE ARTICLES ABOUT HISTORICAL TOPICS IN ASTRONOMY:
A history of comets: As Rosetta, one of ESA's space probes, approaches to its destination - a comet - I decided to delve into the history of humankind's everlasting fascination with these charming visitors of the sky, and how they helped us shape our view of science and the cosmos. Read all about it here:
A History of Comets - Part 1: From harbingers of doom to celestial wanderers (from pre-history to 1577)
A History of Comets - Part 2: Testing gravity: How comets helped to prove Newton right (XVII to XVIII century)
A History of Comets - Part 3: On the origin of comets (XIX to mid-XX century)
A History of Comets - Part 4: Triumphs of the space age: Rendezvous with a comet (late XX century to present)
A history of astrometry On the occasion of the launch of Gaia, ESA's newest satellite to chart the heavens, I wrote a series of three articles about the history of astrometry - the branch of astronomy dealing with measuring the positions and movements of celestial bodies.
Astrometry is possibly one of the most ancient astronomical practices ever, and its history is very fascinating. Read all about it here:
The oldest sky maps (from 1000 BCE to the XVI century)
Seeing and measuring farther (XVII to XIX century)
Astrometry in space (XX century)
MY CONTRIBUTION TO THE ROSETTA BLOG:
As of 2014, I'm one of the editors & contributors of ESA's blog about the amazing Rosetta mission, which launched in 2004, travelled for over ten years, slept for almost three of them and finally reached its comet destination in 2014, delivering the Philae lander to its surface and escorting the comet around the Sun.
Even if you know little about comets, as I did before I started to work on this mission, you will by all means find it incredible! You can find all my blog posts and comet image captions here, and a selection of my favourite posts below.
CometWatch 22 August (Aug 2015)
Rosetta and Philae in contact again (June 2015)
Rosetta tracks debris around comet (June 2015)
MIRO maps water in comet’s coma (June 2015)
CometWatch closeup: Looming over Aten (May 2015)
CometWatch 15 April – 4 hours later (Apr 2015)
Near and far – CometWatch 28 March-2 April (Apr 2015)
CometWatch 14 March (Mar 2015)
CometWatch: Focus on Hapi’s boulders (Mar 2015)
All-round activity – CometWatch 25-26-27 February (Mar 2015)
Anuket vs. Anubis – CometWatch 31 January (Feb 2015)
CometWatch – the movie (Dec 2014)
Behind the scenes of ‘The singing comet’ (Dec 2014)
CometWatch 20 November – In the shadow of the coma (Nov 2014)
Philae spotted after first landing on 67P (Nov 2014)
How (and where) is Philae? (Nov 2014)
Science Update – 11 November: Three months at the Comet (Nov 2014)
Agilkia? Agilkia! (Nov 2014)
Naming Philae – An interview with 2004 contest winner Serena Olga Vismara (Oct 2014)
Klim Churyumov and Svetlana Gerasimenko: meet the discoverers of Rosetta’s comet (Oct 2014)
NAVCAM's shades of grey (Oct 2014) - also featured on the Planetary Society blog
Observing comet 67P/C-G with the Very Large Telescope (Sept 2014)
First science highlights from the Rosetta mission (Aug 2014)
It’s science time! – cont’d
Some of the instruments on board Rosetta have already started to produce scientific results. During yesterday's afternoon session at ESOC, Darmstadt, we heard about these from the principal investigators of VIRTIS, MIRO and OSIRIS.
The naming of comets (JUST FOR FUN! June 2014)
Let's admit it now. It took us a while but we finally all succeeded and memorised the name of Rosetta's comet: 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. 67P/C-G will work too, especially if you're in a hurry. But why is it called this? In fact, what's the origin of any comet's name? (scroll all the way down to read the poem!!)
NEWS ARTICLES ABOUT ASTRONOMY & SPACE SCIENCE:
2015
Black hole caught feasting on a star (Oct 2015)
LISA Pathfinder set for launch site (Sept 2015)
Gaia's first year of scientific observations (Aug 2015)
The tumultuous heart of our Galaxy (Aug 2015)
Counting stars with Gaia (July 2015)
Monster black hole wakes up after 26 years (June 2015)
&& in depth: Herschel's hunt for filaments in the Milky Way (May 2015)
Black hole winds pull the plug on star formation
&& in depth: How black holes clear galaxies of star-making gas (March 2015)
Widespread wind from black hole can shape star formation (Feb 2015)
Planck reveals first stars were born late (Feb 2015)
Planck: gravitational waves remain elusive (Jan 2015)
2014
Farewell J, hello Agilkia! (Nov 2015)
Gaia discovers its first supernova (Sept 2015)
Rosetta arrival competition winners (Aug 2015)
Young sun's violent history solves meteorite mystery (July 2014)
Puzzling X-rays point to dark matter (June 2014)
Cosmic collision in the Bullet Group (June 2014)
The colourful blob in this new composite image, based on data from several telescopes including ESA's XMM-Newton, is the group of galaxies known as the Bullet Group. Its components appear to be clearly separated, with the hot gas partitioned from the rest of the mass within the group. This is the smallest object ever found to show such an effect, which was caused by a merger in the group's past.
