It’s been a busy year for the Europlanet community to date, as we build on 20 years of European funding to become a fully self-sustaining association to support the planetary science community. ‘In Focus’ gives a digest of recent news and events.
Europlanet News | Community News
Joint Meeting of Europlanet and Division for Planetary Sciences (EPSC-DPS) 2025
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Nearly 2000 planetary scientists will gather from 07-12 September 2025 at Finlandia Hall, Helsinki, Finland for the joint meeting of the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) and the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society.
Europlanet combined forces with the DPS for the first time in 2011 with a highly successful joint meeting in Nantes, France, attended by 1532 participants. The 2011 event was followed by a DPS-led joint meeting in Pasadena, California in 2016, the EPSC-DPS 2019 meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, and a return to the States for the DPS-EPSC 2023 in San Antonio, Texas. The 2025 event is expected to be the biggest planetary meeting held in Europe to date.
The joint meetings not only connect the European and US planetary science communities, but also consolidate two major events and encourage planetary scientists from all over the globe to attend. In 2024, Europlanet and the DPS signed a Memorandum of Understanding that formalises their joint endeavours for the advancement of planetary science and sets out shared benefits for the members of both societies.
EPSC-DPS2025 covers the full spectrum of planetary research and technology across 74 scientific sessions. The programme of oral and poster sessions is supplemented by keynotes, debates and community events, including activities to support early career researchers. Outreach activities include ‘EPSC-DPS2025 Goes Live for Schools’, which connects conference participants with high schools in the Helsinki area.
EPSC-DPS2025 will be fully hybrid, with opportunities for virtual participation in all standard scientific sessions. Recordings of sessions will remain accessible to participants for one year after the congress.
www.epsc-dps2025.eu
Venues for EPSC in 2026 and 2027
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The Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) Executive Committee has selected the hosts for the next two EPSC events.
EPSC2026 will be hosted at the Amare venue in The Hague, Netherlands from 6-11 September 2026. The co-chairs of the Local Organising Committee (LOC) will be Sebastiaan de Vet (TU Delft) and Inge Loes ten Kate (Utrecht University).
EPSC2027 will be hosted at the Pierre Baudis Congress Centre in Toulouse, France from 19-24 September 2027. The LOC will be chaired by Nicolas André (Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie).
New Organisational Membership of Europlanet
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For almost 20 years, Europlanet has been supported by a series of grants from the European Commission (EC), through which it has developed a broad range of infrastructure and services to support the planetary science community. To make these activities sustainable, Europlanet established a society for individual members in 2018 and a non-profit association in 2023. With over 500 individual members in 2025, Europlanet is a growing and dynamic community.
Read article in the fully formatted PDF of the Europlanet Magazine.
EPEC Annual Week 2025
The 7th edition of the Europlanet Early Careers (EPEC) Annual Week took place at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Berlin from 19 – 23 May 2025. EPEC Annual week is a conference exclusively catered to early careers, and is an opportunity for participants to get to know each other and strengthen their connections with the international science community. The programme for EPEC Annual Week 2025 consisted of talks from invited speakers on science, industry, the European Space Agency (ESA), missions and techniques. This year’s event brought together over 45 participants. More about EPEC and Annual Week can be found in this issue and the EPEC webpages.
Read article in the fully formatted PDF of the Europlanet Magazine.
Europlanet Teams Day
The first Europlanet Teams Day took place on 7 May 2025. The online meeting was a space to explore the different ways to contribute to Europlanet, how to become more involved, and what Europlanet could do for its membership in the future. Themed around fast-paced, interactive activities and breakout sessions with the Regional Hubs, Committees and Working Groups, Europlanet Teams Day was attended by 47 people. Following the success of the event, Europlanet aims to hold regular Teams Days to get the community talking and working together. The next Europlanet Teams Day will take place on Wednesday, 12 November.
Juice Science Webinar Series
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Europlanet hosts webinars on the last Tuesday of every month on topics ranging from careers to scientific techniques and services. The European Space Agency (ESA) Juice mission team has also joined forces with Europlanet to host a quarterly series of webinars with a special focus on Juice. Other opportunities for discussion include a monthly science hangout, where members of the community can talk about their work in an informal way to encourage networking and collaboration. You can also join the Io voice channel on the Europlanet Discord server every Friday to catch up on all things Europlanet in a relaxed setting.
