Participation of women scientists in ESA solar system missions: a historical trend

Abstract. We analyzed the participation of women scientists in 10 ESA (European Space Agency) Solar System missions over a period of 38 years. Being part of a spacecraft mission science team can be considered a proxy to measure the “success” in the field. Participation of women in PI (Principal Investigators) teams varied between 4 % and 25 %, with several missions with no women as PI. The percentage of female scientists as Co-I (Co-Investigators) is always less than 16 %. This number is lower than the percentage of women in the International Astronomical Union from all ESA's Member State (24 %), which can give us an indication of the percentage of women in the field. We encountered many difficulties to gather the data for this study. The list of team members were not always easily accessible. An additional difficulty was to determine the percentage of female scientists in planetary science in Europe. We would like to encourage the planetary community as a whole, as well as international organizations, universities and societies to continuously gather statistics over many years. Detailed statistics are only the first step to closely monitor the development of achievement gaps and initiate measures to tackle potential causes of inequity, leading to gender inequalities in STEM careers.

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Participation of women scientists in ESA Solar System missions: an historical trend

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-19310 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Arianna Piccialli ◽

Julie A. Rathbun ◽

Anny-Chantal Levasseur-Regourd ◽

Anni Määttänen ◽

Anna Milillo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Solar System ◽

European Space Agency ◽

Women Scientists ◽

Step Function ◽

Planetary Science ◽

Linear Increase ◽

Time Range ◽

Gender Inequalities ◽

Participation Of Women ◽

Female Scientists

We analyzed the participation of women scientists in 10 ESA (European Space Agency) Solar System missions over a period of 38 years [1]. Being part of a spacecraft mission science team can be considered a proxy to measure the "success" in the field. Although the number of female scientists in the field has been constantly increasing in Europe, we did not observe a similar increase in their participation in ESA Solar System missions. Participation of women in PI (Principal Investigators) teams varied between 4 and 25%, with several missions with no women as PI. The percentage of female scientists as Co-I (Co-Investigators) is always less than 16%. This number is lower than the percentage of women in the International Astronomical Union from all ESA Member States (24%).We compared our results with NASA statistics. Participation of women in NASA spacecraft science teams varies from none to just over 30% [2]. The percentage has been increasing. However, this increase is more similar to a step function than a linear increase, with the pre-2000 average at 5.7% and post-2000 at 15.8%. This is well below the percentage of women in the field in the US, which has grown from 20% to 30% over the same time range. The ESA data are consistent with the NASA data, including the jump around the year 2000.One of the main difficulties we encountered was to find the list of team members. An additional difficulty was to determine the percentage of female scientists in planetary science in Europe. We would like to encourage the planetary community as a whole, as well as international organizations, universities and societies to continuously gather statistics over many years. Detailed statistics are only the first step to closely monitor the development of achievement gaps and initiate measures to tackle potential causes of inequity, leading to gender inequalities in STEM careers.[1] Piccialli et al., submitted to ADGEO[2] Rathbun, Julie A.: Participation of women in spacecraft science teams, Nature Astronomy, Volume 1, id. 0148 (2017).

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ESA’s Planetary Science Archive, updates since last year!

10.5194/epsc2020-921 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Sébastien Besse ◽

Isa Barbarisi ◽

Guido de Marchi ◽

Bruno Merin ◽

Javier Arenas ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Solar System ◽

Geographical Information Systems ◽

Scientific Community ◽

European Space Agency ◽

Planetary Science ◽

Scientific Data ◽

Geographical Information ◽

Data Sets ◽

Space Agency ◽

Search Data

Abstract With new missions being selected, missions moving to post-operations, and missions starting their journey to various targets in the Solar System, the European Space Agency&#8217;s Planetary Science Archive [1] (http://psa.esa.int) (PSA) is in constant evolution to support the needs of the projects and of the scientific community. What happened since last year? The past year has been good for the European Space Agency (ESA) Solar System missions and the PSA, with the successful flyby of Earth by the BepiColombo mission to Mercury. The ExoMars 2016 mission is performing nominally and is quickly delivering numerous scientific observations. As is common for ESA missions, access to the data is protected and reserved to members of the science team for the first months of the mission. Once the products are ready to go public, the PSA performs a scientific peer-review to ensure that the products to be made public are of excellent quality for all future users. During the first half of 2020, the PSA has successfully peer-reviewed the CaSSIS and NOMAD observations. Those products are now being made public on a systematic basis once the proprietary period elapses (generally between 6 and 12 months). Early in 2020, filters to search data with geometrical values (i.e., longitude, phase angle, slant distance, etc.) were enabled. For now this service works for Mars Express and Rosetta, but will be soon extended to other missions. One of the main new services provided to the scientific community in 2020 is the Guest Storage Facility (GSF), which allows users to archive derived products. Products such as geological maps, Digital Terrains Models, new calibrated files, and others can be stored in the GSF in the format most used by the users. Contact us to preserve your science! Finally, by the end of 2020 users of the PSA will have access to new services based on Geographical Information Systems. You can contribute to the PSA! At the PSA we constantly interact with our users to ensure that our services are in line with the expectations and needs of the community. We encourage feedback from community scientists through: <ul> <li>PSA Users Group: A group of scientific experts advising the PSA on strategic development;</li> <li>Direct interactions: Scientists from the PSA are available and eager to receive your comments and suggestions;</li> <li>ESA missions: If you are part of a mission archiving its data at the PSA, tell us how your data should best be searched and used.</li> </ul> Acknowledgement The authors are very grateful to all the people who have contributed over the last 17 years to ESA's Planetary Science Archive. We are also thankful to ESA&#8217;s teams who are operating the missions and to the instrument science teams who are generating and delivering scientific calibrated products to the archive. References [1] Besse, S. et al. (2017) Planetary and Space Science, 10.1016/j.pss.2017.07.013, ESA's Planetary Science Archive: Preserve and present reliable scientific data sets.

