View allAll Photos Tagged spacescience
Space Science image of the week:
Mercury, the innermost planet of our Solar System is a grey, barren world to our human eyes. In stark contrast, this map shows a portion of the surface in a patchwork of colour, each shade corresponding to a different type of geological feature.
The image is an excerpt from a detailed geological map that is the first complete geological survey of this region made using data from NASA’s Messenger mission, which orbited Mercury from 2011 to 2015. It covers a section in the planet’s northern hemisphere known to planetary geologists as the Victoria Quadrangle, and is centred on about 45ºW / 45ºN.
From impact craters in various states of degradation (dark red/green/yellow/beige) to smooth volcanic plains (pink/peach) and rougher plains materials (browns), the scene captures billions of years of rich geological history. For scale, the large crater just right of centre is about 150 km wide.
In total, 867 craters larger than 5 km are mapped in this image – the full Victoria Quadrangle contains 1789. Of those, 519 are larger than 20 km (268 in this particular section), and for those the pattern of the ejected material is mapped and classified as well. Mapping the density and characteristics of craters helps to determine the relative age of a surface: in general, the more craters, the older the surface.
The map also indicates surface features such as hollows, pits, faults and wrinkle ridges, which were imaged in high resolution by Messenger, many identified for the first time. (For a full description of the annotations see the complete geological map of this region.)
For example, Messenger discovered hollows that appear to be young and unique to Mercury, and may be due to a sublimating material weakening parts of the surface such that it collapses.
ESA’s BepiColombo mission, being prepared for launch next year, will follow up on many of the surface features identified by Messenger. For example, BepiColombo’s high-resolution imaging, from ultraviolet to thermal infrared, will determine the chemical composition of the hollows, helping to home in on how they form.
BepiColombo will also be able to improve the understanding of the variations in volcanic eruptive style over time by studying the different volcanic plains materials. Volcanic plains also display wrinkle ridges, sinuous features that form when lavas cool and subside, causing the crust to contract horizontally. BepiColombo will complement Messenger data by capturing higher-resolution images, in particular over the southern hemisphere, to help determine how this contraction was distributed over time, and thus the cooling history of the planet.
The BepiColombo mission is a partnership with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). It comprises two science orbiters, ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter, which will reach Mercury together in December 2025.
A full description of the geologic map and associated paper is available via the Journal of Maps: “Geology of the Victoria quadrangle (H02), Mercury ," by Galluzzi et al. (2016). The map is one of many being compiled, in order to complete a consistent global map prior to BepiColombo’s arrival at the planet, to support the mission’s observing campaigns.
Credit: V. Galluzzi et al. (2016)
On 24 March, over a dozen engineers gathered at Euclid industrial prime contractor, Thales Alenia Space in Turin, to carefully attach the two main parts of the Euclid spacecraft together. This task required such extreme precision that it took a whole day, followed by two days of connecting electronic equipment and testing that Euclid’s instruments still work.
This image shows the payload module (top) and the service module (bottom) before all the thermal insulation is added.
Read more about the coming together of the two modules here.
Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja
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
As part of the campaign to launch ESA's Aeolus satellite on 21 August, the satellite is held in a vertical position, allowing engineers to access the different components. Since the satellite's arrival in Kourou, French Guiana, on 28 June, it has been 'functionally tested'. This included tests on the pressure of the propulsion tanks, piping, valves, filters and thrusters.
Credits: ESA
The joint European-Japanese BepiColombo mission captured this view of Mercury on 1 October 2021 as the spacecraft flew past the planet for a gravity assist manoeuvre.
The image was taken at 23:44:12 UTC by the Mercury Transfer Module’s Monitoring Camera 2, when the spacecraft was about 2418 km from Mercury. Closest approach of about 199 km took place shortly before, at 23:34 UTC. In this view, north is towards the lower left. The cameras provide black-and-white snapshots in 1024 x 1024 pixel resolution.
The region shown is part of Mercury’s northern hemisphere including Sihtu Planitia that has been flooded by lavas. A round area smoother and brighter than its surroundings characterizes the plains around the Calvino crater, which are called the Rudaki Plains.The 166 km-wide Lermontov crater is also seen, which looks bright because it contains features unique to Mercury called ‘hollows’ where volatile elements are escaping to space. It also contains a vent where volcanic explosions have occurred. BepiColombo will study these types of features once in orbit around the planet.
Click here for an annotated version of this image.
The gravity assist manoeuvre was the first at Mercury and the fourth of nine flybys overall. During its seven-year cruise to the smallest and innermost planet of the Solar System, BepiColombo makes one flyby at Earth, two at Venus and six at Mercury to help steer on course for Mercury orbit in 2025. The Mercury Transfer Module carries two science orbiters: ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter, which from complementary orbits will study all aspects of mysterious Mercury from its core to surface processes, magnetic field and exosphere, to better understand the origin and evolution of a planet close to its parent star.
Credits: ESA/BepiColombo/MTM, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
This latest image of Jupiter, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope on 25 August 2020, was captured when the planet was 653 million kilometres from Earth. Hubble’s sharp view is giving researchers an updated weather report on the monster planet’s turbulent atmosphere, including a remarkable new storm brewing, and a cousin of the Great Red Spot changing colour — again. The new image also features Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.
A unique and exciting detail of Hubble’s new snapshot appears at mid-northern latitudes as a bright, white, stretched-out storm moving at 563 kilometres per hour. This single plume erupted on 18 August 2020 and another has since appeared.
While it’s common for storms to pop up in this region, often several at once, this particular disturbance appears to have more structure behind it than observed in previous storms. Trailing behind the plume are small, counterclockwise dark clumps also not witnessed in the past. Researchers speculate this may be the beginning of a longer-lasting northern hemisphere spot, perhaps to rival the legendary Great Red Spot that dominates the southern hemisphere.
Learn more about this image here.
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
Launching rockets into space may be our regular business, but on 9 October Space Team Europe is at a very different kind of start line: at the space-themed Paris 20 km running event. Nearly 150 colleagues from ESA, CNES, ArianeGroup and Arianespace are uniting forces to highlight the power of collaboration, taking part in either the in-person event or the virtual experience in their home towns across Europe. Ambitions are high to complete the 20 km race, but Sunday’s Space Team Europe represents a much larger and diverse community driven by the same vision and ambition for excellence – to excel as a world-leading and inspiring space agency.
Whether you’re taking part in the event yourself, participating virtually, planning your own 20 km run this weekend, or cheering from the sidelines, this graphic imagines the route through Paris as a scaled tour through the Solar System. Full sight-seeing tour details below!
The Solar System in 20 km
GO! We’re starting our journey at the centre of our Solar System with the Sun --– let the power of the solar wind accelerate you off the start line! Our ESA-led Solar Orbiter mission is monitoring our nearest star and the influence of space weather on our home planet Earth.
It’s a whistle-stop tour of the inner Solar System planets as we need to squeeze Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars all into the first kilometre. Fly by planet Mercury at just 260 m into the race for a gravity assist like our joint ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission – arriving in orbit around this mysterious planet in 2025.
Then it’s on to Venus at 480 m, but dress for the weather: thick clouds and high temperatures guaranteed because of a runaway greenhouse effect, a stark warning for extreme climate change. Our future mission EnVision will give us the best insights yet as to how Venus evolved so differently to Earth.
