Space News & Blog Articles

Week in images: 06-10 February 2023

ESA celebrates the International Day of Women and Girls in Science  this 11 February, and highlights the story of the first all-female Systems Team in ESA’s Concurrent Design Facility, the place where ideas for new space missions, systems and structures take definite shape.

ESA’s mission to explore Jupiter and its largest moons has safely arrived at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, where final preparations for its April launch are now underway.

Image: Agricultural fields that surround the cities of Lund and Malmö in Sweden are pictured in this image, captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission.

Image: Can you spot it?

Image: Sound test of Hera asteroid mission antenna

Video: 00:03:21 Three-minute cinematic video trailer presenting ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) mission

During a break from looking at planets around other stars, ESA’s CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (Cheops) mission has observed a dwarf planet in our own Solar System and made a decisive contribution to the discovery of a dense ring of material around it.

Image: Deadly wildfires continue to rage in south-central Chile destroying hundreds of thousands of hectares of land across the country. Satellite images captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission on 4 February show the ongoing fires and heatwave in South America.

A previously unknown 100–200-metre asteroid — roughly the size of Rome’s Colosseum — has been detected by an international team of European astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. Their project used data from the calibration of the Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI), in which the team serendipitously detected an interloping asteroid. The object is likely the smallest observed to date by Webb and may be an example of an object measuring under 1 kilometer in length within the main asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter. More observations are needed to better characterize this object’s nature and properties.

Video: 00:05:36 Five-minute behind-the-scenes documentary covering the story behind the application of the Galileo tribute plaque to ESA’s Juice spacecraft.

Week in images: 30 January - 03 February 2023

Image: Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, is featured in this image, captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission.

Image: Exploring a turbulent tarantula

ESA’s geology training course PANGAEA has come of age with the publication of a paper that describes the quest for designing the best possible geology training for the next astronauts to walk on the surface of the Moon.

The 2023 Young Graduate Trainee positions are now open for applications! Opportunities are available in engineering, science, IT and business services. Find out more and apply now.  

Image: Setting sail for safer space

Mars displays fascinating geology everywhere you look – and nowhere is this more true than in the fractured, wrinkled ground seen in this image from ESA’s Mars Express.

Image: A crowded field of galaxies throngs this Picture of the Month from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, along with bright stars crowned with Webb’s signature six-pointed diffraction spikes.