Space News & Blog Articles

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Week in images: 01-05 April 2024

Week in images: 01-05 April 2024

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Solar eclipses – and how to make them

Video: 00:03:39

During a solar eclipse the Earth is plunged into darkness and the Sun’s ghostly atmosphere becomes visible. Scientists travel the globe to experience total solar eclipses, which occur for just a few minutes at a time every 18 months or so. But what exactly causes solar eclipses, and how do scientists try to make their own, including with ESA’s new Proba-3 mission?

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Week in images: 25-29 March 2024

Week in images: 25-29 March 2024

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Earth from Space: The Amazon plume

Image: The Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission takes us over northern Brazil, where the Amazon River meets the Atlantic Ocean.

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Time to see the bigger picture

ESA has teamed up with Samsung to launch the first watch face for our Solar System.

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Tomorrow, ESA and NASA team up to study solar wind

In the run up to April’s total solar eclipse, ESA-led Solar Orbiter and NASA-led Parker Solar Probe are both at their closest approach to the Sun. They are taking the opportunity to join hands in studying the driving rain of plasma that streams from the Sun, fills the Solar System, and causes dazzlement and destruction at Earth.

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Radar journey to centre of Hera’s asteroid with Juventas CubeSat

A small, shoebox-sized spacecraft delivered to ESA’s Hera mission this week promises to make a giant leap forward in planetary science. Once deployed from the Hera spacecraft at the Didymos binary asteroid system, the Juventas CubeSat perform the first radar probe within an asteroid, peering deep into the heart of the Great-Pyramid-sized Dimorphos moonlet.

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SOHO reaches 5000 comets

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A citizen scientist digging through data from the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory has found the mission’s 5000th comet.

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Integral spots giant explosions feeding neutron star jets 

ESA’s gamma-ray space telescope Integral has played a decisive role in capturing jets of matter being expelled into space at one-third the speed of light. The material and energy were liberated when huge explosions occurred on the surface of a neutron star. This world-first observation proved to be 'a perfect experiment' for exploring astrophysical jets of all descriptions.

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Information session on the outcome of ESA's 323rd Council

Video: 00:38:30

ESA Member States met in Paris, France, for the 323rd session of the ESA Council on 26 and 27 March 2024.

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Vegetation gets a boost with data from space

When it comes to predicting what our climate will be like in the future, vegetation matters. Plants and trees exert a powerful influence over both the energy cycle and the water cycle. And, crucially, it is estimated that vegetation draws down well over three billion tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere each year – this is equivalent to a third of greenhouse-gas emissions from human activity.

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Mars Express celebrates 25 000 orbits

ESA’s Mars Express recently looped around Mars for the 25 000th time – and the orbiter has captured yet another spectacular view of the Red Planet to mark the occasion.

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SMOS and Swarm team up to spot huge solar storm

The Sun erupted over the weekend, flinging electromagnetic radiation towards Earth, even illuminating skies with spectacular aurora borealis. For the first time, ESA’s unlikely space weather duo of SMOS and Swarm tracked the severe solar storm — which warped Earth’s magnetic field.

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Best geologic map for a European rover on Mars

A team of European scientists have published the most detailed geologic map of Oxia Planum – the landing site for ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover on Mars. This thorough look at the geography and geological history of the area will help the rover scout the once water-rich terrain, in the search for signs of past and present life.

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Ariane 6 launches: YPSat ‘the witness’

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Marvel at stunning echo of 800-year-old explosion

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In the year 1181 a rare supernova explosion appeared in the night sky, staying visible for 185 consecutive days. Historical records show that the supernova looked like a temporary ‘star’ in the constellation Cassiopeia shining as bright as Saturn.

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‘Mother of Dragons’ comet visible in the night sky

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Unveiling the all-new ESA Impact: Dive into our Q1 2024 edition

Unveiling the all-new ESA Impact: Dive into our Q1 2024 edition

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Euclid's sight restored

A newly devised procedure to de-ice Euclid's optics has performed significantly better than hoped. Light coming in to the visible ‘VIS’ instrument from distant stars was gradually decreasing due small amounts of water ice building up on its optics. Mission teams spent months devising a procedure to heat up individual mirrors in the instrument’s complex optical system, without interfering with the finely tuned mission’s calibration or potentially causing further contamination. After the very first mirror was warmed by just 34 degrees, Euclid's sight was restored.

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Saturn's moon Enceladus top target for ESA

A fresh, icy crust hides a deep, enigmatic ocean. Plumes of water burst through cracks in the ice, shooting into space. An intrepid lander collects samples and analyses them for hints of life.

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Building ChatGPT-style tools with Earth observation

Imagine being able to ask a chatbot, “Can you make me an extremely accurate classification map of crop cultivation in Kenya?” or “Are buildings subsiding in my street?” And imagine that the information that comes back is scientifically sound and based on verified Earth observation data.

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