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.

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.

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.

ESA's Science Programme Committee have agreed to adopt PLATO into the Science Programme moving forwards. Mission adoption is a big milestone for PLATO, and marks the move from a blueprint mission into a fully-realised concern.

This decision is just reward for all of the hard work put in by the PLATO team over the last several years.

A research team led by PSM member Andrew Miglio (University of Birmingham) has published a white paper on the pre-print arXiv that describes how PLATO can contribute to the field of Galactic archaeology.

They identify key outstanding questions related to the formation and evolution of the Milky Way. Answering these questions requires precise, accurate ages for large samples of stars, such as those that will be provided by PLATO's asteroseismic data (through WP12, Stellar Science). They demonstrate that the capabilities of PLATO are such that answering their key questions is possible.

The paper can be found on ADS.