ABOUT US

Administrator:

Sven Piper

Norberstr. 4

59067 Hamm

Phone: +49 (0) 176 23606163

E-Mail: webmaster@astris.info

Twitter: Viper2024

Instagram: svenpiper

Alumni:

Frank Erhardt (2005-2008)

Authors of guest article:

Dr. Norbert Gasch

René Lemme

Dr. Silke Mercel

Sources

For our information we mostly use the official websites of the space organisations and institutes of this world. The image material also comes from these organisations and is subject to the copyright of these organisations, whereby images from NASA, ESA and ESO are mostly classified as "public domain". We also have a library with several hundred books about astronomy, space technology and physics.

History

Our site went online on August 13th, 2001 and has had several facelifts since then. Since we were in the final selection for the Grimme Online Award (the most meaningful Online Award in Europe) in 2005, our site has been well known to a wide audience and has often been featured in television and radio programs.

Television

"Impressive photographs from the universe, current news about the largest expeditions and a lot of background information: This website is one of the best." WDR broadcast from January 24, 2005

Radio

"Star watch over the Internet: Stars, moons, planets - more and more people are getting enthusiastic about astronomy and space travel through the images that the satellites send us from space. Who would like to inform comprehensively and in detail, should look at the Internet side extrasolar-planets.com. It is a kind of universal encyclopedia for space fans. The contributions on this side are understandable and respectable. The WDR 2 Favourite". WDR 2 broadcast April 21, 2005

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a great idea and in the field of science you can find a lot of first class articles. But unfortunately there are also topics that are treated less seriously, as we learned the hard way. In May 2006 we reported in the news "Former Nazi removed from Space Hall of Fame". It was about the removal of Professor Hubertus Strughold from the Space Hall of Fame in Arizona, because he was involved in terrible human experiments during World War 2. But for a long time you couldn't read anything about it in the German version of Wikipedia. Certain people always removed all information about Professor Hubertus Strughold's dark past. There was a so-called "Edit-War" raging. This opened our eyes and showed that our work is important even in times of Wikipedia.

Lawsuit

A dark chapter was the legal dispute with the largest European aerospace company EADS/Astrium (today Airbus Defense and Space), who were of the opinion that our website and our trademark rights to "Astris" would infringe their trademark rights to "Astrium" and that there was also a risk of confusion. Our argumentation was that there are a lot of words who begin with "ASTR" like ASTRonomy and ASTRophysics. After an extremely expensive litigation, we finally lost our trademark rights, but not our domain www.astris.de . However, as there was a permanent danger of a temporary injunction during the legal dispute, we left our domain astris.de on hold and could only be reached under the domain www.extrasolar-planets.com.

Today we uses astris.de and astris.info for our comprehensive German version and extrasolar-planets.com for our small English version.

The arrogance from Google

For a long time we have been writing news regularly, but we had to finally stop, because Google had removed us from the Google News Index in December 2006 and effort and yield were out of proportion. Google was bothered by the fact that we always included the sources of NASA and ESA in our news. They accused us of being just a news aggregator. Our news were researched extensively, enriched with background information and often more substantial than the typical copy&paste of news agency reports. But against the arrogance of Google Germany it's hard to be reassured that after some discussions we would be taken up again and that "the recording process would only take a few weeks", but since then we haven't reappeared in the Google News Index. The Google staff members are measured to decide for themselves what good or bad science news is and are as tolerant as a Spanish inquisitor.

Blog

From April 2007 - January 2009 I also ran an astronomy blog. By annoying myself about conspiracy theories about the Moon landing, the lack of detailed knowledge or even the fake news of the yellow press. In addition I had doubts about the future of mankind when periodically someone in the TV show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" did not know what orbits the Earth (the Sun or the Moon). Especially memorable was the French version of the show as even the majority of the audience thought, that this would be the Sun.

Content Management System

In the first 7 years we used self-programmed websites, which were created with the software Adobe GoLive. In November 2008 we switched to the American Content Management System (CMS) Vivvo. This had advantages and disadvantages, but unfortunately it allowed criminals to hacked us.

Our website has been running on the Israeli cloud platform Wix.com since 2019.

