Many of the best-loved galaxies in the cosmos are remarkably large, close, massive, bright, or beautiful, often with an unusual or intriguing structure or history. However, it takes all kinds to make a Universe — as demonstrated by this Hubble Picture of the Week of Messier 110.

Messier 110 may not look like much, but it is a fascinating near neighbour of our home galaxy, and an unusual example of its type. It is a member of the Local Group, a gathering of galaxies comprising the Milky Way and a number of the galaxies closest to it. Specifically, Messier 110 is one of the many satellite galaxies encircling the Andromeda Galaxy, the nearest major galaxy to our own, and is classified as a dwarf elliptical galaxy, meaning that it has a smooth and almost featureless structure. Elliptical galaxies lack arms and notable pockets of star formation — both characteristic features of spiral galaxies. Dwarf ellipticals are quite common in groups and clusters of galaxies, and are often satellites of larger galaxies.

Because they lack stellar nurseries and contain mostly old stars, elliptical galaxies are often considered ‘dead’ when compared to their spiral relatives. However, astronomers have spotted signs of a population of young, blue stars at the centre of Messier 110 — hinting that it may not be so dead after all.

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, L.Ferrarese et al.; CC BY 4.0

This novel ‘water drop’ antenna lens design for directing radio wave signals was developed by a pair of antenna engineers from ESA and Sweden’s Royal Institute of Technology, KTH.

In the same way that optical lenses focus light, waveguide lenses serve to direct electromagnetic radio wave energy in a given direction – for instance to send out a radar or a communication signal – and minimise energy loss in the process.

Traditional waveguide lenses have complex electrically-sensitive ‘dielectric’ material to restrict electromagnetic signals as desired, but this water drop waveguide lens – once its top plate has been added on – comes down purely to its curved shape directing signals through it.

The inventors of this new lens design, which received an ESA Technical Improvement award in February 2017, like to call it the ‘water drop’ lens because its shape resembles the ripples produced by a water drop at the surface of a fluid.

The lack of dielectrics in this shape-based design is an advantage, especially for space – where they would risk giving off unwanted fumes in orbital vacuum.

“The lens’s extremely simple structure should make it easy and cheap to manufacture, opening up avenues to a wide variety of potential materials such as metallised plastics,” explains ESA antenna engineer Nelson Fonseca.

“This prototype has been designed for the 30 GHz microwave range but the simplicity of its shape-based design also means it should be applicable to a broad frequency range – the higher the frequency, the smaller the structure, facilitating its integration”.

The idea came out of a brainstorming session during a conference, explains KTH antenna engineer Oscar Quevedo-Teruel: “We took the ‘Rinehart-Luneburg lens’, also called the geodesic lens, as our starting point. This is a cylindrical waveguide lens developed in the late 1940s, mostly for radar applications.

“We wanted the same performance, while reducing its size and height. So the idea we had was to retain the functional curvature of the original design by folding it in on itself, reducing its profile by a factor of four in the specific case of the manufactured prototype.”

This first prototype of a water drop lens was tested at KTH facilities, Oscar adds, to measure its radiation patterns, efficiency and gain: “While a conventional Luneburg lens might suffer from elevated dielectric losses, especially when used at higher frequencies, this design shows marginal signal loss thanks to its fully metallic design.”

Besides space applications, such as Earth observation and satellite communications on small satellites, this antenna has also attracted the attention of non-space companies. The Ericsson company is looking into using the compact design for the fifth generation mobile phone networks. The concept could also be used for guidance radars in the next generation of self-driving cars.

Credits: ESA–SJM Photography

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, being packed at Airbus Toulouse for transport to Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana.

Juice is humanity’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.

Juice launches on an Ariane 5 from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou in April 2023. It has an eight year cruise with flybys of Earth and Venus to slingshot it to Jupiter. It will make 35 flybys of the three large moons while orbiting Jupiter, before changing orbits to Ganymede.

Juice is a mission under ESA leadership with contributions from NASA, JAXA and the Israeli Space Agency. It is the first Large-class mission in ESA’s Cosmic Vision programme.

Credits: ESA/M. Pédoussaut

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the galaxy Messier 86. Despite its being discovered over 235 years ago by astronomer Charles Messier, the morphological classification of Messier 86 remains unclear; astronomers are still debating over whether it is either elliptical or lenticular (the latter being a cross between an elliptical and spiral galaxy).

Messier 86 is part of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies and is situated about 50 million light-years from Earth. The galaxy is moving through space remarkably quickly — its current trajectory is bringing it in our direction, back towards the centre of its cluster from the far side, at the incredible speed of over 875 000 kilometres per hour! Because of the speed with which it is moving through the cluster, Messier 86 is undergoing a process known as ram-pressure stripping; the resistive material filling the gaps between individual cluster galaxies is pulling at the gas and dust in Messier 86 and stripping them out as the galaxy moves, creating a long trail of hot gas that is emitting X-ray radiation.

Astronomers are using these data to study elliptical and lenticular galaxies, both of which are often found at the centres of galaxy clusters. By studying the cores of these galaxies, astronomers hope to determine details of the central structure and to analyse both the history of the galaxy and the formation of its core.

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, P. Cote et al.; CC BY 4.0

Astronomers have taken an inventory of the most deeply embedded ices in a cold molecular cloud to date. They used light from a background star, named NIR38, to illuminate the dark cloud called Chameleon I. Ices within the cloud absorbed certain wavelengths of infrared light, leaving spectral fingerprints called absorption lines. These lines indicate which substances are present within the molecular cloud.

These graphs show spectral data from three of the James Webb Space Telescope’s instruments. In addition to simple ices like water, the science team was able to identify frozen forms of a wide range of molecules, from carbon dioxide, ammonia, and methane, to the simplest complex organic molecule, methanol.

In addition to the identified molecules, the team found evidence for prebiotic molecules more complex than methanol (indicated in the lower-right panel). Although they didn't definitively attribute these signals to specific molecules, this proves for the first time that complex molecules form in the icy depths of molecular clouds before stars are born.

The upper panels and lower-left panel all show the background star’s brightness versus wavelength. A lower brightness indicates absorption by ices and other materials in the molecular cloud. The lower-right panel displays the optical depth, which is essentially a logarithmic measure of how much light from the background star gets absorbed by the ices in the cloud. It is used to highlight weaker spectral features of less abundant varieties of ice.

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and J. Olmsted (STScI), M. K. McClure (Leiden Observatory), K. Pontoppidan (STScI), N. Crouzet (Leiden University), and Z. Smith (Open University)

'Swage' was the word of the day on Monday as ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano carried out the third spacewalk to service the cosmic ray hunting Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer AMS-02. Here Luca is suspended above Earth as he is moved to a he second worksite to swage, or join, the instrument’s tubes to a new pump system that will give it a new lease on life.

Riding on the International Space Station’s robotic arm, Luca soared to the cosmic ray detector’s worksite for nearly five hours of space plumbing.

Yesterday’s spacewalk was the most critical of four spacewalks planned to service the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer that has provided scientists with invaluable data on cosmic particles long after its original three-year mission. In 2017 the decision was made to service the instrument after all four cooling systems wore out.

Luca and NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan began by passing the cooling system to each other as they inched their way from the airlock to the Space Station’s robotic arm. Luca then attached himself to the arm and – aided by astronaut Jessica Meir who operated this from inside the Station – transported the system to the hard-to-reach worksite.

Luca rode the arm into position, seen in this image, and together with Drew screwed the new pump onto AMS. The system was powered on and Luca was moved to a different location by robotic arm for the swage operations. Luca did six swages before taking the robotic arm ride again to the underside of AMS for the last two and finish the job.

