Gift wrapping a rocket: finishing touches to the Ariane 5 fairing include the application of NASA, ESA and Canadian Space Agency logos and Webb insignia.

Webb will soon be encapsulated inside this 17 m-high 5.4 m-diameter fairing which will provide protection from the thermal, acoustic and aerodynamic stresses during the ascent to space.

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).

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

This image from ESA’s Mars Express shows craters, valleys and chaotic terrain in Mars’ Pyrrhae Regio.

Chaotic terrain forms as a shifting subsurface layer of melting ice and sediment causes the surface above to collapse (a collapse that can happen quickly and catastrophically as water drains away rapidly through the soil). In the chaotic terrain seen here (to the right of the frame), ice has melted, the resulting water drained away, and a number of disparate broken ‘blocks’ have been left standing in now-empty cavities (which once hosted ice). Remarkably, these cavities lie some four kilometres below the flatter ground near the craters to the left – a colossal difference in height. For reference, the highest mountain peaks of the Pyrenees and the Alps top out at just over 3.4 km and 4.8 km, respectively.

This image comprises data gathered by ESA’s Mars Express using its High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on 3 August 2020 (orbit 20972). The ground resolution is approximately 16 m/pixel and the images are centred at about 322°E/16°S. This image was created using data from the nadir and colour channels of the HRSC. The nadir channel is aligned perpendicular to the surface of Mars, as if looking straight down at the surface. North is to the right.

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

Things got heated on the International Space Station this week after the Multiscale Boiling experiment, known as Rubi, was successfully switched on.

ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano installed the shoe box-sized container studying the boiling process in the Fluid Science Laboratory of the Columbus module after its arrival on a Dragon cargo resupply mission in August.

The experiment is now in full swing and generated its first bubble under controlled conditions.

While the bubbles form, a number of measurements are taken. The temperature sensor in the left of this image measures bubble temperature while a high-speed camera records how the bubbles behave and an infrared camera tracks the temperature of the heated region.

Scientists will also observe and quantify the effect of external forces on the boiling process.

Rubi is equipped with an electrode to assess the effect of the electric field on the bubbles, as well as a small pump that, when activated, will get the liquid moving to evaluate flow on the boiling process.

Why space bubbles?

Scientists are investigating the boiling process in space mainly for two reasons.

Running this experiment in weightlessness has the advantage that the boiling process takes place in slow motion and the bubbles generated are much larger than on Earth allowing researchers to investigate details of the process in high resolution.

Boiling is a common process in many applications such as refrigeration or cooling of high-performance electronic devices. This research will provide valuable information for designing thermal management systems in a more efficient way, both in space as well as on Earth.

Rubi will run for five months on the International Space Station, during which time more than 600 test runs are planned.

Follow the Rubi experiment on social media for regular updates and more bubbly images and videos.

Credits: ESA

The world's first ovine astronaut candidate Shaun the Sheep gets ready to board the Airbus A310 'zero-g' aircraft that will recreate the effects of microgravity during an ESA parabolic flight campaign. Shaun made his first 'zero gravity' training flight with an ESA crew in July 2019.

Learn more about the adventure here

Credits: ESA/Aardman

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.

Learn more

Credits: ESA–A. Conigli

Key moments during BepiColombo’s first Mercury flyby on 1 October 2021, which will see the spacecraft pass within 200 km of the planet at 23:34 UTC.

While many of the in situ instruments will be on and collecting data as usual, two of BepiColombo’s three monitoring cameras will also be activated shortly after close approach. The images will be downlinked later in the morning of 2 October.

Not to scale: the relative sizes of planets and spacecraft, and the attitude of the spacecraft is not representative.

More information

Credits: ESA

This finely detailed image shows the heart of NGC 1097, a barred spiral galaxy that lies about 48 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Fornax. This picture reveals the intricacy of the web of stars and dust at NGC 1097’s centre, with the long tendrils of dust picked out in a dark red hue. The extent to which the galaxy’s structure is revealed is thanks to two instruments on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope: the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).

