Il Sardinia Radio Telescope (spesso abbreviato in SRT) è un radiotelescopio completato nel 2011 e situato nel territorio del comune di San Basilio, in provincia di Cagliari.

E' dedicato per l'80% del tempo alla ricerca scientifica, mentre per il rimanente 20% svolge funzioni di controllo delle missioni automatiche di esplorazione spaziale e dei satelliti artificiali in orbita intorno alla Terra.

The Sardinia Radio Telescope (SRT) is a large, fully steerable radio telescope completed in 2011, near San Basilio, province of Cagliari in Sardinia. It represents a flexible instrument for Radio Astronomy, Geodynamical studies and Space science.

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All material in my gallery MAY NOT be reproduced, copied, edited, published, transmitted or uploaded in any way without my permission.

Strolling through our streets we discovered this hidden building nearby.

I wonder what the students are learning here exactly.

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Beim Spazieren durch unsere Straßen entdeckten wir dieses versteckte Gebäude.

Ich würde gern wissen, was die Studenten hier genau lernen.

Spiral Galaxy M100

IC1396

Messier 51

science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4iGZ_jP-1U

M108

science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night....

M108

M97

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captures the spiral galaxy NGC 105, which lies roughly 215 million light-years away in the constellation Pisces. While it looks like NGC 105 is plunging edge-on into a collision with a neighbouring galaxy, this is just the result of the chance alignment of the two objects in the night sky. NGC 105’s elongated neighbour is actually far more distant and remains relatively unknown to astronomers. These misleading conjunctions occur frequently in astronomy — for example, the stars in constellations are at vastly different distances from Earth, and only appear to form patterns thanks to the chance alignment of their component stars.

The Wide Field Camera 3 observations in this image are from a vast collection of Hubble measurements examining nearby galaxies which contain two fascinating astronomical phenomena — Cepheid variables and cataclysmic supernova explosions. Whilst these two phenomena may appear to be unrelated — one is a peculiar class of pulsating stars and the other is the explosion caused by the catastrophic final throes of a massive star’s life — they are both used by astronomers for a very particular purpose: measuring the vast distances to astronomical objects. Both Cepheids and supernovae have very predictable luminosities, meaning that astronomers can tell precisely how bright they are. By measuring how bright they appear when observed from Earth, these “standard candles” can provide reliable distance measurements. NGC 105 contains both supernovae and Cepheid variables, giving astronomers a valuable opportunity to calibrate the two distance measurement techniques against one another.

Astronomers recently carefully analysed the distances to a sample of galaxies including NGC 105 to measure how fast the Universe is expanding — a value known as the Hubble constant. Their results don’t agree with the predictions of the most widely-accepted cosmological model, and their analysis shows that there is only a 1-in-a-million chance that this discrepancy was caused by measurement errors. This discrepancy between galaxy measurements and cosmological predictions has been a long-standing source of consternation for astronomers, and these recent findings provide persuasive new evidence that something is either wrong or lacking in our standard model of cosmology.

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Jones, A. Riess et al.; CC BY 4.0

Acknowledgement: R. Colombari

ESA-sponsored medical doctor Nick Smith snapped this photo of the storage containers at Concordia research station in Antarctica shortly before sunset, 8 April 2021. The dark blue line at the horizon is the shadow of the Earth.

The containers store food, recycling and the scientific samples of blood, saliva, and stool that Nick routinely takes. The units on the right are part of the summer camp, during which researchers sleep in tents.

Science for the benefit of space exploration does not only happen off planet. While some studies require the weightless isolation of the International Space Station, Antarctica also provides the right conditions for investigating the consequences of spaceflight, and it is a little easier to access than space.

Part of the 17th crew to spend an entire year at one of the most remote bases in the world, Nick and 11 other crew members have taken up the adventurous challenge in the backdrop of a pandemic to continue important research that is furthering space exploration.

Located at the mountain plateau called Dome C, Concordia is a collaboration between the French Polar Institute and the Italian Antarctic programme, and is one of only three bases that is inhabited all year long.

As well as offering around nine months of complete isolation, Concordia’s location at 3233 m altitude means the crew experience chronic hypobaric hypoxia – lack of oxygen in the brain.

During the Antarctic winter, the crew of up to 15 people also endure four months of complete darkness: the sun disappears from May and is not seen again until late August.

Temperatures can drop to –80°C in the winter, with a yearly average of –50°C. The temperature at the time of this image was -65°C, with wind chill at about -80°C. To put this cold into perspective, it was so cold that the camera battery died within ten minutes.

As a station set in Earth’s harshest space, Concordia is an ideal stand-in for studying the human psychological and physiological effects of extreme cold, isolation and darkness. For the rest of the year, Nick is poking and prodding the crew for samples to study changes in mood, immune systems, blood cells, and gut health.

Follow his adventures on the Chronicles from Concordia blog.

Credits: ESA/IPEV/PNRA–N. Smith

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope combined the capabilities of the telescope’s two cameras to create a never-before-seen view of a star-forming region in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), this combined image reveals previously invisible areas of star birth.

What looks much like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region known as NGC 3324. Called the Cosmic Cliffs, this rim of a gigantic, gaseous cavity is roughly 7,600 light-years away.

The cavernous area has been carved from the nebula by the intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from extremely massive, hot, young stars located in the centre of the bubble, above the area shown in this image. The high-energy radiation from these stars is sculpting the nebula’s wall by slowly eroding it away.

NIRCam – with its crisp resolution and unparalleled sensitivity – unveils hundreds of previously hidden stars, and even numerous background galaxies. In MIRI’s view, young stars and their dusty, planet-forming disks shine brightly in the mid-infrared, appearing pink and red. MIRI reveals structures that are embedded in the dust and uncovers the stellar sources of massive jets and outflows. With MIRI, the organic, soot-like material on the surface of the ridges glows, giving the appearance of jagged rocks.

