View allAll Photos Tagged ESA
One of the main activities in recent weeks for the BepiColombo team at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou has been the installation of multi-layered insulation foils and sewing of high-temperature blankets on the Mercury Planetary Orbiter.
The insulation is to protect the spacecraft from the extreme thermal conditions that will be experienced in Mercury orbit.
While conventional multi-layered insulation appears gold-coloured, the upper layer of the module’s striking white high-temperature blanket provides the focus of this image.
The white blankets are made from quartz fibres. Because the fabric is not electrically conductive, to control the build-up of electrostatic charge on the surface of the spacecraft, conducting threads have been woven through the outer layer every 10 cm. The edges of the outer blanket are hand-sewn together once installed on the module, as seen in this image.
The face of the spacecraft the engineer is working on is the panel that will always look at Mercury’s surface and as such many of the science instruments are focused here. This includes the orbiter’s cameras and spectrometers, a laser altimeter and particle analyser.
The panel also has fixtures to connect the module to the Transfer Module during the cruise to Mercury.
The face of the spacecraft pointing to the left in this orientation is the spacecraft radiator, which will eventually be fitted with ‘fins’ designed to reflect heat directionally, allowing the spacecraft to fly at low altitude over the hot surface of the planet. Heat generated by spacecraft subsystems and payload components, as well as heat that comes from the Sun and Mercury and ‘leaks’ through the blankets into the spacecraft, will be conducted to the radiator by heat pipes and ultimately radiated into space.
The oval shapes correlate to star trackers, used for navigation, while a spectrometer is connected with ground support equipment towards the top. At the back of this face, the magnetometer boom can be seen folded against the spacecraft – it has now also been fitted with multi-layered insulation.
For more images of the launch preparations at Kourou visit the BepiColombo image gallery.
Credits: ESA–B. Guillaume
This image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope shows a portion of the Leo P dwarf galaxy (stars at lower right represented in blue). Leo P is a star-forming galaxy located about 5 million light-years away in the constellation Leo. A team of scientists collected data from about 15 000 stars in Leo P to deduce its star formation history. They determined that it went through three phases: an initial burst of star formation, a “pause” that lasted several billion years, and then a new round of star formation that is still continuing.
The image from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) combines infrared light at wavelengths of 0.9 microns (represented in blue), 1.5 microns (green), and 2.77 microns (red). The stars in Leo P appear blue in comparison to the background galaxies for several reasons. Young, massive stars that are common in star-forming galaxies are predominantly blue. Leo P also is extremely lacking in elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, and the resulting “metal-poor” stars tend to be bluer than Sun-like stars. A bubble-like structure at bottom center is a region of ionized hydrogen surrounding a hot, massive O-type star.
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, K. McQuinn (STScI), J. DePasquale (STScI); CC BY 4.0
The graceful winding arms of the grand-design spiral galaxy M51 stretch across this image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. Unlike the menagerie of weird and wonderful spiral galaxies with ragged or disrupted spiral arms, grand-design spiral galaxies boast prominent, well-developed spiral arms like the ones showcased in this image. This galactic portrait was captured by Webb’s Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI).
In this image the reprocessed stellar light by dust grains and molecules in the medium of the galaxy illuminate a dramatic filamentary medium. Empty cavities and bright filaments alternate and give the impression of ripples propagating from the spiral arms. The yellow compact regions indicate the newly formed star clusters in the galaxy.
M51 — also known as NGC 5194 — lies about 27 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Canes Venatici, and is trapped in a tumultuous relationship with its near neighbour, the dwarf galaxy NGC 5195. The interaction between these two galaxies has made these galactic neighbours one of the better-studied galaxy pairs in the night sky. The gravitational influence of M51’s smaller companion is thought to be partially responsible for the stately nature of the galaxy’s prominent and distinct spiral arms. If you would like to learn more about this squabbling pair of galactic neighbours, you can explore earlier observations of M51 by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope here.