The idea that a single image can be taken using two different cameras is not very intuitive. However, it makes far more sense after delving into how beautiful astronomical images like this one are composed. A helpful starting point is to consider what colour is, exactly. Our eyes can detect light waves at optical wavelengths between roughly 380 and 750 nanometres, using three types of receptors, each of which is sensitive to just a slice of that range. Our brain interprets these specific wavelengths as colours. By contrast, a telescope camera like the WFC3 or ACS is sensitive to a single, broad range of wavelengths to maximise the amount of light collected. Raw images from telescopes are always in greyscale, only showing the amount of the light captured across all those wavelengths.

Colour images from telescopes are indirectly possible, however, with the help of filters. By sliding a filter over the aperture of an instrument like the WFC3 or ACS, only light from a very specific wavelength range is let through — one such filter used in this image is for green light around 555 nanometres. This yields a greyscale image showing only the amount of light with that wavelength. This multicolour image of NGC 1097 is composed of images using seven different filters in total.

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Sand, K. Sheth; CC BY 4.0

This oblique perspective view of part of Mars’ informally named Holden Basin was generated from the digital terrain model and the nadir and colour channels of the High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA’s Mars Express.

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

World Wetlands Day is celebrated internationally each year on 2 February. It marks the anniversary of the signing of the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, known as the Ramsar Convention, in Ramsar, Iran, on 2 February 1971.

World Wetlands Day raises global awareness about the vital role of wetlands for our planet, paying particular attention to wetland biodiversity.

This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image takes us over Lake George, in western Uganda. In 1988, Lake George was designated as Uganda’s first Ramsar site, given its importance as a centre for biological diversity.

This equatorial lake covers an area of around 250 sq km and has an average depth of around 2.4 metres. Lake George is fed by a complex system of rivers and streams originating from the Rwenzori mountains – supplying a system of permanent swamps surrounding the lake.

A dense fringe of wetland grass, visible in bright green, can be seen around the edges of the lake in the centre of the image.

The wetlands provide a natural living space for a number of mammals including elephants, hippopotamus and antelope. They also provide a habitat for over 150 species of birds including several rare species such as the saddle-billed stork.

Seen from above, the waters of Lake George appear green as a result of the thick concentration of blue-green algae. Metal pollution, mine seepage and agricultural runoff has caused serious pollution to the lake’s waters and are severely impacting the lake’s health.

Lake George drains through the Kazinga Channel in the image’s centre. The wide, 32km long channel connects Lake George with Lake Edward, which lies on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Kazinga Channel flows through the Queen Elizabeth National Park. The almost 2000 sq km park is known for its wildlife including the African buffalo and the Nile crocodile.

The park is also famous for its volcanic features, including volcanic cones and deep craters which can be seen dotted around the image. Many contain crater lakes, including the Katwe crater lake, whose salt deposits have been mined for centuries.

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 changes in inland water bodies to be closely monitored.

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

Ariane 6 tank LH2 Flight Model 1 at Arianespace's Le Mureaux in Paris, France on 7 June 2023.

Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja

The rim of this ice-rich crater catches the early morning sunlight in the high northern latitudes of Mars, imaged by the CaSSIS camera onboard ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter on 26 October 2019.

This image features a simple 7 km-wide bowl-shaped crater pictured in the early morning. The sunlight falling on the ice deposits on the crater’s north-facing walls causes the ice to appear extremely bright. Ice fills much of the crater floor, and coats part of the surrounding terrain.

While the image was taken during the summer months, some shadowed regions receive fewer hours of sunlight on average throughout the year, so they trap permanent deposits of water ice.

The image is centred at 230.77ºE/73.95ºN. It was taken on 26 October 2019. The scale is indicated on the image.

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

This view of the Butterfly Nebula, NGC 6302, comes from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Compared to its appearance in visible light, the Butterfly Nebula looks gauzy at near-infrared wavelengths. The red colour that’s most prevalent in this view shows light from hydrogen, while green and blue come from iron that has been ionised.

