Today, November 25, is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. At this occasion, BIRA-IASB signed the pledge for zero tolerance to gender-based violence in academia and research, promoted by the European Union’s Commission on ‘Inclusive Gender Equality in the ERA (European Research Area)’.

Since its creation in 1964 our institute has been very active in research and public service in space aeronomy, which is the physics and chemistry of the atmosphere of the Earth and other planets, and of outer space. On the occasion of our 60th anniversary we offer an overview of our space aeronomy research from 1964 to 2024.

The Israel-Hamas conflict has triggered attacks on commercial vessels in the Gulf of Aden, disrupting trade operations and leading to the re-routing of vessels. Researchers developed a method to isolate the contribution of ship emissions in the satellite observations of NO2 from the TROPOMI sensor.

16 September, an event established after it was discovered in 1985 that a large part of this layer over Antarctica was destroyed every spring.

This Sunday 8 September 2024, a first satellite of the Cluster mission (Salsa-C2) will reenter the Earth's atmosphere, ending a space adventure that has lasted more than 24 years. The Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy is proud to have played a part in it.

Thanks to observations made by the Solar Occultation in the Infrared (SOIR) instrument onboard the Venus Express space probe of the European Space Agency (ESA), researchers have revealed an unanticipated increase in the abundances of two variants of water molecules – H2O and HDO – along with their ratio HDO/H2O, in the Venus mesosphere.