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Prospects for Life on Other Planets

Assembling Life ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190646387.003.0017 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

David W. Deamer

Keyword(s):

Solar System ◽

Origin Of Life ◽

Hydrothermal Vents ◽

European Space Agency ◽

Extraterrestrial Life ◽

Major Question ◽

Space Agency ◽

Planetary Bodies ◽

The Origin Of Life ◽

Alternative Scenarios

This book describes a hypothetical process in which populations of protocells can spontaneously assemble and begin to grow and proliferate by energy- dependent polymerization. This might seem to be just an academic question pursued by a few dozen researchers as a matter of curiosity, but in the past three decades advances in engineering have reached a point where both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) routinely send spacecraft to other planetary objects in our solar system. A major question being pursued is whether life has emerged elsewhere than on Earth. The limited funds available to support such missions require decisions to be made about target priorities that are guided by judgment calls. These in turn depend on plausible scenarios related to the origin of life on habitable planetary surfaces. We know that other planetary bodies in our solar system have had or do have conditions that would permit microbial life to exist and perhaps even to begin. By a remarkable coincidence, the two most promising objects for extraterrestrial life happen to represent the two alternative scenarios described in this book: An origin of life in conditions of hydrothermal vents or an origin in hydrothermal fields. This final chapter will explore how these alternative views can guide our judgment about where to send future space missions designed as life-detection missions. Questions to be addressed: What is meant by habitability? Which planetary bodies are plausible sites for the origin of life? How do the hypotheses described in this book relate to those sites? There is healthy public interest in how life begins and whether it exists elsewhere in our solar system or on the myriad exoplanets now known to orbit other stars. This has fueled a series of films, television programs, and science fiction novels. Most of these feature extrapolations to intelligent life but a few, such as The Andromeda Strain, explore what might happen if a pathogenic organism from space began to spread to the human population. There is a serious and sustained scientific effort—SETI, or Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence—devoted to finding an answer to this question.

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The Rosetta Mission to Primitive Bodies of the Solar System

Symposium - International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s0074180900046660 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 160 ◽

pp. 381-394

Author(s):

Yves Langevin

Keyword(s):

Remote Sensing ◽

Solar System ◽

European Space Agency ◽

Time Span ◽

Main Belt ◽

Space Agency ◽

Rosetta Mission ◽

One Year ◽

Definition Of

The European Space Agency (ESA) has selected Rosetta as the next cornerstone mission, to be launched in 2003. The goal is to perfom one or more fly-bys to main belt asteroids, followed by a rendez-vous with an active comet. Advanced in situ analysis, both in the coma and on the surfaces of the nucleus, will be possible, as well as monitoring by remote sensing instruments of the nucleus and of the inner coma for a time span of more than one year, until perihelion. This paper outlines the scientific and technological choices done in the definition of the mission.

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The science return of the ESA Hera mission to the binary asteroid Didymos

10.5194/epsc2020-88 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Patrick Michel ◽

Michael Kueppers ◽

Keyword(s):

