Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale

The first PILOT flight was a success!

10 years 1 month ago

The stratospheric balloon carrying the PILOT instrument was launched from Timmins in Canada at 9 pm (local time) on Sunday, September 20th. The gondola, weighting more than a ton, the heaviest the CNES took in the last 25 years, was lifted by a stratospheric balloon of 800.000 m3 and reached the altitude of 39.500 m after 3 hours of ascent. After a last transfer of helium carried out just before take-off, the detectors reached nominally their operating temperature of 320 mK when the balloon reached its flight ceiling, and the scientific observations could then start.

Success for the first flight of the CLASP solar spectropolarimeter

10 years 1 month ago

The CLASP instrument (Chromospheric Lyman Alpha Spectropolarimeter) was successfully launched by a sounding rocket on September 3, 2015 at 17H UT from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The suborbital flight was nominal. The instrument went nominally through its observing program and the data quality is superb.

What’s the matter with Galaxy Clusters ?

10 years 1 month ago

To reconcile the standard cosmological model with the X-ray measured number of galaxy clusters, a team of French scientists has shown that the cluster masses should be increased by 70% compared to current estimates. These results follow the conclusions obtained by the Planck mission in 2013 from observations of galaxy clusters in the microwave domain. This huge difference is intriguing: either our understanding of the physics of galaxy clusters needs to be revised, or the standard cosmological model is incomplete.

"Fête de la Science" at IAS

10 years 1 month ago

IAS is participating to the national open lab day "Fête de la Science" in the week of the 5th of October. After visits by students from several schools, the laboratory will be open for the general public on Sunday the 11th of October, from 2 to 6PM.
Here is the programme of activities and talks (in French) during this afternoon:

Do anhydrous interplanetary dust particles originate from icy asteroids?

10 years 4 months ago

The interplanetary dust particles commonly called IDPs are micrometric extraterrestrial grains (typical size of ten microns). They are collected by NASA’s stratospheric aircrafts (at an altitude of ~ 25 km). Their origin asteroidal and/or cometary has always been a subject of investigation. In recent years we have conducted a systematic analysis of IDPs using infrared micro-spectroscopy through a collaboration with the SMIS beamline at the SOLEIL synchrotron. This work reveals, in one hand, the connection between asteroids/comets and extraterrestrial material collected for laboratory studies, and gives in another hand, valuable information on the relationship between organic matter and mineral phases probably due to physical and chemical processes in the primitive nebula.

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Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale

Astrochemistry and Origins

Interstellar Matter and Cosmology

Stellar and Solar Physics

Solar and Planetary Systems

The first PILOT flight was a success!

Success for the first flight of the CLASP solar spectropolarimeter

What’s the matter with Galaxy Clusters ?

"Fête de la Science" at IAS

Do anhydrous interplanetary dust particles originate from icy asteroids?

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