Space News & Blog Articles

Week in images: 18-22 November 2024

Image: This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image from 13 November 2024 shows the Lewotobi Laki Laki volcano eruption on the island of Flores in southern Indonesia.

In emergency evacuations, access to reliable information can mean the difference between life and death. As our world faces growing challenges from natural disasters and conflicts, the need for rapid, accurate data during evacuations is vital.

Image: Proba-3: Firing laser!

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Meet Copernicus Sentinel-1 – this ground-breaking mission delivers continuous, all-weather, day-and-night imaging for land, ice and maritime monitoring. 

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Explore the immense power of water as ESA’s Mars Express takes us on a flight over curving channels, streamlined islands and muddled ‘chaotic terrain’ on Mars, soaking up rover landing sites along the way.

Zoom into Solar Orbiter's four new Sun images, assembled from high-resolution observations by the spacecraft's PHI and EUI instruments made on 22 March 2023. The PHI images are the highest-resolution full views of the Sun's visible surface to date, including maps of the Sun's messy magnetic field and movement on the surface. These can be compared to the new EUI image, which reveals the Sun's glowing outer atmosphere, or corona.

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At ESA, through the Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems programme, we’re addressing solutions for when safety and security of communication services cannot be guaranteed by the terrestrial networks alone. With our programme Space systems for Safety and Security, or 4S, we are pioneering cutting-edge development of secure and resilient satellite communication systems, technologies and services to improve life on Earth. 

As Arctic temperatures rise, marine-terminating glaciers—especially in places like Svalbard—are undergoing rapid retreat and intensified calving.

Proba-3

Copernicus Sentinel-1

Video: 00:04:31

The double-satellite Proba-3 is the most ambitious member yet of ESA’s Proba family of experimental missions. Two spacecraft will fly together as one, maintaining precise formation down to a single millimetre. One will block out the fiery disc of the Sun for the other, to enable prolonged observations of the Sun’s surrounding atmosphere, or ‘corona’, the source of the solar wind and space weather. Usually, the corona can only be glimpsed for a few minutes during terrestrial total solar eclipses. Proba-3 aims to reproduce such eclipses for up to six hours at a time, in a highly elliptical orbit taking it more than 60 000 km from Earth. The two spacecraft are being launched together by India’s PSLV-XL launcher from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre. Follow the mission’s deployment and commissioning, up to its first glimpse of the corona, in this overview video.

Marking a major milestone in the preparation of Copernicus Sentinel-1C for its scheduled 3 December liftoff, experts have completed the critical and hazardous process of fuelling the satellite.

Week in images: 11-15 November 2024

Image: These two images acquired by Copernicus Sentinel-2 highlight how the mission can help distinguish between clouds and snow.

Today, the European Space Agency signed six contracts that will help position Greece as a key player in the field of Earth observation.

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Smile is the Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer, a brand-new space mission currently in the making. It will study space weather and the interaction between the solar wind and Earth’s environment.

Image: Getting Proba-3 fit for flight

ESA is taking a significant step towards creating a more digitally inclusive Europe through a new partnership that will bring internet access to the hardest-to-reach areas. Reliable connectivity has become essential in today's digital age, yet for many Europeans in rural villages, mountainous regions, and small islands, dependable internet access remains out of reach.

A new European Space Agency-backed study shows that the extreme heatwaves of 2023, which fuelled huge wildfires and severe droughts, also undermined the land’s capacity to soak up atmospheric carbon. This diminished carbon uptake drove atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to new highs, intensifying concerns about accelerating climate change.

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On 12 November 2014, after a ten-year journey through the Solar System and over 500 million kilometres from home, Rosetta’s lander Philae made space exploration history by touching down on a comet for the first time. On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of this extraordinary feat, we celebrate by taking a look back over the mission's highlights.