Guest contribution

Several experts have already written guest articles and if you also have expert knowledge and would like to share it with a larger readership, please feel free to contact us.

Critics

If you have discovered an error in the content or have an idea how we can improve our service, do not hesitate to contact us.

Accountability

Despite careful examination, we cannot accept any liability for the correctness of the information.

The information contained on this site is subject to copyright. You may store information on your computer for private purposes. If you publish this information, you may do so only by citing the source.

Privacy protection

The operator of these pages takes the protection of your personal data very seriously. We treat your personal data confidentially and according to the legal data protection regulations as well as this data protection explanation.

If you use this website, various personal data will be collected. Personal data is data with which you can be personally identified. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect and how we use it. It also explains how and for what purpose this is done.

We would like to point out that data transmission over the Internet (e.g. communication by e-mail) can be subject to security gaps. A complete protection of the data against access by third parties is not possible.

Who is responsible for data collection on this website?

The data processing on this website is carried out by the website operator. You can find their contact details at the top of this page or via "Contact".

How do we collect your data?

On the one hand, your data is collected by you communicating it to us. This may be data that you enter in a contact form, for example.

Other data is automatically collected by our IT systems when you visit the website. This is primarily technical data (e.g. Internet browser, operating system or time of page call). This data is collected automatically as soon as you enter our website.

What do we use your data for?

Part of the data is collected to ensure that the website is error-free. Other data can be used to analyse your user behaviour.

Revocation of your consent to data processing

Many data processing operations are only possible with your express consent. You can revoke your consent at any time. For this purpose, an informal e-mail notification to us is sufficient. The legality of the data processing carried out until the revocation remains unaffected by the revocation.

SSL or TLS encryption

This site uses SSL or TLS encryption for security reasons and to protect the transmission of confidential content, such as requests you send to us as a site operator. You can recognize an encrypted connection by the fact that the address line of the browser changes from "http://" to "https://" and by the lock symbol in your browser line.

If SSL or TLS encryption is activated, the data you transmit to us cannot be read by third parties.

Information, blocking, deletion and correction

Within the framework of the applicable legal provisions, you have the right at any time to free information about your stored personal data, their origin and recipient and the purpose of data processing and, if applicable, a right to correction, blocking or deletion of this data. You can contact us at any time at the address given under "Contact" for this and other questions on the subject of personal data.

Some of the Internet pages use so-called cookies. Cookies do not damage your computer and do not contain viruses. Cookies serve to make our offer more user-friendly, more effective and safer. Cookies are small text files that are stored on your computer by your browser.

Most of the cookies we use are so-called "session cookies". They are automatically deleted at the end of your visit. Other cookies remain stored on your terminal until you delete them. These cookies enable us to recognize your browser during your next visit.

You can set your browser so that you are informed about the setting of cookies and only allow cookies in individual cases, accept cookies for certain cases or generally exclude them and activate the automatic deletion of cookies when closing the browser. If cookies are deactivated, the functionality of this website may be restricted.

Cookies that are required to carry out the electronic communication process or to provide certain functions requested by you (e.g. shopping basket function) are stored on the basis of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO. The website operator has a justified interest in the storage of cookies for the technically error-free and optimised provision of its services. Insofar as other cookies (e.g. cookies for analysing your surfing behaviour) are stored, these are dealt with separately in this data protection declaration.

Contact form

If you send us enquiries via the contact form, your details from the enquiry form including the contact data you provided there will be stored by us for the purpose of processing the enquiry and in the event of follow-up questions. These data will not be passed on without your consent.

The processing of the data entered in the contact form is therefore carried out exclusively on the basis of your consent (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO). You can revoke this consent at any time. For this purpose, an informal e-mail notification to us is sufficient. The legality of the data processing operations carried out until the revocation remains unaffected by the revocation.

The data entered by you in the contact form will remain with us until you request deletion, revoke your consent to storage or the purpose for data storage no longer applies (e.g. after your request has been processed). Mandatory legal provisions - in particular retention periods - remain unaffected.

Inquiry by e-mail or telephone

If you contact us by e-mail or telephone, your request including all personal data (name, request) will be stored and processed by us for the purpose of processing your request. These data will not be passed on without your consent.