2013
Herschel spies active argon in Crab Nebula (Dec 2013)
Black hole boasts heavyweight jets (Nov 2013)
Astronomers studying a black hole in our Galaxy with ESA's XMM-Newton observatory have made a surprising discovery about the cocktail of particles that are ejected from its surroundings.
Weakling magnetar reveals hidden strength (Aug 2013)
Astronomers using ESA's XMM-Newton have measured the magnetic field in a small surface feature of a magnetar - a highly magnetised pulsar - for the first time. The discovery yields conclusive proof that magnetars conceal some of the strongest magnetic fields in the Universe.
Scientists have confirmed the presence of PAHs - Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons - in the upper atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. The study provides an explanation of the origin of the aerosol particles found in the lowest haze layer that blankets Titan's surface.
Herschel reveals the Milky Way's warm heart (May 2013)
What heats gas near supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies? Astronomers have looked at the centre of our Galaxy, the Milky Way, with ESA's Herschel Space Observatory and discovered a rich variety of molecules at surprisingly high temperatures -- up to 1000 K.
Cluster finds source of aurora energy boost (Apr 2012)
A new study has revealed that bursty bulk flows - fast streams of plasma launched towards Earth during magnetic substorms - are more important than previously thought and can carry one third of the total energy that brightens aurorae.
ESA's Planck satellite has delivered its first all-sky image of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), bringing with it new challenges about our understanding of the origin and evolution of the cosmos. The image has provided the most precise picture of the early Universe so far.
The effects of supermassive black holes on their host galaxies pose a tricky puzzle: are blackholes able to influence, and possibly even suppress, star-formation activity on galactic scales? The only certainty so far is that it remains a vexed question.
2012
Greedy black hole discovered in Andromeda (Dec 2012)
Studying the Andromeda galaxy with XMM-Newton, astronomers have discovered a black hole accreting mass at very high rate. This allowed them to study the link between disc and jets around a black hole at the peak of its accretion activity.
Astronomers have discovered a 'bridge' of hot gas connecting the galaxy clusters Abell 399 and 401. At least part of this gas might derive from the warm-hot intergalactic medium – the elusive web of gaseous filaments pervading the Universe.
INTEGRAL celebrates a decade of discoveries (Oct 2012)
ESA's INTEGRAL mission is celebrating the tenth anniversary of its launch and almost a decade of scanning the high-energy sky. The mission has shed new light on several classes of astronomical sources, galactic and extragalactic alike.
Astronomers studying the galaxy NGC 4151 have detected X-rays emitted and then reflected from the vicinity of the supermassive black hole at the galaxy's core, thus revealing the black hole's vicinity in unprecedented detail.
New Herschel images reveal the debris disc around the star Fomalhaut in its full glory. By probing the glow of dust in the disc, these data suggest that it consists of 'fluffy' aggregates of dust grains produced by cometary collisions.
2011
Astronomers have used XMM-Newton and other telescopes to uncover an unusually slow X-ray pulsar still nestled in the remains of the supernova that created it.
Venus Express' discovery of a tenuous layer of ozone in the atmosphere of Venus poses new challenges to the chemical characterisation of planetary atmospheres.
Herschel has detected water in a huge torus around Saturn, which is supplied by its moon Enceladus and, in part, precipitates into the atmosphere of Saturn. This is the first example in the Solar System, of a moon influencing its planet's atmosphere.
Stardust in our backyard provides new clues to galaxy evolution (Jul 2011)
Neutron star caught feasting on clump of stellar matter (Jun 2011)
CoRoT's new detections highlight diversity of exoplanets (Jun 2011)
Michael Perryman awarded prestigious Tycho Brahe Prize (Jun 2011)
Caught in the act by Herschel: galactic storms sweep away the gas (May 2011)
Herschel unravels the thread of star formation in the Gould Belt (Apr 2011)
An intricate network of filamentary structure, exposed in extraordinary detail by Herschel, has provided new evidence for how stars form from the diffuse interstellar medium.
INTEGRAL discovers gamma rays originating from black hole jets (Mar 2011)
Astronomers using data from XMM-Newton and other observatories have discovered the most distant, mature galaxy cluster yet. The cluster is seen as it was when the Universe was a quarter of its current age and shows that fully-grown galaxy clusters were already in place this early in cosmic history.
Herschel quantifies the dark matter threshold for starburst galaxies (Feb 2011)
The Crab Nebula: standard candle no more? (Jan 2011)
Planck sees traces of early structure formation in the cosmic infrared background (Jan 2011)
Planck sees new, mysterious components in Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds (Jan 2011)
With its power to detect cosmic material at unprecedentedly low temperatures, Planck has completed the first unbiased, all-sky survey of compact cold and dusty objects in the Milky Way, allowing astronomers to shed new light on the earliest phases of star formation.
