On September 9, 2025, Kana Amano from the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, France, gave a talk at the UTOPS Seminar.
In her lecture, titled “Reinterpretation of the Redox State of Hydrous Carbonaceous Chondrites: Insights from Sample Return Missions,” she presented recent studies on the redox conditions of extraterrestrial materials, including new insights obtained from samples returned from asteroid Ryugu.
On September 5, 2025, Professor Shogo Tachibana of the University of Tokyo Organization for Planetary and Space Science (UTOPS) gave a lecture on space science to sixth-grade students at Nakamura Elementary School in Nerima, Tokyo.
This marked the third consecutive year that classes have been held at the school.
For photos and more details from the event, please visit the following webpage and look for the posts titled 「宇宙の話1」 and 「宇宙の話2」:
https://cms.nerima-tky.ed.jp/swas/index.php?id=107&frame=weblog
On August 30, 2025, Professor Shogo Tachibana of UTOPS gave a lecture titled “Space Rocks and the Recipe of the Solar System” at the Children’s Science College hosted by the Bunkyo City Education Center.
The lecture introduced extraterrestrial materials and the science of the Solar System to elementary and junior high school students.
On August 2–3, Professor Shogo Tachibana of the UTOPS conducted an astronomy practicum for students from Matsumoto Arigasaki High School and Matsumoto Fukashi High School in Nagano Prefecture.
During the program, students analyzed the recession velocities of galaxies and estimated the age of the Universe through hands-on astronomical exercises.
The Next-Generation Astrochemistry Summer School was co-hosted on August 21–23, 2025, bringing together undergraduate and graduate students from universities across Japan.
The program featured lectures on astrochemistry from a variety of perspectives, including astronomy, Earth and planetary science, quantum chemistry, experimental physics, and surface science. Participants also took part in laboratory tours and hands-on mini practical sessions during the event.
Professor Shogo Tachibana of UTOPS gave a lecture to high school students at the 45th Mathematical Wings Summer Seminar, held in Toyama Prefecture from August 3 to August 7, 2025.
For more details, please see here.
On August 2 (Sat.) and 3 (Sun.), 2025, we held an astronomy training for students from Matsumoto-Arigasaki High School and Matsumoto-Fukashi High School in Nagano Prefecture. They estimated the distance to galaxies from photographs of galaxies and used the recession speeds of these galaxies to determine the age of the universe.
On August 4, 2025, sixteen students from Komatsu High School (Ishikawa Prefecture) visited UTOPS.
During their visit, they attended a mock lecture on unsolved problems in the Solar System and on the analysis of samples returned from asteroid Ryugu, followed by a tour of the laboratories.