This Webb observation of M51 is one of a series of observations collectively titled Feedback in Emerging extrAgalactic Star clusTers, or FEAST. The FEAST observations were designed to shed light on the interplay between stellar feedback and star formation in environments outside of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Stellar feedback is the term used to describe the outpouring of energy from stars into the environments which form them, and is a crucial process in determining the rates at which stars form. Understanding stellar feedback is vital to building accurate universal models of star formation.
The aim of the FEAST observations is to discover and study stellar nurseries in galaxies beyond our own Milky Way. Before Webb became operative, other observatories such as the Atacama Large Millimetre Array in the Chilean desert and Hubble have given us a glimpse of star formation either at the onset (tracing the dense gas and dust clouds where stars will form) or after the stars have destroyed with their energy their natal gas and dust clouds. Webb is opening a new window into the early stages of star formation and stellar light, as well as the energy reprocessing of gas and dust. Scientists are seeing star clusters emerging from their natal cloud in galaxies beyond our local group for the first time. They will also be able to measure how long it takes for these stars to pollute with newly formed metals and to clean out the gas (these time scales are different from galaxy to galaxy). By studying these processes, we will better understand how the star formation cycle and metal enrichment are regulated within galaxies as well as what are the time scales for planets and brown dwarfs to form. Once dust and gas is removed from the newly formed stars, there is no material left to form planets.
[Image Description: A large spiral galaxy takes up the entirety of the image. The core is mostly bright white, but there are also swirling, detailed structures that resemble water circling a drain. There is white and pale blue light that emanates from stars and dust at the core’s centre, but it is tightly limited to the core. The detailed rings feature bands of deep orange and cloudy grey, which are interspersed by darker empty regions throughout.]
Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Adamo (Stockholm University) and the FEAST JWST team
This is a version of the ESA logo like no other: seen through a microscope it measures just over 17 thousandths of a millimetre across, about half the diameter of the average human skin cell.
The logo was carved out of a piece of nickel-based space-grade alloy Inconel using Xenon atoms shot from a plasma ion beam.
While the logo measures 17.43 micrometres (thousandths of a millimetre) in length it is just 700 nanometres (millionths of a millimetre) deep. Click here for an angled view.
“The logo was blasted out of a polished Inconel surface,” explains ESA Young Graduate Trainee Felix Schmidt, serving in ESA’s Materials and Electrical Components Laboratory.
“We created it as practice, in preparation for a project on modelling micromechanical testing. Achieving accurate cuts on a given material is tricky, with many parameters needing to be optimised to get the correct size and depth of the geometry, but this logo shows the kind of accuracy we can reach.”
To get an idea of its actual size, see the logo beside a human hair in this microscopic view – created using stacks of visible light microscope images to achieve the depth of field to get both objects in focus at once.
Felix adds: “Next the plan is to cut out a pillar of metal, then crush it using a nano-indenter, having meanwhile created a high-fidelity ‘digital twin’ of the pillar to accurately model how it behaves as force is exerted on it.”
ESA is already active at creating ‘digital twins’ of space systems at higher scales, explains engineer Michael Mallon, working on digital spacecraft design and verification, “but our aim here is to demonstrate a predictive capability right down to the meso-scale, the next level up from atoms.”
Credits: ESA-F. Schmidt
Progress continues on the East Side Access project as of February 12, 2013.
This photo shows work on tunnels leading into caverns underneath Grand Central Terminal that will house a future concourse for arriving and departing Long Island Rail Road trains.
Photo: Metropolitan Transportation Authority / Patrick Cashin.
This tiny fingernail-length space thruster chip runs on the greenest propellant of all: water.
Designed to manoeuvre the smallest classes of satellite, the operation of this Iridium Catalysed Electrolysis CubeSat Thruster (ICE-Cube Thruster) developed with Imperial College in the UK is based on electrolysis.