Space exploration starts at your home planet Earth, 670 m into our scaled run and a good time to double check you remembered to turn your sports watch on! Europe's Galileo system has become the world's most precise satellite navigation system, delivering metre-scale accuracy to more than three billion users worldwide. Maybe you’re running on a treadmill today instead; astronauts onboard the International Space Station need to run in space to preserve their muscle and bone strength – using elastic bands to keep them from floating off the treadmill. ESA astronaut Tim Peake even ran a marathon in space, finishing in just 3 hours and 35 minutes. During that time he travelled over 100 000 km as the International Space Station orbited around our planet – quite the ultra!
A short bounce forward brings us to the Moon, where ESA and its international partners are getting ready to fly crewed missions, along with payloads to prospect for water and other resources critical for permanent bases. We’re also planning a constellation of telecom and satnav satellites around the Moon …soon you’ll be able to track your lunar marathons, too!
Mars brings us to the 1 km marker. Think of the medal you get at the end of a race while we’re working on an out of this world ‘souvenir’ like no other: exploration of the Red Planet foresees an ambitious project to bring Mars samples back to Earth.
Watch out for falling rocks as we navigate through the Asteroid belt between about 1.5 and 2.1 km. ESA is constantly monitoring the asteroid threat, and soon the Hera mission will fly to asteroid Dimorphos to study the results of the world's first test of asteroid deflection – critical to protecting our planet from real future impact threats.
Don’t forget to hydrate as we pass by Jupiter at 3.5 km. ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer is launching next year to probe the oceans of the planet’s icy moons and investigate their habitability potential.
Cool down in the icy spray of Enceladus, a geyser-spouting moon of Saturn at 6.4 km. This water-world was studied by the International Cassini mission and it may lend itself to an ambitious future icy moon sample return concept.
Hang in there! It’s a long haul to the little-explored reaches of the outer Solar System, with Uranus out at about 13 km. But thanks to powerful space observatories like Webb and Hubble, which orbit close to Earth, we can see the distant ice giants and their rings and moons with greater clarity than ever before.
Stellar job! We’re crossing the finish line at 20 km at outermost planet Neptune, but there’s a whole Universe out there to explore and discover. What will your next inspiration be?
Distances are approximate
Credits: ESA
Ahead of the International Day of Forests, the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over part of the Amazon rainforest in the Amazonas – the largest state in Brazil.
As its name implies, the Amazonas is almost entirely covered by the Amazon rainforest – the world’s largest tropical rainforest covering an area of around six million sq km. The Amazon is the world’s richest and most-varied biological reservoir, containing several million species of insects, birds, plants and other forms of life.
This image has been processed using the infrared channel of the Sentinel-2 satellite which makes the dense rainforest appear in bright green. This makes differences in vegetation coverage more evident than only using the visible channels of the satellite that our eyes are able to see.
In the top of the image, the Juruá River, the most-winding river in the Amazon basin, is visible. The river appears in shades of maroon and magenta as the reflected sunlight from the water’s surface consists of a mix of mainly blue and green, while the reflection in the near infrared is almost zero – leading to the colours we see here.
The Juruá river, which flows more than 3000 km before emptying into the Amazon River, is turbid with relatively high nutrient levels. The river rises in the highlands in east-central Peru before winding its way through lowlands in Brazil.
Several crescent-shaped oxbow lakes can be seen flanking the river. Oxbow lakes are generally formed when rivers cut through a meander ‘neck’ to shorten its course, causing the old channel to be blocked off – migrating away from the lake and creating a more direct route.
The Tarauacá River, a tributary of Juruá, can be seen in the left of the image. Eirunepé, a settlement established in the 19th Century as a hub for rubber production, is visible in the top-left of the image.
The 21 March marks the International Day of Forests – a day which seeks to raise awareness on a range of benefits that sustainably managed forests can contribute to our lives. According to the United Nations, the world is losing 10 million hectares of forest each year, which accounts for 12-20% of the global greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.
The Amazon rainforest is crucial for helping to regulate global warming as the forests absorb millions of tonnes of carbon emissions every year. As plants grow, they remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it as biomass. This is then released back to the atmosphere through processes such as deforestation for agriculture and wildfires.
Tracking biomass changes is key to understanding the global carbon cycle and also for informing global climate models that help predict future change. Earth observation satellites have been instrumental in helping our understanding of this important process. New maps produced by ESA’s Climate Change Initiative, provide a global view of above ground biomass are pertinent in helping to support forest management, emissions reduction and sustainable development policy goals.
ESA’s upcoming Biomass mission will provide crucial information about the state of our forests and how they are changing. The satellite will pierce through woodland canopies to perform a global survey of Earth’s forests over the course of Biomass’s mission.
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 image, observed with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph in the ultraviolet, shows the auroras surrounding Saturn’s north pole region.
In comparing the different observations it became clear that Saturn’s auroras show a rich variety of emissions with highly variable localised features. The variability of the auroras is influenced by both the solar wind and the rapid rotation of Saturn.
Learn more about this image here.
Credits: ESA/Hubble, NASA & L. Lamy (Observatoire de Paris), ESA/Hubble, NASA & L. Lamy (Observatoire de Paris), CC BY 4.0
A peak into NASA’s Mission Control in Houston: what looks like a coffee break is actually ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen (centre) hard at work, guiding NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins and Victor Glover via radio during last week’s spacewalk.
Spacewalkers are in constant contact with just one person during a spacewalk. This ‘ground IV’ is a fellow astronaut who is experienced with every procedure of a particular spacewalk.
In preparation to guide Mike and Victor through this spacewalk, Andreas previously performed practice runs of the European Columbus KA-band antenna ColKa’s installation at the Neutral Buoyancy Lab – a pool sporting life-sized mock-ups of the International Space Station.
The spacewalk started well. The fridge-sized unit was transported by Victor from the airlock to the worksite on the Canadarm2 robotic arm. There, the spacewalking duo set to work unscrewing and screwing bolts to hold the antenna in place and routing cables for power and data. However, despite seemingly secure connections, the heaters did not activate as expected.
Serving as the interface between the European ground crews and the astronauts, Andreas relayed the situation in space and the solution from ground: remove and jettison the cover. With ColKa’s temporary protective cover safely cast away to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, the temperature dropped and ColKa’s heaters activated. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief as they reported the antenna safely installed.
Once fully operational, ColKa will create an additional bi-directional KA-band data transmission for the Space Station, providing a direct link between the Columbus laboratory and Europe, for researchers and astronauts, at home broadband speeds.
Teams at Columbus Control Centre will be carrying out tests this month to ensure it is fully operational. Once all is up and running, ColKa will use the use the European Data Relay System (EDRS) – dubbed the ‘SpaceDataHighway’ – to relay data directly between the Station and European soil via the system’s ground station in Harwell, UK.
ColKa was not the only European facility keeping astronauts busy on Wednesday. Mike and Victor were also tasked with connecting power and data cables for exterior commercial research platform Bartolomeo.
In this case, the spacewalkers were not able to connect all the required power cables between the platform and Columbus. This task will be tackled in a future spacewalk.
Read more details about the spacewalk in this blog post.
Credits: ESA
An operator equipped with a spacesuit, a tablet and a geological instrument for rock recognition performs a simulated moonwalk at Europe’s ‘Moon on Earth’ – the ESA-DLR LUNA facility.
Bathed in realistic lighting, this was the first rehearsal to try out the ergonomics of scientific tools to study the mineralogical and chemical composition of regolith – the dust, soil and rock on the Moon’s surface – in a lunar-like environment.
Future missions to the Moon will benefit from real-time, on the spot and accurate geological analysis. Astronauts could quickly decide what samples to collect, while robots could identify resources without human intervention on the Moon, Mars or asteroids.
European experts training astronauts in planetary geology during ESA’s PANGAEA campaigns have already stressed the need for high-tech survey equipment and minerological databases to make explorers scientifically productive during field trips and moonwalks.
Industry and research institutions responded to the call and developed PHOENIX, a combination of portable instruments capable of analysing minerals and their chemical elements at the same time.
Each of the PHOENIX instruments integrates two complementary analytical techniques: molecular (Raman) and elemental analysis (laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy or X-Ray fluorescence). The equipment also features a camera for alignment and allows wireless communication and data visualisation in real-time.
Some of the spectroscopy expertise derives directly from the ExoMars mission, whose Rosalind Franklin rover features a Raman Laser Spectrometer for analysing martian samples.
The trials at LUNA evaluated the toolkit’s usability for future crewed lunar exploration missions in a controlled environment. One of the challenges was the extremely fine and ubiquitous dust. This type of dust is a health hazard for humans, and it is also tough on electronics.
Outside LUNA, ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer, an advanced PANGAEA geology trainee, handled the instrument and provided valuable feedback for the engineers to understand how an astronaut would operate the device.
Beyond space exploration, the analytical power of PHOENIX in dissecting the composition of materials holds potential on Earth for geological research and industrial applications, such as quality control in pharmaceutical and food industries, archaeology, art history and crime scene investigations.
An international consortium designed and built the two PHOENIX breadboard instruments led by the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial from Spain, in collaboration with the University of Leicester in the UK, the University of Valladolid in Spain, and Mission Control Space Services Inc. in Canada.
Extensive testing and validation of the PHOENIX breadboards will continue. Teams will use lessons learned from the first trials to refine its design, improve performance and prepare for conditions on the Moon or Mars.
Credits: DLR-M. Diegeler
SpaceX Crew-2 Walkout from NASA's Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building, and departure to launch pad 39A with ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet on 23 April 2021 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
French ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet is returning to the International Space Station on his second spaceflight. The mission, which is called Alpha, will see the first European to launch on a US spacecraft in over a decade. Thomas is flying on the Crew Dragon, alongside NASA astronauts Megan MacArthur and Shane Kimbrough, and Japanese astronaut Aki Hoshide.
The Crew-2 launch is scheduled for 23 April 2021 at 05:49 EDT / 11:49 CEST.
Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja
Preparing the Eutelsat Quantum satellite for transport from the S5B facility to the Final Assembly Building (BAF) and the hoist onto the Ariane 5 launcher, at Europe's Space Port in Kourou, French Guyana on 21 July 2021.
Quantum, the ESA Partnership Project with Eutelsat, Airbus and Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, is a pioneering mission preparing the way for the next generation of telecommunications satellites, which will be more flexible by design and so more adaptable to customer needs once in orbit.
Quantum is a shift from custom-designed satellite with one-off payloads to a more generic approach, resulting in unprecedented in-orbit reconfigurability in coverage, frequency and power, allowing complete mission rehaul, including orbital position.
ESA partnered with satellite operator Eutelsat and manufacturer Airbus to design this programme, in response to today's market requiring satellites to be able to respond to changes in geographical or performance demand, either during manufacturing or after launch. This will enable the operator to address emerging business opportunities — even those that appear after it has ordered a satellite.
Such ESA Partnership Projects maximise the benefits to industry thanks to an efficient, co-managed approach that is tailored to commercial best practice.
Credits: ESA - M. Pedoussaut
The Crew Dragon capsule carrying ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer and NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron home from the International Space Station splashed down off the coast of Florida, USA, on Friday 6 May 2022 at 05:43 BST/06:43 CEST.
Its return marks the end of Crew-3’s almost six-month stay in orbit and the end of Matthias’s first mission, known as Cosmic Kiss.
Crew-3 undocked from the International Space Station in Crew Dragon spacecraft Endurance at 06:20 BST/07:20 CEST Thursday 5 May.
When a Crew capsule splashes down, it is met by nearby ships with experts ready to bring it on board, open the hatch, and welcome the astronauts home. After initial medical checks, the crew is transported by helicopter to shore.
Now that his mission has come to an end, Matthias will return to ESA’s European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany, where he will participate in post-flight debriefings, provide samples for scientific evaluation and readapt to Earth’s gravity with the support of ESA experts.
Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja
With launch set for 13 December, the Ariane 5 rocket carrying the Meteosat Third Generation Imager (MTG-I1) satellite is rolling out to the launch pad. The rocket also carries two ‘co-passenger’ satellites: Intelsat Galaxy 35 and 36. MTGI-1 carries two completely new instrument that will deliver high-quality data to improve weather forecasts: a Flexible Combined Imager and Europe’s first Lightning Imager.
Once in geostationary orbit, 36,000 km above the equator, the all-new MTG-I1 weather satellite will provide state-of-the art observations of Earth’s atmosphere and realtime monitoring of lightning events, taking weather forecasting to the next level.
MTGI-1 carries two completely new instrument that will deliver high-quality data to improve weather forecasts: a Flexible Combined Imager and Europe’s first Lightning Imager.
The Flexible Combined Imager has more spectral channels and is capable of imaging in higher resolution compared to current Meteosat Second Generation’s Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared instrument.
The Lightning Imager offers a completely new capability for European meteorological satellites. It will continuously monitor more than 80% of the Earth disc for lightning discharges, taking place either between clouds or between clouds and the ground. This new instrument will allow severe storms to be detected in their early stages and will therefore be key for issuing timely warnings. Its detectors are so sensitive that will be able to detect relatively weak lightning, even in full daylight.
Credits: ESA - M. Pedoussaut
This image shows features known as ‘spiders’ near Mars’s south pole, as seen by the CaSSIS (Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System) instrument aboard ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter.
These features form when spring sunshine falls on layers of carbon dioxide deposited over the dark winter months. The sunlight causes carbon dioxide ice at the bottom of the layer to warm up and turn to gas, which then builds up and breaks through slabs of overlying ice. The emerging gas, laden with dark dust, shoots up through cracks in the ice in the form of tall fountains or geysers, before falling back down and settling on the surface, creating dark spots. This same process creates characteristic ‘spider-shaped’ patterns etched beneath the ice: the very same patterns shown here.
The data for this image were captured by CaSSIS on 4 October 2020. The image is centred at roughly 323°E/75°S.
This image is included in a new release from ESA’s Mars Express, which also highlighted these enigmatic features on the martian surface.
[Image description: A slice of the martian surface is shown here. A rounded segment of an eroded crater basin is visible to the right. The key features seen across the image are dark spots with tendrils that are eerily reminiscent of spiders. These are visible in large numbers to the left, and scattered irregularly across the rest of the image.]
Credits: ESA/TGO/CaSSIS; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
This image shows a region of Mars’ surface named Nilosyrtis Mensae. It comprises data gathered on 29 September 2019 during orbit 19908. The ground resolution is approximately 15 m/pixel and the images are centred at about 69°E/31°N. This image was created using data from the nadir and colour channels of the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC). The nadir channel is aligned perpendicular to the surface of Mars, as if looking straight down at the surface. This perspective looks over the region from north to south.
Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
This colour-coded topographic image shows a pair of festive silhouettes spotted by ESA’s Mars Express near Mars’ south pole, based on data gathered by the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) during orbit 21305 (8 November 2020). This view is based on a digital terrain model of the region, from which the topography of the landscape can be derived; 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. North is to the left.
Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
In anticipation of the upcoming 35th anniversary of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, ESA/Hubble is continuing the celebrations with a new image of the Sombrero Galaxy, also known as Messier 104. An eye-catching target for Hubble and a favourite of amateur astronomers, the enigmatic Sombrero Galaxy has features of both spiral and elliptical galaxies. This image incorporates new processing techniques that highlight the unique structure of this galaxy.
As part of ESA/Hubble’s 35th anniversary celebrations, a new image series is being shared to revisit stunning Hubble targets that were previously released. First, a new image of NGC 346 was published. Now, ESA/Hubble is revisiting a fan-favourite galaxy with new image processing techniques. The new image reveals finer detail in the galaxy’s disc, as well as more background stars and galaxies.
Several Hubble images of the Sombrero Galaxy have been released over the past two decades, including this well-known Hubble image from October 2003. In November 2024, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope also gave an entirely new perspective on this striking galaxy.
Located around 30 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo, the Sombrero Galaxy is instantly recognisable. Viewed nearly edge on, the galaxy’s softly luminous bulge and sharply outlined disc resemble the rounded crown and broad brim of the Mexican hat from which the galaxy gets its name.
Though the Sombrero Galaxy is packed with stars, it’s surprisingly not a hotbed of star formation. Less than one solar mass of gas is converted into stars within the knotted, dusty disc of the galaxy each year. Even the galaxy’s central supermassive black hole, which at 9 billion solar masses is more than 2000 times more massive than the Milky Way’s central black hole, is fairly calm.
The galaxy is too faint to be spotted with unaided vision, but it is readily viewable with a modest amateur telescope. Seen from Earth, the galaxy spans a distance equivalent to roughly one third of the diameter of the full Moon. The galaxy’s size on the sky is too large to fit within Hubble’s narrow field of view, so this image is actually a mosaic of several images stitched together.
One of the things that makes this galaxy especially notable is its viewing angle, which is inclined just six degrees off of the galaxy’s equator. From this vantage point, intricate clumps and strands of dust stand out against the brilliant white galactic nucleus and bulge, creating an effect not unlike Saturn and its rings – but on an epic galactic scale.
[Image description: The Sombrero Galaxy is an oblong, pale white disc with a glowing core. It appears nearly edge-on but is slanted slightly in the front, presenting a slightly top-down view of the inner region of the galaxy and its bright core. The outer disc is darker with shades of brown and black. Different coloured distant galaxies and various stars are speckled among the black background of space surrounding the galaxy.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, K. Noll; CC BY 4.0
The European Robotic Arm (ERA) during installation on top of the the Russian Multipurpose Laboratory Module at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan, in May 2021.
The European Robotic Arm is the first robot that can ‘walk’ around the Russian part of the International Space Station.
ERA has a length of over 11 m, and can anchor itself to the Station in multiple locations, moving backwards and forwards around the Russian segment with a large range of motion. Its home base will be the Multipurpose Laboratory Module, also called ‘Nauka’.
Astronauts will find in the European Robotic Arm a most valuable ally – it will save them precious time to do other work in space.
The crew in space can control ERA from both inside and outside the Space Station, a feature that no other robotic arm has offered before.
100% made-in-Europe, this intelligent robotic arm consists of two end effectors, two wrists, two limbs and one elbow joint together with electronics and cameras. Both ends act as either a 'hand' for the robot.
Credits: RSC Energia
Specially designed to operate in weightlessness, this diagnostic disc can identify diabetes, cardiovascular disease and high cholesterol from a single drop of astronaut blood.
Future long duration space missions beyond Earth orbit will see crews isolated as never before. Astronauts will have to be self-sufficient in healthcare as in everything else.
Developed through ESA’s General Support Technology Programme (GSTP) with Radisens Diagnostics in Ireland, this diagnostics device was designed for automated blood testing, overcoming processing difficulties due to microgravity by substituting centrifugal force.
A pinprick of blood is added to a mini-disc embedded with a wide variety of miniaturised test procedures. The disc is then inserted into the ‘point-of-care’ device and set spinning to spread the blood sample across the surface. Multiple tests can be performed simultaneously, with automated results delivered within a matter of minutes.
Follow a year in the life of GSTP with this interactive overview.
Credits: Radisens Diagnostics
The team of ESA’s Spaceship EAC initiative revived their LEGO-building skills and 3D-printed the famous bricks from lunar regolith and meteor dust, providing a glimpse into how future construction on the Moon might look.
While the size and shape of a LEGO brick are not easy to 3D-print, it demonstrates the process’s precision and fine-tuning, and has become a common test for this kind of project. The printing showcases the ability to make interlocking bricks, which is essential for building surface infrastructure, like habitat walls, on the Moon.
Yet the bricks crafted by teams on Earth hold another space-related surprise: in addition to lunar regolith, they are made from special dust sourced from a 4.5-billion-year-old meteorite – LEGO space bricks 3D-printed on Earth.
The teams at Spaceship EAC are focusing on In-Situ Resource Utilisation (ISRU) for sustainable living and working on the Moon. These methods involve using materials already available on the Moon for construction, such as Moon dust, or regolith, and extracting oxygen or metals from it. This avoids the need to transport these supplies from Earth, which would take much longer and be far more costly.
Spaceship EAC produced a special batch of bricks in collaboration with LEGO to highlight this technology to a broader audience, inspiring curiosity and interest in younger generations. These bricks will be on display this summer in various LEGO stores around the world.
Spaceship EAC is based at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne, Germany. With teams mainly composed of early-stage researchers, their activities focus on areas relevant to human spaceflight and future lunar exploration, developing new technologies for living and working on the Moon.
Exploring our closest neighbour can help us understand the origins of Earth and our Solar System and send sustainable missions to Mars and beyond. With the upcoming Artemis missions, ESA and its partner agencies plan to land humans on the Moon again and build the Gateway space station to carry out science in lunar orbit.
Credits: ESA
This image shows the sea surface temperature anomalies on 21 July 2022 compared to the average temperature recorded during the 1985 to 2005 period.
Read full story: Mediterranean Sea hit by marine heatwave
Credits: ESA (Data: E.U. Copernicus Marine Service Information)
In the early hours of Monday morning, as Argentina's CONAE space agency launched the SAOCOM-1A satellite into space, photographer William T. Reid captured this dramatic image of Earth’s newest admirer catching a lift on the back of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
An Earth observation satellite, SAOCOM-1A will provide welcome new data on our planet, stimulating projects to monitor the planet’s forests, map soil moisture and measure surface deformation and motion from space, in the context of natural and anthropogenic disasters.
With teams of experts at its ESOC operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany, ESA is proud to be supporting CONAE with this important new endeavor.
Moments after launch, ESA’s flight dynamics specialists provided critical information to ground stations so they could track SAOCOM-1A, and soon after made their first 'orbit determination' — a vital step toward being able to communicate with the satellite. The flight dynamics team will continue calculating the satellite’s orbit in the following weeks.
Throughout its life, SAOCOM-1A is also being supported by ESA’s Space Debris Office, who are assessing the risk due to any space junk in the satellite's vicinity and determining if, and how, a ‘Collision Avoidance Manoeuvre’ should be carried out.
In the months to come, Estrack — ESA’s global network of ground-based antennas — will begin to provide tracking support to the satellite, through its ground station in Kourou, French Guiana.
From launch up until its end of mission, ESA will be on hand to support SAOCOM in space as well as working with its teams on ground.
This ESA support has been facilitated thanks to the ESA Earthnet programme, which for more than 40 years has been the cornerstone of Europe’s Earth Observation international cooperation.
For more excellent photography from William T. Reid, visit his website.
Credits: William T. Reid
Andreas Mogensen training at NASA Johnson Space Center’s Virtual Reality Laboratory in Texas, USA.
Training for emergencies is crucial everywhere, including on the International Space Station. While astronauts hope they will never have to need those skills, they still need to practice so they are ready should the situation ever arise.
VR to the rescue
As part of ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen’s training for his Huginn mission, he put on virtual reality goggles and “went” outside the Space Station to train for spacewalk emergencies.
When astronauts perform a spacewalk, they go into their spacesuit, climb out the airlock and always stay tethered to the Space Station with a cable. If ever they were to be disconnected however, their spacesuit, or Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU), has a ‘Simplified Aid For EVA Rescue’ (SAFER) system which is a small jet-pack to push them back to the Space Station. It uses 24 small nitrogen-gas thrusters, controlled by a small hand controller on the front of the space suit.
Almost like the real deal
The virtual reality system uses several trackers to allow accurate tracking of the astronaut’s hands and body as they train, while the system uses real hardware that is projected in the virtual training scenario., ensuring every move the astronaut makes is passed into the simulator, making the experience as realistic as possible.
To qualify, the astronauts must get back after being “thrown” off the Space Station at 1 kilometre per hour and rotating in a slow spin in each axis. Usually, each astronaut trains each orientation multiple times before being required to pass with a final certifying test.
Andreas passed his SAFER training with crewmate Jasmin Moghbeli.
Follow Andreas’s journey on the Huginn page and his social media .
Credits: NASA
In astronomy, the devil is in the details — as this image, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide-Field Camera 3, demonstrates.
The numerous fuzzy blobs and glowing shapes scattered across this image make up a galaxy cluster named RXC J0949.8+1707. Located to the upper right of the frame sits an especially beautiful and interesting barred spiral galaxy, seen face-on. In the past decade, astronomers peering at this galaxy have possibly discovered not one but three examples of a cosmic phenomenon known as a supernova, the magnificently bright explosion of a star nearing the end of its life.
The newest supernova candidate is nicknamed SN Antikythera, and can be seen to the lower right of the host galaxy. This shone brightly in visible and infrared light over a number of years before fading slightly. The two other supernovae, nicknamed SN Eleanor and SN Alexander, were present in data collected in 2011 but are not visible in this image, which was taken a few years later — their temporary nature unambiguously confirmed their status as supernovae. If future observations of RXC J0949.8+1707 show SN Antikythera to have disappeared then we can most likely label it a supernova, as with its two older (and now absent from the images) siblings.
This image was taken as part of an observing programme called RELICS (Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey). RELICS imaged 41 massive galaxy clusters with the aim of finding the brightest distant galaxies for the forthcoming NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to study.
Credit:
ESA/Hubble & NASA, RELICS, CC BY 4.0
Captured just yesterday, 19 March, at 17:11 GMT (18:11 CET) by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, this image shows the oil spill from the Grande America vessel. The Italian container ship, carrying 2200 tonnes of heavy fuel, caught fire and sank in the Atlantic, about 300 km off the French coast on 12 March.
Copernicus Sentinel-1 acquired this radar image of the oil slick, the large, dark patch visible in the centre of the image, stretching about 50 km. Marine vessels are identifiable as smaller white points, which could be those assisting in the clean-up process.
Oil is still emerging from the ship now lying at a depth of around 4500 metres. French authorities trying to reduce the impact of pollution along the coast.
Sentinel-1 is a two-satellite constellation built for the European Commission’s Copernicus environmental monitoring programme. The identical satellites each carry an advanced radar instrument that can ‘see’ through the dark and through clouds.
Satellite radar is particularly useful for monitoring the progression of oil spills because the presence of oil on the sea surface dampens down wave motion. Since radar basically measures surface texture, oil slicks show up well – as black smears on a grey background.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2018), processed by ESA,CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Mottled clouds of dust within a martian dust storm are visible on the right of this image from ESA’s Mars Express. The evolution of this storm was tracked by the Visual Monitoring Camera on 29 May 2019.
This storm formed at the North Pole of Mars during the active springtime season. The bright ice cap of water ice and carbon dioxide ice is visible on the left in contrast with the darker storm. The heat of springtime causes the layer of carbon dioxide ice to sublimate, leaving behind the water ice underneath.
The storm is made up of small dust cells, forming the granular texture visible in the image. By tracking the position of the cells of dust within the storm, the wind speed was measured to be up to 140 km/h. Prevailing winds elongate the shape of the cells and the shape of the arms of the storm.
Credits: ESA/GCP/UPV/EHU Bilbao
ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, being installed on a ‘multi-purpose trolley’ in the Rosetta clean room at the European Space Research and Technology Centre, ESTEC in the Netherlands on 30 April. The multi-purpose trolley allows the spacecraft to be rotated and titled, providing better access to the engineers for integration operations and preparation for testing, and in general to facilitate the work on the different sides of the spacecraft. The trolley is made of non-magnetic material, to comply to the strict magnetic cleanliness requirements of the spacecraft.
Once in the Jovian system the mission will spend at least three years making detailed observations of the giant gaseous planet Jupiter and its three large ocean-bearing moons: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.
Credits: ESA-SJM Photography
A light curve from Webb’s Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograp (NIRISS) shows the change in brightness of light from the WASP-96 star system over time as the planet transits the star. A transit occurs when an orbiting planet moves between the star and the telescope, blocking some of the light from the star. This observation was made using NIRISS’s Single-Object Slitless Spectroscopy (SOSS) mode, which involves capturing the spectrum of a single bright object, like the star WASP-96, in a field of view.
To capture these data, Webb stared at the WASP-96 star system for 6 hours 23 minutes, beginning about 2½ hours before the transit and ending about 1½ hours after the transit was complete. The transit itself lasted for just under 2½ hours. The curve includes a total of 280 individual brightness measurements – one every 1.4 minutes.
Because the observation was made using a spectrograph, which spreads the light out into hundreds of individual wavelengths, each of the 280 points on the graph represents the combined brightness of thousands of wavelengths of infrared light.
The actual dimming caused by the planet is extremely small: The difference between the brightest and dimmest points is less than 1.5 percent. NIRISS is ideally suited for this observation because it has the ability to observe relatively bright targets over time, along with the sensitivity needed to measure such small differences in brightness: In this observation, the instrument was able to measure differences in brightness as small as 0.02 percent.
Although the presence, size, mass, and orbit of the planet had already been determined based on previous transit observations, this transit light curve can be used to confirm and refine existing measurements, such as the planet’s diameter, the timing of the transit, and the planet’s orbital properties.
WASP-96 b is a hot gas giant exoplanet that orbits a Sun-like star roughly 1,150 light years away, in the constellation Phoenix. The planet orbits extremely close to its star (less than 1/20th the distance between Earth and the Sun) and completes one orbit in less than 3½ Earth-days. The planet’s discovery, from ground-based observations, was announced in 2014.
The background illustration of WASP-96 b and its Sun-like star is based on current understanding of the planet from both NIRISS spectroscopy and previous ground- and space-based observations. Webb has not captured a direct image of the planet or its atmosphere.
NIRISS was contributed by the Canadian Space Agency. The instrument was designed and built by Honeywell in collaboration with the Université de Montréal and the National Research Council Canada.
Get the full array of Webb’s first images and spectra, including downloadable files, here.
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team
The Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission takes us over Madagascar. This huge island nation, located off the east coast of Africa and seen in the left of the image, has a population of around 25 million. More than half of the country’s inhabitants are aged under 25. The island is also home to rare flora and fauna, having developed its own ecosystems and wildlife since splitting from the African continent some 160 million years ago.
Preserving its impressive biodiversity is an ongoing challenge for the country. With an area of almost 600 000 sq km, Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world. Some of the world’s most extensive coral reef systems, huge mangrove areas, and a vast array of birds, lemurs, and many other species can be found here. Deforestation poses a serious threat to the island’s habitats, with illegal wildlife trade representing a further challenge.
In this true-colour image from Copernicus Sentinel-3’s ocean and land colour instrument, we can see sediment in the water along the coast. The island appears in green on the east coast, where the prevailing trade winds bring clouds and up to 3.5 m of rain per year to the low-lying coast.
The central and western highlands and coast appear in brown and are much dryer, especially between May to October. The volcanic mountainous area of Ankaratra can be found in the central highlands. In the north of the island, the highest peak of Maromokotro stands almost 2900 m above sea level.
The Mozambique Channel, which separates Madagascar from the continent, is an important shipping route for east Africa and home to significant tuna reserves. Efforts are underway to ensure that sustainability is considered in local development. Identifying and protecting critical habitats, such as migratory corridors, is part of this work.
Sentinel-3 is a two-satellite mission to supply the coverage and data delivery needed for Europe’s Copernicus environmental monitoring programme. It provides critical information for a range of applications from marine observation to large-area vegetation monitoring.
This image, which was captured on 7 August 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
Introduced in 2021 by ESA’s Director General Josef Aschbacher, ESA Accelerators – Space for a Green Future, Rapid and Resilient Crisis Response and the Protection of Space Assets – were identified as the main thematic areas of action on how to drive Europe’s innovation and use of space to solve wider societal issues.
Credits: ESA/JürgenMai
The mid-infrared view of planetary nebula NGC 6072 from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope shows expanding circular shells around the outflows from the dying central star, which astronomers suspect is that pinkish white dot at the centre of the image. The longer wavelengths captured by Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) highlight the dust being cast off by the central dying star.
In this image, the blue represents cool molecular gas seen in red in the image from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) due to colour mapping.
[Image description: colourful, mostly blue, image of mid-infrared light from a glowing cloud with a distorted, asymmetrical shape. A star at the centre of the image is a small point of pinkish-white light. The asymmetrical shape of the expanding cloud of gas and dust resembles paint splattered on the ground. The filaments of the expanding shells are wispy, and mostly white and blue. The shells appear as lobes that push gas toward the equatorial plane, forming a disc. A perfect circle of white-ish blue dust traces the outer edges of the shells. The background of the image is black and speckled with tiny bright stars and distant galaxies.]
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; CC BY 4.0
At first glance this frame is flooded with salt-and-pepper static – but don’t adjust your set!
Rather than being tiny grains or pixels of TV noise, every single point of light in this image is actually a distant galaxy as observed by ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory. Each of these minute marks represents the ‘heat’ emanating from dust grains lying between the stars of each galaxy. This radiation has taken many billions of years to reach us, and in most cases was emitted well before the Solar System and the Earth had even formed.
This frame shows a map of the North Galactic Pole as imaged by Herschel’s Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver, SPIRE. As on Earth, astronomers define locations on a cosmic scale using a coordinate system. For the Milky Way galaxy, this coordinate system is spherical with the Sun at its centre, and provides values for longitude and latitude on the sky with respect to our Galaxy.
The North Galactic Pole lies far from the cluttered disc of the Milky Way, and offers a clean, clear view of the distant Universe beyond our home galaxy. In the sky, it is located somewhere in the northern constellation of Coma Berenices (Berenice’s Hair), a region that also contains an especially rich galaxy cluster known as the Coma Cluster. Serendipitously, the Coma Cluster is included in this map, adding over 1000 points of light to the tally of individual galaxies.
Herschel was active from 2009 to 2013, and used its instruments to study the sky in the far infrared. SPIRE was particularly well-suited to mapping large areas of sky, and observed the North Galactic Pole in three different filters simultaneously – such observations can be used to produce multicoloured images.
The image shown is a single-filter map obtained at a wavelength of 250 μm as part of the Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey (H-ATLAS), and covers some 180.1 square degrees of sky. This used both SPIRE and another Herschel instrument, the Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS), to survey some 660 square degrees of sky in five wavelength bands and produce the largest far infrared surveys ever made of the sky lying outside our galaxy.
The North Galactic Pole a href="http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2018/07/North_Galactic_Pole" rel="nofollow">imaged by PACS
Credits: ESA/Herschel/SPIRE; M. W. L. Smith et al 2017
Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope discovered a new moon orbiting Uranus in images taken by Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). This image shows the moon, designated S/2025 U1, as well as 13 of the 28 other known moons orbiting the planet. The small moon Cordelia orbits just inside the outermost ring, but is not visible in these views due to glare from the rings.
Due to the drastic differences in brightness levels, the image is a composite of three different treatments of the data, allowing the viewer to see details in the planetary atmosphere, the surrounding rings, and the orbiting moons. The data was taken with NIRCam’s wide band F150W2 filter that transmits infrared wavelengths from about 1.0 to 2.4 microns.
[Image description: An annotated Webb image of the planet Uranus on a black background with 13 of its 28 known moons. The planet appears blue with a large, white patch taking up the bottom half. Around the planet is a system of nested rings. The outermost ring is the brightest while the innermost ring is the faintest. Beyond the rings are 14 labeled moons appearing as points of light. The newly discovered planet, S/2025 U1, is labeled in yellow.]
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. El Moutamid (SWRI), M. Hedman (University of Idaho); CC BY 4.0
The infrared image shown here was taken as part of the JADES programme (the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey) and shows a portion of an area of the sky known as GOODS-South.
This region was the focus area of Webb study for an international team of astronomers, who observed the chemical signature of carbon-rich dust grains at redshift ~7. This is roughly equivalent to one billion years after the birth of the Universe. Similar observational signatures have been observed in the much more recent Universe, attributed to complex, carbon-based molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). It is not thought likely, however, that PAHs would have developed within the first billion years of cosmic time. Therefore, this observation suggests the exciting possibility that Webb may have observed a different species of carbon-based molecule: possibly minuscule graphite- or diamond-like grains produced by the earliest stars or supernovae. This observation suggests exciting avenues of investigation into both the production of cosmic dust and the earliest stellar populations in our Universe, and was made possible by Webb’s unprecedented sensitivity.