Several prominent features in this image are described below.

- The faint “steam” that appears to rise from the celestial “mountains” is actually hot, ionised gas and hot dust streaming away from the nebula due to intense, ultraviolet radiation.

- Peaks and pillars rise above the glowing wall of gas, resisting the blistering ultraviolet radiation from the young stars.

- Bubbles and cavities are being blown by the intense radiation and stellar winds of newborn stars.

- Protostellar jets and outflows, which appear in gold, shoot from dust-enshrouded, nascent stars. MIRI uncovers the young, stellar sources producing these features. For example, a feature at left that looks like a comet with NIRCam is revealed with MIRI to be one cone of an outflow from a dust-enshrouded, newborn star.

- A “blow-out” erupts at the top-centre of the ridge, spewing material into the interstellar medium. MIRI sees through the dust to unveil the star responsible for this phenomenon.

- An unusual “arch,” looking like a bent-over cylinder, appears in all wavelengths shown here.

This period of very early star formation is difficult to capture because, for an individual star, it lasts only about 50,000 to 100,000 years – but Webb’s extreme sensitivity and exquisite spatial resolution have chronicled this rare event.

NGC 3324 was first catalogued by James Dunlop in 1826. Visible from the Southern Hemisphere, it is located at the northwest corner of the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372), which resides in the constellation Carina. The Carina Nebula is home to the Keyhole Nebula and the active, unstable supergiant star called Eta Carinae.

NIRCam was built by a team at the University of Arizona and Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center.

MIRI was developed as a partnership between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency), with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory leading the U.S. efforts and a multi-national consortium of European astronomical institutes contributing for ESA.

Get the full array of Webb’s first images and spectra, including downloadable files, here.

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

Strange times meet strange clouds. Noctilucent or ‘night shining’ clouds (NLC) are captured over Knowlton Church in Dorset, UK, by astrophotographer Ollie Taylor in the early hours of 22 June.

A summer phenomenon, these rare clouds are visible when the Sun is below the viewer’s horizon, shining light on these tenuous wisps. First mentioned in 1885, just two years after the Krakatoa volcanic eruption, one of the most destructive on record, they were once considered a rare meteorological phenomenon. The clouds have been sited more frequently over the past few years, linked by many to increased greenhouse gas emissions.

Thanks to a dedicated network of NLC trackers, including live space weather updates, Czech-based NLC webcam observations and a Facebook group, Ollie got a great night’s worth of photography.

“It was an excellent night of shooting, arriving at location in the evening already greeted by noctilucent clouds better than I had previously seen in the south of England,” says Ollie.

Taken between 2 and 2:50am, the clouds lend a ghostly glow to the 12th century church in the middle of a Neolithic henge monument. “The electric blue complemented the misty landscape and eerie structure,” Ollie says of this picture-perfect moment.

But what exactly is a noctilucent cloud?

NLCs form in the mesosphere, the upper and more complex part of Earth’s atmosphere. While the lower atmosphere warms during this period, atmospheric circulation pushes air upwards, where it expands and cools. This means the mesosphere is cold enough for water vapour to freeze into clouds of ice crystals that form on meteoric dust and other particles found at the so called edge of space.

The rarefied atmosphere at these altitudes is electrically charged and some of these charges are transferred to the ice crystals, creating a so-called dusty plasma in the region.

Considered the fourth state of matter, plasma – or electrically charged gas – is ubiquitous in the universe. In order to study dusty plasmas, scientists have taken plasma research to low Earth orbit, where weightlessness allows particles to be suspended and more easily studied.

The Plasma Kristall-4 experiment, a joint European-Russian endeavour since 2006, has just run its 10th campaign on the International Space Station. The recipe is simple: apply electrical current to create a plasma-filled tube and coax dust particles to behave like atoms and form three-dimensional crystal structures. By adjusting the voltage across the experiment chamber, scientists can tailor their interactions and observe each particle as if in slow motion. Using PK-4, researchers across the world can follow how matter melts, how waves spread in fluids and how flows change at the atomic level.

A team of scientists has already made use of the technical knowhow gained from developing the ISS experiment, to build plasma devices that disinfect wounds at room temperature. This revolution in healthcare has many practical applications, from food hygiene to treatment of skin diseases, water purification and even neutralising bad odours.

As for these noctilucent clouds, they are visible from Earth and also in space. ESA astronauts Luca Parmitano and Tim Peake also took pictures of the clouds during their missions on board the International Space Station.

Credits: Ollie Taylor

Hubble’s new look at Saturn on 7 September 2021 shows rapid and extreme colour changes in the bands in the planet’s northern hemisphere, where it is now early autumn. The bands have varied throughout Hubble observations in both 2019 and 2020. Hubble’s Saturn image catches the planet following the southern hemisphere’s winter, evident in the lingering blue-ish hue of the south pole.

Credits: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley) and the OPAL team; CC BY 4.0

A spectacular head-on collision between two galaxies, known as Arp 143, has fueled the unusual triangular-shaped star-formation frenzy as captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

The interacting galaxy duo Arp 143 contains the distorted, star-forming spiral galaxy NGC 2445, at right, along with its less flashy companion, NGC 2444, at left. Their frenzied collision takes place against the tapestry of distant galaxies, of which some can be seen through the interacting pair.

Astronomers suggest that the two galaxies passed through each other, igniting the uniquely shaped firestorm of star formation in NGC 2445, where thousands of stars are bursting into life. This galaxy is awash with new stars because it is rich in gas, the raw material from which stars are made. However, it hasn’t yet escaped the gravitational clutches of its partner at left. The pair is waging a cosmic tug-of-war, which NGC 2444 appears to be winning. That galaxy has pulled gas from NGC 2445, forming the oddball triangle of newly minted stars.