The spacewalk was a success, with Luca and Drew finishing their delicate and unprecedented work ahead of schedule. They returned to the Space Station airlock ending the spacewalk at six hours and two minutes. A fourth and last spacewalk for AMS is planned at a later date.

Credits: NASA

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over Lake St. Clair, forming the border between Ontario, Canada to the east, and Michigan, US to the west.

The Saint Clair River is visible at the top of the image and flows southwards, connecting the southern end of Lake Huron with Lake St. Clair, visible in the centre of the image. The river branches into several channels before reaching the lake, creating a seven-mouth delta. Much of the area surrounding the delta is used for agriculture.

The Thames River, visible east of the lake, begins in a swampy area of Ontario, before emptying its muddy waters into Lake St. Clair. Here the murky-coloured waters mix with the turquoise waters from the Saint Clair River, creating this fusion of colour visible in the heart-shaped lake. The waters then exit the lake via the Detroit River.

Lake St. Clair is approximately 40 km long and 40 km wide, with an average depth of around 3 metres. The lake is a popular site for fishing and boating, and more than 100 species of fish inhabit the lake including walleye, rainbow trout and muskellunge.

Detroit, the largest city in Michigan, is visible directly above the Detroit River. The city lies on a relatively flat plain and its extensive network of roads in the city are clearly visible in the image.

Detroit is nicknamed the “motor city” as it was the key hub for American auto-manufacturing for over a century. It was also home to the first mile of concrete highway, the first four-way three-colour traffic light and the world’s first urban freeway.

In this wintery image, captured on 26 March 2019, many of the frozen lakes northwest of the lake can be seen partially frozen over. The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission allows inland bodies of water to be closely monitored.

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

Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2019), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Australia is tackling multiple bushfires that have broken out across New South Wales and Queensland over the past few days.

In this image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission on 8 September, fires burning in the Yuraygir National Park and Shark Creek area are visible. Fires are also burning to the north and south of the villages of Angourie and Wooloweyah. See the image at its full resolution to zoom in on the area.

The flames, which were said to have been whipped up by strong winds, have now been contained. More than 600 firefighters have been deployed to tackle the fires, and multiple homes and outbuildings have been damaged.

Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2019), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

The ESA-JAXA BepiColombo mission to Mercury lifts off from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou.

Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja

ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst took this image of Typhoon Trami on 25 September 2018, 400 km high from the International Space Station. He commented:

"As if somebody pulled the planet's gigantic plug. Staring down the eye of yet another fierce storm. Category 5 Super Typhoon Trami is unstoppable and heading for Japan and Taiwan. Be safe down there!"

Alexander is on his second six-month Space Station mission. Follow him and the Horizons mission on social media on his website and on his blog.

Credits: ESA/NASA-A.Gerst

This colour-coded topographic view shows the relative heights of the terrain in and around a network of dried-up valleys on Mars.

Lower parts of the surface are shown in blues and purples, while higher altitude regions show up in whites, yellows, and reds, as indicated on the scale to the top right. This view is based on a digital terrain model of the region, from which the topography of the landscape can be derived. It comprises data obtained by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on Mars Express on 19 November 2018 during Mars Express orbit 18831.

The ground resolution is approximately 14 m/pixel and the images are centered at 66°E/17°S. North is to the right.

More information

Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

This image features two globular clusters from a recent NASA/ESA Hubble study that provides some of the clearest evidence yet that blue stragglers owe their youthful appearance not to collisions, but to life in close stellar partnerships, and to the environments that allow those partnerships to survive.

The international research team analysed ultraviolet Hubble observations of 48 globular clusters in the Milky Way, assembling the largest and most complete catalogue of blue straggler stars ever produced. The sample includes more than 3000 of these enigmatic objects observed in clusters spanning the entire range of stellar densities, allowing astronomers to search for long-suspected links between blue stragglers and their surroundings.

The above image features NGC 3201 (left), one of the looser clusters in the dataset, and Messier 70, which is the study’s densest cluster.

[Image description: A side-by-side visual of two globular clusters: NGC 3201 (left) and Messier 70 (right). The star cluster on the right is visibly compact in shape, as the stars near the centre of the object appear very close together. Contrastingly, the star cluster on the left is less compact, as the stars are more spread apart from one another in the field.]

Read more

CREDIT

ESA/Hubble & NASA; CC BY 4.0

This composite NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the debris ring and dust clouds cs1 and cs2 around the star Fomalhaut. For comparison, dust cloud cs1, imaged in 2012, is pictured with dust cloud cs2, imaged in 2023. The dashed circles mark the location of these clouds. When dust cloud cs2 suddenly appeared, astronomers quickly noticed they had witnessed the violent collision of two massive objects. Previously thought to be a planet, cs1 is now classified as a similar debris cloud. In this image, Fomalhaut itself is masked out to allow the fainter features to be seen.

This image was created from Hubble data from proposal #17139 (P. Kalas).

Read more

Credits: NASA, ESA, P. Kalas (UC Berkeley), J. DePasquale (STScI); CC BY 4.0

The secondary mirror – visible in the top right corner of the image – is among the most important pieces of equipment on the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and is essential to the success of the mission.

Folded together with the other observatory components during launch, the secondary mirror will be deployed as part of an intricate choreography that will bring the observatory to life once in space. When deployed, like in this view, it faces Webb’s iconic honeycomb-like pattern of 18 hexagonal, gold-coated primary mirror segments. This primary mirror structure is seen in the lower left of the image in its folded configuration, showing only 12 segments.

Once the observatory is in space, light from distant stars and galaxies will first reach its primary mirror, which reflect it into a focused beam towards the secondary mirror. From there, the beam is then sent through the ‘hole’ in the primary mirror structure into the tertiary and fine steering mirrors, and eventually to the four scientific instruments, which sit behind the primary mirror in this view.

Technicians and engineers recently tested a key part of the telescope unfolding choreography by successfully commanding Webb to deploy the support structure that holds its secondary mirror in place. This is a critical milestone in preparing the observatory for its journey to orbit, as the proper deployment and positioning of the telescope’s secondary mirror is critical to perform the mission’s revolutionary science.

This successful test also provided another demonstration that the electronic connection between the spacecraft and the telescope is working properly, and is capable of delivering commands throughout the observatory as designed.

Next on the list of key mission milestones is the integration of the James Webb Space Telescope’s two halves – the telescope element, which comprises the mirrors and science instruments, and the spacecraft and sunshield element – into its final form as a complete observatory.

Currently at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems in Redondo Beach, California, Webb is scheduled for launch on a European Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana in March 2021.

The James Webb Space Telescope is an international project led by NASA with its partners, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency. As part of its contribution to the project, ESA provides the NIRSpec instrument, the Optical Bench Assembly of the MIRI instrument, the Ariane 5 launcher, and staff to support mission operations at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, USA.

Credits: NASA/C. Gunn

The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC, respectively) are two dwarf galaxies that orbit the Milky Way. This image shows the stellar density of the satellite galaxies as seen by Gaia in its Early Data Release 3, which was made public on 3 December 2020. It is composed of red, green and blue layers, which trace mostly the older, intermediate age, and younger stars respectively.

Astronomers place stars into categories that are often named for their colour and appearance.

In this image, the red layer contains evolved stars that compose the Red Giant Branch and Red Clump stars. The green layer contains Main Sequence stars of mixed ages of up to two billion years. The blue layer contains stars younger than 400 million years, Asymptotic Giant Branch stars, and RR-Lyrae and classical Cepheid variable stars.

The brightnesses used in this image are based on a logarithmic scale to enhance low surface density regions in the galaxies, for example the outer spiral arm in the LMC visible in the upper left.

