Amateur astronomy has evolved dramatically over recent years. A motivated amateur, with his/her backyard instrument and available software is nowadays capable of getting high-resolution planetary images in different wavelengths (better than many professional observatories could achieve 20 years ago). Topics well covered by amateur astronomers include: high-resolution imaging of solar system planets, high-precision photometry of stellar occultations by minor objects and giant planets' atmospheres, satellites' mutual phenomena and high-precision photometry of exoplanet transits. Additionally amateurs use dedicated all-sky cameras or radio-antennae to provide continuous meteor-detection coverage of the sky near their location and they start to contribute to spectroscopic studies of solar system objects.

Hundreds of regular observers are sharing their work providing very valuable data to professional astronomers. This is very valuable at a time when professional astronomers face increasing competition accessing observational resources. Additionally, networks of amateur observers can react at very short notice when triggered by a new event occurring on a solar system object requiring observations, or can contribute to a global observation campaign along with professional telescopes.

Moreover, some experienced amateur astronomers use advanced methods for analysing their data meeting the requirements of professional researchers, thereby facilitating regular and close collaboration with professionals. Often this leads to publication of results in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Examples include planetary meteorology of Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune or Venus; meteoroid or bolide impacts on Jupiter; asteroid studies, cometary or exoplanet research.

Space missions also sollicitate amateur astronomers support. For example, to understand the atmospheric dynamics of the planet at the time of Juno flybys, NASA collaborates with amateur astronomers observing the Giant Planet. It showcases an exciting opportunity for amateurs to provide an unique dataset that is used to plan the high-resolution observations from JunoCam and that advances our knowledge of the Giant planet Jupiter. Contribution of amateurs range from their own images to Junocam images processing and support on selecting by vote the feature to be observed during the flybys. Other probes like Ariel or Lucy sollicitate amateur astronomers observation to support exoplanets and small bodies science.

This session will showcase results from amateur astronomers, working either by themselves or in collaboration with members of the professional community. In addition, members from both communities will be invited to share their experiences of pro-am partnerships and offer suggestions on how these should evolve in the future.

The needs and practice of science communication have shifted dramatically in the past ~decade, mainly due to the increased use of social media communication channels, accompanied with somewhat diminishing role of traditional sci-comm media approaches, and recently also generative AI. The COVID19 pandemic exposed a lot of weaknesses of current science communication, especially not addressing a wider “polluted information system”, helping people navigate it to reach reliable evidence-based information and engaging in participatory rather than only top-down communication.

While the same issues are less pressing from the point of view of planetary science, they are relevant for the community as well, since discoveries in the Earth’s history and climate, exoplanet science, astrobiology and other fields can end up heavily distorted in the current information ecosystem. Increased engagement with planetary science is important not only for its own sake and because of the passion for science that we share, but also for practical reasons such as raising the next generation of scientists, teaching the scientific method and inquiry, promoting overall critical thinking and helping people understand issues such as climate change and its impacts.

Rather than parceling the central question of science communication for the 21st century into individual topics such as sci-comm on social media, role of books in current sci-comm, AI art in sci-comm, risks and benefits of AI in sci-comm, citizen science involvement for sci-comm, limiting misinformation (especially in high-interest areas for the public, such as astrobiology or exoplanets) etc., we decided to invite you to share your activities, insights, experience and perspectives connecting to the underlying key question of how to use all these approaches in synergy, effectively share scientific discoveries and increase public interest and participation in science in the coming years.

The benefits of diversity and inclusiveness in the scientific community are incontrovertible. Following the success of previous years, this session aims to foster debate within the planetary sciences community about the reasons behind the under-representation of different groups (gender, cultural, ethnic origin, and national) and best practices to make the research environment more inclusive identifying and addressing barriers to equality.

We invite abstracts focusing on under-representation (gender, cultural, ethnic origin, and nationality biases) supported by statistics and data; outreach and education activities to reach broad and diverse audiences, best practices to support inclusiveness; and case studies on mentoring and bias-concerned activities.

