Europlanet Science Congress 2026 – Science

Europlanet Science Congress 2026 invites media registration and coverage

Grant Pearson — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 21:45:56 +0000

The European planetary science community is preparing for one of its most anticipated gatherings of the decade, as the Europlanet Science Congress 2026 descends upon The Hague, Netherlands, from 6 to 11 September 2026. Hosted in a hybrid format at the Amare arts venue and simultaneously online, the conference will bring together roughly 1,200 planetary scientists from more than 40 countries for six days of dense scientific exchange across more than 125 sessions. For researchers tracking everything from asteroid deflection strategies to the chemical fingerprints of life beyond Earth, EPSC2026 promises to be the defining planetary science event of the year.

The scope of the meeting reflects the extraordinary breadth of modern planetary research. Sessions will span the full spectrum of the discipline: new results from the Solar System, the characterization of exoplanetary and interstellar bodies, updates on current and forthcoming space missions, ground-based observational campaigns, and the increasingly prominent role of artificial intelligence and machine learning in extracting insight from planetary data. Planetary defence, the emergence of life in our Solar System and beyond, and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence — SETI — all feature prominently on the programme, a signal of how far the field has expanded from its geology-and-telescopes origins into a genuinely interdisciplinary enterprise that touches on astrobiology, engineering, data science and even public policy.

The choice of host city carries a poetic resonance for attendees. The Hague holds a singular place in the history of astronomy: it was the birthplace of Christiaan Huygens, the seventeenth-century polymath who pioneered the telescope and discovered Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. The city was also the site of the world’s first published written account of an astronomical observation made with a telescope — a milestone that effectively inaugurated the era of observational planetary science. Four centuries later, a Congress devoted to exploring Titan’s methane lakes, Saturn’s rings and the distant corners of the Solar System returning to Huygens’ hometown is more than a logistical coincidence; it is a deliberate act of historical continuity. Organizers have embraced this connection, planning an extensive public outreach programme in the run-up to and during the conference week, including a walking tour threading through the city’s astronomical heritage, concerts, arts installations, public lectures and events designed for local schools.

For media representatives, the Congress offers unusually rich material. Media registration is free, and bona fide journalists can register by contacting the Europlanet press office. Press briefings will be livestreamed for remote audiences, and the EPSC2026 Press Office will issue press notices throughout the week highlighting presentations of particular interest. Two briefings, in particular, are already generating considerable buzz among space scientists and space journalists alike — and both concern European missions arriving at pivotal moments in their operational lifetimes.

The first, scheduled for Monday 7 September at 11:00 CEST, will focus on the European Space Agency’s Hera mission as it counts down to its arrival at the Didymos binary asteroid system. Hera represents the follow-up act to one of the most dramatic planetary science experiments ever conducted: NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, which deliberately impacted the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos in September 2022 to test humanity’s ability to alter the trajectory of a near-Earth object. DART succeeded spectacularly, shortening Dimorphos’ orbital period around its parent asteroid and proving that the kinetic impactor technique is a viable planetary defence strategy. But the experiment left behind critical unanswered questions — most notably, the precise internal structure of Dimorphos and the detailed physics of how the impact crater formed and how momentum was transferred. Hera, arriving at the system in November 2026, will conduct a detailed post-impact survey of Dimorphos, transforming a one-off experiment into a fully characterized planetary defence benchmark.

The press briefing will provide updates on the status and plans for the mission post-arrival, but organizers have also promised something more: the Hera team will unveil what they describe as a revolutionary way for the public to engage with the mission and become part of its space adventure. The briefing will also cover the ESA/JAXA RAMSES mission, which will rendezvous with the asteroid (99942) Apophis and accompany it during its exceptionally close flyby of Earth on 13 April 2029 — a natural experiment in asteroid science that occurs only once every few thousand years for an object of this size. Speakers will include Michael Küppers, ESA Hera Project Scientist 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. Together, these missions represent Europe’s commitment to building a comprehensive, layered planetary defence capability — from impact prediction to impact response.

The second major briefing, on Wednesday 9 September at 12:45 CEST, concerns the long-awaited arrival of the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission at Mercury. After an eight-year journey through the inner Solar System, involving a series of gravity assists that have tested the patience of mission planners and the endurance of the spacecraft’s thermal systems, BepiColombo will finally reach its destination this autumn. The timeline is tightly choreographed: separation of the European and Japanese orbiters from the Mercury Transfer Module will take place on 3 September, orbit insertion follows on 21 November, and the ESA Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA’s Mio spacecraft will separate from each other on 9–10 December. From that moment, BepiColombo will officially become the first two-spacecraft mission operating at Mercury, with the science phase beginning in April 2027.

