Space News & Blog Articles

Image: Nearing Hera era in space

The latest edition of ESA Impact is here

Week in images: 23-27 September 2024

Video: 00:20:48

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice), is on an epic eight-year journey to Jupiter. This first episode of ‘The journey of Juice’ tells the story of Juice’s first months in space, from its launch on 14 April 2023 to its lunar-Earth gravity assist (LEGA for short) in August 2024. This flyby was not only the first double gravity assist manoeuvre of its kind, it was also a perfect opportunity to test out the spacecraft’s cameras and science instruments.  

Image: This image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission reveals the impact of severe flooding following heavy rain that hit Australia’s Northern Territory in March 2024.

Image: On 20 September, the Copernicus Sentinel-2C satellite captured its first stunning image of the Moon, achieved by rolling the satellite sideways in a unique manoeuvre. Although Sentinel-2C is primarily designed for Earth observation, this image – intended for calibration and cross-mission comparisons – exceeded expectations.

Video: 00:00:29

Solar wind is a never-ending stream of charged particles coming from the Sun. Rather than a constant breeze, this wind is rather gusty. As solar wind particles travel through space, they interact with the Sun's variable magnetic field, creating chaotic and fluctuating motion known as turbulence.

Looking deep into the early Universe with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have found something unprecedented: a galaxy with an odd light signature, which they attribute to its gas outshining its stars.

Over the nearly 70 years of spaceflight, about 10 000 intact satellites and rocket bodies have reentered the atmosphere with many more to follow. Yet for such a ubiquitous event, we still lack a clear view on what actually happens to a satellite during its fiery last moments.

Video: 00:03:12

There’s a mystery out there in deep space – and solving it will make Earth safer. That’s why the European Space Agency’s Hera mission is taking shape – to go where one particular spacecraft has gone before.

The Sentinel-1B satellite, the second satellite of the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, completed its disposal process – which included lowering its orbit and passivating its systems to ensure re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere within 25 years.

On 18–19 September, Europe’s space industry from start-up companies to large system integrators gathered at ESA–ESTEC in the Netherlands for Industry Space Days 2024.

Image: The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission has snapped a souvenir of the Burning Man festival in the Black Rock desert in Nevada.

XRISM revealed the structure, motion and temperature of the material around a supermassive black hole and in a supernova remnant in unprecedented detail. Astronomers presented the first scientific results of the new X-ray telescope today, less than a year after the telescope’s launch.

Just a month after its launch, ESA’s Arctic Weather Satellite has already delivered its first images, notably capturing Storm Boris, which has been wreaking havoc across central Europe. 

Hera asteroid mission launch kit

Video: 00:03:02

From the arrival of the Earth obversation satellite Sentinel-2C in July 2024 and the first fit-check to launch from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, this timelapse shows how the third Sentinel-2 satellite was prepared for launch. The last Vega rocket, flight VV24, lifted off on 5 September at 03:50 CEST (4 September 22:50 local time).

The European Galileo satellite navigation system keeps growing: a new pair of satellites has joined the constellation after a journey on a Falcon 9 rocket, launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on 18 September at 00:50 CEST (17 September 18:50 local time).

Less than two weeks after being launched into orbit, Sentinel-2C has delivered its first images. These spectacular views of Earth offer a sneak peek at the data that this new satellite will provide for Copernicus – Europe’s world-leading Earth observation programme.

With the help of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, an international team of researchers led by scientists in the Department of Astronomy at Stockholm University has found more black holes in the early Universe than has previously been reported. The new result can help scientists understand how supermassive black holes were created.

Swatch has again teamed up with ESA to give space fans a new opportunity to design a custom watch featuring breathtaking images of Earth from space.