NGC 2444 is also responsible for yanking strands of gas from its partner, stoking the streamers of young, blue stars that appear to form a bridge between the two galaxies. These streamers are among the first in what appears to be a wave of star formation that started on the galaxy’s outskirts and continued inward. Researchers estimate the streamer stars were born between 50 million and 100 million years ago. But these infant stars are being left behind as NGC 2445 continues to pull slowly away from NGC 2444.

Stars no older than one million to two million years old are forming closer to the centre of NGC 2445. Hubble’s keen vision reveals some individual stars, the brightest and most massive in the galaxy. Most of the brilliant blue clumps are groupings of stars and the pink blobs are glowing gas clouds enshrouding young, massive star clusters.

Although most of the action is happening in NGC 2445, it doesn’t mean the other member of the interacting pair has escaped unscathed. The gravitational tussle has stretched NGC 2444 into an odd shape, yanking gas far from the galaxy. NGC 2444 contains old stars and no new starbirth because it lost its gas long ago, well before this galactic encounter.

Aside from the star formation in NGC 2445, another interesting feature that Hubble has uncovered is the dark filaments of gas in the starburst galaxy’s bright core. Those features may have been formed by outbursts of material. Radio observations reveal a powerful source in the core that may be spearheading the outbursts. The radio source may have been produced by intense star formation or a black hole gobbling up material flowing into the centre.

It’s not uncommon for star formation to occur in the cores of galaxies, driven by interactions. Plenty of gas from galactic encounters flows into the centre, which can trigger the birth of new stars. Outflows from these stars can drive material out, but the dust created by these outbursts blankets the core and other regions throughout NGC 2445, making it difficult for Hubble to study in visible light.

However, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope will have the infrared vision to peer through the dust covering these regions to reveal the young star clusters that are hidden from view in visible-light images. In this way, Hubble and Webb will provide the full census of stars in NGC 2445. The census will help astronomers answer questions such as what the star-formation rate is, how long it takes for stars to form, and whether the starburst in NGC 2445 is fading or just heating up.

Studying young, massive star clusters still embedded in their dust and gas cocoons is important for understanding how star formation affects the evolution of galaxies. Massive stars that explode as supernovae enrich their environment with chemical elements heavier than hydrogen and helium.

The Arp 143 system is listed in a compendium of 338 unusual-looking interacting galaxies called the “Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies” published in 1966 by astronomer Halton Arp.

Credits: NASA, ESA, STScI, and J. Dalcanton (Center for Computational Astrophysics/Flatiron Inst., UWashington); CC BY 4.0

The spiral galaxy M91 fills the frame of this Wide Field Camera 3 observation from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. M91 lies approximately 55 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Coma Berenices and — as is evident in this image — is a barred spiral galaxy. While M91’s prominent bar makes for a spectacular galactic portrait, it also hides an astronomical monstrosity. Like our own galaxy, M91 contains a supermassive black hole at its centre. A 2009 study using archival Hubble data found that this central black hole weighs somewhere between 9.6 and 38 million times as much as the Sun.

Whilst archival Hubble data allowed astronomers to weigh M91’s central black hole, more recent observations have had other scientific aims. This observation is part of an effort to build a treasure trove of astronomical data exploring the connections between young stars and the clouds of cold gas in which they form. To do this, astronomers used Hubble to obtain ultraviolet and visible observations of galaxies already seen at radio wavelengths by the ground-based Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).

Observing time with Hubble is a highly valued, and much sought-after, resource for astronomers. To obtain data from the telescope, astronomers first have to write a proposal detailing what they want to observe and highlighting the scientific importance of their observations. These proposals are then anonymised and judged on their scientific merit by a variety of astronomical experts. This process is incredibly competitive: following Hubble’s latest call for proposals, only around 13% of the proposals were awarded observing time.

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team; CC BY 4.0

Scientists are getting their first look with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s powerful resolution at how the formation of young stars influences the evolution of nearby galaxies. The spiral arms of NGC 7496, one of a total of 19 galaxies targeted for study by the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby Galaxies (PHANGS) collaboration, are filled with cavernous bubbles and shells overlapping one another in this image from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). These filaments and hollow cavities are evidence of young stars releasing energy and, in some cases, blowing out the gas and dust of the interstellar medium they plough into.

Until Webb’s high resolution at infrared wavelengths came along, stars at the earliest point of their lifecycle in nearby galaxies like NGC 7496 remained obscured by gas and dust. Webb’s specific wavelength coverage (7.7 and 11.3 microns), allows for the detection of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which play a critical role in the formation of stars and planets. In Webb’s MIRI image, these are mostly found within the main dust lanes in the spiral arms.

In their analysis of the new data from Webb, scientists were able to identify nearly 60 new, undiscovered embedded cluster candidates in NGC 7496. These newly identified clusters could be among the youngest stars in the entire galaxy.

At the centre of NGC 7496, a barred spiral galaxy, is an active galactic nucleus (AGN). An AGN is a supermassive black hole that is emitting jets and winds. The AGN glows brightly at the centre of this Webb image. Additionally, Webb’s extreme sensitivity also picks up various background galaxies,far distant from NGC 7496, which appear green or red in some instances.

NGC 7496 lies over 24 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Grus.

In this image of NGC 7496, blue, green, and red were assigned to Webb’s MIRI data at 7.7, 10 and 11.3, and 21 microns (the F770W, F1000W and F1130W, and F2100W filters, respectively).

MIRI was contributed by ESA and NASA, with the instrument designed and built by a consortium of nationally funded European Institutes (The MIRI European Consortium) and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in partnership with the University of Arizona.

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and J. Lee (NOIRLab), A. Pagan (STScI)

The scattered stars of the globular cluster NGC 6355 are strewn across this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This globular cluster lies less than 50,000 light-years from Earth in the Ophiuchus constellation. NGC 6355 is a galactic globular cluster that resides in our Milky Way galaxy's inner regions.