Europlanet Transnational Access Pilot Programme 2025
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Europlanet has launched a new Transnational Access (TA) programme for its membership. The programme enables researchers to visit participating facilities and make use of laboratories for the simulation or characterisation of planetary conditions and materials. The new scheme builds on the legacy of past programmes funded by the European Commission, and aims to offer the community sustainable access to facilities. A pilot call in the first part of 2025 offered access to eight facilities in five internationally renowned research centres in Europe, as well as six facilities in South Korea. Five visits were awarded, with the programme supporting all travel and local accommodation costs for participating researchers. A report on the pilot programme and visits, which took place from May-July 2025, will be presented at the EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting in Helsinki from 7-12 September 2025.
A full TA programme will be launched in the autumn of 2025, offering members access to a wider range of facilities. Find out more
Europlanet Joins EOSC and European Astronomical Society
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In a step towards developing strategic collaborations, Europlanet has joined two European organisations in 2025.
The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) aims to develop a multi-disciplinary environment where researchers can publish, find and re-use data, tools and services, enabling them to better conduct their work. In recent years, Europlanet has had Observer status through the European Science Foundation. On 27 May, the Europlanet association was voted into the EOSC Association (EOSC-A) family as an Observer in its own right. The membership of EOSC-A now stands at 255 organisations, comprising 158 Members and 97 Observers.
Europlanet has also joined the European Astronomical Society (EAS) as an Affiliate Organisational Member. Its membership was approved at the EAS Council Meeting in May 2025. Joining the EAS not only offers Europlanet benefits around the EAS Annual Meeting and opportunities to disseminate activities to EAS members, but also opens up the potential for discussions on collaborations between the two organisations
Europlanet Survey – Have Your Say
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We have launched a 2-minute survey to gather feedback on Europlanet’s community services. We invite you to share your thoughts about the current portfolio of services, and help us workshop additional services that we can offer in the next year or two. Start the survey
Europlanet Medals
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Europlanet has launched a new annual set of awards. The Europlanet Career Medals are an opportunity to honour outstanding contributions by individuals to the thematic areas of science covered by the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC). One Europlanet Medal is awarded in each of the categories: Early-Career, Mid-Career and Lifetime Achievement. The categories are based on the scientific age of a researcher at time of nomination, which is calculated from the year of the last degree in scientific education (MSc, PhD) without counting parental leave, health leave, or time working primarily outside science. The Europlanet Mid-Career Medal will continue to honour the memory of Paolo Farinella, in whose name the Paolo Farinella Prize was formerly awarded (see below). Each Europlanet Medal winner receives a plaque and a registration waiver for the EPSC-DPS 2025 Joint Meeting in Helsinki where they will give a medal lecture.
Winners of the 2025 Europlanet Medals
Early-Career Medal:
Tim Lichtenberg
Mid-Career Medal:
Benoit Carry
Lifetime Achievement:
Jean Schneider
Read the press release announcing the winners.
Europlanet Future Research Group has also interviewed Tim Lichtenberg, the Early-Career Medallist: Exoplanets and Planetary Science: Two Different Worlds?
Iberian Awards for Best Thesis
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The Europlanet Spain-Portugal Hub has announced the winners of this year’s Europlanet Iberian awards for best thesis in the field of planetary sciences and exploration. The Abraham Zacut Prize for best PhD thesis has been awarded to Eloy Peña Asensio. The Pedro Nunes Prize for best Master’s thesis has been awarded jointly to Yuri Damasceno and Rafael Silva.
Europlanet Prize for Public Engagement 2025
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The Europlanet Prize for Public Engagement 2025 has been awarded to Red de Estudiantes Colombianos en Astronomía (RECA) Educación, a Colombian non-profit network that brings together scientists and educators with the shared mission to bring science and astronomy, with a strong emphasis on planetary science, to schools and communities all over Colombia.