Planck's successful hunt probes galaxy clusters on very broad mass range (Jan 2011)
Planck's first science results and the release of an extensive compact source catalogue (Jan 2011)
2010
Images from the Hubble Space Telescope and a rare view obtained, from a unique perspective, by the Rosetta spacecraft provide a comprehensive picture of P/2010 A2, a puzzling body in the asteroid main belt – most likely the remnant of an asteroid crash that happened only one and a half years ago.
Herschel has detected water vapour in a location previously thought to be impossible - in the atmosphere of an ageing, red giant carbon star. The rich and detailed data provided by Herschel can be explained within a new framework in which ultraviolet photons play a key role.
An all-sky image from Planck's recently completed first survey highlights the two major emission sources in the microwave sky: the cosmic background and the Milky Way. These two components are of immense value for cosmologists and astrophysicists, alike.
XMM-Newton line detection provides new tool to probe extreme gravity (Jun 2010)
CoRoT unveils a rich assortment of new exoplanets (Jun 2010)
Novel observing mode on XMM-Newton opens new perspectives on galaxy clusters (May 2010)
ESA International Research Fellow awarded gold medal by the Russian Academy of Sciences (May 2010)
Herschel's HIFI follows the trail of cosmic water (May 2010)
Herschel unveils rare massive stars in the act of forming (May 2010)New images from Herschel reveal high-mass protostars around two ionised regions in our Galaxy. The detection of these rare stars in an early phase of evolution is key to understanding the mysterious formation of massive stars.
Herschel reveals galaxies in the GOODS fields in a brand new light (May 2010)
IMAGE RELEASES & SPACE SCIENCE IMAGE OF THE WEEK:
The Magellanic Clouds and an interstellar filament (Sept 2015)
LISA Pathfinder launch sequence (Sept 2015)
Comet on 6 August 2014 and 6 August 2015 (Aug 2015)
Born-again planetary nebula (July 2015)
Comet activity, 21 June (June 2015)
LISA Pathfinder electrode housing box (June 2015)
Stars forming in the Taurus Molecular Cloud (June 2015)
XMM-Newton self-portraits with planet Earth (May 2015)
Star formation and magnetic turbulence in the Orion Molecular Cloud (May 2015)
Multicoloured view of supernova remnant (Dec 2014)
The magnetic field along the Galactic Plane (Dec 2014)
Rosetta comet observed with Very Large Telescope (Sept 2014)
Magnetar discovered close to supernova remnant Kesteven 79 (Aug 2014)
Handover of the Gaia flag to mark start of science operations (Aug 2014)
Nearby M33 galaxy blossoming with star birth (July 2014)
From oldest to youngest: a line of star nurseries (June 2014)
Pulsar encased in supernova bubble (June 2014)
Glowing jewels in the Galactic Plane (Apr 2014)
An X-ray view of the COSMOS field (Apr 2014)
Star-forming region ON2 (Mar 2014)
Star factory NGC 7538 (Mar 2014)
Where's Gaia? (Feb 2014)
The flood after the impact (Feb 2014)
The whirl of stellar life (Jan 2014)
The abstract science of the dynamic Sun (Jan 2014)
Hot gas sloshing in a galactic cauldron (Nov 2013)
Shapley Supercluster (Oct 2013)
A Horsehead, a Flame and hidden gems in Orion B (image release; Apr 2012)
A Herschel image of the Orion B molecular cloud reveals the glow from several star-forming regions nestled in the tangled web of filaments. The cloud's most notable feature - the Horsehead Nebula - is highlighted in an image from Hubble.
Herschel and XMM-Newton images of supernova remnant W44 are combined to illustrate its shell-like structure filled with hot gas. This complex morphology has been shaped by the remnant's interaction with its parent molecular cloud.
This Herschel image of glowing clouds of gas and dust in the Carina Nebula complex reveals the impact of winds and radiation from massive stars on the production of new generations of stars.
How massive stars sculpt a cosmic crib (May 2012)
Centaurus A's far-reaching jets (Apr 2012)
A new image of the iconic Centaurus A galaxy – combining the far-infrared view from Herschel and the X-ray view from XMM-Newton – highlights the complex interaction between the powerful jets stemming from the core of the galaxy and the diffuse medium that surrounds it.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ARTICLES:
A series of short questions and answers designed to equip you with background information on key cosmological topics addressed by the Planck science releases, ranging from the cosmic microwave background and the distribution of matter in the Universe to inflation and the history of cosmic structure formation.
Hunting Galaxy Clusters with Planck - the SZ effect
As the photons of the Cosmic Microwave Background traverse the Universe, they encounter galaxy clusters: the hot, ionised gas permeating these huge cosmic structures interacts with the photons and modifies their energy distribution in a characteristic way. This phenomenon, known as the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect, represents a powerful tool for detecting galaxy clusters out to high redshift.
Every object with a temperature above absolute zero emits electromagnetic radiation over virtually all wavelengths. This results from the tiny random motions of particles, atoms and molecules, in the object, which can be described by a thermal energy and thus define the object’s temperature. The amount of radiation emitted at each wavelength depends only on the object's temperature and not on any other property of the object.
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