This Hubble image highlights the Butterfly Nebula’s bipolar shape, showing how its two lobes spread in opposite directions, forming the ‘wings’ of the butterfly. A dark band of dusty gas poses as the butterfly’s ‘body’. This band is actually a doughnut-shaped torus that we see from the side, hiding the nebula’s central star – the ancient core of a Sun-like star that energises the nebula and causes it to glow. The dusty doughnut may be responsible for the nebula’s insectoid shape by preventing gas from flowing outward from the star equally in all directions.

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[Image description: A planetary nebula called NGC 6302 or the Butterfly Nebula. A dark dust lane runs through the centre of the nebula and two broad clouds emerge from either side of the dust lane like the outstretched wings of a butterfly. The nebula appears cream coloured and most opaque near the centre, then becomes reddish with purple streaks and more translucent out toward the wings of the nebula. There are hundreds of background stars in the image, many of which are visible through the nebula.]

Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. Kastner, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb); CC BY 4.0

Major elements of the Ariane 5 rocket to launch the James Webb Space Telescope arrived safely in Kourou, French Guiana from Europe on 3 September 2021.

The rocket’s fairing, upper stage and core stage have been unloaded from the MN Toucan vessel at Pariacabo harbour and transported by special convoy to Europe’s Spaceport about 3 km away from the wharf.

Webb will be stowed folded inside the fairing built by RUAG Space in Emmen, Switzerland. This ogive-shaped fairing at the top of Ariane 5 is 5.4 m in diameter and over 17 m high. Made of carbon fibre-polymer composite, this structure will protect Webb from the thermal, acoustic, and aerodynamic stresses at liftoff on the ascent to space.

Ariane 5’s upper stage is built by ArianeGroup in Bremen, Germany. It gives Ariane 5 the flexibility to deploy scientific payloads to a highly precise second Lagrangian injection orbit. Its HM7B engine burns 14.7 t of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen propellant to deliver 6.6 t of thrust. It provides attitude control during the ascent and the separation of Webb. The Vehicle Equipment Bay, ‘the brain’, autonomously controls the whole vehicle and transmits all key flight parameters to the ground station network.

The cryogenic core stage, built by ArianeGroup in France, is 5.4 m diameter and 30.5 m long and unfuelled weighs more than 14 tonnes. At liftoff, its Vulcain 2 engine burns 175 t of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen propellants to provide 140 t of thrust. It also provides roll control during the main propulsion phase.

At Europe’s Spaceport these Ariane 5 parts will be checked and prepared for assembly and integration before the mating of Webb on its top.

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.

Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace

Astronomers have used archival datasets from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to reveal the first evidence for water vapour in the atmosphere of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, the result of the thermal escape of water vapour from the moon’s icy surface.

Jupiter’s moon Ganymede is the largest moon — and the ninth-largest object — in the Solar System. It may hold more water than all of Earth's oceans, but temperatures there are so cold that water on the surface freezes and the ocean lies roughly 160 kilometres below the crust. Nevertheless, where there is water there could be life as we know it. Identifying liquid water on other worlds is crucial in the search for habitable planets beyond Earth. And now, for the first time, evidence has been found for a sublimated water atmosphere on the icy moon Ganymede.

In 1998, Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) took the first ultraviolet (UV) pictures of Ganymede, which revealed a particular pattern in the observed emissions from the moon’s atmosphere. The moon displays auroral bands that are somewhat similar to the auroral ovals observed on Earth and other planets with magnetic fields. These images were therefore illustrative evidence that Ganymede has a permanent magnetic field. The similarities between the two ultraviolet observations were explained by the presence of molecular oxygen, O2. The differences were explained at the time by the presence of atomic oxygen, O, which produces a signal that affects one UV colour more than the other.

As part of a large observing programme to support NASA’s Juno mission in 2018, Lorenz Roth, of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, led a team that set out to capture UV spectra of Ganymede with Hubble’s Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) instrument to measure the amount of atomic oxygen. They carried out a combined analysis of new spectra taken in 2018 with the COS and archival images from the STIS instrument from 1998 and 2010. To their surprise, and in contrast to the original interpretations of the data from 1998, they discovered there was hardly any atomic oxygen in Ganymede's atmosphere. This means there must be another explanation for the apparent differences between the UV aurora images.

