Space News & Blog Articles

Week in images: 23-27 October 2023

ESA’s first-ever Earth Observation Commercialisation Forum will take place next week at ESA Headquarters in Paris from 30 to 31 October 2023. The event will see investors, institutions, entrepreneurs and companies of any size from the Earth observation sector coming together to discuss the commercial potential and challenges of Earth observation. Follow our live steaming on ESA WebTV Two.

The full Moon on October 28th shines near full Jupiter at opposition this week. Telescopically, Jupiter this week is as big as you'll ever see it,

Image: This rare, almost cloud-free view of the remote Elephant Island in Antarctica was captured in February 2023 by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission.

Lisa Watson-Morgan, program manager for the Human Landing System program, moderates a fireside chat with Benji Reed, Sr. Director of Human Spaceflight Programs at SpaceX (left) and John Couluris, Sr. VP of Lunar Transportation at Blue Origin. Image: Will Robinson-Smith

After a successful mission with Artemis 1 in November, 2022, and with the pieces of the Artemis 2 architecture coming together for a launch targeting late 2024, NASA continues to simultaneously push towards the big items that are key to the future missions.

An impact far from NASA's Insight lander on Mars set off seismic waves that revealed new details about the Martian interior.

A partial lunar eclipse will be visible in most of the world on Oct. 28. Here we look at what time the eclipse will start and where it can be seen.

Lego has revealed the first details and new images for its new "Dune" Royal Atreides Ornithopter that will be available in 2024 and is now open for pre-orders.

Tellurium, an element rarer than platinum on Earth, was just found in the aftermath of a violent cosmic event 1 billion light-years away, thanks to James Webb Space Telescope.

NASA has revealed how the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will grant astronomers the deepest view into the heart of the Milky Way ever as they hunt for planets, stars, black holes and more.

The 'ghost' of ancient river-carved landscape discovered has been preserved beneath the East Antarctic ice sheet since the continent froze over 34 million years ago.

Rocket Lab is still investigating what caused its Electron vehicle to fail on Sept. 19, but the company is confident it will be back on the launch pad in 2023.

Sections of the Orion spacecraft tasked with flying four astronauts around the moon during the Artemis 2 mission have been joined together. The mission is set for no earlier than late 2024.

An ongoing project to develop a low-cost, reusable engine for European rockets made considerable progress over the summer and autumn, with a series of tests that achieved full ignition and, ultimately, a 30-second burn with re-ignition of an early prototype of the Prometheus engine. 

The Ancient Romans constructed hundreds of forts near their eastern borders in modern-day Syria and Iraq. Declassified spy satellite imagery spotted the forts and may shed light on the battlements' purpose.

A better understanding of exoplanet orbits is helping SETI astronomers reduce their computational costs and conduct their search for intelligent aliens faster.

With a multitude of opportunities for start-ups, established companies and investors, commercial Earth observation is a vibrant sector with fast-moving innovations in technology, datasets and downstream applications. ESA is a key driving force for the development of European Earth observation and provides impetus through its many programmes and initiatives.

The permanent exhibition Mission Spatiale just opened its doors at the Cité des sciences et de l’industrie in Paris. Produced in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA), this immersive exhibition is dedicated to space exploration and invites visitors to embark on an interactive journey structured into five steps: Explore, Travel, Transit, Stay and Questions.

We are pleased to announce the introduction of roster recruitment at ESA as a new way to launch your career with us. If you work in a field for which ESA consistently recruits in high numbers, such as system engineering, corporate controlling and product assurance, placement on a roster will open up your access to job opportunities with us. The first ESA roster recruitment position has just been published, so here is a short explainer to bring you up to speed on this new system.