The density of younger stars has been artificially enhanced with respect to the other evolutionary phases to make them more clearly visible. This shows that younger stars mostly trace the inner spiral structure of the LMC, and the ‘bridge’ of stars between the two galaxies. Finally, intermediate age and older stars trace the LMC bar, spiral arms, and outer halo, as well as the SMC outer halo.

More information

Credits: ESA/Gaia/DPAC; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO. Acknowledgement: L. Chemin; X. Luri et al (2020)

Key technology for ESA’s exoplanet-hunting Plato spacecraft has passed a trial by vacuum to prove the mission will work as planned. This test replica of an 80-cm high, 12-cm aperture camera spent 17 days inside a thermal vacuum chamber.

Testing at the ESTEC Test Centre in the Netherlands reproduced the telescope’s planned operating environment in deep space, 1.5 million km away from Earth.

“Located at the L2 Lagrange point, Plato ( PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) will have 26 of these cameras pointing at the same target stars. They will acquire images every 25 seconds – every 2.5 seconds for the two central cameras – for at least two years at a time to detect tiny shifts in brightness caused by exoplanets transiting these stars,” explains Yves Levillain, Plato’s Instrument System Engineer.

“By observing with so many telescopes at once on a very steady basis we will attain a much higher signal-to-noise ratio than a single large telescope. Each telescope camera will host four CCDs producing 20.3 megapixel images adding up to 81.4 megapixel per normal camera and 2.11 gigapixels for the overall spacecraft – the most pixels ever for a space mission.

“Away from the Sun’s brightness we expect to be able to detect the presence of Earth-like exoplanets, where life as we know it might be able to develop, and even to perform stellar seismology, gathering evidence of ‘starquakes’ in the stars we observe.”

But first the team had to know their camera design was sound. The ‘Structural and Thermal Model’ of the camera, prepared by institutions and companies across Europe, was a near-replica of a flight model, except its lenses were not optically finished.

“We placed the camera in our VTC-1.5 Space Simulator, using liquid nitrogen to keep it around -80°C,” says Matteo Appolloni of the ESTEC Test Centre. “First of all the team wanted to be sure that their thermal model was correct – that the camera responded as expected to temperature changes. The other purpose of the testing was to check an innovative temperature-based focusing method.”

To reach the high optical precision required, the focal length of each Plato camera will be adjusted through very slight temperature shifts, causing it to expand or shrink. Changing the temperature by just 0.1 °C using a trio of camera heaters will adjust its focusing length by 1 micrometre – a thousandth of a millimetre.

The testing was monitored on a 24 hour seven days per week basis by personnel from ESA’s Plato mission team, industry representatives and European Test Services – the company that operates the Test Centre for ESA – divided into three shifts daily. To observe COVID-19 protocols they worked apart and wiped down computers and surfaces before shift changes.

“Over the days of the test campaign we were pretty confident of success, because the team has put a lot of work into the technical aspects,” adds Yves.

“Our biggest worry was actually due to the pandemic, because if somebody caught COVID-19 then our testing might be disrupted. But now the basic design is validated, we’ll proceed to optical testing of engineering models of the camera, as well as data processing checks, then in the summer a full-scale STM of the Plato spacecraft platform minus the cameras will undergo testing here at the ESTEC Test Centre.”

Plato is due for launch by Ariane 6 in 2026.

Credits: ESA-Matteo Apolloni

Crew Dragon Freedom is launched to the International Space Station, carrying ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti and NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Robert “Bob” Hines and Jessica Watkins.

Collectively known as Crew-4, the four astronauts were launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA.

Samantha is the third ESA astronaut to travel to the orbital outpost in a Crew Dragon. During the journey she and Jessica will serve as Mission Specialists. Kjell is Crew-4 Commander and Bob is Crew-4 Pilot.

Upon arrival, Crew-4 will be greeted by the Space Station’s current crew – including ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer. Samantha and Matthias will enjoy a brief handover in orbit before he returns to Earth with Crew-3.

Samantha first flew to space in 2014 for her Italian Space Agency ASI-sponsored mission Futura. Her ESA space mission, known as Minerva, will officially begin once she reaches the Station.

Throughout her mission, Samantha will hold the role of US Orbital Segment (USOS) lead, taking responsibility for all operations within the US, European, Japanese and Canadian modules and components of the Space Station. She will support around 35 European and many more international experiments in orbit.

For more about Samantha and her Minerva mission, visit the Minerva mission page.

Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja

This colourful spread of light specks is in fact a record of extremely powerful phenomena taking place in a galaxy known as Messier 83, or M83. Located some 15 million light-years away, M83 is a barred spiral galaxy, not dissimilar in shape from our own Milky Way, and currently undergoing a spur of star formation, with a handful of new stars being born every year.

While the starry pattern of spiral arms is barely visible in this X-ray view obtained by ESA’s XMM-Newton space observatory, this kaleidoscopic image tells a different story about the stellar remnants in this galaxy.

Most of the dots in this view represent the end points of the life cycle of stars, including remnants of supernova explosions and binary systems featuring compact stellar remnants like neutron stars or black holes that are feeding on matter from a companion star. In particular, the large speck to the lower left of the galaxy’s central region is what astronomers call an ultra-luminous X-ray source, or ULX, a binary system where the compact remnant is accreting mass from its companion at a much higher rate than an ordinary X-ray binary.

The highly energetic phenomena that can be observed with X-ray telescopes often undergo regular changes, on time scales of days or even hours, turning the X-ray sky into a spectacular light show. An animated version of this image, based on XMM-Newton data gathered on six occasions – January 2003, January and August 2014, February and August 2015, and January 2016 – is available here.

The sources located in the reddish area at the centre of the image correspond to objects located in the inner portions of M83. The majority of sources scattered across the image are located in the outskirts of the galaxy, but a few of those are foreground stars in our own galaxy, and others correspond to more distant galaxies in the background.

This RGB image combines nine XMM-Newton observations performed between 2003 and 2016 at energies of 0.2–2 keV (shown in red), 2–4.5 keV (shown in green), and 4.5–12 keV (shown in blue).

A study of 189 X-ray sources in M83, based on data from XMM-Newton, was presented in a paper by L. Ducci and collaborators in 2013.

Credits: ESA/XMM-Newton – Acknowledgement: S. Carpano, Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over New York City – the most populous city in the United States.

With a population of over 8 million people distributed over an area of around 780 sq km, New York City is the most densely populated major city in the US. Situated on one of the world’s largest natural harbours, New York City is composed of five boroughs.

In this image, captured on 26 August 2019, the island of Manhattan is visible in the centre, bounded by the Hudson, East and Harlem rivers. In the middle of Manhattan, Central Park can be seen as a long, green rectangle with a large lake in the middle.

The Brooklyn and Queens boroughs can be seen on the right. John F. Kennedy International Airport –the busiest international air passenger gateway into North America – can easily be identifiable in the lower right of the image.

The Bronx is visible north of Manhattan, while Staten Island can be seen in the lower left of the image. New Jersey dominates the upper left side of the image.

New York City’s 900 km of shoreline border the ocean, rivers, inlets and bays, and a harbour that is home to one of the largest ports on the east coast. Like many other cities that border an ocean, New York is at risk of flooding due to rising sea levels.

Data show that since 1993, the global mean sea level has risen, on average, just over 3 mm every year. Even more worryingly, this rate of rise has increased in recent years.

Sea level rise flooding of US coastlines is becoming more frequent each year. Rising sea levels are expected to worsen storm flooding in low-lying neighbourhoods in coastal areas, and permanently inundate some parts. Retreating shorelines and accelerating erosion will threaten coastal homes and businesses.