Globular clusters are stable, tightly bound clusters of tens of thousands to millions of stars, and can be found in all types of galaxy. Their dense populations of stars and mutual gravitational attraction give these clusters a roughly spherical shape, with a bright concentration of stars surrounded by an increasingly sparse sprinkling of stars. The dense, bright core of NGC 6355 was picked out in crystal-clear detail by Hubble in this image, and is the crowded area of stars towards the centre of this image.

With its vantage point above the distortions of the atmosphere, Hubble has revolutionised the study of globular clusters. It is almost impossible to distinguish the stars in globular clusters from one another with ground-based telescopes, but astronomers have been able to use Hubble to study the constituent stars of globular clusters in detail. This Hubble image of NGC 6355 contains data from both the Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3.

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, E. Noyola, R. Cohen; CC BY 4.0

The spiral galaxy UGC 11860 seems to float serenely against a field of background galaxies in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. UGC 11860 lies around 184 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus, and its untroubled appearance can be deceiving; this galaxy recently played host to an almost unimaginably energetic stellar explosion.

A supernova explosion — the catastrophically violent end of a massive star’s life — was detected in UGC 11860 in 2014 by a robotic telescope dedicated to scouring the skies for transient astronomical phenomena; astronomical objects which are only visible for a short period of time. Two different teams of astronomers used Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 to search through the aftermath and unpick the lingering remnants of this vast cosmic explosion.

One team explored UGC 11860 to understand more about the progenitor star systems that eventually meet their demise in supernovae. The unimaginably energetic environment during supernova explosions is predominantly responsible for forging the elements between silicon and nickel on the periodic table. This means that understanding the influence of progenitor star systems’ masses and compositions is vital to explaining how many of the chemical elements here on Earth originated.

The other group of astronomers used Hubble to follow up supernovae that were detected by robotic telescopes. These automated eyes on the sky function without the intervention of humans, and capture transient events in the night sky. Robotic telescopes allow astronomers to detect everything from unexpected asteroids to rare, unpredictable supernovae, and can identify intriguing objects that can then be investigated in more detail by powerful telescopes such as Hubble.

[Image Description: A spiral galaxy, a fuzzy oval tilted diagonally and partially towards the viewer. The centre glows in warm colours, and has two prominent spiral arms around it, with bright points of star formation. The galaxy is central in a field of small stars and galaxies on a dark background.]

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Filippenko, J. D. Lyman; CC BY 4.0

A crowded field of galaxies throngs this Picture of the Month from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, along with bright stars crowned with Webb’s signature six-pointed diffraction spikes. The large spiral galaxy at the base of this image is accompanied by a profusion of smaller, more distant galaxies which range from fully-fledged spirals to mere bright smudges. Named LEDA 2046648, it is situated a little over a billion light-years from Earth, in the constellation Hercules.

One of Webb’s principle science goals is to observe distant — and hence ancient — galaxies to understand the details of their formation, evolution, and composition. Webb’s keen infrared vision helps the telescope peer back in time, as the light from older, more distant galaxies is redshifted towards infrared wavelengths. Comparing these galactic fossils to modern galaxies will help astronomers understand how galaxies grew to form the structures we see in the universe today. Webb will also probe the chemical composition of thousands of galaxies to shed light on how heavy elements were formed and built up as galaxies evolved.

To take full advantage of Webb’s potential for galaxy archeology, astronomers and engineers must first calibrate the telescope’s instruments and systems. Each of Webb’s instruments contains a labyrinthine array of mirrors and other optical elements that redirect and focus starlight gathered by Webb’s main mirror. This particular observation was part of the commissioning campaign for Webb’s Near-InfraRed Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS). As well as performing science in its own right, NIRISS supports parallel observations with Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam). NIRCam captured this galaxy-studded image while NIRISS was observing the white dwarf WD1657+343, a well-studied star. This allows astronomers to interpret and compare data from the two different instruments, and to characterise the performance of NIRISS.

[Image description: Many stars and galaxies lie on a dark background, in a variety of colours but mostly shades of orange. Some galaxies are large enough to make out spiral arms. Along the bottom of the frame is a large, detailed spiral galaxy seen at an oblique angle, with another galaxy about one-quarter the size just beneath it. Both have a brightly glowing core, and areas of star formation which light up their spiral arms.]

Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Martel

Wildfires burning on the Greek island of Rhodes have forced the evacuation of thousands of people as flames have spread from the island’s mountainous region to the coast. The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission captured this image of the ongoing blaze yesterday 23 July 2023.

The image has been processed by combining natural colour bands with shortwave-infrared information to highlight the fire front. The image shows the extent of the burned area (visible in shades of brown) in the central part of the island, with a preliminary estimate of 11 000 hectares lost at the time of acquisition.

Residents and tourists took refuge in schools and temporary shelters on Sunday, with many evacuated on private boats, as flames threatened coastal villages and holiday resorts.

In response to the fires, the Copernicus Emergency Mapping Service was activated. The service uses satellite observations to help civil protection authorities and, in cases of disaster, the international humanitarian community, respond to emergencies.

Air temperatures over the past week have exceeded 40°C in many parts of Greece. In addition to Rhodes, wildfires are also burning near Athens and on the island of Corfu.

The Sentinel-2 mission is based on a constellation of two identical satellites, each carrying an innovative wide swath high-resolution multispectral imager with 13 spectral bands for monitoring changes in Earth’s land and vegetation.

Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2023), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

In this mosaic image stretching 340 light-years across, Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) displays the Tarantula Nebula star-forming region in a new light, including tens of thousands of never-before-seen young stars that were previously shrouded in cosmic dust. The most active region appears to sparkle with massive young stars, appearing pale blue. Scattered among them are still-embedded stars, appearing red, yet to emerge from the dusty cocoon of the nebula. NIRCam is able to detect these dust-enshrouded stars thanks to its unprecedented resolution at near-infrared wavelengths.

