Space News & Blog Articles

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Earth from Space: Panama Canal

Image: Like shining jewels in the water, ships passing through the Panama Canal, which cuts across Central America, have been captured in this Copernicus Sentinel-1 image.

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Media briefing on the outcome of ESA’s 317th Council

Video: 01:00:00

ESA Member States met for the 317th session of the ESA Council on 18 and 19 October.

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Year 2075: martian rovers saved from cyber attack

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The scene was set: a research base on the Red Planet was struck by a cyberattack and eight teams on Earth had just a matter of hours to save it. Far from being a farfetched scenario, cyberattacks are unfortunately a daily problem for all sectors, including space exploration, and can have devastating consequences.

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Satnav test on remote island lab

ESA’s navigation testbed vehicle participated in a campaign organised by Norwegian governmental authorities to assess the impact of jamming and spoofing on satnav systems and test innovative technologies for detection and mitigation.

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Week in images: 09-13 October 2023

Week in images: 09-13 October 2023

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Earth from Space: Bentiu, South Sudan

Image: The landscape around the city of Bentiu in South Sudan is featured in this Copernicus Sentinel-2 image.

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Antarctic ice shelf demise

New research, based largely on information from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 and ESA’s CryoSat satellite missions, has revealed alarming findings about the state of Antarctica's ice shelves: 40% of these floating shelves have significantly reduced in volume over the past quarter-century. While this underscores the accelerating impacts of climate change on the world's southernmost continent, the picture of ice deterioration is mixed.

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How to make roads on the Moon

When astronauts return to the lunar surface they are probably going to be doing more driving than walking – but to keep billowing moondust at bay they are going to need roads. An ESA project reported in today’s Nature Scientific Reports tested the creation of roadworthy surfaces by melting simulated moondust with a powerful laser.

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The Incredible Adventures of the Hera mission – Testing times

Video: 00:03:42

Meet Hera, our very own asteroid detective. Together with two CubeSats – Milani the rock decoder and Juventas the radar visionary – Hera is off on an adventure to explore Didymos, a double asteroid system that is typical of the thousands that pose an impact risk to planet Earth. 

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Space set to keep people safer during emergencies

Governments and international disaster response teams have long relied on satellites to assess the impacts of disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes. Now ESA has partnered with ICEYE, a Finnish microsatellite manufacturer, to improve early warning systems for floods and wildfires and extend their geographical coverage globally.

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Fly across Mars’s ‘labyrinth of night’ with Mars Express

Video: 00:03:44

Nestled between the colossal martian ‘Grand Canyon’ (Valles Marineris) and the tallest volcanoes in the Solar System (the Tharsis region) lies Noctis Labyrinthus – a vast system of deep and steep valleys that stretches out for around 1190 km (roughly the length of Italy here on Earth).

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Measuring nutrition in crops from space

With many people around the world suffering from various forms of malnutrition it’s important that the absolute basics such as rice, soya and wheat are as nourishing as possible. ESA-funded research shows that the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission and the Italian Prisma mission could be used to monitor the nutritional content of staple crops. This could, for example, help farmers take appropriate steps to boost the quality of their crops as they grow.

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First month of science for Huginn

Andreas Mogensen had a busy first month in space, with plenty of science from sleeping in orbit and capturing pictures of thunderstorms to making chocolate mousse. Here is an overview of Andreas’s first month of science on the Space Station.  

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New Gaia release reveals rare lenses, cluster cores and unforeseen science

Today, ESA's Gaia mission releases a goldmine of knowledge about our galaxy and beyond. Among other findings, the star surveyor surpasses its planned potential to reveal half a million new and faint stars in a massive cluster, identify over 380 possible cosmic lenses, and pinpoint the positions of more than 150 000 asteroids within the Solar System.

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Connect to ESA Careers Day on 9 November

If you are interested in applying for a job at ESA, curious to know what opportunities we have for you or would like to hear about the projects our teams are working on, then mark your calendar for 9 November 2023! For this fully online event, we will be streaming a programme packed full of sessions giving you an insider’s look at STEM careers at ESA.

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Wanted: bright ideas to develop the lunar economy

ESA is calling for visionary ideas for how to use a constellation of communication and navigation satellites around the Moon to establish lunar businesses – and unlock opportunities on Earth.

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Vega flies to bring satellites to space

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Week in images: 02-06 October 2023

Week in images: 02-06 October 2023

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ESA and Axiom Space forge partnership for future space exploration

The European Space Agency ESA and Axiom Space signed a Memorandum of Understanding on 1 October in Paris to explore collaborative opportunities in human spaceflight, science, technology, and commercialisation.

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Shoebox-sized space labs being launched by Vega

Among the smallest passengers aboard Europe’s Vega launch tonight are also the most ambitious in nature: twin miniaturised laboratories, or CubeSats, for the in-orbit demonstration of disruptive state-of-the-art space technologies. 

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Hypergravity odyssey of Earth’s tiniest plant

The smallest flowering plant on Earth might become a nutritious foodstuff for astronauts in the future, as well as a highly efficient source of oxygen. To help test its suitability for space, floating clumps of watermeal – individually the size of pinheads – were subjected to 20 times normal Earth gravity aboard ESA’s Large Diameter Centrifuge by a team from Mahidol University in Thailand.

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