Avoiding any need for bulky gaseous propellant storage, an associated electrolyser runs a 20-watt current through water to produce hydrogen and oxygen to propel the thruster.
The ICE-Cube Thruster is so small in scale – with its combustion chamber and nozzle measuring less than 1mm in length – that it could only be assembled using a MEMS (Micro-Electrical Mechanical Systems) approach, borrowing methods from the microelectronics sector.
A test campaign achieved 1.25 millinewtons of thrust at a specific impulse of 185 seconds on a sustained basis. Testing took place through an ESA General Support Technology Programme De-Risk activity, to prove the thruster’s feasibility in a laboratory testing.
The experimental data gathered during this activity will help guide development of a flight-representative ‘Engineering Model’ of the propulsion system, including the electrolyser.
Credits: Imperial College
Busy day today: moved HTV to a new docking port. We are getting ready for space shuttle STS-133
Giornata piena oggi: mosso HTV su un nuovo boccaporto. Ci stiamo preparando a ricevere STS-133
Credit: ESA/NASA
(239A9815)
The third Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite, Sentinel-1C, has launched aboard a Vega-C rocket, flight VV25, from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The rocket lifted off on 5 December 2024 at 22:20 CET (18:20 local time).
Sentinel-1C extends the legacy of its predecessors, delivering high-resolution radar imagery to monitor Earth’s changing environment, supporting a diverse range of applications and advance scientific research. Additionally, Sentinel-1C introduces new capabilities for detecting and monitoring maritime traffic.
The launch also marks Vega-C’s ‘return to flight’, a key step in restoring Europe’s independent access to space. Vega-C is the evolution of the Vega family of rockets and delivers increased performance, greater payload volume and improved competitiveness.
Credits: ESA–M. Pédoussaut
This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image captures the borders between North and South Dakota and Minnesota blanketed with snow and ice.
This area is part of the Red River Valley, one of the most fertile river valleys in the world. This is clearly visible in the image, where the left side is dominated by a vast expanse of agricultural fields. Their geometric patterns can be seen in shades of brown, or white where they are blanketed with snow.
Agriculture, which includes soybeans, corn, wheat and sugar beets, plays a key role in the local economy.
Formed by the confluence of the Bois de Sioux River from the south and the Otter Tail River from the west, the winding course of the Red River of the North can be seen in white across the image. The river flows for over 700 km northwards, marking the border between North Dakota (left) and Minnesota (right).
Visible in white where the two rivers meet, the twin cities of Wahpeton, North Dakota, and Breckenridge, Minnesota, lie on opposite sides of the Red River of the North. Wahpeton is just 75 km south of Fargo, making this snowy territory familiar to fans of the Fargo film and series.
On the right, the image features a blend of agricultural fields, wetlands and small lakes, that appear to be fully or partially frozen. The largest feature here is the Otter Tail Lake, covering about 55 sq km.
Sentinel-2 delivers imagery and data needed for Europe’s environmental Copernicus programme. Data are used for a wide range of applications, including monitoring land use and changes, land management, agriculture, forestry and natural disasters (floods, forest fires, landslides and erosion).
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2025), processed by ESA; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The third Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite, Sentinel-1C, has launched aboard a Vega-C rocket, flight VV25, from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The rocket lifted off on 5 December 2024 at 22:20 CET (18:20 local time).
Sentinel-1C extends the legacy of its predecessors, delivering high-resolution radar imagery to monitor Earth’s changing environment, supporting a diverse range of applications and advance scientific research. Additionally, Sentinel-1C introduces new capabilities for detecting and monitoring maritime traffic.
The launch also marks Vega-C’s ‘return to flight’, a key step in restoring Europe’s independent access to space. Vega-C is the evolution of the Vega family of rockets and delivers increased performance, greater payload volume and improved competitiveness.
Credits: ESA–M. Pédoussaut
Ariane 5 flight VA254 with the Eutelsat Quantum and Star One D2 satellites is being rolled out from the Final Assembly Building (BAF) to the ELA-3 (Ensemble de Lancement Ariane) Ariane 5 launch complex, at Europe's Space Port in Kourou, French Guyana on 29 July 2021.