To the upper left of the cluster of young stars, and the top of the nebula’s cavity, an older star prominently displays NIRCam’s distinctive eight diffraction spikes, an artefact of the telescope’s structure. Following the top central spike of this star upward, it almost points to a distinctive bubble in the cloud. Young stars still surrounded by dusty material are blowing this bubble, beginning to carve out their own cavity. Astronomers used two of Webb’s spectrographs to take a closer look at this region and determine the chemical makeup of the star and its surrounding gas. This spectral information will tell astronomers about the age of the nebula and how many generations of star birth it has seen.

Farther from the core region of hot young stars, cooler gas takes on a rust colour, telling astronomers that the nebula is rich with complex hydrocarbons. This dense gas is the material that will form future stars. As winds from the massive stars sweep away gas and dust, some of it will pile up and, with gravity’s help, form new stars.

Read more

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet snapped this image of the Moon from the Russian segment on board the International Space Station earlier this month.

Currently on his first month of the six-month Alpha mission, Thomas is taking stunning photos of Earth and other wondrous objects when not working on science or Station maintenance.

“The blueish picture is when it was still low and the sky was not yet dark,” he notes. “It turned into its black and white self only moments later.”

Parts of North and South America, Australia and the Pacific will be treated to a lunar eclipse, which occurs when the Moon is engulfed by Earth’s shadow and the only sunlight that reaches its surface passes through our planet’s atmosphere, giving it a beautiful red-orange tint.

Today’s lunar eclipse will be the only total lunar eclipse of this year, and that same evening the Moon will be just 357 311 km away, often called a ‘SuperMoon’.

Despite the first human visit more than 50 years ago, the Moon remains largely unexplored yet promises to help us understand the formation of our planet, how crucial chemicals like water, necessary for life, came to the Earth-Moon system, and how we could one day use resources on the Moon to enable human presence.

In the near future, ESA will go ‘forward to the Moon’ when the European Service Module powers NASA’s Orion mission into lunar orbit, and in the next decade, ESA will play a key role in the development of the Gateway, an orbiting science station that will support future human landings.

For now, ESA is bringing the lunar eclipse to Europe with real-time coverage of the total lunar eclipse starting at midday today, 26 May, on ESA Web TV.

The live programme begins at 11:30 CEST and runs over lunchtime in Europe and will provide commentary on this fantastic eclipse, with special guest astronomers, scientists, engineers and experts from Europe and Australia.

For more info on today’s schedule and how to follow live, see here.

For more stunning images from space, follow Thomas Pesquet during Mission Alpha here.

Credits: ESA/NASA–T. Pesquet

This scintillating image showcases the globular cluster NGC 6540 in the constellation Sagittarius, which was captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys. These two instruments have slightly different fields of view — which determines how large an area of sky each instrument captures. This composite image shows the star-studded area of sky that was captured in both instruments’ field of view.

NGC 6540 is a globular cluster, a stable, tightly bound multitude of stars. The populations of these clusters can range from tens of thousands to millions of stars, all of which are trapped in a closely-packed group by their mutual gravitational attraction.

The brightest stars in this image are adorned with prominent cross-shaped patterns of light known as diffraction spikes. These astronomical embellishments are a type of imaging artefact, meaning that they are caused by the structure of Hubble rather than the stars themselves. The path taken by the starlight as it enters the telescope is slightly disturbed by its internal structure, causing bright objects to be surrounded by spikes of light.

Hubble peered into the heart of NGC 6540 to help astronomers measure the ages, shapes, and structures of globular clusters towards the centre of the Milky Way. The gas and dust shrouding the centre of our galaxy block some of the light from these clusters, as well as subtly changing the colours of their stars. Globular clusters contain insights into the earliest history of the Milky Way, and so studying them can help astronomers understand how our galaxy has evolved.

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Cohen; CC BY 4.0

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir rocks her CAVES shirt on board the International Space Station. Jessica was the first woman to participate in ESA’s underground astronaut training programme in 2016.

It might not be obvious, but there are many similarities between working deep underground and in outer space.

Since 2011, ESA’s Cooperative Adventure for Valuing and Exercising human behaviour and performance Skills course has been taking astronauts below Earth’s surface and preparing them to work safely and effectively as representative spaceflight teams in an environment where risk, scientific operations and living conditions have many similarities to space . At the end of the course astronauts are better prepared to participate in long term ISS expeditions, balancing mission goals, environmental risks, team demands through their individual skills and team processes.

As many as 34 astronauts from six agencies have scouted caves to experience the challenges and excitement of exploring alien environments on Earth.

Jessica joined the 2016 edition along with five astronauts from China, Japan, USA, Spain and Russia in the caves of Sardinia, Italy, to explore the depths and train for life in outer space. As the team’s biologist, Jessica was tasked with searching for alien underground life. Jessica talked about her love for exploration and her experience at CAVES in her video before launching to the Space Station.

Just as with spacewalks, the underground ‘cavewalks’ required safety tethering, 3D orientation, careful planning and teamwork. Jessica and her fellow cave explorers needed to stay alert in an environment where they were deprived of natural light and every move was a step into the unknown.

The experience no doubt complemented the extensive spacewalk training she has since received. Jessica went on to conduct the first ever all-female spacewalk during her 205 days in space. Alongside NASA astronaut and friend Christina Koch, the women totalled 21 hours and 44 minutes outside the Space Station across three historic spacewalks.

The next ESA Caves course will take place in 2021. ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti is tentatively booked for the course. Follow all the Caves adventures on the blog.

From under the Earth to above it, Jessica is now back down on our planet. She returned with fellow NASA astronaut Drew Morgan and cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka on 17 April.

Given a global pandemic and strict quarantine measures, the crew were welcomed home, just in time for Earth Day on 22 April. The annual event to mark environmental protection is celebrating its 50th anniversary and is the first to be celebrated from home.