The explanation was then uncovered by Roth and his team in the relative distribution of the aurorae in the two images. Ganymede's surface temperature varies strongly throughout the day, and around noon near the equator it may become sufficiently warm that the icy surface releases some small amounts of water molecules. In fact, the perceived differences between the UV images are directly correlated with where water would be expected in the moon’s atmosphere.

“Initially only the O2 had been observed,” explained Roth. “This is produced when charged particles erode the ice surface. The water vapour that we have now measured originates from ice sublimation caused by the thermal escape of H2O vapour from warm icy regions.”

This finding adds anticipation to ESA’s upcoming JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (Juice) mission — the first large-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015–2025 programme. Planned for launch in 2022 and arrival at Jupiter in 2029, it will spend at least three years making detailed observations of Jupiter and three of its largest moons, with particular emphasis on Ganymede as a planetary body and potential habitable world. Ganymede was identified for detailed investigation because it provides a natural laboratory for the analysis of the nature, evolution and potential habitability of icy worlds in general and the role it plays within the system of Galilean satellites, and its unique magnetic and plasma interactions with Jupiter and its environment (known as the Jovian system).

“Our results can provide the Juice instrument teams with valuable information that may be used to refine their observation plans to optimise the use of the spacecraft,” added Roth.

Understanding the Jovian system and unravelling its history, from its origin to the possible emergence of habitable environments, will provide us with a better understanding of how gas giant planets and their satellites form and evolve. In addition, new insights will hopefully be found into the potential for the emergence of life in Jupiter-like exoplanetary systems.

Credits: ESA/Hubble, NASA, J. Spencer; CC BY 4.0

Today’s NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week features the glorious spiral galaxy NGC 5643, which is located roughly 40 million light-years away in the constellation Lupus. NGC 5643 is what’s known as a grand design spiral, referring to how the galaxy’s two large, winding spiral arms are clear to see. The spiral arms are defined by bright blue stars, lacy reddish-brown dust clouds and pink star-forming regions.

As fascinating as the galaxy appears at visible wavelengths, some of NGC 5643’s most interesting features are invisible to the human eye. Ultraviolet and X-ray images and spectra of NGC 5643 show that the galaxy hosts an active galactic nucleus: an especially bright galactic core powered by a feasting supermassive black hole. When a supermassive black hole ensnares gas from its surroundings, the gas collects in a disc that heats up to hundreds of thousands of degrees. The superheated gas shines brightly across the electromagnetic spectrum, but especially at X-ray wavelengths.

NGC 5643’s active galactic nucleus isn’t the brightest source of X-rays in the galaxy, though. Researchers using ESA’s XMM-Newton discovered an even brighter X-ray-emitting object, called NGC 5643 X-1, on the galaxy’s outskirts. What could be a more powerful source of X-rays than a supermassive black hole? Surprisingly, the answer appears to be a much smaller black hole! While the exact identity of NGC 5643 X-1 is not yet known, evidence points to a black hole that is about 30 times more massive than the Sun. Locked in an orbital dance with a companion star, the black hole ensnares gas from its stellar companion, creating a superheated disc that outshines the galactic centre.

NGC 5643 was also the subject of a previous Picture of the Week. The new image incorporates additional wavelengths of light, including the red color that is characteristic of gas heated by massive young stars.

[Image Description: A close-up of a spiral galaxy, seen face-on. Its center is a bright white point, surrounded by a large yellowish oval with thin lines of dust swirling in it. From the sides of the oval emerge two bright spiral arms which wind through the round disc of the galaxy, filled with shining pink spots where stars are forming and more dark reddish dust. Many stars can be seen in the foreground, over and around the galaxy.]

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Riess, D. Thilker, D. De Martin (ESA/Hubble), M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble); CC BY 4.0

A transmission spectrum made from a single observation using Webb’s Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) reveals atmospheric characteristics of the hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-96 b.