Quantum, the ESA Partnership Project with Eutelsat, Airbus and Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, is a pioneering mission preparing the way for the next generation of telecommunications satellites, which will be more flexible by design and so more adaptable to customer needs once in orbit.
Quantum is a shift from custom-designed satellite with one-off payloads to a more generic approach, resulting in unprecedented in-orbit reconfigurability in coverage, frequency and power, allowing complete mission rehaul, including orbital position.
ESA partnered with satellite operator Eutelsat and manufacturer Airbus to design this programme, in response to today's market requiring satellites to be able to respond to changes in geographical or performance demand, either during manufacturing or after launch. This will enable the operator to address emerging business opportunities — even those that appear after it has ordered a satellite.
Such ESA Partnership Projects maximise the benefits to industry thanks to an efficient, co-managed approach that is tailored to commercial best practice.
Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja
This image shows the line-of-sight direction of the magnetic field on the Sun's disc. This kind of map is also called a ‘magnetogram’. It was measured by the Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI) onboard the Solar Orbiter spacecraft on 22 March 2023.
This map shows that the Sun's magnetic field is concentrated within and around sunspots. It either points outward (red) or inward (blue) wherever the sunspots lie. Elsewhere the magnetic field is much smaller, indicated by grey (no magnetic field), yellow or green (small magnetic field). The strong magnetic field inhibits convection in the Sun, because charged particles are forced to follow the magnetic field rather than following the heat-mixing convective flow. As a result, sunspots are colder than their surroundings.
Assembled from multiple high-resolution images taken by the PHI instrument, the diameter of the Sun's disc is spanned by around 8000 pixels. It is one image of a set of four, three being the first high-resolution full-disc views of the Sun from PHI and the fourth an image of the Sun's corona taken by Solar Orbiter's Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI).
Read the full story here
Credits: ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/PHI Team; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Image processing by PHI Team members at MPS
ESA Astronaut Reserve member John McFall poses for a picture while his body familiarises itself with the challenges of controlling his movements in 'weightless’ conditions. Flying with him on the Airbus ‘Zero G’ aircraft were experienced European spacewalkers Alexander Gerst and Thomas Pesquet for safety and support.
Over repeated climbs and dives of the plane, parabolic flights recreate a state of weightlessness for 20 seconds at a time. John trained in several working stations on the plane while wearing his prosthetic leg.
The former Paralympic sprinter and orthopaedic surgeon from the UK suffered the amputation of his right leg at age 19 following a motorcycle accident. He practised stabilising himself and performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation techniques, better known as CPR, while being upside down in reduced gravity.
Since 2023, John is a key figure in the pioneering ‘Fly!’ feasibility study that investigates whether it would be possible for a professional astronaut with a physical disability to embark on a mission to the International Space Station, which typically lasts six months.
As an elite athlete with a passion for biomechanics and health science, John brings a diverse background to his role in Fly!
“My experience gives me the ability to take an active role rather than being a passive subject. My skills allow the team to explore potential barriers and come up with solutions to make human spaceflight more inclusive,” explains John.
Hands-on experience is crucial for this study. John has worked with international partners and industries to test equipment and different scenarios and come up with solutions to improve accessibility to space, especially in emergency procedures.
John explains that from a very early stage the team realised that if he had to leave the spacecraft during an emergency on the launch pad, procedures would need to account for his prosthetic leg.
“My leg would need to be compatible to be worn with the spacesuit, inside the capsule and on the International Space Station, where I would need it to exercise and keep myself fit. My prosthesis would need to meet and adapt to all the requirements,” he says.
To this day, Fly! has not identified any showstoppers which would prevent an astronaut with a disability like John's from flying into space.
The Fly! study will conclude in late 2024. ESA continues to push the boundaries of what is possible,ensuring that space exploration is a shared human endeavour.