Solar System ◽

European Space Agency ◽

Direct Determination ◽

Hypervelocity Impact ◽

The European Union ◽

Long Term Effects ◽

Impact Speed ◽

Asteroid Impact ◽

Space Agency ◽

The Impact

The Hera mission has been approved for development and launch in the new ESA&#160;Space Safety Programme by the ESA Council at Ministerial Level, Space19+, in November 2019. Hera will both offer a high science return and contribute to the first deflection test of an asteroid, in the framework of the international NASA- and ESA-supported Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) collaboration. The impact of the NASA DART (Doube Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft on the natural satellite of Didymos in October 2022 will change its orbital period around Didymos. As Didymos is an eclipsing binary, and close to the Earth on this date, the change can be detected by Earth-based observers. ESA&#8217;s Hera spacecraft will rendezvous Didymos four years after the impact. Hera&#8217;s instruments will perform the measurements necessary to understand the effect of the DART impact on Didymos&#8217; secondary, in particular its mass, its internal structure, the direct determination of the momentum transfer and the detailed characterization of the crater left by DART. This new knowledge will also provide unique information on many current issues in asteroid science. From small asteroid internal and surface structures, through rubble-pile evolution, impact cratering physics, to the long-term effects of space weathering in the inner Solar System, Hera will have a major impact on many fields. For instance, collisions play a fundamental role in our Solar System history, from planet formation by collisional accretion to cratering of solid surfaces and asteroid family formation by collisional disruption. The fully documented hypervelocity impact experiment provided by DART and Hera will feed collisional models with information obtained at actual asteroid scale and for an impact speed (~6 km/s) that is close to the average impact speed between asteroids in the main belt. Moreover, Hera will perform the first rendezvous with an asteroid binary, characterize the smallest object ever visited (165 m in diameter) and provide the first direct measurement of an asteroid interior. Additionally, studies using Hera data will in turn affect our understanding of the asteroid population as a whole. The scientific legacy of the Hera mission will extend far beyond the core aims of planetary defense. Acknowledgment: The authors acknowledge funding support from ESA and from the European Union&#8217;s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 870377 (project NEO-MAPP), from the European Space Agency and from the French space agency CNES.

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Gaia Data Release 2

Astronomy and Astrophysics ◽

10.1051/0004-6361/201832900 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 616 ◽

pp. A13 ◽

Cited By ~ 35

Author(s):

◽

F. Spoto ◽

P. Tanga ◽

F. Mignard ◽

J. Berthier ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Solar System ◽

A Priori ◽

European Space Agency ◽

Dramatic Improvement ◽

Individual Values ◽

Data Set ◽

Position Information ◽

Additional Information ◽

Space Agency ◽

Data Release

Context. The Gaia spacecraft of the European Space Agency (ESA) has been securing observations of solar system objects (SSOs) since the beginning of its operations. Data Release 2 (DR2) contains the observations of a selected sample of 14,099 SSOs. These asteroids have been already identified and have been numbered by the Minor Planet Center repository. Positions are provided for each Gaia observation at CCD level. As additional information, complementary to astrometry, the apparent brightness of SSOs in the unfiltered G band is also provided for selected observations. Aims. We explain the processing of SSO data, and describe the criteria we used to select the sample published in Gaia DR2. We then explore the data set to assess its quality. Methods. To exploit the main data product for the solar system in Gaia DR2, which is the epoch astrometry of asteroids, it is necessary to take into account the unusual properties of the uncertainty, as the position information is nearly one-dimensional. When this aspect is handled appropriately, an orbit fit can be obtained with post-fit residuals that are overall consistent with the a-priori error model that was used to define individual values of the astrometric uncertainty. The role of both random and systematic errors is described. The distribution of residuals allowed us to identify possible contaminants in the data set (such as stars). Photometry in the G band was compared to computed values from reference asteroid shapes and to the flux registered at the corresponding epochs by the red and blue photometers (RP and BP). Results. The overall astrometric performance is close to the expectations, with an optimal range of brightness G ~ 12 − 17. In this range, the typical transit-level accuracy is well below 1 mas. For fainter asteroids, the growing photon noise deteriorates the performance. Asteroids brighter than G ~ 12 are affected by a lower performance of the processing of their signals. The dramatic improvement brought by Gaia DR2 astrometry of SSOs is demonstrated by comparisons to the archive data and by preliminary tests on the detection of subtle non-gravitational effects.

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Retrieval of ionospheric profiles from the Mars Express MARSIS experiment data and comparison with radio-occultation data

Geoscientific Instrumentation Methods and Data Systems Discussions ◽

10.5194/gid-2-87-2012 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 87-106

Author(s):

B. Sánchez-Cano ◽

O. Witasse ◽

M. Herraiz ◽

S. M. Radicella ◽

J. Bauer ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Radio Occultation ◽

European Space Agency ◽

Planetary Science ◽

Data Set ◽

Mars Express ◽

Radio Science ◽

Space Agency ◽

Martian Ionosphere ◽

Occultation Data ◽

Ionospheric Sounding

Abstract. Since 2005 the Mars Advanced Radar and Ionospheric Sounding experiment (MARSIS) aboard Mars Express has acquired a unique data set on the ionosphere of Mars made up of ionospheric soundings taken by the instrument working in its Active Ionospheric Sounding (AIS) mode. These soundings play a role similar to those of modern Terrestrial digisondes in the analysis of our planet ionosphere and have allowed us to dramatically improve our knowledge about the Martian ionosphere. This paper describes this kind of data, which are available from the public Planetary Science Archive, and introduces the MAISDAT tool developed by the European Space Agency to analyze and derive the vertical profile of electron density. Comparisons with radio-occultation profiles obtained from Mars Express Radio Science instrument are performed to validate the procedure used in this study.