A transmission spectrum is made by comparing starlight filtered through a planet’s atmosphere as it moves across the star, to the unfiltered starlight detected when the planet is beside the star. Each of the 141 data points (white circles) on this graph represents the amount of a specific wavelength of light that is blocked by the planet and absorbed by its atmosphere.

In this observation, the wavelengths detected by NIRISS range from 0.6 microns (red) to 2.8 microns (in the near-infrared). The amount of starlight blocked ranges from about 13,600 parts per million (1.36 percent) to 14,700 parts per million (1.47 percent).

Researchers are able to detect and measure the abundances of key gases in a planet’s atmosphere based on the absorption pattern—the locations and heights of peaks on the graph: each gas has a characteristic set of wavelengths that it absorbs. The temperature of the atmosphere can be calculated based in part on the height of the peaks: a hotter planet has taller peaks. Other characteristics, like the presence of haze and clouds, can be inferred based on the overall shape of different portions of the spectrum.

The gray lines extending above and below each data point are error bars that show the uncertainty of each measurement, or the reasonable range of actual possible values. For a single observation, the error on these measurements is remarkably small.

The blue line is a best-fit model that takes into account the data, the known properties of WASP-96 b and its star (e.g., size, mass, temperature), and assumed characteristics of the atmosphere. Researchers can vary the parameters in the model – changing unknown characteristics like cloud height in the atmosphere and abundances of various gases – to get a better fit and further understand what the atmosphere is really like. The difference between the best-fit model shown here and the data simply reflects the additional work to be done in analysing and interpreting the data and the planet.

Although full analysis of the spectrum will take additional time, it is possible to draw a number of preliminary conclusions. The labelled peaks in the spectrum indicate the presence of water vapour. The height of the water peaks, which is less than expected based on previous observations, is evidence for the presence of clouds that suppress the water vapor features. The gradual downward slope of the left side of the spectrum (shorter wavelengths) is indicative of possible haze. The height of the peaks along with other characteristics of the spectrum is used to calculate an atmospheric temperature of about 1350°F (725°C).

This is the most detailed infrared exoplanet transmission spectrum ever collected, the first transmission spectrum that includes wavelengths longer than 1.6 microns at such high resolution and accuracy, and the first to cover the entire wavelength range from 0.6 microns (visible red light) to 2.8 microns (near-infrared) in a single shot. The speed with which researchers have been able to make confident interpretations of the spectrum is further testament to the quality of the data.

The 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.

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, based on ground-based observations, was announced in 2014. The star, WASP-96, is somewhat older than the Sun, but is about the same size, mass, temperature, and colour.

The background illustration of WASP-96 b and its 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

ESRO-2 control room at ESOC, Darmstadt, Germany, in 1968.

On 17 May 1968, ESA’s predecessor the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO), launched ESRO-2B – an 86kg cylindrical spacecraft designed to study X-rays from our closest star, the Sun, and cosmic rays from the rest of the Universe.

The ESRO-2 satellites were the first developed by ESRO, with ESRO-2B launched after ESRO-2A failed to reach orbit around Earth, becoming the first mission controlled by teams at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany.

Also known as the International Radiation Investigation Satellite, ESRO-2B was launched with the Scout B rocket from Vandernberg Air Force Base in California.

The launch of the first European satellites on US rockets came after an offer from NASA to fly these first two satellites free of charge, as a ‘christening gift’ to ESRO.

Powered by 3456 solar cells ESRO-2B was designed to work for one year, however it continued to return data until it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on 9 May 1971 after completing 16,282 orbits.

ESRO’s first satellites concentrated on solar and cosmic radiation and their interaction with the Earth and its magnetosphere. While ESRO-2B was designed for solar observations, it is also credited with the detection of X-rays from non-solar sources.

Credits: ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher and ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst try the duplicate of the European-built Cupola observatory on the International Space Station.

Credits: ESA/JürgenMai

Samples of the Biofilms experiment are headed to the International Space Station on the SpaceX CR23 cargo resupply mission this weekend to help maintain astronaut and material safety in space.