The rapid evolution of augmented reality, virtual reality, 3D visualisation tools, and digital platforms has revolutionized outreach and dissemination activities in the field of planetary sciences. These innovative technologies offer immersive experiences that allow individuals to explore different environments from unprecedented perspectives. Moreover, they serve as engaging and accessible tools for individuals of all ages, fostering interactive learning experiences and skills development.
In this session, we invite participants to share their experiences and insights into leveraging virtual realities for planetary sciences outreach. Through case studies and examples, we will explore the diverse applications of these technologies, from designing immersive environments to facilitating skills development and training initiatives. Additionally, we will address challenges and opportunities related to intuitiveness, inclusiveness, and the future directions of virtual reality in outreach efforts.

Knowledge creation is a collaborative process including synergies between different disciplines, communities and stakeholders. The framework of open science is also connected to the involvement of people outside academia, such as amateur societies, school students, corporate partners etc. Open science has a variety of aspects and applications. What are the efforts done in the field of planetary sciences to establish and increase openness? To what degree planetary science researchers and practitioners endeavour accessibility within the various communities - academics and non-academics? During this session these and other relevant questions will be addressed through the presentation of open planetary science projects, tools, data and platforms. Furthermore, the current status and the potential for future efforts towards an open and public planetary science scheme will be discussed. Building upon the success of the session in the previous years, planetary scientists, researchers and other stakeholders are welcome to present new projects and the developments of previous ones, in the context of promoting open & public science.

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the development of computer software capable of performing tasks that would typically require human intelligence. Machine learning (ML) is a branch of computer science that explores algorithms that can learn from data. It is primarily divided into supervised learning, where the algorithm is presented with examples of labeled entries and the goal is to learn a general rule that maps inputs to outputs, and unsupervised learning, where no label is provided to the learning algorithm, allowing it to autonomously identify structures. Deep learning is a branch of machine learning based on multiple layers of artificial neural networks, which are computing systems inspired by the biological neural networks found in animal brains. This session aims to provide a forum for discussing recent advancements in the applications of AI and ML to planetary science.

More than ten thousand tons of extraterrestrial objects, ranging in size from a few microns to tens of meters in diameter, enter Earth’s atmosphere annually. A small fraction of these objects yields free samples of extraterrestrial matter—meteorites—for laboratory study. The majority of these objects burn up or ablate completely in the Earth’s atmosphere, appearing as visible meteors in the night sky. By recording meteor activity and modeling the process of ablation, we can directly measure the flux of small planetary impactors. This provides ground truth for estimating present cratering rates and planetary surface ages.

The rapid advancement of observational and modeling techniques has elevated meteor science to one of the primary avenues for investigating the nature and origin of interplanetary matter and its parent bodies. This session aims to serve as a platform for presenting fundamental results and innovative concepts in this field, while also informing the broader planetary science community about the interdisciplinary impact of ongoing and future research efforts.

Free slots available.

- Have you ever overheard a comment that you knew was not right but did not know what to say?
- Are you ever the one who feels the need to "laugh" at a "joke" that is more harmful than funny?
- Do you ever find yourself heading home after work thinking, "I should have said..."?
- Would you like to have some specific skills designed to help interrupt break-room gossip?

This Bystander Intervention workshop is an in-person, interactive workshop that is designed to engage participants in conversation about difficult topics including, but not limited to, racial-, sexual-, religion-, age-, gender-, and sexuality-based harassment, bullying, and exclusion.


