The Institut d'Astronomie et d'Astrophysique in the media
[12/08/2020] La conquête spatiale, un enjeu géopolitique? Mag international, LN24 (Alain Jorissen)
[27/05/2020] About SpaceX and Starlink Le grand débat, LN24 (Alain Jorissen)
[21/05/2019] Alain Jorissen, Pint of Science
Festival Pint of Science in Brussels, about Gaia, the billion-star surveyor, live on Facebook
[12/04/2018] Sophie van Eck, la chasseuse belge d’étoiles
Astrophysicienne à l’ULB où elle enseigne actuellement à la faculté des sciences et anciennement chercheuse qualifiée FNRS pendant 20 ans, Sophie Van Eck a participé à une découverte capitale concernant une étoile géante située à 530 années lumière de notre planète, dans la Constellation de la Grue. Elle a eu le privilège d’avoir accès aux télescopes de l’Observatoire Européen Austral au Chili.
[23/2/2017] Comment on the 7-planets discovery
[12/1/2016] Parallax and masses of alpha Centauri revisited
- Le Vif, January 12, 2016
- Daily Science, January 12, 2016
- Preprint of the paper to appear in Astronomy & Astrophysics
[8/1/2015] The temperature and chronology of heavy-element synthesis in low-mass stars


- La Libre Belgique, 8 janvier 2015
- Dossier La Libre Belgique, 8 janvier 2015
- Daily science
- Le Soir, 10 janvier 2015
- L'Avenir
- RTL Info
- 7 sur 7
- phys.org
- De Standaard
- Science Daily
- RTBF
- Brussels times
- De redactie.be (VRT)
- La Dernière Heure
- Panorama News
- Metro
- cubiclane
- Municipio Sur (Mexico)
- Publico.es (Madrid)
[24/11/2014] Seeing into the Heart of Mira A and its Partner

Mira A is an old star, already starting to throw out the products of its life’s work into space for recycling. Mira A’s companion, known as Mira B, orbits it at twice the distance from the Sun to Neptune.
Mira A is known to have a slow wind which gently moulds the surrounding material. ALMA has now confirmed that Mira’s companion is a very different kind of star, with a very different wind. Mira B is a hot, dense white dwarf with a fierce and fast stellar wind.
New observations show how the winds from the two stars have created a fascinating, beautiful and complex nebula. The remarkable heart-shaped bubble at the centre is created by Mira B’s energetic wind inside Mira A’s more relaxed outflow. The heart, which formed some time in the last 400 years or so, and the rest of the gas surrounding the pair show that they have long been building this strange and beautiful environment together.
By looking at stars like Mira A and Mira B scientists hope to discover how our galaxy’s double stars differ from single stars in how they give back what they have created to the Milky Way’s stellar ecosystem. Despite their distance from one another, Mira A and its companion have had a strong effect on one another and demonstrate how double stars can influence their environments and leave clues for scientists to decipher.
Other old and dying stars also have bizarre surroundings, as astronomers have seen using both ALMA and other telescopes. But it’s not always clear whether the stars are single, like the Sun, or double, like Mira. Mira A, its mysterious partner and their heart-shaped bubble are all part of this story.
The new observations of Mira A and its partner are presented in this paper published in the European Journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, including authors A. Jorissen and C. Paladini from IAA-ULB.
They complement the previous study made by the same team with the Herschel satellite.
Credit:
ESO/S. Ramstedt (Uppsala University, Sweden) & W. Vlemmings (Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden)
[1/6/2011] A cosmic firewheel blown by the wind


Astronomy & Astrophysics Letter, 2011, 531, L4
Panel (a): Deconvolved PACS/Herschel image at 70 µm. The arrow indicates the space motion and the position in 500 yrs; (b) is the same for the 160 µm band and (c) is the 70 µm deconvolved PACS image with contours and arcs labelled as A, B, C, D and E. The lowest contour is the 3σ threshold (and is depicted in white), the arrow labelled with Vspace shows the direction of the space motion, the bar labelled PA orbit gives the orientation of the major axis of the apparent orbit, orthogonal to the node line. Panel (d) results from a paraboloidal cut (representing the bow shock at the wind - ISM interface) in Mira hydrodynamical simulations of Mohamed & Podsiadlowski (2007, 2011).
[24/1/2013] Plumbing Neutron Stars to New Depths

- CERN courier
- Science news
- IdW
- APS Physics Synopsis
- "Plumbing Neutron Stars to New Depths with the Binding Energy of the Exotic Nuclide 82Zn", 2013 Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 041101
[2/1/2013] "Glitch" in Pulsar's Models

[9/11/2011] Cosmic Crashes Forging Gold

The cosmic site where the heaviest chemical elements such as lead or gold are formed is likely to be identified: Ejected matter from neutron stars merging in a violent collision provides ideal conditions. In detailed numerical simulations, scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA) and of the Free University of Brussels (ULB) have verified that the relevant reactions of atomic nuclei do take place in this environment, producing the heaviest elements in the correct abundances.
- MPA Press release
- Astronomy Picture of the Day
- Stephane Goriely, Andreas Bauswein and Hans-Thomas Janka,
"r-process nucleosynthesis in dynamically ejected matter of neutron star mergers", 2011 ApJ 738 L32 - Astronomy Magazine
- Universe Today
- Astrobiology magazine
- Astronomy Now
- La Recherche, December 2011
[23/6/2011] The flames of Betelgeuse: New image reveals vast nebula around famous supergiant star

ESO Press release
Astronomy Picture of the Day
[6/6/2011] Nicolas Chamel honoured by the Adolphe Wetrems prize 2011 for Mathematical and Physical Sciences from the Royal Academy of Belgium for his study of extreme conditions in the interiors of supernovae and neutron stars
[22/3/2010] A. Jorissen's & T. Dermine's interview about Printemps des Sciences 2010
- Au quotidien & JT 13h (RTBF La Une)
[1/10/2009] Conspiration between the distributions of dark and visible matter in galaxies
- Nature paper: Universality of galactic surface densities within one dark halo scale-length (Gentile G., Famaey B., Zhao H., Salucci P., Nature 461, 627-628)
- Communiqué de l'ULB
- Le Soir
- Le Monde
[6/3/2009] The new dome is brought to its final location, atop building D
[31/10/2008] B. Famaey discusses dark matter issues with Nobel laureate G. 't Hooft
[6/2007] B. Famaey comments upon Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND)
[31/1/2006] Le coté obscur de la force
- ULB press release
- PPARC press release
- Et si on se passait de la matière sombre? (Le Soir, 2/2/2006, C. Du Brulle)
[13/12/2005] L'Etoile mystérieuse (Le Soir, 13/12/2005, C. Du Brulle)
[20/10/2004] ESA's Hipparcos finds rebel stars with a cause: Full story
[22/8/2001] Lead stars: