Journalists invited to attend Europlanet Science Congress 2026

The historic city of The Hague is preparing to welcome approximately 1,200 planetary scientists from more than 40 countries this autumn, as the Europlanet Science Congress 2026 opens its doors on 6 September for a week-long exploration of the Solar System and beyond. Running through 11 September in hybrid format at the Amare arts venue and online, EPSC2026 promises to be one of the most consequential planetary science gatherings of the decade, arriving at a moment when Europe’s flagship space missions are reaching pivotal milestones.

The timing of this year’s congress could scarcely be more dramatic. Within weeks of the meeting’s conclusion, two major European-led missions will execute defining maneuvers that have been years in the planning. The Europlanet community, which convenes annually to share results spanning the full breadth of planetary research, will gather with particular anticipation surrounding the fates of missions to asteroids and to the innermost planet of our Solar System.

With more than 125 scientific sessions, keynote lectures, debates, and community events on the program, EPSC2026 covers an extraordinary breadth of topics. Attendees will present the latest findings on Solar System bodies, exoplanets, and interstellar objects; results from current and forthcoming missions; advances in ground-based observations; and the rapidly expanding use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in planetary science. The program also encompasses planetary defence—a field that has moved decisively from theory to demonstrated practice—and, notably, sessions dedicated to the emergence of life in our Solar System and the ongoing Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, known as SETI.

The choice of host city carries deep symbolic resonance for a congress devoted to planetary science. The Hague holds a distinguished place in astronomical history: it was the birthplace of Christiaan Huygens, the seventeenth-century polymath who pioneered the telescope and discovered Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. Moreover, the world’s first written account of an astronomical observation made with a telescope was published in The Hague, connecting the city directly to the dawn of modern observational astronomy. In honor of this heritage, organizers have arranged an extensive public outreach programme that will run in the weeks before and during the conference, featuring a walking tour through the city, concerts, arts installations, public lectures, and events for local schools designed to bring planetary science to the broader community.

Perhaps the most eagerly anticipated event of the congress will be a press briefing on Monday 7 September, focusing on the European Space Agency’s Hera mission, which is now counting down to its arrival at the Didymos binary asteroid system. Hera is scheduled to reach its destination in November 2026, where it will conduct a detailed survey of the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos—the target of NASA’s DART mission, which deliberately impacted the small body in September 2022 in humanity’s first full-scale test of asteroid deflection. Hera’s observations will allow scientists to characterize the crater left by DART’s impact and to measure, with unprecedented precision, how the collision altered Dimorphos’s orbit and physical properties, effectively completing the planetary defence experiment that DART began.

The Hera briefing at EPSC2026 will not be limited to mission status updates. According to the congress announcement, the Hera team will unveil what organizers describe as a revolutionary new way for the public to engage with the mission and become part of its space adventure—an initiative expected to bring planetary defence into classrooms and living rooms around the world. The session will also feature updates on the ESA/JAXA RAMSES mission, which will rendezvous with the asteroid (99942) Apophis and accompany it during its remarkably close flyby of Earth on 13 April 2029. Apophis, a roughly 375-meter near-Earth asteroid, will pass within approximately 31,000 kilometers of our planet—closer than geostationary satellites—an event that occurs only once every several thousand years and offers scientists a natural experiment in how planetary close encounters alter an asteroid’s surface and internal structure.

The speakers at the Hera and RAMSES briefing will include Michael Küppers, ESA’s Hera Project Scientist based at ESA-ESAC in Spain; Patrick Michel, Hera Mission Principal Investigator, RAMSES ESA Project Scientist, and Director of Research at CNRS, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in France; and Heli Greus of the Hera and RAMSES ESA project teams. Michel, one of the world’s leading authorities on asteroid science and the physics of small bodies, has been instrumental in shaping both missions’ scientific strategies, making this briefing a rare opportunity to hear directly from the architects of Europe’s planetary defence programme.

Equally momentous is the second major press briefing, scheduled for Wednesday 9 September, which will address the arrival of the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission at Mercury. After an eight-year interplanetary voyage involving a complex series of gravity assists, the joint European-Japanese spacecraft will complete its journey to the Solar System’s smallest and most enigmatic planet this autumn. The mission timeline is tightly choreographed: separation of the European and Japanese orbiters from the Mercury Transfer Module will take place on 3 September, orbit insertion at Mercury follows on 21 November, and the two science spacecraft—the ESA Mercury Planetary Orbiter and the JAXA spacecraft Mio—will separate from each other on 9–10 December. From that point forward, BepiColombo will officially become the first two-spacecraft mission ever to operate at Mercury, with the science phase of the mission beginning in April 2027.

The dual-spacecraft architecture of BepiColombo is what sets it apart from the single previous orbital visitor to Mercury, NASA’s MESSENGER. By operating two complementary orbiters simultaneously—one developed by ESA, the other by JAXA—mission scientists will be able to make coordinated, multi-point observations of Mercury’s magnetic field, magnetosphere, interior structure, surface composition, and exosphere. This approach is essential for untangling the complex interactions between the planet and the harsh space environment so close to the Sun, where solar radiation and particle fluxes are roughly ten times more intense than at Earth. The EPSC2026 briefing will update attendees on the spacecraft’s condition following the transfer module separation and outline the critical steps ahead during what mission planners describe as an exceptionally exciting phase. The speakers will include Santa Martinez, the mission’s Manager; Ignacio Tanco, Head of ESA’s Inner Solar System Missions Unit; Geraint Jones, the Lead ESA Project Scientist; and Go Murakami, JAXA’s Project Scientist.

For media representatives, EPSC2026 offers unusually open access to the global planetary science community. Media registration is free, and bona fide media delegates can register by email to the Europlanet press office. Press briefings during the meeting will be livestreamed, and the EPSC2026 Press Office will issue press notices highlighting presentations of particular interest throughout the week, ensuring that even journalists unable to travel to The Hague can follow developments in real time. Full details of the scientific sessions and presentation abstracts, along with an overview of the programme schedule, are available through the congress’s official channels, and the meeting will be coordinated on social media under the hashtag #EPSC2026.

As the planetary science community converges on the city where humanity first recorded a telescopic observation of the heavens, the congress arrives at an inflection point for the field. Within a single autumn, Europe will have executed the arrival of Hera at Dimorphos, witnessed the dramatic Apophis flyby preparations, and established a two-spacecraft presence at Mercury. EPSC2026 stands as both a celebration of these achievements and a preview of the scientific riches to come—spanning everything from the cratered surfaces of asteroids to the search for life on worlds beyond our own.

News Publication Date: 31-Aug-2026

Web References: Not provided

References: Media invitation: Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2026. EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org

Keywords

Europlanet Science Congress, EPSC2026, Hera mission, BepiColombo, planetary defence, Didymos, Dimorphos, Apophis, RAMSES, The Hague, Mercury exploration, SETI