The upcoming Copernicus Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite, set to launch in November from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, US, is the first of two identical satellites that will provide observations of sea level change.

Each Sentinel-6 satellite carries an altimeter that works by measuring the time it takes for radar pulses to travel to Earth’s surface and back again to the satellite. Combined with precise satellite location data, altimetry measurements yield the height of the sea surface.

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

Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2019), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

The Hubble Deep Field from 1995 allowed astronomers a first glimpse into the early Universe. This first picture was followed later by an even deeper observation, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 2004. Both images were observed in visible light, the same form of light human eyes can see. But astronomers are also interested in the many forms of invisible light out in the Universe. Therefore, the Ultra Deep Field was later observed in the infrared and the ultraviolet as well, allowing scientists to learn even more about the Universe and to look back even further into its history.

It is less known that the famous deep field observations were not the only images the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope took of the distant Universe. Hubble is also an essential part of the GOODS (The Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey) programme, which unites extremely deep observations from several space telescopes: NASA’s Spitzer and Chandra; ESA's Herschel and XMM-Newton; and Hubble.

Together these observatories observe two patches of the sky, the GOODS North and the GOODS South fields, with the aim of studying it in as many different wavelengths as possible. The new image here shows part of the GOODS North Field; it includes new Hubble data at ultraviolet wavelengths in addition to the existing data. Because Earth’s atmosphere filters out most ultraviolet light, these observations can only be accomplished from space.

The observation programme, called the Hubble Deep UV (HDUV) Legacy Survey, harnessed the ultraviolet vision of Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. This study extends and builds on the previous Hubble multi-wavelength data in the CANDELS-Deep (Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey) fields within the central part of the GOODS (The Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey) fields. This mosaic is 14 times the area of theHubble Ultraviolet Ultra Deep Field released in 2014.

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, CC BY 4.0

ESA joined the Space Pavilion at ILA 2022 to present the newest programmes, missions and technologies at the heart of Europe’s space effort. The Pavilion also highlights upcoming commercial opportunities in the space sector for German, European and global industry focussing on sustainability and climate change, digitalization, innovation, research and space safety.

Credits: ESA - P. Sebirot

Most globular clusters are almost perfectly spherical collections of stars — but Messier 62 breaks the mould. The 12-billion-year-old cluster is distorted, and stretches out on one side to form a comet-like shape with a bright head and extended tail. As one of the closest globular clusters to the centre of our galaxy, Messier 62 is likely affected by strong tidal forces that displace many of its stars, resulting in this unusual shape.

When globular clusters form, they tend to be somewhat denser towards the centre. The more massive the cluster, the denser the centre is likely to be. With a mass with almost a million times that of the Sun, Messier 62 is one of the densest of them all. With so many stars at the centre, interactions and mergers occur regularly. Huge stars form and run out of fuel quickly, exploding violently and their remains collapse to form white dwarfs, neutron stars and even black holes!

For many years, it was believed that any black holes that form in a globular cluster would quickly be kicked out due to the violent interactions taking place there. However, in 2013, a black hole was discovered in Messier 62 — the first ever to be found in a Milky Way globular cluster, giving astronomers a whole new hunting ground for these mysterious objects.

This view comprises ultraviolet and visible light gathered by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys.

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, S. Anderson et al.; CC BY 4.0

This image from Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, or MOLA, an instrument on the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS), shows part of Tantalus Fossae, a large system of faults found on Mars, in wider context.

The area outlined by the bold white box indicates the area imaged by the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera on 19 July 2021 during orbit 22173.

Read more

Credits: NASA/MGS/MOLA Science Team

ESA project astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski about to take a bite of the first-ever batch of pierogi prepared in space during the Ignis mission. The traditional Polish dumpling floats in the International Space Station's window to the world, the European-built Cupola.

In a first for space cuisine, Sławosz brought a taste of home to orbit. Pierogi have been part of Polish cuisine since the 13th century and remain a staple of Polish home cooking.

The space pierogi were filled with mushrooms and sour cabbage, seasoned with bay leaf, marjoram and pepper. The dumplings underwent freeze-drying on Earth – a lengthy process that completely removes any water from the food while maintaining its properties and structure for years. Sławosz could enjoy the pierogi by adding hot water from the dispensers in the Space Station’s dining area.

All food delivered to the International Space Station must be crumb-free, lightweight, and keep for at least 24 months. Most of the space menu consists of canned or freeze-dried meals in plastic packages. Fresh fruits and vegetables are a luxury, only available when spacecraft arrive with new supplies.

Pierogi were considered bonus food, which is catered to specific crew members and makes up around 10 percent of their menu. Astronauts say bonus food adds variety to their meals, boosts mental wellbeing and helps them bond with crewmates in orbit.

Check out the whole Ignis menu, created in collaboration with a celebrity chef and a family-owned company in Poland, and learn more about the dos and don’ts for space food in the article Pierogi in space.

Credits: ESA-S. Uznański-Wiśniewski

Last Wednesday, all locations on our planet enjoyed roughly the same number of hours of day and night. This event, called an equinox, takes place twice a year – around 20 March and then again around 23 September.

On these two occasions along Earth’s yearly orbit around the Sun, sunlight shines directly overhead at the equator. The March equinox marks the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere and of autumn in the southern one, and vice versa for the September equinox.

The ESA/NASA SOHO solar observatory enjoys an alternative view of our parent star, staring at the Sun since 1995 from a vantage position – orbiting the first Lagrange point (L1) some 1.5 million kilometres from Earth towards the Sun. Over the years, SOHO has been monitoring the surface and stormy atmosphere of our star, as well as keeping an eye on the solar wind, the flow of charged particles streaming out through the Solar System, enabling a wealth of scientific discoveries.

This montage of images shows SOHO’s view of the Sun at different ultraviolet wavelengths in the early morning of 20 March; the equinox occurred at 21:58 GMT. From left to right, the images shown in this view were taken at increasing wavelengths (171 Å, 195 Å, 284 Å and 304 Å, respectively) with SOHO’s Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope, which currently takes snapshots of the Sun twice a day.

Each wavelength channel is sensitive to solar material at a different range of temperatures, peering at different heights into the Sun’s atmosphere. From left to right, the brightest material in each image corresponds to temperatures of 1 million, 1.5 million, 2 million and 60 000–80 000ºC, respectively.

Similar SOHO views of the Sun were also featured in a previous Space Science Image of the Week in 2017. Look at them side by side to spot any differences between the Sun then and now. For more information about SOHO, including realtime images of the Sun, go here.

Meanwhile, at the IABG facilities in Ottobrunn, Germany, the Solar Orbiter spacecraft is undergoing final testing ahead of launch early next year. This new joint ESA/NASA mission will perform unprecedented close-up observations of the Sun from a unique orbit that will allow scientists to study our star and its corona in much more detail than previously possible, as well as providing high-resolution images of the uncharted polar regions of the Sun.

Remember: never look directly at the Sun!

Credits: ESA/NASA, SOHO

ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst tweeted this image of Lake Dukan in northeast Iraq, asking “What is planet Earth trying to tell us?”

On the heels of COP 24, the United Nations Climate Change Conference that took place last week in Katowice, Poland, it is very clear what Alexander is trying to tell us.

From his vantage point on the International Space Station, Alexander shares his daily views of Earth, as well as his perspective. His imagery captures not only the beauty of Earth but also the fragility. “It is crystal clear from up here that everything is finite on this little blue marble in a black space, and there is no planet B,” he said in a recorded message to kick off the start of the conference.

During this festive season Lake Dukan brings a Christmas tree to mind. The reality behind it is less cause for celebration.