A common piece of advice of the past 18 months has been to make sure you wash your hands thoroughly. This is because microorganisms are easily spread across common surfaces like door handles and light switches, and it is no less true in space. The Space Station is, after all, a lab as well as a home to astronauts. It is especially important to keep this environment safe for the long-term health of astronauts and equipment on board.

Funded by ESA and developed by the Chair of Functional Materials at Saarland University and the Working Group for Aerospace Microbiology at German Aerospace Center DLR, Biofilms will test the antimicrobial properties of laser-structured metal surfaces such as steel, copper and brass under microgravity conditions.

But what is biofilm? When growing on surfaces, bacteria can ooze a mixture of microbial structures such as proteins and lipids. The biofilm is what makes microbes resistant to antibiotics and disinfectants. Left to grow, biofilm can be hard to clean and can erode surfaces, especially metals.

To combat microbial growth, Biofilms will test the growth of bacteria such as human skin-associated bacteria Staphylococcus capitis with a novel approach. The innovation of the experiment lies in the structured surfaces of common metals. Using Direct Laser Interference Patterning (DLIP) to add texture to the surfaces, researchers will study how well microbes grow (or not) on copper, metal and steel. Findings could help prevent microbial contamination in space.

Researchers performed a dry run of the experiment on Earth and all parameters, including hardware provided by Keyser Italia, checked out. The experiment will soon take center stage in space, where 24 experiment cultures will grow in the European Columbus module of the Space Station.

Credits: DLR (CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Andros Island, the largest island of the Bahamas, is featured in this false-colour image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission. This image was processed in a way that included the near-infrared channel, which highlights the island’s vegetation in bright red.

Andros is around 160 km from north to south, and 70 km from east to west at its widest point. The island is largely unpopulated and has undeveloped stretches of land. Even though it is considered a single island, Andros is an archipelago made up of hundreds of small islets and cays connected by estuaries and swamplands together with three major islands: North Andros, Mangrove Cay and South Andros.

The island’s west coast features many bays, channels and inlets. The turquoise colours of the ocean show shallow waters, whereas the dark blue colours are the deep ocean.

The West Side National Park covers the west part of Andros and includesits pristine coastal wetlands. The 6000 sq km park is the largest protected area in the region,and is a prime habitat for bonefish and an important feeding area for the endangered West Indian flamingo.

This image was acquired on 5 September 2019, just days after the mighty Hurricane Dorian passed over the Bahamas and unleashed a siege of destruction. Dorian is reported to be one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record – with storm surges, wind and rain that claimed many lives, destroyed homes and left thousands of people homeless.

Compared to acquisitions captured in the days leading up to Hurricane Dorian making landfall, the area in the top-left of the image appears to be more flooded owing to heavy rainfall, and several submerged islands can be seen.

In response to Hurricane Dorian, the Copernicus Emergency Mapping Service was activated. The service uses observations from several Earth observation satellites, such as Copernicus Sentinel-1 and-2, to provide flood, risk and recovery maps.

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 Copernicus Sentinel-3B satellite captured its first image on 7 May 2018 at 10:33 GMT (12:33 CEST), less than two weeks after it was launched. The image shows the sunset over the Weddell Sea off the coast of Antarctica. While the line between day and night is clearly visible, bright streaks glint on the clouds from the sunset. The image was taken by the satellite’s ocean and land colour instrument, which features 21 distinct bands, a resolution of 300 m and a swath width of 1270 km. The instrument can be used to monitor aquatic biological productivity and marine pollution, and over land it can be used to monitor the health of vegetation. Sentinel-3B’s instrument package also includes a sea and land surface temperature radiometer, a synthetic aperture radar altimeter and a microwave radiometer. Sentinel-3B was launched from Russia on 25 April and joins its twin, Sentinel-3A, in orbit. The pairing of the two satellites optimises coverage and data delivery for Europe’s Copernicus environmental monitoring programme.

Go to our website to learn more about this image.

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

Thousands of millimetric grains assemble into a cluster after colliding with each other in microgravity for a few minutes. Shaken and charged on their way to space, the tiny particles bind together in lumps of about three centimetres.