As difficult as quarantine has been for communities across the globe, the impact on our planet is noticeable. Analyses from Earth observation satellites are showing the continued low levels of nitrogen dioxide concentrations across Europe – coinciding with lockdown measures implemented to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

In light of this, staying home does not seem such a bad way to celebrate Earth Day.

Credits: NASA

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over the Galápagos Islands – a volcanic archipelago situated some 1000 km west of Ecuador in the Pacific Ocean.

The archipelago consists of 13 major islands and a handful of smaller islands and islets scattered across approximately 60 000 sq km of ocean. Repeated volcanic eruptions and ongoing seismic activity have helped form the rugged mountain landscape of the islands. In this image, captured on 23 September 2020, several circular volcanic cones can be seen atop the islands.

The largest island of the archipelago, Isabela (Albemarle), is visible in the centre. Around 132 km in length, the island’s seahorse shape is the result of the merging of multiple large volcanoes into a single land mass. The five volcanoes seen on the island are (from north to south): Wolf Volcano, Darwin Volcano, Alcedo Volcano, Sierra Negra Volcano and Cerro Azul Volcano. Two of the island’s volcanoes, Ecuador and Wolf, lie directly on the Equator.

At the southern end of the island, hills covered with forests can be seen in bright green, separating the Sierra Negra, the most active of the Galapagos volcanoes, from the sandy coastline (partially visible here owing to cloud cover). Tortuga Island, named for its distinct shape, can be seen southeast from Isabela. The tiny island is actually a collapsed volcano that is a nesting location for a variety of seabirds.

The second largest island of the archipelago, Santa Cruz, can be seen to the right of Isabela. Its capital, Puerto Ayora (not visible), is the most populated urban centre in the islands.

The Galápagos Islands are best known for their diverse array of plant and animal species, many of which are endemic meaning they are not found anywhere else in the world. These include the giant Galapagos tortoise, the marine iguana, the flightless cormorant and the Galapagos penguin – the only species of penguin that lives north of the equator.

These species were observed by Charles Darwin during the voyage of the HMS Beagle in 1835 and inspired his theory of evolution by natural selection. To preserve the unique wildlife on the islands, the Ecuadorian government made the entire archipelago a national park in 1959.

Copernicus Sentinel-2 is a two-satellite mission. Each satellite carries a high-resolution camera that images Earth’s surface in 13 spectral bands. The mission is mostly used to track changes in the way land is being used and to monitor the health of our vegetation.

This image is also featured on the Earth from Space video programme.

Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2020), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

This feature could easily be mistaken for a tree stump with characteristic concentric rings. It’s actually an impressive birds-eye view into an ice-rich impact crater on Mars. Tree rings provide snapshots of Earth’s past climate and, although formed in a very different way, the patterns inside this crater reveal details of the Red Planet’s history, too.

The image was taken by the CaSSIS camera onboard the ESA/Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) on 13 June 2021 in the vast northern plains of Acidalia Planitia, centred at 51.9°N/326.7°E.

The interior of the crater is filled with deposits that are probably water-ice rich. It is thought that these deposits were laid down during an earlier time in Mars’ history when the inclination of the planet’s spin axis allowed water-ice deposits to form at lower latitudes than it does today. Just like on Earth, Mars’ tilt gives rises to seasons, but unlike Earth its tilt has changed dramatically over long periods of time.

One of the notable features in the crater deposits is the presence of quasi-circular and polygonal patterns of fractures. These features are likely a result of seasonal changes in temperature that cause cycles of expansion and contraction of the ice-rich material, eventually leading to the development of fractures.

Understanding the history of water on Mars and if this once allowed life to flourish is at the heart of ESA’s ExoMars missions. TGO arrived at Mars in 2016 and began its full science mission in 2018. The spacecraft is not only returning spectacular images, but also providing the best ever inventory of the planet’s atmospheric gases with a particular emphasis on geologically and biologically important gases, and mapping the planet’s surface for water-rich locations. It will also provide data relay services for the second ExoMars mission comprising the Rosalind Franklin rover and Kazachok platform, when it arrives on Mars in 2023. The rover will explore a region of Mars thought once to have hosted an ancient ocean, and will search underground for signs of life.

Credits: ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Like Sherlock Holmes’s magnifying glass writ large, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has been used to peer into an astronomical mystery in search of clues. The enigma in question concerns the globular cluster Ruprecht 106, which is pictured in this image. While the constituent stars of globular clusters all formed at approximately the same location and time, it turns out that almost all globular clusters contain groups of stars with distinct chemical compositions. These distinct chemical fingerprints are left by groups of stars with very slightly different ages or compositions from the rest of the cluster. A tiny handful of globular clusters do not possess these multiple populations of stars, and Ruprecht 106 is a member of this enigmatic group.

Hubble captured this star-studded image using one of its most versatile instruments; the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). Much like the stars in globular clusters, Hubble’s instruments also have distinct generations: ACS is a third generation instrument which replaced the original Faint Object Camera in 2002. Some of Hubble’s other instruments have also gone through three iterations: the Wide Field Camera 3 replaced the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) during the final servicing mission to Hubble. WFPC2 itself replaced the original Wide Field and Planetary Camera, which was installed on Hubble at launch.

Astronauts on the NASA Space Shuttle serviced Hubble in orbit a total of five times, and were able to either upgrade aging equipment or replace instruments with newer, more capable versions. This high-tech tinkering in low Earth orbit has helped keep Hubble at the cutting edge of astronomy for more than 3 decades.

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Dotter; CC BY 4.0

This detailed image features Abell 3827, a galaxy cluster that offers a wealth of exciting possibilities for study. It was observed by Hubble in order to study dark matter, which is one of the greatest puzzles cosmologists face today. The science team used Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) to complete their observations. The two cameras have different specifications and can observe different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, so using them both allowed the astronomers to collect more complete information. Abell 3827 has also been observed previously by Hubble, because of the interesting gravitational lens at its core.