This data is processed on the basis of Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. b DSGVO if your request is related to the performance of a contract or is necessary for the implementation of pre-contractual measures. In all other cases, the processing is based on your consent (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO) and/or on our legitimate interests (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO), as we have a legitimate interest in the effective processing of the enquiries addressed to us.

The data you send us via contact requests will remain with us until you request deletion, revoke your consent to storage or the purpose for data storage no longer applies (e.g. after your request has been processed). Mandatory statutory provisions - in particular statutory retention periods - remain unaffected.

Comment function on this website

For the comment function on this page, in addition to your comment, information at the time the comment was created, your e-mail address and the user name you selected will be saved.

Storage time of comments

The comments and the associated data (e.g. IP address) are stored and remain on our website until the commented content has been completely deleted or the comments have to be deleted for legal reasons (e.g. offensive comments).

Legal basis

The comments are stored on the basis of your consent (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO). You can revoke your consent at any time. An informal e-mail notification to us is sufficient for this purpose. The legality of the data processing operations that have already taken place remains unaffected by the revocation.

Social media

Facebook Plugins (Like & Share Button)

On our pages are plugins of the social network Facebook, provider Facebook Inc., 1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA, integrated. You can recognize the Facebook plugins by the Facebook logo or the "Like" button on our page. You can find an overview of the Facebook plugins here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/?locale=en_EN.

When you visit our pages, the plugin establishes a direct connection between your browser and the Facebook server. Facebook receives the information that you have visited our site with your IP address. If you click the Facebook "Like-Button" while logged into your Facebook account, you can link the contents of our pages to your Facebook profile. This allows Facebook to associate visiting our pages with your user account. We would like to point out that, as the provider of the pages, we do not have any knowledge of the content of the data transmitted or its use by Facebook. Further information on this can be found in Facebook's privacy policy at: https://de-de.facebook.com/privacy/explanation.

If you do not want Facebook to be able to assign visits to our pages to your Facebook user account, please log out of your Facebook user account.

The Facebook plugins are used on the basis of Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f DSGVO. The website operator has a justified interest in the widest possible visibility in the social media.

Twitter plugin

On our pages, functions of the Twitter service are integrated. These functions are offered by Twitter Inc., 1355 Market Street, Suite 900, San Francisco, CA 94103, USA.

By using Twitter and the "Re-Tweet" function, the websites you visit are linked to your Twitter account and made known to other users. Data is also transferred to Twitter. We would like to point out that, as the provider of the pages, we do not have any knowledge of the content of the transmitted data or its use by Twitter. Further information on this can be found in Twitter's data protection declaration at: https://twitter.com/de/privacy.

The Twitter plug-in is used on the basis of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO. The website operator has a justified interest in the widest possible visibility in the social media.

You can change your data protection settings on Twitter in the account settings at https://twitter.com/account/settings.

Instagram Plugin

On our pages functions of the service Instagram are integrated. These functions are offered by Instagram Inc., 1601 Willow Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA.

If you are logged into your Instagram account, you can link the contents of our pages to your Instagram profile by clicking the Instagram button. This allows Instagram to associate visiting our pages with your user account. We would like to point out that, as the provider of the pages, we do not have any knowledge of the content of the transmitted data or its use by Instagram.

The Instagram plug-in is used on the basis of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO. The website operator has a justified interest in the widest possible visibility in the social media.

Further information can be found in Instagram's privacy policy: https://instagram.com/about/legal/privacy/.

LinkedIn Plugin

On our pages functions of the service LinkedIn are integrated. These functions are offered by LinkedIn Inc, North Mathilda Avenue, Sunnyvale, California, USA.

If you are logged into your LinkedIn account, you can click the LinkedIn button to link the content of our pages to your LinkedIn profile. This allows LinkedIn to associate your visit to our pages with your user account. We would like to point out that as the provider of the pages, we do not have any knowledge of the content of the transmitted data or its use by LinkedIn.

The LinkedIn plug-in is used on the basis of Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f DSGVO. The website operator has a justified interest in the widest possible visibility in the social media.

For more information, see LinkedIn's privacy policy: https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy?trk=uno-reg-guest-home-privacy-policy.