The significance of this architecture cannot be overstated. Mercury remains the least explored of the terrestrial planets, a world of extremes where surface temperatures swing from searing daylight to frigid darkness and where a surprisingly strong magnetic field hints at a partially molten core. Operating two spacecraft simultaneously — one optimized by ESA, the other by JAXA with a complementary instrument suite — allows scientists to make coordinated, two-point measurements of the planet’s magnetic environment, exosphere and magnetospheric dynamics that no single spacecraft could achieve. The briefing will feature Santa Martinez, Mission Manager; Ignacio Tanco, Head of the Inner Solar System Missions Unit; Geraint Jones, Lead ESA Project Scientist; and Go Murakami, JAXA Project Scientist, offering an update on the spacecraft’s condition following the transfer module separation and an overview of the critical steps ahead.

Beyond the headline briefings, the Congress programme offers a window into the techniques reshaping planetary science itself. The dedicated sessions on artificial intelligence and machine learning reflect a discipline undergoing a methodological transformation: convolutional neural networks now classify craters and surface features across vast planetary image archives, while machine learning pipelines sift through the exponential growth of data returned by modern instrumentation. Sessions on interstellar bodies will revisit the paradigm shift that began with the detection of objects such as ‘Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov — visitors from other star systems whose compositions offer the only direct sampling of material formed around alien suns. Planetary defence sessions will build on the momentum of DART and the anticipation surrounding both Hera and RAMSES, while astrobiology and SETI sessions will tackle what many consider the deepest question in science: whether life is a cosmic inevitability or an improbable fluke.

The hybrid format, which proved its worth in recent editions of the Congress, ensures that scientists unable to travel — whether for financial, political or personal reasons — can still participate fully in sessions and discussions, a model that has measurably broadened participation across the more than 40 countries represented. Details of scientific sessions and presentation abstracts are available through the official EPSC2026 website, alongside a programme overview and information about the public walking trail and events in The Hague. The meeting hashtag, #EPSC2026, will aggregate real-time discussion throughout the week.

What emerges from the programme as a whole is a portrait of planetary science at an inflection point. Within a single year, Europe has missions arriving at Mercury and at a battered asteroid moonlet, a planetary defence mission to Apophis in development, and a community embracing computational tools that would have seemed like science fiction a generation ago. That all of this converges in the city where humanity first recorded what it saw through a telescope gives EPSC2026 a narrative arc that few scientific conferences can claim. From Huygens’ crude refractor to a two-spacecraft orbital mission at the innermost planet, the through-line is unbroken: an unrelenting curiosity about the worlds beyond our own, now armed with instruments and international cooperation that the Dutch master himself could scarcely have imagined. For the 1,200 scientists gathering in The Hague this September, the next chapter of that four-century-old story is about to be written.

News Publication Date: 6-Sep-2026

Web References: Not provided

References: Media reminder: Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2026. EurekAlert! Not provided.

Keywords

Europlanet Science Congress, EPSC2026, planetary science, Hera mission, BepiColombo, Mercury, Dimorphos, asteroid deflection, planetary defence, RAMSES, Apophis, The Hague

Subject of Research: Not applicable — conference announcement covering planetary science missions and research, including ESA’s Hera and BepiColombo missions and the ESA/JAXA RAMSES mission.

Article Title: Media reminder: Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2026

Article References: Original research article

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: artificial intelligence in planetary science, asteroid deflection strategies, Europlanet Science Congress 2026, exoplanet and interstellar body characterization, extraterrestrial life detection, hybrid scientific conferences, machine learning in space data analysis, planetary defense, planetary research and discovery, planetary science conference, planetary science media coverage, space mission updates

Journalists invited to attend Europlanet Science Congress 2026

Grant Pearson — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 01:33:20 +0000

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

Subject of Research: Planetary science and space missions, including ESA’s Hera, RAMSES, and BepiColombo missions, asteroid impact deflection, Mercury exploration, and the search for life beyond Earth

Article Title: Media invitation: Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2026

Article References: Original research article

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: asteroid and inner planet missions, European space exploration, Europlanet Science Congress 2026, exoplanet discovery, hybrid scientific conference, interstellar objects studies, planetary research community, planetary science breakthroughs, planetary science conference, Solar System research, space mission milestones, The Hague space missions