Looking at this cluster of hundreds of galaxies, it is amazing to recall that until less than 100 years ago, many astronomers believed that the Milky Way was the only galaxy in the Universe. The possibility of other galaxies had been debated previously, but the matter was not truly settled until Edwin Hubble confirmed that the Great Andromeda Nebula was in fact far too distant to be part of the Milky Way. The Great Andromeda Nebula became the Andromeda Galaxy, and astronomers recognised that our Universe was much, much bigger than humanity had imagined. We can only imagine how Edwin Hubble — after whom the Hubble Space Telescope was named — would have felt if he’d seen this spectacular image of Abell 3827.

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Massey; CC BY 4.0

Shortly after launch on 14 April, ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, captured this stunning view of Earth. The coastline around the Gulf of Aden can be made out to the right of centre, with patchy clouds above land and sea.

The image was taken by Juice monitoring camera 1 (JMC1) at 14:42 CEST, following launch at 14:14 CEST. JMC1 is located on the front* of the spacecraft and looks diagonally up into a field of view that will eventually see deployed antennas, and depending on their orientation, part of one of the solar arrays.

JMC images provide 1024 x 1024 pixel snapshots. The images shown here are lightly processed with a preliminary colour adjustment.

More information and images.

*Additional technical information: “front” means +X side of the spacecraft (the opposite side, -X hosts the high gain antenna). JMC1 looks towards the +Y/+Z direction.

Credits: ESA/Juice/JMC, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Twilight is a long affair at research station Concordia, situated just a few 1000 km from the South Pole. The Sun disappears completely behind the horizon for over four months in winter. Each day during the Antarctic autumn the sunset is earlier and earlier until it simply does not appear at all.

For the crew of up to fifteen who work and live in one of the most remote outposts in the world, the long goodbye to the Sun is bittersweet. For six months they will live and work in isolation; no supplies or people can be flown in as temperatures can drop to –80°C in the complete frozen darkness outside.

The station consists of two towers, one for noisy machinery and work and the quieter living quarters. This year’s ESA-sponsored medical doctor Hannes Hagson took this picture, the view from the dining area, at 23:00 local time last Sunday; the quiet tower is visible on the left.

Hannes is facilitating biomedical experiments on himself and his crewmates to understand how humans cope with living in extreme isolation. The Italian-French outpost Concordia is located 3233 m above sea level so the crew experience chronic hypobaric hypoxia or lack of oxygen in the brain.

With irregular sunlight, no quick rescue, extreme low temperatures and little oxygen in the air this is as close as it gets to living on another planet, on Earth.

Follow Hannes’ year on the Chronicles from Concordia blog.

Credits: IPEV/PNRA/ESA–H. Hagson

ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst during his 2018 stay on the International Space Station, with two floating SPHERES robots tethered to a container of liquid, serving to simulate the experience of pulling a derelict satellite out of orbit.

The sloshing of liquid inside a partially filled fuel tank can alter its trajectory – like throwing a half-filled bottle of water through the air. The Station’s freeflying Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) were used to test out how sloshing might affect the towing of a partially fuelled satellite out of orbit, as a means of tackling space debris.

The liquid-filled container was tethered between two gas-propelled SPHERES to be pulled in a pre-programmed trajectory. The results have been studied by ArianeGroup in Germany in a recently concluded project, supported through ESA’s General Support Technology Programme, contributing to detailed software modelling of the container’s sloshing motion.

The Tether Slosh project was a collaboration of researchers, scientists, and developers from Airbus Defence and Space/ArianeGroup in Bremen, Germany and Houston; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Tencors from Florida, NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, and NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

ESA, in partnership with the Netherlands, has previously flown an entire satellite to investigate sloshing behaviour, which is also important for the flight of launchers and spacecraft: FLEVO-Sloshsat, in 2005.

Credits: NASA/ESA

Exquisite detail of the Red Planet’s history is captured in this image taken by the CaSSIS camera on the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) on 21 April 2021.

Zooming into the image shows the details of layered deposits exposed on the floor of a 50 km wide impact crater. Sediments that have been eroded by the wind reveal their internal layering. Dark sand has been trapped in the low parts of the terrain and contrasts with the brighter sedimentary rocks. In places the layers are offset by faults cutting through them, showing that the ground has been fractured in the past.

The image is centred on 3.9897°N, 1.3794°E. A scale bar is marked on the image.

TGO arrived at Mars in 2016 and began its full science mission in 2018. The spacecraft is not only returning spectacular images, but also providing the best ever inventory of the planet’s atmospheric gases, and mapping the planet’s surface for water-rich locations. It will also provide data relay services for the second ExoMars mission comprising the Rosalind Franklin rover and Kazachok platform, when it arrives on Mars in 2023.

Credits: ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has produced the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant Universe to date. Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail.

Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time. This slice of the vast Universe is approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground.

This deep field, taken by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), is a composite made from images at different wavelengths, totaling 12.5 hours – achieving depths at infrared wavelengths beyond the Hubble Space Telescope’s deepest fields, which took weeks.

The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago. The combined mass of this galaxy cluster acts as a gravitational lens, magnifying much more distant galaxies behind it. Webb’s NIRCam has brought those distant galaxies into sharp focus – they have tiny, faint structures that have never been seen before, including star clusters and diffuse features. Researchers will soon begin to learn more about the galaxies’ masses, ages, histories, and compositions, as Webb seeks the earliest galaxies in the Universe.

First, focus on the galaxies responsible for the lensing: the bright white elliptical galaxy at the centre of the image and smaller white galaxies throughout the image. Bound together by gravity in a galaxy cluster, they are bending the light from galaxies that appear in the vast distances behind them. The combined mass of the galaxies and dark matter act as a cosmic telescope, creating magnified, contorted, and sometimes mirrored images of individual galaxies.