Global warming is dramatically altering habitats and landscapes. What started with melting polar ice is quickly becoming a global problem, as rising sea levels and warmer global temperatures trigger devastating weather phenomena and large-scale habitat destruction.

While organisations such as the United Nations, in global collaboration with governments and agencies monitoring climate change, work to breathe life into the 2015 Paris Agreement, there is much individuals can do to be part of the solution.

This holiday season you can help reduce waste and the stress it puts on our planet. When gifting consider upcycling old toys or purchasing second hand furniture. Making gifts is also a creative option, or give the gift of your time by volunteering to help a friend or a cause, or treat loved ones to an event. Going into the new year, commit to doing a little more to help our planet by recycling, reusing or reducing overall waste.

Credits: ESA/NASA

Thousands flocked to ESAC, ESA's astronomy heart nearby Madrid, Spain on Saturday 19 October to celebrate the ESA Open Day.

People got the chance to meet astronaut Thomas Reiter, space experts and saw behind the scenes of Europe’s space adventure where space science comes alive.

Credits: Bärbel and Peter Kretschmar

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over the island of Bali, one of the 34 provinces of Indonesia.

Indonesia has more volcanoes than any other country in the world, owing to its position on the Pacific Ring of Fire. The islands of Java, Lombok, Sumbawa and Bali lie over a subduction zone where the Indo-Australian plate slides under the Eurasian plate, creating frequent seismic activity.

Dotted with clouds, Mount Seraya is visible on the peninsula that juts to the east. Its volcanic rock creates a rugged terrain, but is surrounded by lush vegetation. The area is well known for its many Hindu temples, including the famous Lempuyang Temple, known locally as Pura Luhur Lempuyang.

The central volcano, which is a predominant feature in this image, is called Mount Agung or Gunung Agung, meaning ‘Great Mountain’. The symmetrical and conical stratovolcano is the highest in Bali, standing at over 3000 m. When it erupted in 1964, it was one of the largest eruptions of the 20th century, claiming over 1000 lives and leaving more than 80 000 people homeless.

After being dormant over the following 50 years, Agung reawakened in November 2017. Fortunately, small earthquakes warned authorities in time for 100 000 people to be evacuated to safety. Agung still remains very active, with frequent small eruptions spewing ash and lava, causing flights to be cancelled.

In this image, a bright orange spot can be seen in the volcano’s crater. Recent research provides evidence that Agung and its neighbouring Batur volcano, visible northwest of Agung, may have a connected magma plumbing system.

Mount Batur, or Gunung Batur, has an unusual shape, with the volcanic cone visible in the centre of two concentric calderas.

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, which was captured on 2 July 2018, is also featured on the Earth from Space video programme.

Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2018), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

For Valentine’s Day, we bring you this Copernicus Sentinel-2 image capturing a beautiful heart-shaped geographical formation in the dramatic landscape of the southern highlands of Bolivia.

The highlands are part of the Altiplano, meaning High Plateau, a region that stretches almost 1000 km from Peru to Bolivia. The landscape consists of a series of basins lying about 3500 m above sea level and is the most extensive area of high plateau on Earth, outside Tibet.

This particular area featured here is a transition between the desert in the west and the tropical forest in the east. The heart-shaped formation has been moulded by many layers of different geological formations over time. The many streams and rivers visible in this image have also contributed to the shaping of the landscape as we see it today.

This false-colour composite image was processed by selecting spectral bands that can be used for classifying geological features – but here the image processing also highlights this lovely heart for today’s image.

Sucre, the capital of the Chuquisaca Department, is visible at the top of the image in grey. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the city lies at an elevation of around 2800 metres above sea level. To the left of Sucre, the Maragua crater can be seen – a popular hiking destination.

Satellites, such as Copernicus Sentinel-2, allow us to capture beautiful images such as these from space, but also to monitor changing places on Earth. Flying 800 km above, satellites take the pulse of our planet by systematically imaging and measuring changes taking place, which is particularly important in regions that are otherwise difficult to access. This allows for informed decisions to be made to help protect our world for future generations and for all citizens that inhabit our beloved Earth.

We send all our love for Valentine’s Day from the high plateaus of Bolivia – and hope we continue our celebration of love for Earth every day of the year.

This image, which was captured on 26 January 2020, 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

For World Oceans Day, the Copernicus Sentinel-3A satellite takes us over the Atlantic Ocean and the Republic of Cabo Verde.

Several of the small islands that make up the archipelago of Cabo Verde can be seen peeking out from beneath the clouds. These volcanic islands lie in the Atlantic Ocean about 570 km off the west coast of Senegal and Mauritania, which frame the image on the right.

The most striking thing about this image, however, is the dust and sand being carried by the wind towards Cabo Verde from Africa. The sand comes mainly from the Sahara and Sahel region. Owing to Cabo Verde’s position and the trade winds, these storms are not uncommon and can disrupt air traffic.

However, this sand also fertilises the ocean with nutrients and promotes the growth of phytoplankton, which are microscopic plants that sustain the marine food web. The iron in the dust is particularly important. Without iron mammals cannot make haemoglobin to transport oxygen around the bloodstream and plants cannot make chlorophyll to photosynthesise. Research has shown that around 80% of iron in samples of water taken across the North Atlantic originates from the Sahara. It can be assumed, therefore, that life in the deep ocean depends on this delivery of fertiliser from one of the world’s most parched regions.

World Oceans Day takes place on 8 June each year and celebrates the ocean, its importance in all our lives, and how we can protect it.

This image, which was captured on 30 May 2018, is also featured on the Earth from Space video programme.

contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2018), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

The Copernicus Sentinel-3A satellite takes us over New Zealand, with the image centred over Cook Strait between the North and South Islands.

Captured on 22 August 2018, this true-colour image shows the snow-covered Southern Alps stretching 500 km across the west coast of the South Island.

On the island’s east coast, bright turquoise colours in the Pacific Ocean suggest the presence of sediment being carried into the ocean by river discharge as well as algal blooms.

Algal blooms occur when there is a rapid increase in the number of algae in water, and are usually a result of slow water circulation and high water temperatures, they can be toxic and potentially dangerous to both fish and humans.

The emerald green colour of the coastal Lake Ellesmere (Te Waihora), below the circular peninsula jutting out, is most likely because of a high concentration of chlorophyll. This brackish lake is home to over 150 species of birds and more than 40 species of fish thanks to the influx of both freshwater and marine species migrating in and out of the lake.

Across the Cook Strait, nestling on the southern tip of the North Island, the image shows a body of water called Lake Wairarapa. It is yellow-ochre in colour owing to high concentrations of sediment. This shallow lake, which is surrounded by wetlands and farms, drains into the smaller Lake Onoke, further south.

Tongariro National Park, in the centre of the North Island, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site owing to its natural and cultural significance. The park has three active volcanoes. At 2797 m high, the snow-covered Ruapehu – a majestic stratovolcano – is the most visible in the image. The area’s rugged terrain and jagged rocks made it the ideal location for filming the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

On the far west, the snow-capped cone of Mount Taranaki is in the middle of Egmont National Park. The mountain is surrounded by dark-coloured dense forest that is in contrast to the unprotected pasture outside of the park’s circular boundary. It is considered one of the most symmetrical volcano cones in the world.

Sentinel-3 is a two-satellite mission to supply the coverage and data delivery needed for Europe’s Copernicus environmental monitoring programme. Each satellite’s instrument package includes an optical sensor to monitor changes in the colour of Earth’s surfaces. It can be used, for example, to monitor ocean biology and water quality.

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

Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2018), processed by ESA,CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Captured on 3 September 2018 by the Copernicus Sentinel-2A satellite, this image shows part of western Sicily in Italy and two of the main Aegadian Islands: Favignana and Levanzo.