Farinella Prize 2024
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The Paolo Farinella Prize 2024 was awarded to Ravit Helled (University of Zurich, Switzerland) for her outstanding contributions to research into ‘The Internal Structure of Planetary Bodies: Clues on Formation Processes of the Solar System’. The award ceremony and prize lecture were held in Berlin at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) on 9 September 2024.
Established to honour the memory of the Italian scientist Paolo Farinella (1953-2000), each edition of the prize, awarded annually from 2011-2024 with support from Europlanet, focused on a different area of Farinella’s research. In 2024, the topic covered theoretical, modelling, experimental and observational work on the internal structure of Solar System bodies.
Europlanet Committee Funding Scheme Awards 2025
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A scheme by Europlanet to support funding proposals of €1000 to €5000 from its Regional Hubs, Committees, Working Groups and Members has approved six projects in 2025:
- €3500 – “Lights, Camera, Early- Career Scientists in Action!” This series of six 60-second videos highlights early-career scientists through an ‘elevator-pitch’ describing their research and another short film in which they share their experiences. Participants received training in on-camera presence and effective communication. (Submitted by the France Hub.)
- €5000 – Open University Crew Mission to Mars Desert Research Station. A group of early-career researchers from The Open University have been funded to become analogue astronauts for two weeks as part of the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) crew mission in late Autumn 2025. (Submitted by the Ireland-UK Hub.)
- €5000 – Iberian Planetary Science & Solar System Exploration Congress. Europlanet funding supported the organisation of the VIII Iberian Planetary Science & Solar System Exploration Congress (CPESS-8), which took place in Malaga from 26-30 May 2025. The congress was organised by the Spain-Portugal Hub of Europlanet in collaboration with the University of Malaga. Along with discussions on the status of planetary sciences in Spain and Portugal, the meeting focused on opportunities for scientific, technological and industrial collaborations at an international level, in particular with Latin America. (Submitted by the Spain-Portugal Hub.)
- €5000 – Mercury Laboratory Workshop 2025. Europlanet funding is supporting a workshop for the Mercury Laboratory Community, which consists of researchers working with experiments linked to the planet Mercury and to the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission. The workshop, which will take place from 18-20 September 2025, will involve multiple planetary science laboratories and support European collaboration and the development of international links with the US and Japan. (Submitted by the Northern Hub.)
- €4457 – Defining Wet-Dry Cycles and the Impact of Desiccation in Temporal Mars Analogue Environments. This collaboration by an international team of researchers, from Spain, Turkey, Bulgaria and the UK will sample small, seasonal lagoons in Toledo that are chemical analogues for Noachian Mars and potentially undergoing desiccation. The sampling will allow the team to study the potential causes of desiccation and further understanding of the desiccation on Mars. As well as a planned publication, results will be disseminated through a series of videos, particularly targeting earlycareer scientists in Turkey, and a Café Scientifique in Madrid in November. (Submitted by the Ireland-UK Hub.)
- €5000 – Survivors of the Extreme: Tardigrades and the Quest for Extraterrestrial Life. A workshop and field trip, held in September 2025 at the Molėtai Astronomical Observatory in Lithuania, will provide an introduction to the fascinating world of tardigrades. Through a combination of lectures and hands-on activities, participants will explore the biology of these microorganisms, known for their ability to survive extreme conditions, and discuss their role in astrobiological research and the search for extraterrestrial life. Students from Lithuania and the Northern Europe Hub will participate in person, with an unlimited number of participants able to join the workshop online. (Submitted by the Northern Hub.)
Swiss Hub Funding
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The Europlanet Switzerland Hub has used its discretionary fund in 2024 and 2025 to support three projects to develop the planetary sciences community in and around Switzerland.
In the 2024 round, Astronomy on Tap (AoT) Zurich received €350 funding to hold two events in a local bar, during which participants could enjoy interactive talks, discussions and pub quizzes on space topics in a relaxed environment. With the launch of its AoT chapter in September 2024, Zurich has become the third Swiss city to join the worldwide AoT community, which organises public events on space and astronomy topics in dozens of locations across the globe.