Follow John’s journey on Instagram and X, and listen to his story with the ESA Explores podcast.
Credits: ESA/Novespace
Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The High Resolution Stereo Camera on board ESA’s Mars Express snapped a view of a curious cloud formation that appears regularly in the vicinity of the Arsia Mons volcano.
This water ice cloud, which arises as the volcano slope interacts with the air flow, can be seen as the long white feature extending to the lower right of the volcano. The cloud, which measures 915 km in this view, also casts a shadow on the surface. This image was taken on 21 September 2018 from an altitude of about 6930 km. North is up.
More information: Mars Express keeps an eye on curious cloud via www.esa.int/vmccloud
At the invitation of ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson attended the ESA Council at ESA’s establishment ESTEC in the Netherlands on 15 June 2022.
ESA is currently working with NASA on many areas, from science such as the James Webb Space Telescope to exploration such as Mars Sample Return, Artemis and the International Space Station, to Earth observation.
At the ESA Council, a framework agreement between ESA and NASA for a strategic partnership in Earth System Science was signed, as well as a memorandum of understanding between ESA and NASA on the Lunar Pathfinder mission.
Credits: ESA-S.Corvaja
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over a section of Italy’s heel in the southern part of the boot-shaped peninsula.
The area featured comprises part of the Puglia region at the top, and part of Basilicata in the bottom left and is bound by the Adriatic Sea (top) and Ionian Sea (bottom). The light blue of the water, especially along the Adriatic, is caused by sediment being carried into the sea by rivers and then spread along the coast by currents.
Various nature reserves can be seen as dark green strips along the western Ionian coast, with the largest being the Aleppo pine forest of the Stornara Nature Reserve. It takes its name from the many starlings that migrate there during winter.
Many patches of agricultural fields can be seen throughout the image. Thanks to the Mediterranean climate, the region’s food sector is one of the strongest aspects of the economy.
Grey dots of different sizes across the image denote urban areas. Major cities visible on the Adriatic coast include Puglia’s main city, Bari, in the top left, and the port city of Brindisi in the bottom right.
Known as the ‘Florence of the South’, the largest urban sprawl on the bottom right of the image is Lecce, renowned for its fascinating, historical Baroque-style buildings. Another important coastal city is Taranto on the Ionian coast.
Within Basilicata, the city of Matera can be seen north of the San Giuliano Lake, its elongated aqua-green water is visible in the left of the image. Famous for its cave-like houses cut into the rock, Matera also hosts an important space hub, including one of the ground stations for the reception and processing of Copernicus Sentinel data for ESA.
On the Adriatic coast, halfway between Brindisi and Bari, lies Borgo Egnazia, currently hosting the G7 Summit. The informal forum brings together Italy, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, UK and US, as well as the Presidents of the European Council and Commission representing the European Union, to discuss about selected economic, financial and environmental topics.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2024), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Entrepreneurs gather beside a replica of a European Meteosat weather satellite at ESA’s Business Incubation Centre Noordwijk in the Netherlands.
A close neighbour of the Agency’s ESTEC technical heart, ESA BIC Noordwijk is one of a 20-strong network of ESA BICs across Europe, providing technical and business support to startup companies transferring innovative space technology to terrestrial markets.
ESA BIC Noordwijk manager Martijn Leinweber explains: “We’ve successfully incubated more than 100 companies to date during the last decade, offering support to every stage of the startup process.
“Ideas harnessed by current startups here include applying solid rocket technology to firefighting, hyperspectral imaging to improve the health of vineyards and standardised battery storage for solar arrays.”
As a whole, ESA’s BIC network has incubated more than 700 start-ups, creating thousands of new jobs and boosting regional economies.
Space has become an integrated part of our daily lives. From smartphones to agricultural monitoring, the socio-economic benefits of space activities are so diverse that they are not always so obvious to the general public. ESA focuses this week on what space is doing for the economy, in particular, highlighting the flourishing applications domain and business opportunities.