This false-colour image included the near-infrared channel and was processed in a way, that makes vegetation appear in bright red.

The bright turquoise colours, near the port city of Trapani, at the top of the image, and the Isola Grande in the middle of the image, depict salt marshes. Both the Saline di Trapani e Paceco Nature Reserve and the Stagnone Nature Reserve with their shallow sea waters, windy coast and abundant sunshine, make the area between Marsala, at the bottom of the image, and Trapani an ideal place for salt production.

The reserve consists of more than 1000 hectares of landscape dotted with windmills, migratory birds such as flamingos and light-red lagoons visible in summer. This greenish-blue colour is heavily contrasted with the black of the open Mediterranean Sea.

The islands, off the coast, are rich in history, both boasting Paleolithic and Neolithic cave paintings. The most famous being the Grotta del Genovese on the picturesque island of Levanzo, at the top left of the image. The cave was discovered only in 1949 and is estimated to be between 6000 and 10 000 years old.

Below, the butterfly-shaped island of Favignana, known for its tuna fisheries and a type of limestone known as tufa rock, is the largest of the Aegadian islands. In 241 BC, one of the Punic Wars’ naval battles was fought at the Cala Rossa (Red Cove), named after the bloodshed.

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 (2018), processed by ESA,CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

This structure is the frame and base for the European Service Module, part of NASA’s Orion spacecraft that will return humans to the Moon.

Built in Turin, Italy, at Thales Alenia Space, this is the third such structure to roll out of production. However, this one is extra special, as it will fly the first woman and next man to land on the Moon and return on the Artemis III mission by 2024.

The structure is nearly complete and acts as a backbone to the Orion spacecraft, providing rigidity during launch.

Much like a car chassis, this structure forms the basis for all further assembly of the spacecraft, including 11 km of wiring, 33 engines, four tanks to hold over 8000 litres of fuel, enough water and air to keep four astronauts alive for 20 days in space and the seven-metre ‘x-wing’ solar arrays that provide enough electricity to power two households.

Orion’s backbone will travel to the Airbus integration hall in Bremen, Germany, at the end of the month to integrate all the elements listed above and more. This third European Service Module will join the second in the series that is already in Bremen, and nearing completion, to be sent to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center next year.

The first service module is already finished and will be integrated with the Crew Module and rocket adapters to sit atop the Space Launch Systems rocket. The first completed Orion craft is scheduled for a launch and fly-by around the Moon, without astronauts, next year on the first Artemis mission.

The countdown to the Moon starts in Europe with 16 companies in ten countries supplying the components that make up humankind’s next generation spacecraft for exploration.

Read more about Orion and the Artemis missions.

Credits: Thales Alenia Space

What looks like a light sabre is actually a laser beam guided in its path through a hair-thin jet of water, in the same manner as conventional fibre optics.

This water jet provides a large ‘processing depth’, allowing parallel cutting of larger samples. Its water also serves to continually cool the cutting zone and efficiently remove cut material.

This Laser Microjet machine from Synova SA in Switzerland is being employed by cosine in the Netherlands to slice novel X-ray optics for ESA’s NewAthena space observatory to survey the hot, energetic Universe.

Energetic X-rays don’t behave like typical light waves: they don’t reflect in a standard mirror. Instead they can only be reflected at shallow angles, like stones skimming along water. So multiple mirrors must be stacked together to focus them. NewAthena will therefore employ ‘silicon pore optics’, based on the precisely-aligned stacking together of tens of thousands of mirror plates made from industrial silicon wafers, which are normally used to manufacture silicon chips.

This technology – developed by ESA, cosine and other partners – will enable the building of a 2.6 m diameter X-ray lens for NewAthena’s telescope. Production of these mirror modules has reached the demonstration stage and their mass production is now being prepared, to ready NewAthena for launch in 2037 as one of ESA’s major ‘Large class’ missions.

Credits: cosine

Engineers inspect the medium gain antenna of the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice.

Juice will make detailed observations of Jupiter and its three large ocean-bearing moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa – with a suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments. The mission will investigate the emergence of habitable worlds around gas giants and the Jupiter system as an archetype for the numerous giant exoplanets now known to orbit other stars.

Credits: ESA

The Vandenberg Air Force Base, in California, US, where the Copernicus Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite will soon launch from, is featured in this image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission.

Zoom in to see this image at its full 10 m resolution.

The area pictured here shows the Santa Barbara County in the southern region of the US state of California. Located around 200 km northwest of Los Angeles, the county spans across 7000 sq km and is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the west and south.

The county includes the coastal city of Santa Barbara, partially visible in the lower right of the image. Santa Barbara lies between the steeply rising Santa Ynez Mountains, visible in dark green directly above, and the Pacific Ocean. The mountains rise dramatically behind the city with several peaks exceeding 1200 m.

Other mountain ranges in the county include the San Rafael Mountains, visible directly above, and the Sierra Madre Mountains. Most of the mountainous area is within the Los Padres National Forest – California’s second largest national forest.

The county’s most populous city is Santa Maria, visible in the top left of the image, surrounded by a patchwork of agricultural plots. Like many other cities in California, Santa Maria experiences a Mediterranean climate.

Below Santa Maria lies the Vandenberg Air Force Base – visible along the coast. It is here, where the Copernicus Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite will launch from. A joint European-US satellite built to monitor sea levels, the satellite will liftoff atop a Space X Falcon 9 rocket on 21 November at 18:17 CET (09:17 PST). The satellite, named after Michael Freilich, the former NASA director who advocated for advancing satellite measurements, will extend a nearly 30-year continuous dataset on sea level.

It will be the first ESA-developed satellite to be given a ride into space on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Famously, Falcon 9 is partially reusable – unlike most rockets which are expendable launch systems. Once in orbit some 1336 km above Earth, the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite will collect sea level measurements for 95% of Earth’s ice-free oceans. The data will be essential for climate science, policy-making and protecting those in low-lying regions.

Tune in to ESA Web TV at 17:45 CET to watch the launch live.

This image, captured on 14 August 2020, 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 mosaic was created from raw Cassini's images, taken on Sept. 13, 2017.

36 black & white images in red, green & blue filters was stacked together for color images. Then 12 color images was combined together for this final "portrain" of Saturn.

Software used: AstroimageJ and GIMP.

This image was featured at Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) on Sept. 26, 2017: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170926.html

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Mindaugas Macijauskas

This image shows ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) being attached to a temporary stand for fuelling. The black, conical stand allows the fuelling inlet and outlet to be at a more convenient height for fuelling operators who wear big Self-Contained Atmospheric Protective Ensemble, or ‘scape’ suits that limit their freedom of movement and field of view.

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: 2023 ESA-CNES-ARIANESPACE / Optique vidéo du CSG - P BAUDON

Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana is performing the first combined test in preparation for the inaugural flight of Ariane 6, Europe’s new generation launch vehicle.

This test confirms the operations and electrical and mechanical equipment required for integration of the upper part of the launch vehicle. The procedures are carried out in conditions representative of a launch campaign. A major step of this test involves the closure of the Ariane 6 fairing around the payload.

Preparations started in May 2021 with a de-risking campaign of the mechanical operations.

The fairing, built by Ruag Space in Switzerland, stands 20 m high and 5.4 m in diameter. It protects payloads from the thermal, acoustic and aerodynamic stresses on the ascent to space.

This combined test was performed using a new integration dock, composed of a large white frame, with two mobile platforms adjustable to any level and accessible by fixed stairs and platforms, developed by the French space agency, CNES.

The assembly building has two halls: one for integration of the fairing and another where the payload is stowed in the fairing. This encapsulation area is a spacious clean room for Ariane 6.

