Video: 02:15:00
Watch the replay of the EarthCARE launch coverage. The video includes streaming of the event at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre in Germany and footage of liftoff from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, US.
EarthCARE was lofted into orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on 29 May at 00:20 CEST (28 May, 15:20 local time).
It’s coming back! Sunspot AR3664 gave us an amazing display of northern lights in mid-May and it’s now rotating back into view. That means another great display if this sunspot continues to flare out. It’s all part of solar maximum—the peak of an 11-year cycle of solar active and quiet times. This cycle is the result of something inside the Sun—the solar dynamo. A team of scientists suggests that this big generator lies not far beneath the solar surface. It creates a magnetic field and spurs flares and sunspots.
Start talking about Venus and immediately my mind goes to those images from the Venera space probes that visited Venus in the 1970’s. They revealed a world that had been scarred by millennia of volcanic activity yet as far as we could tell those volcanoes were dormant. That is, until just now. Magellan has been mapping the surface of Venus and between 1990 and 1992 had mapped 98% of the surface. Researchers compared two scans of the same area and discovered that there were fresh outflows of molten rock filling a vent crater! There was active volcanism on Venus.
ESA’s EarthCARE satellite, poised to revolutionise our understanding of how clouds and aerosols affect our climate, has been launched. This extraordinary satellite embarked on its journey into space on 29 May at 00:20 CEST (28 May, 15:20 local time) aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, US.
Russia's uncrewed Progress 86 cargo craft departed the International Space Station early Tuesday morning (May 28), ending a six-month orbital stay.
The largest camera ever built for astronomy arrived in Chile, where it will be installed atop Rubin Observatory's Simonyi Survey Telescope.
Venus may be as geologically active as Earth, with volcanoes possibly spewing on its surface in the present day.
A review of director Brad Peyton's new sci-fi adventure flick, "Atlas."
We’re fortunate to live in these times. Multiple space telescopes feed us a rich stream of astounding images that never seems to end. Each one is a portrait of some part of nature’s glory, enriched by the science behind it all. All we have to do is revel in the wonder.
SpaceX will launch the EarthCARE mission this afternoon (May 28) after sending aloft a group of Starlinks this morning, and you can watch the action live.
The European Space Agency has now released ten images from its dark universe detective spacecraft, Euclid. We asked scientists from various fields to pick their favorite Euclid image thus far.
Do galaxies, including our own Milky Way, orbit anything in the universe?
Two Chinese astronauts spent about 8.5 hours outside the Tiangong space station today (May 28), setting a new spacewalk-duration record for the country.
ESA and some of its member states have signed the non-binding Zero Debris Charter, committing themselves to take steps to help tackle the orbital debris problem.
The four zebrafish China sent to its space station are thriving after spending almost a month in orbit.
A preview of the new season of "Star Trek Online," starring Denise Crosby's Captain Sela.
The Euclid mission has released five new panoramas of celestial objects that are stunning in both their breadth and depth.
ESA’s Solar Orbiter made the first ever connection between measurements of the solar wind around a spacecraft to high-resolution images of the Sun’s surface at a close distance. The success opens a new way for solar physicists to study the source regions of the solar wind.
A rendering of the Earth Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) spacecraft onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 second stage as the payload fairings deploy. Graphic: ESA
The European Space Agency is preparing to launch its latest Earth observing satellite, designed to better understand the climate. The Earth Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) has four instruments which will study clouds and aerosols around the Earth “to improve the accuracy of climate models and support numerical weather prediction.”
Normally you don’t want dust to get into your spacecraft. That was certainly true for the InSight mission to Mars, until it died. Now, however, it’s acting as a dust collector, and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) scientists couldn’t be happier.
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