There have been some recent udpates to the organisation charts of the PSM (click the title of this item for more details). The latest versions are now visible on the appropriate research area pages, and are available for download from the PSM Organisation Charts pageLink opens in a new window.

With most international conferences being cancelled, we’re facing some issues:

• How can we make our PhD students known for their work?
• How can they start new collaborations, independently of their supervisors?
• How can they advertise for their papers?

So here’s the idea: what if we create a series of invited seminars, given by young researchers, dedicated to Asteroseismology? We are happy to announce that the Good Vibrations Seminar Series is up and running. You can read about the initiative on the website.

Call for applications

The steering committee is welcoming applications from PhD students in Asteroseismology. The procedure is simple and can be found here: Apply!

In order to perform the selection and distribute the seminars in time, it is important that students declare their interest in advance (i.e. before the end of 2020); the title and abstract can be preliminary at this stage.

Please note that priority will be given to students who finish their PhD in 2021. The steering committee will aim to ensure appropriate diversity of both seminar topics and speakers.

If you want to include your group in the initiative, you are most welcome to join. If you have any further questions, please get in touch with the steering committee.

WP12 (STESCI) are holding their third workshop in Barcelona, Spain, between 19th and 22nd November 2019.

STESCI currently includes over 100 researchers from 11 different countries, across Europe, North America, and South America. Its activities are spread over 53 sub-work packages, which tasks have been defined. However scientific issues remain to be debated in order to ensure optimized determination of stellar parameters with the accuracy required by the mission, yet unreached.

This workshop intend to gather STESCI members, with the aim of discussing and taking decisions about the best scientific options to derive stellar parameters with the uncertainties requested by the PLATO mission.

For more information, please see the workshop's website.

The PLATO mission consortium has a new website - https://platomission.com/

The new website provides an overview of the PLATO mission, information about the different groups involved, science goals and requirements, development work, mission timeline, etc.

For general information about PLATO, please use the new website. PSM-specific news and updates will continue to be made available through this website.

WP12 (STESCI) are holding their second workshop in Messina, Sicily, Italy, between 22nd and 25th May 2018.

The first part of the workshop will consist of presentations which will review the scientific issues and related tasks achieved since the previous workshop (held in Paris in May 2016). Decisions on chosen scientific options will then be made, and approved.

In the second part of the workshop, scientific presentations and discussions will take place about issues that still remain to be clarified and solved. Related actions, and scientific work to be done, will be decided.

Places are limited; for more information, please see the workshop's website.

Brief reports for PLATO Week 4 (Summer 2017) and PLATO Week 5 (Autumn 2017) are now available through the Meetings page. Both PLATO Weeks included a large number of sessions that were relevant to the PSM.

The presentations from these meetings are available from the PLATO Sharepoint (sign-in required). Those relevant to the PSM will be made available through the Meeting Documents page (PSM members only, sign-in required).

WP120, the Core Stellar Science branch of the PSM has a new website. Please check it out at this link (https://plato-stesci.lesia.obspm.fr/).

The Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço (IA), Universidade do Porto, Portugal will organise the fifth PLATO Week that is scheduled from 24/10/2017 to 26/10/2017. For questions concerning the local organisation please contact pw05@iastro.pt. Please note that attendance is by invitation only.

For more information, please see the meeting website.

PLATO Week 4 will be hosted at the Albanova University Centre, Stockholm, Sweden. It will be taking place between the 20th and 22nd of June 2017. Attendance is by invitation only.

For more details, please see the meeting's website.

PLATO Week 3 took place at MPSSR in Göttingen between the 13th and 15th of March 2017. There were many sessions of relevance to the PSM:

• An overview of PSM activities since the last meeting, presented by the PSM Coordinator, Don Pollacco.
• A joint PSM-PDC plenary session, which included presentations on the L1 on-ground processing chain, Exoplanet Science and Stellar Science requirements on L1 data, and a working model for interactions between the two bodies.
• A splinter session on candidate ranking and follow-up
• A splinter session on PMC System Wide tools, with reference to PSM tools for content management, version control, action items, and requirement tracking moving forwards.
• A splinter session on the PDC Database organisation
• A splinter session on support tools for data analysis.

The presentations from these sessions, and from all of the other sessions at PLATO Week 3, can be found at the meeting's webpage, and through the detailed information for this news item.

A WP120 meeting with the leaders of the WP12X took place on the 23rd and 24th of May.