Scientists are studying this collision-driven growth to understand how planets are born. Planets are formed when dust and rock in a disc around a young star collide and combine to form ever larger bodies. It takes millions of years for dust grains to become a planet.

The cosmic journey begins with a cloud of gas and dust. Dust particles collide and form aggregates, with gravity constantly puling more matter towards the growing clusters until they eventually become fully fledged planets.

The processes behind planetary formation are not yet fully understood, so astrophysicists at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany decided to remove Earth’s gravity from the equation. They had done some tests during a drop tower experiment, but nine seconds of microgravity were not enough.

The team wanted to observe the collision speed and electrical charge of the particles for longer on a suborbital flight.

This experiment flew onboard SubOrbital Express-3, a MASER rocket launched from Esrange Space Center in Kiruna, northern Sweden, in 2022. The tiny particles enjoyed six minutes of undisturbed microgravity as the sounding rocket climbed to and descended from an altitude of 260 kilometres.

From ground control, researchers observed compact clusters growing to about three centimetres in size and measured the speed at which particles collided.

Particle speed and size turned out to be critical for the stability of the clusters. Too fast or too big, and the lump disintegrated with the particles bouncing off each other or breaking apart existing formations.

However, when half-millimetre grains travelled at 0.5 metres per second, they kept colliding, became electrically charged and attracted each other. Numerical simulations also showed that the collisions resulted in a strong electrostatic charge and attraction.

These findings suggest that both the grains sent to space in this experiment and the disc-shaped cloud around a young star would dissolve or break up under the same physical conditions. Researchers are now incorporating these results into physical models of protoplanetary discs and particle growth to better understand how planets are born.

Next stop: the International Space Station.

Full article in Nature Astronomy: ‘The growth of super-large pre-planetary pebbles to an impact erosion limit’.

Credits: University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE)

The James Webb Space Telescope, configured for flight, was moved from the cleanroom to the payload preparation facility for fuelling at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 11–12 November 2021.

Webb will be loaded with propellants before being mounted on top of the rocket and then encapsulated by the Ariane 5 fairing.

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 Baudon

For three weeks in October, Hubble’s eyes on the Universe closed. On the evening of Friday 5 October, the orbiting observatory put itself into safe mode after one of its gyroscopes failed. The telescope stopped making science observations, oriented its solar panels toward the Sun, and waited for further instructions from the ground. Within hours the ground control team had activated a backup gyroscope. However, when that gyroscope did not work correctly, the long, hard work to get the telescope exploring the Universe once again began in earnest.

The Hubble team had either to figure out how to get this backup gyroscope working, or to turn to a previously developed and tested one-gyroscope mode, which is proven to work. It took weeks of creative thinking, repeated tests, and minor setbacks to solve the problem of the misbehaving gyroscope.

Members of the Hubble operations team and of the review board suspected there might be some sort of obstruction in the gyroscope affecting its readings. Attempting to dislodge such a blockage, the team repeatedly tried switching the gyroscope between different operational modes and rotating the spacecraft by large amounts. In response, the extremely high rotation rates from the gyroscope gradually fell until they were close to normal. Encouraged but cautious, the team uploaded new software safeguards to Hubble to protect the telescope in case the gyroscope should again report unduly high rates, and then sent the telescope through some practice manoeuvres to simulate real science observations. They kept a close watch to make sure everything on the spacecraft performed correctly. It did.

In the early morning of 27 October Hubble captured its first image since slipping into safe mode at the beginning of the month. The observations targeted star-forming galaxies 11 billion light-years away in the constellation Pegasus. Astronomers hope to use observations like this to answer the question of how the Universe was reionised between 150 million and one billion years after the Big Bang.

Credits: NASA, ESA, and A. Shapley (UCLA), CC BY 4.0

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has yet another discovery machine aboard – the Near-Infrared Spectrograph’s (NIRSpec’s) microshutter array. This instrument has more than 248,000 tiny doors that can be individually opened to gather spectra (light) of up to approximately 150 individual objects simultaneously.