Clear examples of mirroring are found in the prominent orange arcs to the left and right of the brightest cluster galaxy. These are lensed galaxies – each individual galaxy is shown twice in one arc. Webb’s image has fully revealed their bright cores, which are filled with stars, along with orange star clusters along their edges.

Not all galaxies in this field are mirrored – some are stretched. Others appear scattered by interactions with other galaxies, leaving trails of stars behind them.

Webb has refined the level of detail we can observe throughout this field. Very diffuse galaxies appear like collections of loosely bound dandelion seeds aloft in a breeze. Individual “pods” of star formation practically bloom within some of the most distant galaxies – the clearest, most detailed views of star clusters in the early Universe so far.

One galaxy speckled with star clusters appears near the bottom end of the bright central star’s vertical diffraction spike – just to the right of a long orange arc. The long, thin ladybug-like galaxy is flecked with pockets of star formation. Draw a line between its “wings” to roughly match up its star clusters, mirrored top to bottom. Because this galaxy is so magnified and its individual star clusters are so crisp, researchers will be able to study it in exquisite detail, which wasn’t previously possible for galaxies this distant.

The galaxies in this scene that are farthest away – the tiniest galaxies that are located well behind the cluster – look nothing like the spiral and elliptical galaxies observed in the local Universe. They are much clumpier and more irregular. Webb’s highly detailed image may help researchers measure the ages and masses of star clusters within these distant galaxies. This might lead to more accurate models of galaxies that existed at cosmic “spring,” when galaxies were sprouting tiny “buds” of new growth, actively interacting and merging, and had yet to develop into larger spirals. Ultimately, Webb’s upcoming observations will help astronomers better understand how galaxies form and grow in the early Universe.

Read more

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) is ready for fuelling. This image shows the spacecraft leaving the Payload Preparation Facility and being transferred to the Hazardous Processing Facility, where the fuelling operations will take place. This marks a major milestone in the launch campaign. Launch is planned for mid-April.

Next Juice will be ready for fuelling. Usually spacecraft are first fuelled and then connected to the payload adapter, but for technical reasons the order has been swapped for Juice. After fuelling, Juice will be positioned on top of the Ariane 5, ready for launch on 13 April.

Juice is humankind’s next bold mission to the outer Solar System. It will make detailed observations of gas giant Jupiter and its three large ocean-bearing moons: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. This ambitious mission will characterise these moons with a powerful suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments to discover more about these compelling destinations as potential habitats for past or present life. Juice will monitor Jupiter’s complex magnetic, radiation and plasma environment in depth and its interplay with the moons, studying the Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giant systems across the Universe.

Find out more about Juice in ESA’s launch kit

Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique video du CSG – P. Baudon

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has revealed the once-hidden features of the protostar within the dark cloud L1527 with its Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), providing insight into the formation of a new star. These blazing clouds within the Taurus star-forming region are only visible in infrared light, making it an ideal target for Webb.

The protostar itself is hidden from view within the ‘neck’ of this hourglass shape. An edge-on protoplanetary disc is seen as a dark line across the middle of the neck. Light from the protostar leaks above and below this disc, illuminating cavities within the surrounding gas and dust.

The region’s most prevalent features, the blue and orange clouds, outline cavities created as material shoots away from the protostar and collides with the surrounding matter. The colours themselves are due to layers of dust between Webb and the clouds. The blue areas are where the dust is thinnest. The thicker the layer of dust, the less blue light is able to escape, creating pockets of orange.

Webb also reveals filaments of molecular hydrogen that have been shocked as the protostar ejects material away from it. Shocks and turbulence inhibit the formation of new stars, which would otherwise form throughout the cloud. As a result, the protostar dominates the space, taking much of the material for itself.

Despite the chaos that L1527 is causing, it’s only about 100 000 years old — a relatively young body. Given its age and its brightness in far-infrared light, L1527 is considered a class 0 protostar, the earliest stage of star formation. Protostars like these, which are still cocooned in a dark cloud of dust and gas, have a long way to go before they become fully-fledged stars. L1527 doesn’t generate its own energy through the nuclear fusion of hydrogen yet, an essential characteristic of stars. Its shape, while mostly spherical, is also unstable, taking the form of a small, hot, and puffy clump of gas somewhere between 20% and 40% of the mass of our Sun.

As a protostar continues to gather mass, its core gradually compresses and gets closer to stable nuclear fusion. The scene shown in this image reveals that L1527 is doing just that. The surrounding molecular cloud is made up of dense dust and gas that are being drawn towards the centre, where the protostar resides. As the material falls in, it spirals around the centre. This creates a dense disc of material, known as an accretion disc, which feeds material onto the protostar. As it gains more mass and compresses further, the temperature of its core will rise, eventually reaching the threshold for nuclear fusion to begin.

The disc, seen in the image as a dark band in front of the bright centre, is about the size of our Solar System. Given the density, it’s not unusual for much of this material to clump together — the beginnings of planets. Ultimately, this view of L1527 provides a window onto what our Sun and Solar System looked like in their infancy.

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI, J. DePasquale (STScI); CC BY 4.0

Artist’s impression of the BepiColombo spacecraft in cruise configuration, flying past Earth and with the Sun in the background. After launch, BepiColombo will return to Earth two years later to make a gravity-assist flyby, before flying by Venus twice and Mercury six times before entering orbit around the innermost planet.

In this view, the Mercury Transfer Module is at the rear, with its solar wings extended, spanning about 30 m from tip-to-tip. Because the arrays are tilted towards the Sun, the underside of the panels can be seen. The 7.5 m-long solar array of the Mercury Planetary Orbiter in the middle is seen extending to the top, with the high-gain antenna dish to the left, and the magnetometer boom and medium gain antenna to the right. The Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter sits inside the sunshield, its antenna folded inside and visible in this view.

BepiColombo is a joint endeavour between ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA.

Credits: ESA/ATG medialab