The project ‘Les étoiles du Petit Prince’ (Stars of the Little Prince) was also funded with €500 in 2024. A team of scientists from Switzerland, France and Morocco followed in the tracks of author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry across the Moroccan desert by truck and plane. Along the way, they made regular stops for planetary-related outreach events with local communities.
In the 2025 call, Parastoo Ghaznavi, a PhD candidate at the University of Bern, received €650 support to analyse potential meteorites collected in the Iranian deserts. Out of the ten potential meteorites collected, seven were characterised as actual meteorites (specifically ordinary chondrites). This result, soon to be submitted to the Meteoritical Society, opens up a new source of meteorites for the worldwide community.
EPEC Co-Chair – Nimisha Verma
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Nimisha Verma has joined Jessie Hogan as co-chair of the Europlanet Early Career (EPEC) Network, taking on the mantle from Melissa Mirino, who had been in the post since 2023.
Nimisha is a second-year PhD candidate at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Berlin and part of the MERTIS Team for BepiColombo. In her PhD, she combines geology with computer science to study the surface of planet Mercury. She became actively involved with Europlanet in 2024 through the local organising team of EPSC 2024 in Berlin and participating in EPEC Annual Week. Nimisha is also co-chair of the Machine Learning Working Group.
Under Jessie and Nimisha’s stewardship, EPEC has been undergoing a transformation.
Major Grant for Europlanet-Supported Facility at Atomki
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Two facilities developed under the Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure project at Atomki, the Hungarian Institute for Nuclear Research, have been included in a major national grant from the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA). The Ice Chamber for Astrophysics/Astrochemistry (ICA) uses ions of different species and charge states produced by the Atomki Tandetron accelerator to investigate the ion irradiation in interstellar and Solar System ice analogues. The Atomki Queens University Ice chamber for Laboratory Astrochemisty (AQUILA) uses multiple positive and negative ions of different species and charge states produced by the Atomki Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Source (ATOMKI-ECRIS) to simulate galactic cosmic rays and stellar winds.
The new project, entitled ‘Laboratory Investigation of Astrophysically Relevant Ices and Other Materials’, will use the facilities to study physical and chemical changes induced by the ionising radiation in ices found in the interstellar medium and on planetary/lunar surfaces, as well as materials tested for potential use in lunar-based structures. The grant supports two postdoctoral positions and PhD students over the next four years.
The facilities are also open to international users as part of the Atomki Solar Wind Simulator (SOWS) facility and through Europlanet’s Transnational Access Programme.
Chair of Central Europe Hub
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Akos Kereszturi (DSc) has taken up the role of Chair of the Europlanet Central Europe Hub. Akos is a Hungarian planetary geologist working at the Konkoly Thege Miklós Astronomical Institute of the HUN-REN Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences. His main fields of research are surface analyses of the Moon, Mars, Venus, asteroids and other bodies, laboratory analysis of meteorites, and various astrobiology-related topics, especially on the occurrence of liquid water and estimation of habitability. He also works on Mars analogue field sites and on the planning of robotic missions, contributing to the Comet Interceptor, Franklin Rosalind ExoMars rover and HERA missions. He has been the EPSC Scientific Organising Committee (SOC) co-chair since 2021 and will finish his term at the EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting in September 2025.
Akos leads the Astrophysical and Geochemical Laboratory at his home institute and teaches at the Eotvos Lorand University of Sciences in Budapest, as well as doing public engagement as the President of the Hungarian Astronomical Association. He is deeply interested in supporting planetary science communities and activities in eastern Europe, in particular by highlighting funding opportunities and establishing connections with institutes in western Europe and with the European Space Agency. He follows Andrea Opitz as the Central Europe Hub Chair.
Sabadell Astronomy Convention
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The 26th Biannual Astronomy Convention of the Sabadell Astronomical Group took place from 14-16 March 2025. The first in-person edition of the event since the pandemic, it attracted nearly 150 people. The congress is organised by the Sabadell Astronomical Association, with the support and collaboration of the Federación de Asociaciones Astronómicas de España (FAAE), the Sociedad Española de Astroniomía (SEA) and the Institute of Cosmos Science at Barcelona University (ICCUB). The biannual event welcomes members of the Sabadell Association and other Spanish amateur astronomers. The programme includes presentations from participants and promotes Pro Am collaboration through the participation of several professional invited speakers. The 26th Astronomical Convention covered topics including astrophotography, spectroscopy, photometry, heliophysics, exoplanets and opportunities to observe with the Europlanet Telescope Network.