Credits: ESA–G. Porter
The 73rd International Astronautical Congress (IAC 2022), taking place from 18 to 22 September at the Paris Convention Centre in Paris, France. A week of lively interactions awaits the world space community, this year under the theme 'Space for @ll'. The congress will open its doors to the general public on 21 September.
Credits: ESA - P. Sebirot
Ataraxia
No es una triste mirada, es una visión tranquila, una
exquisita mezcla entre moral y calma, percibiendo el olor de
las piedras para aferrarse a la vida salvajemente,
sintiose viva desde aquél noviembre en que se fue de su
madre con su vestido de agua y su música infinita,
una delicada afinidad armónica, gradual, equitativa,
un excitante equilibrio,
un anormal atisbo de veracidad le ha regalado, quizá,
la fragilidad en los pasillos vacíos de su soledad acompañada,
la mañana no la adormece, la realza en su cordura,
su sabor por las buenas templanzas conocen del sexo del
arco iris y solo en su medida palabra vive la
excelencia del sentir,
me dicta mi silencio que no sería de ella que aprendiera la
destrucción del amor de algodón en algún montañoso
minuto si se entregara mi espíritu por escuchar la voz
de su trompeta,
sin desconocer su sensualidad y sin traicionar su armadura
me habrá enseñado a seguir una gozosa marcha entre
las tormentas del invierno, cuando el diablo ingenuo
nacía en mí y fallecía,
en alguna primavera anterior habrán quedado sus fascinantes
recuerdos cultivando fortalezas y cosechando las
sonrisas de azúcar,
acaso un eterno sol dorado le acariciara la piel para
zozobrar en su espalda llameante y recordarle
su incurable romanticismo en el espejo de su alma,
desnuda esponja que ama y succiona el devenir de la
vida tan solo con su genuina bandera,
insuflando el amor a voluntad con su ataviada
manera en el sendero acuático sin restringir el vagido
del beso,
desconozco la vehemencia de la lágrima y el escozor
de sus noches tristes mientras se desliza la magia y sus
pasos retumban silenciosos,
quizá la espuma de su mar interior le haga ver del amor
que existen días consecuentes en que es mejor perderlo para
poder encontrarlo y así tal vez halle en esa bendita
esquina quien le diga desde lo íntimo y con su sincera verdad...
jamás dejaría de vivir(te)... pero jamás dejaría de morir(me).
Jorge Rosso
Un deleite musical...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O-y6fv9FLc
Gracias por su visita a todos y cada uno... aprecio mucho cada gesto!!...
Check our accessible text here.
The Moon is believed to be around 4.5 billion years old, born from a giant collision of a Mars-sized object with the young Earth early in the Solar System’s 4.6 billion year history.
Image description: Moon with a birthday cake on top showing 4.5 billion years.
Credits: ESA
This is J0624-6948, a supernova remnant observed by XMM-Newton.
Read more about this discovery here!
[Image description: This image shows dark purple and bright yellow spots against a pitch-black background, that appear like neon lights outside a window in a city at night. In the centre of the image, the spots cluster to loosely form a ring, which is mostly purple.]
Credits: Eckhard Slawik, ESA/XMM-Newton/M. Sasaki et al (2025)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
F. Zangrandi
Progress continues on the East Side Access project as of February 12, 2013.
This photo shows work on the caverns underneath Grand Central Terminal that will house a future concourse for arriving and departing Long Island Rail Road trains.
Eight tunnels will allow trains to reach four platforms in two adjacent caverns.
Photo: Metropolitan Transportation Authority / Patrick Cashin.
Progress continues on the East Side Access project as of February 12, 2013.
This photo shows work on tunnels leading into caverns underneath Grand Central Terminal that will house a future concourse for arriving and departing Long Island Rail Road trains.
Photo: Metropolitan Transportation Authority / Patrick Cashin.