The workshop's goals are:

- Raise awareness of barriers to helping.
- Raise awareness of helpful behaviors.
- Increase desire and motivation to help.
- Develop skills and confidence to help.
- Ensure the safety and well-being of attendees

Workshop agenda:

1. Introduction and Brave Spaces
2. Goals
3. Theories and Definitions
4. Experiences
5. Social and Cultural Identifiers
6. Bystander Intervention Action Model
7. Skills Training
8. Team Agreement
9. Q&A

When: Sunday, 8 September 2024, 13:00–17:00

Where: Room Mercury - Konferenzraum III

Who: Organized by the Europlanet Diversity Committee, the workshop trainer is Dr. Moses Milazzo.

How to attend: This workshop has a capacity of 27 participants, if you wish to attend, please sign up at https://terminplaner.dfn.de/y4XuZOdLMZ8WpCSt

In case your plans have changed and you cannot attend anymore, please go back to this form and update your attendance, so that other people can join.

If you have any questions, please contact Solmaz Adeli.

There is a chance that, like me, you dreamed of becoming a scientist as a kid. Making groundbreaking discoveries, exploring the world, creating new knowledge: it sounded like the most wonderful career path I could think of. And although being a scientist is indeed quite wonderful, there is also a chance that as you progressed in your career you found that the reality of your childhood dreams is not quite what you expected. You probably didn’t make a Nobel-prize worthy discovery yet and maybe that professorship still looks quite far away. And — perhaps most surprisingly — you found out that academia is not necessarily the meritocracy it claims to be. Not so long ago, the ivory tower of academia was an impenetrable fortress inhabited by the old boys network and in some places, it still is. So perhaps it is no wonder that you haven't bagged that Nobel prize yet: there are outside forces you cannot control.

But: things are changing! Compared to 30 years ago, the diversity of the planetary science community has skyrocketed! To illustrate this I will show some preliminary results of our analysis into the participants of the Ada Lovelace workshop — a biannual workshop for geodynamical modellers — to demonstrate the evolving diversity of the geodynamics community specifically. For example, at the first Ada Lovelace workshop in 1987, 10.5% of the participants were women, but in 2022 that percentage had risen to 36.7%. This is a marked improvement, but at the same time still a long way off from an equal gender balance (not to mention gender diversity or indeed other minorities). To continue this upward trajectory, I will point out different initiatives to pursue both as an individual and as a community to make sure we continue to diversify our community and provide a welcoming space for everyone.

Together we can continue to dream of both a more just, equal, diverse, and inclusive environment and of those world-view-changing discoveries we are yet to make. Forget the sky - that’s not the limit! We planetary scientists go way beyond that! Don’t even shoot for the stars: shoot higher! Together, we can do it.

Iris van Zelst

After a BSc in Earth Sciences and an MSc in Geophysics from Utrecht University, Iris obtained her PhD from ETH Zürich in 2020 on her research on modelling tsunamigenic earthquakes on different time scales. She worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Leeds studying the thermal evolution of subduction zones and then moved to the German Aerospace Center in 2021 to pursue research into the geodynamics and seismology of Venus. She will continue this line of research as a Patience Cowie Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh starting in 2025.

Besides research, Iris is an avid advocate for diversity and inclusion in the planetary and geosciences and she is an outreach enthousiast. She hosts the YouTube series Science Sisters, where she interviews guests on their different career paths and any issues they have faced. She is also the owner and creative director of The Silly Scientist: a new startup company specialising in sciency games. As such, she is in the process of publishing her first game: QUARTETnary - the card game about the geological time scale, which was a big success on Kickstarter earlier this year.

"Cosmic interviews" provide to female teenage pupils from local schools the unique opportunity to get in contact with female researchers in planetary science in a welcoming setting. It is a round of informal chats that allows them to hear first-hand perspectives on potential careers in STEM, learn about the particularities of the life of a researcher, as well as meet different role models. The students will be divided in groups of 3-4 and will be discussing for about 10' with each researcher in a flash interview setup, after which the groups will switch matches until they have spoken with every researcher in the room. The pupils are from the latest classes in secondary education (ages 16-19 years old). The event is part of the "EPSC Goes live for schools" program and is supported by the FU MINToring initiative."