The first high-level and analysable collision data openly released come from the CMS experiment and were originally collected in 2010 during the first LHC run. Open source software to read and analyse the data is also available, together with the corresponding documentation. The CMS collaboration is committed to releasing its data three years after collection, after they have been thoroughly studied by the collaboration.

The pattern of GRBs shows that they have got rarer over the course of time an also that they are more likely to happen around the center of the Galaxy. The studies show that GRBs would be common enough so that a planet, almost anywhere in the galaxy, would have suffered from at least one in the past billion years. They estimate that even now, only 10% of the universe’s galaxies would host sufficiently few GRBs to give the evolution of complex life a fair run.

The anual Astronomy camp organized by ESO at Aosta Valley (Italy) is back!

Dates: During the Christmas holidays of 2014, from Friday 26th of December to Thursday the 1st of January.

Students: A maximum of 56 high school students aged between 16 and 18 years old (courses of 1996, 1997 and 1998).

Registration: To register, applicants should fill a form and upload it together with a video or text (pictures allowed) on the topic "Astronomy and I". Registrations close the 20th of October.

The applicant that the organizers decide has made the best participation entry will win a free trip sponsored by ESO. This means the full cost of the camp and the transportation are included in the prize.

Moreover, the Spanish Society of Astronomy offers a grant to a Spanish student aimed at covering the travel , campus and accomodation expenses.

• PDF of the Call
• Camp website and register form
• SEA website

While scanning the sky to measure the positions and movements of stars in our Galaxy, Gaia has discovered a supernova, called Gaia 14aaa, in a galaxy located about 500 million light years away.

The sudden rise in the galaxy brightness detected between one observation on August 30th and another one made one month before, indicated the possibility of a supernova. This galaxy showed a 6 factor change of its brightness.

Position measurements were made to corroborate the hypothesis that it was a supernova and to reject the option of outbursts caused by the mass-devouring supermassive black hole at the galaxy centre. The position of the bright spot of light was slightly offset from the galaxy’s core, suggesting that it was unlikely to be related to a central black hole. The astronomers analysed the light spectrum to seek signatures of various chemical elements typical of those kind of phenomenon. Complementary observations were made with terrestrial Telescopes such as the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) and the Liverpool Telescope, both placed at La Palma Island. All information confirmed that the phenomenon was a supernova and also indicated its nature: a Type Ia supernova, correspondent to the explosion of a white dwarf locked in a binary system with a companion star.

It was just the first discovery of the many that will occur during the next 5 years of the mission.

The main objective of the new Centre for Satellite Applications and Technologies (CenSAT) is to strengthen Barcelona’s leadership in the field of smart cities by profiting space missions’ potentialities to produce and develop technological and scientific knowledge in order to improve public services’ effectiveness. It is a new centre of analysis, technological design and development of microsatellite scientific and commercial applications, promoted by the Barcelona City Council and supported by the University of Barcelona (UB), the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), the University of Florida and the Cartographic and Geologic Institute of Catalonia.

On Wednesday 18 June, at 11 a.m., the Saló de la Ciutat at Barcelona City Council hosted the signing of the agreement that sets up a consortium to create the new Centre for Satellite Applications and Technologies within the Barcelona Knowledge Campus. The personalities who participated in the event were: the major of the city, Mr Xavier Trias; the rector of UB, Dr Dídac Ramírez; the vice-rector for Science Policy of UPC, Dr Fernando Orejas; the vice-president for Research of the University of Florida, Dr David Norton, and the adjunct manager of the Cartographic and Geologic Institute of Catalonia, Dr Antoni Roca.

Microsatellites: easier access to space

The agreement aims at joining public, private and academic initiatives in a single project in order to develop scientific and commercial applications using the Barcelona Urban Lab. The agreement is part of a previous one established between Florida and Spain in October 2011. It was signed by the former minister of Science and Innovation, Cristina Garmendia, and it aimed at strengthening global leadership in microsatellite production and use for scientific and commercial applications.

Micro and nano satellites weigh between 2 and 100 kilos. Their operation is cheaper and their orbital period is shorter than the ones of conventional satellites. Therefore, these elements will make easier for companies, administrations and research centres to access to space in order to develop scientific experiments and civil applications addressed to many economic sectors (environmental control and security, monitoring of urban and maritime areas, agricultural sector, etc.).

Barcelona, a smart city

CenSAT will be a micro and nano satellite tech research centre, in which the private sector will collaborate. The centre will analyse and design missions. It will also explore data for commercial and scientific uses, particularly those generated by scientific projects developed in life sciences, Earth observation and astronomy.

The centre will also focus its research on those areas that have recently appeared and advance quickly like big data or the management of smart cities in order to improve public services and make them more efficient in fields such as microelectronics, efficient energy and environmental management.

A commitment to innovation in new technologies

According to Professor Eduard Salvador, former director of the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of UB (ICCUB) and promoter of the initiative, “the new centre will enable Barcelona’s small companies, which hold a good position in specialised areas but their ability to innovate is limited, to take profit of the services it will provide in order to advance further than they would be able to progress alone. Furthermore, the centre will not develop tools that can be provided by these local companies; on the contrary, it will be focused on developing the tools they lack.

“That will encourage —points out Eduard Salvador—people to get involved in this exciting adventure. Everyone will be favoured: universities, companies and the society. If everything goes as it is hoped, the centre will become a pillar in invigorating businesses, the aerospace industry and those companies centred on developing micro satellites in Barcelona and Catalonia, a strong sector that has just began to be developed (it has already appeared on the cover of The Economist) and will soon be developed around the world”. “We are talking about the democratization of the space for all types of civil and scientific uses”, highlights Salvador.

CenSAT: a great opportunity for UB

ICCUB will be the centre most involved in the initiative. Its director, Professor Lluís Garrido, explains that “ICCUB will developed technological and scientific tasks”. Among technological ones, ICCUB will collaborate in issues such as the development of mathematic algorithms for microsatellite formation flying, the electronic design of sensors, big data processing, data analysis algorithms, etc.

“Concerning scientific tasks —adds Garrido—, ICCUB will suggest and participate in projects related to microgravity and astrophysics. Now, we are studying the possibility to use these satellites to measure heavy ions from solar flares or to detect dark matter”. Thanks to this wide range of collaboration possibilities, the departments of the faculties of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics which are part of ICCUB, as well as some services of these faculties, for instance the instrumentation service of the Faculty of Physics SiUB, can collaborate in the project”.