These activities are part of extensive ‘combined tests’ at the Spaceport by ESA, CNES, ArianeGroup and other industry partners. They will prove the systems and procedures to prepare Europe's new Ariane 6 launch vehicle for flight.

ESA oversees the implementation and management of verification and qualification activities up to and including the first flight of Ariane 6 before handing over to the exploitation authority.

Ariane 6 is designed to extend guaranteed access to space for Europe and will be capable of carrying out all types of missions to all orbits. It features a modular design with two versions: Ariane 62, fitted with two strap-on boosters, and Ariane 64, with four.

Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace / Optique vidéo du CSG - P. Baudon

The ESTEC Test Centre is expanding. A new 350 sq. m cleanroom is being added to the Netherlands-based site, already Europe’s largest facility for satellite testing.

To begin with, 110 foundation piles have been inserted into the sandy soil, ranging in depth from 10 to 17 m. Now ground is being excavated to dig a connecting tunnel bringing power, data, heating and cooling infrastructure to the new cleanroom.

The ESTEC Test Centre is a 3000 sq. m environmentally-controlled complex nestled in dunes along the Dutch coast, filled with test equipment to simulate all aspects of spaceflight. It is part of ESA’s main technical centre, but is maintained and operated on a commercial basis on the Agency’s behalf by private company European Test Services (ETS) B.V.

Most of the time the ESTEC Test Centre has several test items within its walls simultaneously. Complex planning and traffic management are necessary to ensure every project get access to the facility they need at the time they need it. So sufficient room is required needs to accommodate the different programmes and allow their movement between test facilities.

“The new clean room will offer extra space to host satellites as they come on site,” explains Gaetan Piret, overseeing the Test Centre . “It will also host our sensitive micro-vibration measurement facilities, used to characterise the very low vibration generated by mechanisms mounted aboard satellites.”

The building work, led by Dutch company Heijmans, is intended to have as little impact on the rest of the site as possible, allowing the rest of the Test Centre to continue nominal operations.

“For this reason we rejected hammering in the piles,” explains Jan Trautmann of ESA Facilities Management, managing the construction project. “Instead ‘cast in place’ piles were used, involving drilling deep holes, then lowering a steel reinforcement and filling them with concrete. This method generates much less noise and vibration.”

Planned to take account of current COVID-19 restrictions, the aim is to complete the new building by next summer, which will then be linked via large corridor to the current building.

Credits: ESA

Europe’s first MetOp Second Generation, MetOp-SG-A1, weather satellite – which hosts the Copernicus Sentinel-5 mission – has launched aboard an Ariane 6 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The rocket lifted off on 13 August at 02:37 CEST (12 August 21:37 Kourou time).

MetOp-SG-A1 is the first in a series of three successive pairs of satellites. The mission as a whole not only ensures the continued delivery of global observations from polar orbit for weather forecasting and climate analysis for more than 20 years, but also offers enhanced accuracy and resolution compared to the original MetOp mission – along with new measurement capabilities to expand its scientific reach.

This new weather satellite also carries the Copernicus Sentinel-5 mission to deliver daily global data on air pollutants and atmospheric trace gases as well as aerosols and ultraviolet radiation.

Ariane 6 is Europe’s heavy launcher and a key element of ESA’s efforts to ensure autonomous access to space for Europe’s citizens. Ariane 6 has three stages: two or four boosters, and a main and upper stage. For this flight, VA264, the rocket was used in its two-booster configuration.

Credits: ESA - S.Corvaja

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission captures the colourful waters of two salty lakes in East Africa: Lake Natron in northern Tanzania and Lake Magadi in southern Kenya.

Lake Natron, the large lake at the bottom of the image, is 56 km long. It is rather shallow, only reaching a depth of 3 m, although its depth varies during the year. Despite the lake being very salty in a region that suffers scorching temperatures, the lake basin is recognised as a Ramsar wetland of international importance. It is the only regular breeding area for lesser flamingos in East Africa. There can be as many as 2.5 million flamingos congregating on the lake, which also offers a habitat for thousands of other species of waterbird.

The smaller Lake Magadi, at the centre top, is located in a vast depression in an area of volcanic rock. No permanent river enters the lake, which is fed only by surface runoff when it rains. Like Natron, Magadi has a notably high salt content – in some places the salt is up to 40 m thick – and it’s one of the few places on Earth where the mineral trona forms naturally. Trona is used for glass manufacturing, fabric dyeing and paper production.

This image was acquired on 12 February 2023 during the short dry season, immediately before the main rainy season that begins in March. Owing to algae that thrive on the salt, both lakes are naturally red or pink, especially during the dry season when water evaporates and the salts become more concentrated. Here, however, the colours are because the image processing included Sentinel-2’s near-infrared channel, which helps to reveal different information than what is yielded in a natural colour image.

While heavy shades of red highlight vegetated areas and dominate this false-colour image, the seasonal flowering of algae in the lakes appears green. The bright white and blue areas along the shores depict a mixture of sand, salt and mud flats. Salt crusts, resulting from evaporation caused by high temperatures, can be spotted as white dots speckling the waters.

Sentinel-2 is a two-satellite mission to supply the coverage and data delivery needed for Europe’s Copernicus programme. The mission’s frequent revisits over the same area and high spatial resolution allow to measure changes in the conditions of inland water bodies – one of the mission’s main applications along with land cover, agriculture and forestry.

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

The second European Service Module is prepared for shipment to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA this week at Airbus facilities in Bremen, Germany. Made up of components from ten European countries, ESM-2 will power the first crewed flight to the Moon on the Artemis II mission.

The European Service Modules are a key element of the Orion spacecraft, the first to return humans to the Moon since the 1970s.

Built by the brightest minds in Europe, the module provides propulsion, power and thermal control and will supply astronauts with water and oxygen. The ESM is installed underneath the Crew Module Adapter and Crew Module and together they form the Orion spacecraft.

ESM-2 is currently in route to Florida on an Antonov An-124 cargo aircraft, where NASA is finalising preparations for the launch of Artemis I. The first European Service Module has long since been mated with the crew module to form the first Orion spacecraft ready to launch to the Moon. It will soon be integrated on top of the Space Launch System rocket in its final preparations for Artemis I, during which it will be put to the test when it powers the uncrewed maiden flight of the Orion spacecraft on an orbit which will go as far as 64 000 km behind the Moon, around, and back.

ESA is delivering up to six modules to NASA, with three more currently under negotiation. These Artemis missions will allow for assembly and service of the lunar Gateway.

Airbus is ESA’s prime contractor for building the first six service modules. The third European Service Module is at the start of its integration phase where equipment, brackets and harness will be added to the structure.

Follow more Orion news on the blog.

Credits: Airbus

South Africa’s Western Cape often falls victim to fires during the dry hot summer months. Fires can ignite naturally but can also be the result of careless or deliberate human behaviour. This Copernicus Sentinel-2B image from 6 January shows several blazes around the Kogelberg Nature Reserve to the east of Cape Town. Smoke from the fires can also be seen blowing across False Bay towards the Cape Peninsula in the extreme southwest of South Africa. These fires are reported to be just some of those that firefighters have been dealing with in the region over the last weeks. The fires have posed serious risk to life, property and the environment, as well as incurring huge financial costs. Roads and resorts, which experience high volumes of traffic and visitors during the holiday season, have also been closed. The Kogelberg Nature Reserve is currently closed because of the fires, but it is considered to be very beautiful with an array of different plant species, many of which are endemic.

The two Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellites carry multispectral cameras designed to monitor changes in Earth’s vegetation and plant health.

Credits: contains modified Sentinel data (2019), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

The James Webb Space Telescope was fuelled inside the payload preparation facility at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana ahead of its launch on Ariane 5.