In this image, blue, green, and red were assigned to Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) data at 0.9, 1.15, and 1.5 microns; 2.0, 2.77, and 3.55 microns; and 3.56, 4.1, and 4.44 microns (F090W, F115W, and F150W; F200W, F277W, and F335M; and F356W, F410M, and F444W), respectively.
[Image description: The image shows a deep galaxy field, featuring thousands of galaxies of various shapes and sizes.]
Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA, ESA, CSA, B. Robertson (UC Santa Cruz), B. Johnson (Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian), S. Tacchella (University of Cambridge, M. Rieke (Univ. of Arizona), D. Eisenstein (Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian), A. Pagan (STScI)
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope recently imaged the Sombrero galaxy with its NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera), which shows dust from the galaxy’s outer ring blocking stellar light from stars within the galaxy. In the central region of the galaxy, the roughly 2,000 globular clusters, or collections of hundreds of thousands of old stars held together by gravity, glow in the near-infrared.
The Sombrero Galaxy is around 30 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. From Earth, we see this galaxy nearly “edge-on,” or from the side.
This image was created with Webb data from proposal 6565 (PI: M. Garcia Marin). The assigned filters are as follows: Blue: F090W+F200W, Green: F212N+F277W, Red: F335M+F444W.
[Image description: Image of a galaxy on the black background of space. The galaxy is a very oblong, brownish yellowish disk that extends from left to right at an angle (from about 10 o’clock to 5 o’clock). Mottled dark brown patches rim the edge of the disk and are particularly prominent where they cross directly in front of the galaxy. The galaxy’s center glows white and extends above and below the disk. There are different colored dots, distant galaxies, speckled among the black background of space surrounding the galaxy. At the bottom right, there is a particularly bright foreground star with Webb’s signature diffraction spikes.]
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; CC BY 4.0
The galaxy filling the frame in this NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month is NGC 2566, a spiral galaxy located in the constellation Puppis. The image combines observations from two of Webb’s instruments, the Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI), to show off NGC 2566’s well-defined spiral arms, long central bar and delicate tracery of gas, dust and stars.
At 76 million light-years away, NGC 2566 is considered a nearby galaxy, making it an excellent target for studying fine details like star clusters and gas clouds. The new Webb images of NGC 2566 were collected as part of an observing programme (#3707) dedicated to understanding the connections between stars, gas and dust in nearby star-forming galaxies. NGC 2566 is just one of the 55 galaxies in the local Universe examined by Webb for this programme.
The mid-infrared wavelengths captured by MIRI highlight NGC 2566’s warm interstellar dust, including complex, sooty molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The near-infrared NIRCam data give a detailed view of the galaxy’s stars, even those that are deeply embedded within clouds of gas. The NIRCam data also capture some of the light from the hydrocarbon molecules.
To gain a full understanding of the star-formation process in nearby galaxies, astronomers will combine Webb data with observations from other telescopes. At the long-wavelength end of the electromagnetic spectrum, the 66 radio dishes of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) provide a detailed view of the cold, turbulent clouds where stars are born. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has also cast its gaze on NGC 2566, and a new Hubble image of this galaxy was released earlier this week. The Hubble data will help researchers take a census of the stars in nearby galaxies, especially the young stars that are bright at the ultraviolet and visible wavelengths to which Hubble is sensitive. Together, the Webb, Hubble and ALMA data provide a rich view of the cold gas, warm dust and brilliant stars in NGC 2566.
The Webb data are part of a Treasury programme, which means that the data may help answer multiple important questions about our Universe. Treasury data are available for use by scientists and the public without a waiting period, amplifying the scientific impact and allowing exploration to begin immediately.
[Image Description: An oval-shaped spiral galaxy, seen close-up. Its core is a compact, pale spot that glows brightly, filling the disc with bluish light. Faint strands of pale reddish dust swirl out from the core to the far sides of the disc. They each join up with an arm of thick, cloudy, red dust with brighter orange patches, that follows the edge of the disc around to the opposite end and a little off the galaxy.]
Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Leroy; CC BY 4.0
As part of constructing a new global map of Mars minerals, the Oxia Planum region was discovered to be rich in clays. These clays included the iron- and magnesium-rich minerals of smectite and vermiculite, and locally kaolin, which is known on Earth as china clay. Hydrated silica is also mapped over an ancient delta in Oxia. The close-up data were obtained from a global map of minerals produced by ESA’s Mars Express and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Because clays are formed in water-rich environments it makes these site excellent locations to study for clues as to whether life once began on Mars. Oxia Planum was selected as the landing site for ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover.
Credits: ESA/Mars Express (OMEGA and HRSC) and NASA/Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (CRISM and HiRISE)
This image, taken with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys shows a part the globular cluster NGC 6752. Behind the bright stars of the cluster a denser collection of faint stars is visible — a previously unknown dwarf spheroidal galaxy. This galaxy, nicknamed Bedin 1, is about 30 million light-years from Earth.
Credits: ESA/Hubble, NASA, Bedin et al.; CC BY 4.0
Ariane 6 tank LH2 Flight Model 1 at Arianespace's Le Mureaux in Paris, France on 7 June 2023.
Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja
An side view of ESA’s Solar Orbiter as it entered a vacuum chamber for thermal vacuum testing at the IABG test facility in Ottobrunn, Germany, last month.
The spacecraft flight model had been readied by prime contractor Airbus in the UK.Due to launch in 2020, Solar Orbiter will observe the Sun and measure the solar wind from a minimum 42 million km away, or less than one-third Earth’s distance. As a result the spacecraft will be subjected to around 13 times the amount of solar heating that Earth-orbiting satellites experience, and temperatures in excess of 500°C.
Solar Orbiter’s main body will be protected from direct sunlight by a Sun-facing multi-layer titanium heat shield. The the 1.1-m diameter high gain antenna seen here will be deployed from the body of the spacecraft to, transmit science data back to Earth in high-bandwidth X-band.
The antenna’s black colour is unusual. It is covered with the same kind of protective, high temperature coating as the front of Solar Orbiter’s heat shield, based on burnt-bone charcoal. Developed by Irish company ENBIO, this ‘Solar Black’ coating was selected because it can maintain the same colour and surface properties despite years of exposure to unfiltered sunlight and ultraviolet radiation.
The high gain antenna is placed at the end of a manoeuverable 1-m long boom allowing Solar Orbiter to maintain a reliable, high-bandwidth link with Earth throughout its science-gathering phase.
This test campaign – using powerful lamps to simulate the Sun’s radiation – began by simulating the conditions the spacecraft will undergo as it manoeuvres to its operational orbit through flybys of Earth and Venus.
"During 99% of the mission operations time, the heat shield will protect Solar Orbiter, but there will be more than a dozen manoeuvres when one of the side panels will be exposed to sunlight," explained Claudio Damasio, ESA's Solar Orbiter project thermal engineer. "Therefore, we need to know how the Proto Flight Model responds when the exterior of the insulation on these panels reaches a temperature of about 120–150 degrees Celsius."
