International Space Science Institute (ISSI)

The launch of Parker Solar Probe (Parker) in 2018, accompanied shortly after by the launch of Solar Orbiter (Orbiter), has opened a new frontier in the exploration of the Heliosphere. One of the first observations by Parker Solar Probe was that m...

Another year, another milestone! 💫 ISSI's 2025 Annual Report is here, and what a year it has been. From monitoring our changing Earth to exploring the deepest corners of the cosmos, ISSI continued to push the boundaries of space research across ...

About 44 times per second a lighting stroke hits out planet. As one of the most awe-inspiring phenomena in nature, we are all deeply familiar with the immediate consequences of lightning: thunder, the flash of light and possibly the destruction th...

Pro ISSI Talk: The Moon is our nearest neighbour, and the only other planetary body humans have ever set foot on. We have been exploring the Moon via manned and robotic missions for more than half a century, but there are still many parts of its h...

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) together offer an unprecedentedly detailed view of galaxies across cosmic time, from the first few hundred million years after the Big Bang through today. However, even these u...

Meet Dr Sara Gasparini, space physicist and aurora researcher, and former visiting scientist at ISSI ahead of leading her own ISSI International Team. Listen to Sara as she traces her path from a childhood passion for the universe to an unexpected...

Meet Dr Franck Ghomsi, researcher at the National Institute of Cartography in Cameroon, associated with the Nansen-Tutu Center in South Africa, and currently a visiting scientist at the University of Manitoba (CEOS). Listen to Franck as he shares ...

Now that some records stretch back over four decades, observations of Earth from space are used widely in climate science. Observation-based trends in a range of essential climate variables are important as direct indicators of tendencies that may...

Let us introduce both Professor Karen Masters from Haverford College (USA) and Team Leader of the ISSI International Team 584 and Dr Becky Smethurst from the University of Oxford (UK), who is also an active YouTuber known as Dr Becky (https://www....

Let us introduce Dr Ben Poulter from Spark Climate Solutions (USA) and ISSI Johannes Geiss Fellow 2025. Listen to Ben as he shares how he went from botany to space to have an accurate view on our delicate changing Earth climate. He explains how s...

Online Panel Discussion with Stefano Casertano, Richard I. Anderson, Eleonora Di Valentino, Adam Riess, and Licia Verde The Hubble constant is widely acknowledged as a key test of our understanding of cosmology and the history of the Universe: ...

Pro ISSI Talk: Rising greenhouse-gas emissions from human activities are causing rapid changes to Earth’s climate. Despite efforts to mitigate emissions to limit warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, changes in temperature appear to be heading for a ...

Earth observations in the era of climate overshoot: A framework for monitoring novel Earth system responses Ben Poulter (Spark Climate Solutions)

The Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program with Hubble was started in 2014 with the goal of studying time-domain phenomena in Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune, with Saturn added in 2018 once the Cassini spacecraft was de-orbited. Key areas of ...

The paradigm shift that space weather is real, relevant, and knowable to a general audience is not as impossible as once imagined. Although it remains an extremely difficult topic to convey, new modes of communicating space weather to a very eager...

In the vast landscape of scientific data, colour serves as a golden key to its comprehension. From the depths of the cosmos to the intricacies of elementary particles, the deliberate use of colour in scientific visualisation enriches our understan...

Computer simulations of the universe have been in common use since the 1980s, and are now a vital tool in helping us interpret data from increasingly powerful telescopes. Amongst other things, simulations have helped establish the case for dark ma...

In September 2023, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx returned an amazing 121 grams of regolith from near-Earth asteroid (101955) Bennu. To successfully collect the sample, the mission had to carefully navigate the microgravity environment while also collecting im...

The lunar surface allows a unique way forward, to go well beyond current limits in astronomy and cosmology. The far side provides a unique radio-quiet environment for probing the dark ages via 21 cm interferometry to seek elusive clues on the buil...

More than 5000 Exoplanets have been detected, with another 5000+ candidates awaiting confirmation. Thanks to the wealth of data that is already available and to be expected from JWST and coming missions like PLATO and ARIEL, we might be close to f...