Webb’s thrusters will use this propellant to make critical course-corrections after separation from Ariane 5, to maintain its prescribed orbit about one and a half million kilometres from Earth, and to repoint the observatory and manage its momentum during operations.

Fuelling any satellite is a particularly delicate operation requiring setup of the equipment and connections, fuelling, and then pressurisation.

Webb’s propellant tanks were filled separately with 133 kg of dinitrogen tetroxide oxidiser and 168 kg hydrazine. Oxidiser improves the burn efficiency of the hydrazine fuel.

These propellants are extremely toxic so only a few specialists wearing Self-Contained Atmospheric Protective Ensemble, or ‘scape’ suits, remained in the dedicated fuelling hall for fuelling which took 10 days and ended on 3 December.

The next steps will start soon for ‘combined operations’. This is when specialists working separately to prepare Webb and Ariane 5 will come together as one team. They will place Webb atop its Ariane 5 launch vehicle and encapsulate it inside Ariane 5’s fairing.

Then, no longer visible, Webb, joined with its Ariane 5 launch vehicle will be transferred to the Final Assembly building for the final preparations before launch.

Webb will be the largest, most powerful telescope ever launched into space. As part of an international collaboration agreement, ESA is providing the telescope’s launch service using the Ariane 5 launch vehicle. Working with partners, ESA was responsible for the development and qualification of Ariane 5 adaptations for the Webb mission and for the procurement of the launch service by Arianespace.

Webb is an international partnership between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

Find out more about Webb in ESA’s launch kit and interactive brochure.

Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique Vidéo du CSG - P Piron

Hubble Space Telescope’s iconic images and scientific breakthroughs have redefined our view of the Universe. To commemorate three decades of scientific discoveries, this image is one of the most photogenic examples of the many turbulent stellar nurseries the telescope has observed during its 30-year lifetime. The portrait features the giant nebula NGC 2014 and its neighbour NGC 2020 which together form part of a vast star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, approximately 163 000 light-years away. The image is nicknamed the “Cosmic Reef” because it resembles an undersea world.

Learn more about this image here and take a look at region from a ground-based telescope here.

Credits: NASA, ESA, and STScI; CC BY 4.0

The ExoMars Rosalind Franklin Rover is seen here sitting on top of the Kazachok surface science platform in stowed configuration, rather similar to how it will journey to Mars in 2022.

The duo were mated in a dedicated clean room at Thales Alenia Space (TAS), Cannes, together forming the so-called ‘landing module’. The latest round of tests include electrical, power and data transfer checks between the two elements.

The landing module will later be integrated inside the descent module for mass balancing checks, together with the carrier module that will transport the mission to Mars.

This is not the last time the two flight models will be mated. After completion of the tests in Cannes, the rover will return to the TAS cleanrooms in Turin, Italy, for further functional testing, before being shipped to the launch site in Baikonur.

In this image, two of the landing platform’s ramps are deployed and one of the solar panels is partially deployed (front left). There are ramps on both sides of the platform; after assessing the area for potential hazards, the rover team can choose to drive Rosalind Franklin forwards or backwards down either of the two ramps to begin its scientific exploration of Mars.

The mission is targeting a September 2022 launch window, landing on Mars in June 2023. Its goal is to determine the geological history of the landing site at Oxia Planum, once thought to host an ancient ocean, and to determine if life could ever have existed on Mars.

The ExoMars programme is a joint endeavour between ESA and the Russian State Space Corporation, Roscosmos.

The integration activities at Cannes were carried out by Thales Alenia Space and Airbus Defence and Space teams.

Credits: Thales Alenia Space

The latest image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope shows a portion of the dense centre of our galaxy in unprecedented detail, including never-before-seen features astronomers have yet to explain. The star-forming region, named Sagittarius C (Sgr C), is about 300 light-years from the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*.

Amid the estimated 500,000 stars in the image is a cluster of protostars – stars that are still forming and gaining mass – producing outflows that glow like a bonfire in the midst of an infrared-dark cloud. At the heart of this young cluster is a previously known, massive protostar over 30 times the mass of our Sun. The cloud the protostars are emerging from is so dense that the light from stars behind it cannot reach Webb, making it appear less crowded when in fact it is one of the most densely packed areas of the image. Smaller infrared-dark clouds dot the image, looking like holes in the starfield. That’s where future stars are forming.

Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument also captured large-scale emission from ionised hydrogen surrounding the lower side of the dark cloud, shown cyan-coloured in the image. Typically, this is the result of energetic photons being emitted by young massive stars, but the vast extent of the region shown by Webb is something of a surprise that bears further investigation. Another feature of the region that scientists plans to examine further is the needle-like structures in the ionised hydrogen, which appear oriented chaotically in many directions.

Around 25,000 light-years from Earth, the galactic centre is close enough to study individual stars with the Webb telescope, allowing astronomers to gather unprecedented information on how stars form, and how this process may depend on the cosmic environment, especially compared to other regions of the galaxy. For example, are more massive stars formed in the centre of the Milky Way, as opposed to the edges of its spiral arms?

[Image description: In a field crowded with stars, a funnel-shaped region of space appears darker than its surroundings with fewer stars. It is wider at the top edge of the image, narrowing towards the bottom. Toward the narrow end of this dark region a small clump of red and white appears to shoot out streamers upward and left. A large, bright cyan-colored area surrounds the lower portion of the funnel-shaped dark area, forming a rough U shape. The cyan-coloured area has needle-like, linear structures and becomes more diffuse in the center of the image. The right side of the image is dominated by clouds of orange and red, with a purple haze.]

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, S. Crowe (UVA)

This true color image was created from NASA Cassini's raw images in red, green & blue filters, taken on Nov. 4, 2006.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Mindaugas Macijauskas

The subject of this week's Hubble Picture of the Week is a reflection nebula, identified as GN 04.32.8. Reflection nebulae are clouds of dust in space that don't emit their own light, as other nebulae do. Instead, the light from nearby stars hits and scatters off their dust, lighting them up. Because of the way the light scatters, many reflection nebulae tend to appear blue, GN 04.32.8 included.

GN 04.32.8 is a small part of the stellar nursery known as the Taurus Molecular Cloud. At only roughly 480 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus, it's one of the best locations for studying newly forming stars. This reflection nebula is illuminated by the system of three bright stars in the centre of this image, mainly the variable star V1025 Tauri in the very centre. One of those stars overlaps with part of the nebula: this is another variable star that is named HP Tauri, but is classified as a T Tauri star, for its similarity to yet another variable star elsewhere in the Taurus Molecular Complex. T Tauri stars are very active, chaotic stars at an early stage of their evolution, so it's no surprise that they appear in a prolific stellar nursery like this one! The three stars are also named HP Tau, HP Tau G2 and HP Tau G3; they’re believed to be gravitationally bound to each other, forming a triple system.

Eagle-eyed viewers might notice the small, squashed, orange spot, just left of centre below the clouds of the nebula, that’s crossed by a dark line. This is a newly-formed protostar, hidden in a protoplanetary disc that obstructs some of its light. Because the disc is edge-on to us, it’s an ideal candidate for study. Astronomers are using Hubble here to examine it closely, seeking to learn about the kinds of exoplanets that might be formed in discs like it.

[Image Description: A long, smoky, greyish-blue cloud in the centre of the image curves in an arc around three bright stars, each with long cross-shaped diffraction spikes. The cloud is lit more brightly on the inner side facing the stars, and fades into the dark background on the outer side. A few other stars and points of light surround the cloud: one small star below it has a dark band crossing its centre.]

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, G. Duchêne; CC BY 4.0