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16O/18O ratio in water in the coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko measured with the Rosetta/ROSINA double-focusing mass spectrometer

Astronomy and Astrophysics ◽

10.1051/0004-6361/201833806 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 630 ◽

pp. A29 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Isaac R. H. G. Schroeder I ◽

Kathrin Altwegg ◽

Hans Balsiger ◽

Jean-Jacques Berthelier ◽

Johan De Keyser ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Solar System ◽

Mass Spectrometer ◽

European Space Agency ◽

Space Agency ◽

Close Proximity ◽

Terrestrial Water ◽

Double Focusing ◽

Comet 67P ◽

Almost Continuous

The European Space Agency spacecraft Rosetta accompanied the Jupiter-family comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for over 2 yr along its trajectory through the inner solar system. Between 2014 and 2016, it performed almost continuous in situ measurements of the comet’s gaseous atmosphere in close proximity to its nucleus. In this study, the 16O/18O ratio of H2O in the coma of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, as measured by the ROSINA DFMS mass spectrometer onboard Rosetta, was determined from the ratio of H216O/H218O and 16OH/18OH. The value of 445 ± 35 represents an ~11% enrichment of 18O compared with the terrestrial ratio of 498.7 ± 0.1. This cometary value is consistent with the comet containing primordial water, in accordance with leading self-shielding models. These models predict primordial water to be between 5 and 20% enriched in heavier oxygen isotopes compared to terrestrial water.

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Inter-Commission Working Group on the Prevention of Interplanetary Pollution

Transactions of the International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s0251107x00011597 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

pp. 263-274

Keyword(s):

Solar System ◽

Interplanetary Space ◽

Planetary Science ◽

General Assembly ◽

Space Vehicles ◽

The Moon ◽

International Astronomical Union ◽

International Astronomical ◽

Solar System Bodies ◽

Interplanetary Mission

At the 1988 Baltimore General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union, members of several Commissions dealing with planetary science expressed deep concern that no work was being undertaken to identify and avoid pollution problems in interplanetary space beyond the Moon. At that time NASA had convened a conference on problems in cislunar space due to the large and growing numbers of orbiting fragments hazardous to space vehicles. In translunar space this is hardly a problem. However an alarming number of future interplanetary mission proposals were considered for other reasons to be potentially harmful to various solar system bodies and interplanetary space itself.

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The science of EChO

Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s1743921311020448 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 6 (S276) ◽

pp. 359-370 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Giovanna Tinetti ◽

James Y-K. Cho ◽

Caitlin A. Griffith ◽

Olivier Grasset ◽

Lee Grenfell ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Solar System ◽

Emission Spectroscopy ◽

European Space Agency ◽

Habitable Zone ◽

The Past ◽

Space Agency ◽

Kepler Mission ◽

The Galaxy ◽

Earth Like Planets ◽

Exoplanetary Atmospheres

AbstractThe science of extra-solar planets is one of the most rapidly changing areas of astrophysics and since 1995 the number of planets known has increased by almost two orders of magnitude. A combination of ground-based surveys and dedicated space missions has resulted in 560-plus planets being detected, and over 1200 that await confirmation. NASA's Kepler mission has opened up the possibility of discovering Earth-like planets in the habitable zone around some of the 100,000 stars it is surveying during its 3 to 4-year lifetime. The new ESA's Gaia mission is expected to discover thousands of new planets around stars within 200 parsecs of the Sun. The key challenge now is moving on from discovery, important though that remains, to characterisation: what are these planets actually like, and why are they as they are?In the past ten years, we have learned how to obtain the first spectra of exoplanets using transit transmission and emission spectroscopy. With the high stability of Spitzer, Hubble, and large ground-based telescopes the spectra of bright close-in massive planets can be obtained and species like water vapour, methane, carbon monoxide and dioxide have been detected. With transit science came the first tangible remote sensing of these planetary bodies and so one can start to extrapolate from what has been learnt from Solar System probes to what one might plan to learn about their faraway siblings. As we learn more about the atmospheres, surfaces and near-surfaces of these remote bodies, we will begin to build up a clearer picture of their construction, history and suitability for life.The Exoplanet Characterisation Observatory, EChO, will be the first dedicated mission to investigate the physics and chemistry of Exoplanetary Atmospheres. By characterising spectroscopically more bodies in different environments we will take detailed planetology out of the Solar System and into the Galaxy as a whole.EChO has now been selected by the European Space Agency to be assessed as one of four M3 mission candidates.

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