Distributed Research Infrastructures Workshop
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A two-day forum on Roadmapping Distributed Research Infrastructures in Europe took place on 9-10 June 2025 at the SOLARIS National Synchrotron Radiation Centre in Krakow, Poland. The event was co-organised by SOLARIS, the European Science Foundation (ESF) and Europlanet. The meeting included a discussion of a White Paper on the role and importance of small to medium-sized Distributed Research Infrastructures (DRI) in sustaining European research competitiveness. It also provided an opportunity to present challenges and opportunities for developing facilities and laboratories in parts of Europe where there are currently fewer research infrastructures. The two-day meeting, which preceded a meeting of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI), built on a series of events focused on small and medium DRI networks in Europe. Find out more
Workshops in Colombia
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The first Europlanet Planetary Science Workshop in Colombia took place from 3-6 June 2025. The workshop’s programme featured a hybrid section, accessible to in-person and online participants, with introductory talks on planetary science, followed by presentations by Colombian and Latin American researchers on various related topics. The second part of the workshop, for on-site participants at the National University of Colombia in Bogotá, consisted of practical sessions on using planetary surface data and mapping. Europlanet was also represented at a workshop on Astrochemistry and Astrobiology held at the Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia from 23-25 April 2025. Organisers and participants from both workshops are now working towards establishing a Europlanet Regional Hub in Colombia.
More about the workshops:
bit.ly/EuroplanetWorkshopColombia
bit.ly/AstrochemistryColombia
Arctic Analogue for Enceladus
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A paper has been published in the journal Planetary and Space Science with the results of an investigation supported through a Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure (RI) Expert Exchange visit. Methane-rich emissions along the seafloor of the Arctic mid-oceanic ridge may represent analogues of hydrothermal vents on Enceladus. The study investigated whether geochemical biosignatures associated with these emissions could be detected in Arctic ice and seawater samples using techniques similar to those likely to be utilised in future missions to Enceladus. Results showed that, although no unequivocal evidence of methane was detected in the samples, other indicators, including the isotopic composition of carbon in CO2 and oxygen in water vapour, could be measured successfully. Lead author, Fulvio Franchi, from the Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST), visited Zoltán Juhász at HUN-REN Atomki in Debrecen to analyse samples of arctic seawater. During the visit, he also received training on how to run a successful spectral facility, which supported him in the development of a spectroscopy laboratory at BIUST in Botswana.
The GMAP JupyterHub Collaborative Online Environment
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The Europlanet Geologic Mapping (GMAP) team has published a paper describing how a web-based interface, created on JupyterHub, provides an environment where users can process data, develop workflows and collaborate to create maps from planetary mission data.
GMAP provides resources and tools for the creation of maps and products to support upcoming space missions (e.g. for landing site selection, hazard evaluation and resource identification). The maps are produced using GIS tools and software to study and display planetary surfaces. Open to both researchers and the public, they are a valuable resource for education and research in planetary science. The GMAP JupyterHub centralises access to essential tools developed by NASA and the US Geological Survey (USGS) for image processing and Digital Terrain Model (DTM) creation. All the necessary programs and libraries are bundled in Docker containers, so users can access a consistent work environment through a web browser. This integration of tools in a collaborative online space makes it easy for teams and even novice users to share data, scripts and results, and ensures compliance with the Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) principles.
The paper, led by Giacomo Nodojumi of the Italian Space Agency’s Solar System Data Center (SSDC), is published in the journal Earth and Space Sciences. It reports on applications of GMAP JupyterHub in studies by mappers using data from different missions, including the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC), the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) Context Camera (CTX), and the Chandraayan-1 Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3). Results from a study combining LROC and M3 data are featured in the MoonIndex article in this issue. Ongoing work at the SSDC aims to fully deploy the Europlanet GMAP JupyterHub by the end of 2025.
https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EA004251
