The Arctic Planetary Science Institute, or APSI (

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

: (unofficially) ''Arktinen planeettatutkimusinstituutti'') is an independent organization dedicated to conducting science in

planetary geology Planetary geology, alternatively known as astrogeology or exogeology, is a planetary science discipline concerned with the geology of the celestial bodies such as the planets and their moons, asteroids, comets, and meteorites. Although the ge ...

and other closely related fields. APSI focuses on research, public outreach, and collaboration with other similar minded parties. APSI is a virtual and international institute operating through free interaction between scientists. It is run by Finnish planetologists and its headquarters is located at the Arctic Circle in

Rovaniemi Rovaniemi ( , ; sme, Roavvenjárga ; smn, Ruávinjargâ; sms, Ruäʹvnjargg) is a city and municipality of Finland. It is the administrative capital and commercial centre of Finland's northernmost province, Lapland, and its southern part Per� ...

, Finnish

Lapland Lapland may refer to: Places *Lapland or Sápmi, an ethno-cultural region stretching over northern Fennoscandia (parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia) **Lapland (Finland) (''Lappi''/''Lappland''), a Finnish region ***Lapland (former pro ...

(hence the name). The institute was formed in 2013 and officially registered in Finland in 2015. Currently (2018) it has 12 scientists operating in three countries.

Science

Research in APSI is not restricted to specific topics. Current projects include: * Age determination of

impact crater An impact crater is a circular depression in the surface of a solid astronomical object formed by the hypervelocity impact of a smaller object. In contrast to volcanic craters, which result from explosion or internal collapse, impact crater ...

s in

Fennoscandia __NOTOC__ Fennoscandia ( Finnish, Swedish and no, Fennoskandia, nocat=1; russian: Фенноскандия, Fennoskandiya) or the Fennoscandian Peninsula is the geographical peninsula in Europe, which includes the Scandinavian and Kola penins ...

; * Interaction between glacial and volcanic activity in the Hellas region on Mars; *

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...

ian surface mapping; * Public outreach. The institute has its own scientific contribution series. As of March 2018, there are nine APSI contributions. In 2016 APSI saved

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...

's Nordic

Regional Planetary Image Facility The Regional Planetary Image Facilities (RPIFs) are planetary image and data libraries located throughout the United States and abroad that are funded by the host institutions. They once had funding from NASA A network of these facilities was esta ...

by moving the materials to

Lappajärvi Lappajärvi is a municipality in Finland in Southern Ostrobothnia region. It is from Lappajärvi to Seinäjoki, to Kokkola and to Vaasa. The municipality has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population density ...

. Previously th
NRPIF
was situated at

University of Oulu The University of Oulu ( fi, Oulun yliopisto) is one of the largest universities in Finland, located in the city of Oulu. It was founded on July 8, 1958. The university has around 13,000 students and 2,900 staff. 21 International Master's P ...

Insignia

In the APSI insignia design, the lighter sphere represents Earth and the darker one other solid surface bodies in the

Solar system The Solar System Capitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar ...

. The curved line represents information flow towards Earth. The relative sizes of the spheres correspond to those of

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surf ...

and

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmos ...

, with the bulge at the end of the curved line corresponding to the relative size of the

dwarf planet A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit of the Sun, smaller than any of the eight classical planets but still a world in its own right. The prototypical dwarf planet is Pluto. The interest of dwarf planets to ...

Pluto Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest k ...

. The line transecting the top of both Earth and the

acronym An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in '' NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, a ...

"APSi" represents the northern

polar circle A polar circle is a geographic term for a conditional circular line (arc) referring either to the Arctic Circle or the Antarctic Circle. These are two of the keynote circles of latitude (parallels). On Earth, the Arctic Circle is currently ...

References

External links

* {{Official, http://planetaryscience.fi Space science organizations Scientific organisations based in Finland