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The university invites all staff members, students, alumni and their families to city orienteering in Tartu from 19 October to 1 November. Do you know the buildings and sites connected with the university? Do you know what was in these places in the past? Grab a map and find out!

On October 16, Tartu Observatory's Junior Research Fellow Punyakoti Ganeshaiah Veena successfully defended her PhD dissertation "Cosmic Ballet: spinning in the web". She gained a doctoral degree from the University of Groningen. Colleagues of Tartu Observatory gifted Veena with the chance to support the education of two girls in her country of birth India. Supervisors Prof. Rien van de Weijgaert (University of Groningen), Prof. Elmo Tempel (University of Tartu), PhD Marius Cautun (Leiden University) Summary

This year, Tartu Observatory's scholarships were awarded to PhD students Mihkel Kaha, Moorits Mihkel Muru and Joosep Kivastik. All of them have showed great results and good academic performance during their studies. Mihkel Kaha earned the Juhan Ross scholarship. The scholarship is appointed to environmental physics or related area student for their achievements while studying.

Researchers of the Centre for Applied Social Sciences of the University of Tartu have conducted a survey to analyse how the university as an organisation responded to the crisis, and to what extent it is possible to use the gained experience to plan future work.

This seems to be what politicians from the Conservative People’s Party of Estonia (EKRE) have asked. As an answer, they have proposed a draft legislation aiming to prevent young people from Ukraine, Georgia, Russia or another non-EU country from coming here to study unless they pay for their studies. The draft legislation turned up at the beginning of September, without any analysis or legislative intent, without notifying the parties concerned or coordinating the draft with them.

This summer concluded the almost two-year study to develop statistical methods for forest resource assessment using remote sensing data. The study was concucted by researchers from the University of Tartu Institute of Mathematics and Statistics and Tartu Observatory.

In a live interview on Tuesday, 1 September at 13:00, Rector of the University of Tartu Toomas Asser spoke about the organisation of studies and work at the university this autumn. The interview focused on what to keep in mind in this academic year in the circumstances of the spread of coronavirus and to what extent regular classroom studies will be replaced by e-learning. In addition, the rector once again reminded viewers how to keep oneself and others safe at work and during studies and what to do in case of illness.

Registration is open for ten courses by Tartu Observatory this autumn semester. For students continuing their studies at the university, the registration closes on August 30. For new students and visiting or exchange students, the due date for registration is September 14. Some of the courses are in English and most of the courses welcome students of all majors. However, there might be recommended prerequisites. Take a look at all the courses that Tartu Observatory offers this autumn semester!

Dear members of the university, To recover from the extraordinary situation that hit the world in spring, a summer holiday is vital for all of us. However, we must remember to exercise caution when returning to work to make sure our life at the university and in the country as a whole could continue as normally as possible.

On 21 February 2017 Lauri Juhan Liivamägi defended at University of Tartu his doctoral thesis titled “Properties and spatial distribution of galaxy superclusters”. Supervisor: dr Enn Saar, Tartu Observatory Opponents: dr Andi Hektor, NIBF dr Maciei Bilicki, Leiden University, Holland

This summer, 11 interns got the chance of perfecting satellite ESTCube-2’s development as next year's launch date approaches. For the first time, the majority of the internships were completed virtually. “For the students of ESTCube, the current year has been the most challenging in the history of the second satellite’s development. Nevertheless, we saw that students were capable and willing to adapt to the changing environment,” said Jānis Dalbiņš, ESTCube-2 systems engineer and Junior Research Fellow at Tartu Observatory.

Head of Tartu Observatory's Space Technology Department Mihkel Pajusalu and his colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have come to the conclusion that the clouds of lava planets are probably made of metal, and instead of rain or snow, there could be showers of liquid metal. The research helps to undestand both the formation and future of the Earth, because as the Sun turns into a red qiant, our planet could also be covered in lava ocens.

University gradually returns to the normal organisation of work. Below, the units have described their organisation of work starting from 18 May. The page will be updated as needed. [collapsed]

The Comet Interceptor Space Mission of the European Space Agency has reached phase A, which means the start of the development process of the mission hardware's first prototypes. This includes OPIC, or Optical Imager for Comets: the main instrument of the mission, which will be developed by the researchers of Tartu Observatory in Tõravere.

“Who knows what could be possible if only you chose something exciting and didn’t give up until it was properly done” – this is the mentality that this year’s Charles Villmann scholarship laureate Indrek Sünter wants to inject into others. Sünter himself is the very impersonation of it: he had a key role in the first ESTCube mission and is part of the team that is preparing for the second one. Besides that, he is developing the cameras of the European Student Earth Orbiter (ESEO).

Tartu Observatory has had quite a few different names in the past, has been administrated by a number different institutions and even seen different regimes. Behind the name of the observatory are our employees who have kept the Estonian space science world class throughout all of the changes. Many of our colleagues have been working here for more than 50 years: Tõnu Prans, Mare Ruusalepp, former Director Tõnu Viik and academics Enn Saar and Jaan Einasto. Jaan, who recently celebrated his 90th birthday, has been a researcher at the observatory since 1952.

„The most exciting part, of course, is getting answers to research questions and providing the science community with new information,“ says recent Ernst Julius Öpik scholarship laureate Maarja Kruuse. And by information, Kruuse means knowledge about the evolution of our whole Universe: her PhD thesis is about the structure of the Universe.

If someone had told Ave Ansper, the trainee of the observatory’s remote sensing of water bodies group five years ago that she would be holding a presentation at the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2018, she would not have believed it. „I’d rather have believed that I would go to the PyeongChang Olympics,“ she said. As a matter of fact, she would have perfectly fitted there as well.

This year, the employees of Tartu Observatory supervised numerous students who have now successfully graduated from university, as well as oversaw high school students' research projects. This is a selection of theses written under the supervision of the observatory's research fellows, engineers, and technicians. Master's theses [collapsed] Automating data management system of 1.5-meter telescope at Tartu Observatory Laimonas Suchockas, University of Tartu

This year it is 30 years since the Hubble Space Telescope was launched to orbit. For the anniversary, stunning space photos taken by Hubble can be seen at Tartu Observatory in Tõravere.