For practical reasons, some elements, such as the solar arrays and the instrument boom, were not integrated with the spacecraft during the test. There were integrated this month on the spacecraft, which will then undergo a series of mechanical and electromagnetic compatibility tests.
Credits: Airbus Defence and Space
Early on 8 April 2024, a citizen scientist found a comet in images from the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). It follows the recent discovery of SOHO’s 5000th comet. But this one – named Comet SOHO-5008 – was special for a different reason.
Karl Battams (US Naval Research Lab), manager of the SOHO Sungrazer Project, predicted that comet SOHO-5008 would be visible during the total solar eclipse, which was due to plunge parts of the United States and Mexico into darkness later that very same day.
Petr Horálek, from the Institute of Physics in Opava (Czechia), was in Mexico for the eclipse. The clouds cleared and Petr could take this beautiful shot of the Sun’s awe-inspiring corona. To the lower left of the Sun, Comet SOHO-5008 is revealed.
Soon after Petr captured the comet on camera, it met its demise, coming so close to the Sun that it disintegrated.
Observations of these ‘sungrazing’ comets from the ground are extremely rare, and this sighting was only possible thanks to the total solar eclipse.
The image is a composite of 100 frames, with the wide corona imaged at a focal length of 200 mm (exposure time from 1/4000 to 2 seconds) and the inner corona imaged at a focal length of 1100 mm (exposure time from 1/500 to 4 seconds).
SOHO’s prowess as a comet-hunter was unplanned, but turned out to be an unexpected success. With its clear view of the Sun’s surroundings, SOHO can easily spot sungrazing comets. This has made it the most prolific discoverer of comets in astronomical history.
Click here to see the image without the inset.
SOHO is a cooperative effort between ESA and NASA. Mission control is based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. SOHO’s Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph Experiment (LASCO), the instrument that provides most of the comet imagery, was built by an international consortium, led by the US Naval Research Lab.
Credits: Petr Horálek (Institute of Physics in Opava), Josef Kujal (Astronomy Society in Hradec Králové), Milan Hlaváč
Official portrait of ESA astronaut of German nationality Matthias Maurer. This portrait was taken in November 2020.
Credits: ESA
This is Webb’s first near-infrared spectrum of Mars, demonstrating Webb’s power to study the Red Planet with spectroscopy.
Whereas the Mars images show differences in brightness integrated over a large number of wavelengths from place to place across the planet at a particular day and time, the spectrum shows the subtle variations in brightness between hundreds of different wavelengths representative of the planet as a whole. Astronomers will analyse the features of the spectrum to gather additional information about the surface and atmosphere of the planet.
This near-infrared spectrum of Mars was captured by the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) on 5 September 2022, over 3 slit gratings (G140H, G235H, G395H). The spectrum is dominated by reflected sunlight at wavelengths shorter than 3 microns and thermal emission at longer wavelengths. Preliminary analysis reveals the spectral dips appear at specific wavelengths where light is absorbed by molecules in Mars’ atmosphere, specifically carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and water. Other details reveal information about dust, clouds, and surface features. By constructing a best-fit model of the spectrum, by using, for example, the Planetary Spectrum Generator, abundances of given molecules in the atmosphere can be derived.
Credits: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI and Mars JWST/GTO team
Captured on 22 January 2019 by the Copernicus Sentinel-2B satellite, this true-colour image shows Thailand’s most populous city Bangkok, and its ‘Green Lung’ Bang Kachao.
The UN International Day of Forests is held annually on 21 March. It raises awareness of the importance of all types of forest and the vital role they play in some of the biggest challenges we face today, such as addressing climate change, eliminating hunger and keeping urban and rural communities sustainable. As the global population is expected to climb to 8.5 billion by 2030, forests are more important than ever.
This year, the International Day of Forests put a particular focus on education, but also on making cities a greener, healthier and happier place to live. In cities, trees can help many urban challenges. They act as air filters by removing pollutants, reduce noise pollution, offer shade and provide an oasis of calm in an otherwise busy urban environment, for example.
While Bangkok, which is home to over eight million people, is an example of ongoing efforts being made to increase green spaces to improve city life, it also has a much-valued green haven, which can be seen in the centre of the image.
This horseshoe or lung-shaped, green oasis is Bang Kachao and is in the middle of the bustling city.
Rich in gardens, mangroves and agricultural fields, the 2000 hectares of land is a significant contrast to the vastness of the city’s urban sprawl. Fighting Bangkok’s traffic and air pollution, Bang Kachao’s lush green forest provides the dense city, and the surrounding Samutprakan province, with a flow of fresh air.
The government-protected oasis of green is wrapped around the Chao Phraya River, which is seen flowing through the city of Bangkok before emptying into the Gulf of Thailand.
Copernicus Sentinel-2 allows urban growth to be monitored accurately, providing essential information to urban planners and decision-makers, and is a prime mission for monitoring the health of the world’s vegetation.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2019), processed by ESA,CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The rocket that will launch NASA’s Orion spacecraft to the Moon with the European Service Module on its way to the launchpad in Florida, USA, for its first full test before the Artemis I launch later this year.
The Space Launch Systems rocket (SLS) left the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at around 23:00 CET (22:00 GMT) on 17 March on the start of its 6.5 km trip to Launchpad LC39B.
In the preceding months the Orion spacecraft with European Service Module had been placed on top of the rocket. The first Artemis mission will send Orion to the Moon and back, farther than any human-rated spacecraft has travelled before. ESA’s European Service Module is the powerhouse that fuels and propels Orion, and provides everything needed to keep astronauts alive with water, oxygen, power and temperature control.
Credits: ESA–A. Conigli
This the largest photomosaic ever assembled from NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observations. It is a panoramic view of the neighbouring Andromeda galaxy, located 2.5 million light-years away. It took over 10 years to make this vast and colorful portrait of the galaxy, requiring over 600 Hubble snapshots. The galaxy is so close to us, that in angular size it is six times the apparent diameter of the full Moon, and can be seen with the unaided eye. For Hubble’s pinpoint view, that’s a lot of celestial real estate to cover. This stunning, colorful mosaic captures the glow of 200 million stars. That’s still a fraction of Andromeda’s population. And the stars are spread across about 2.5 billion pixels. The detailed look at the resolved stars will help astronomers piece together the galaxy’s past history that includes mergers with smaller satellite galaxies.
[Image description: The Andromeda galaxy, a spiral galaxy, spreads across the image. It is tilted nearly edge-on to our line of sight so that it appears very oval. The borders of the galaxy are jagged because the image is a mosaic of smaller, square images against a black background. The outer edges of the galaxy are blue, while the inner two-thirds is yellowish with a bright, central core. Dark, dusty filamentary clouds wrap around the outer half of the galaxy’s disk. At 10 o’clock, a smaller dwarf elliptical galaxy forms a fuzzy, yellow blob. Hubble’s sharp vision distinguishes about 200 million stars within the image.]
Credits: NASA, ESA, B. Williams (University of Washington); CC BY 4.0
ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano working on an experiment from Goodyear inside the Life Sciences Glovebox. He posted this during his Beyond mission to the International Space Station with the caption: An experiment by Goodyear, requiring several levels of containment, had me working with a portable glovebox installed inside LSG.
Follow Luca and his Beyond mission on social media on his website and on his blog.
Credits: ESA/NASA