Of the thousands of distant galaxies behind galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, NIRSpec observed 48 individually – all at the same time – in a field that is approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length. Quick analysis made it immediately clear that several of these galaxies were observed as they existed at very early periods in the history of the universe, which is estimated to be 13.8 billion years old.

Look for the same feature highlighted in each spectrum. Three lines appear in the same order every time – one hydrogen line followed by two ionised oxygen lines. Where this pattern falls on each spectrum tells researchers the redshift of individual galaxies, revealing how long ago their light was emitted.

Light from the farthest galaxy shown travelled 13.1 billion years before Webb’s mirrors captured it. These observations mark the first time these particular emission lines have been seen at such immense distances – and these are only Webb’s initial observations. There may be even more distant galaxies in this image!

In these spectra, Webb has also shown us the chemical composition of galaxies in the very early universe for the first time. This was made possible by the telescope’s position in space – far away from Earth’s atmosphere, which filters out some infrared light – and its specialisation in gathering high-resolution near-infrared light.

And since similar spectra from galaxies at closer distances have long been studied by other space- and ground-based observatories, astronomers already know a lot about the properties of nearby galaxies. Now, astronomers will be able to study and compare spectra from Webb to determine how galaxies have changed over billions of years, dating back to the early universe.

With Webb’s data, researchers can now measure each galaxy’s distance, temperature, gas density, and chemical composition. We will soon learn an incredible amount about galaxies that existed all across cosmic time!

NIRSpec was built for the European Space Agency (ESA) by a consortium of European companies led by Airbus Defence and Space (ADS) with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center providing its detector and micro-shutter subsystems.

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

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over a swirl of sea ice off the east coast of Greenland in the Irminger Sea, which is just south of the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland.

Click on the box in the lower-right corner to view this image at its full 10 m resolution directly in your browser.

In this image captured on 9 June 2019, small pieces of sea ice, known as ice floes, trace out the ocean currents beneath, resulting in a large swirl-like feature of approximately 120 km in diameter.

This ice, which formed by freezing of the sea surface further north in the Arctic Ocean, has drifted southwards along the coast of Greenland before arriving at this location. The ice swirl is considered a typical eddy or vortex, commonly found in the summer marginal ice zone off the east coast of Greenland.

The marginal ice zone is the transition region from the open ocean, visible in dark blue, to the white sea ice. Depending on wind direction, waves and ocean currents, it can consist of small, isolated ice floes drifting over a large area to smaller ice floes pressed together in bright white bands.

Strong mesoscale air—ice—ocean interactive processes drive the advance and retreat of the sea ice edge, and result in the meanders or eddies visible in this region.

Investigations of such ocean eddies and meanders began in the 1970s and 1980s in the Greenland Sea to gain a better understanding of the interactions between the ocean, ice and atmosphere.

Copernicus Sentinel-2 is a two-satellite mission. Each satellite carries a high-resolution camera that images Earth’s surface in 13 spectral bands. Together they cover all Earth’s land surfaces, large islands, inland and coastal waters every five days at the equator.

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 subject of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week is the spiral galaxy NGC 337, located about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus (The Whale).

This image combines observations made at two wavelengths, highlighting the galaxy’s golden centre and blue outskirts. The golden central glow comes from older stars, while the sparkling blue edges get their colour from young stars. If Hubble had observed NGC 337 about a decade ago, the telescope would have spotted something remarkable among the hot blue stars along the galaxy’s edge: a brilliant supernova.

The supernova, named SN 2014cx, is remarkable for having been discovered nearly simultaneously in two vastly different ways: by a prolific supernova hunter, Koichi Itagaki, and by the All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN). ASAS-SN is a worldwide network of robotic telescopes that scans the sky for sudden events like supernovae.

Researchers have determined that SN 2014cx was a Type IIP supernova. The “Type II” classification means that the exploding star was a supergiant at least eight times as massive as the Sun. The “P” stands for plateau, meaning that after the light from the supernova began to fade, the level reached a plateau, remaining at the same brightness for several weeks or months before fading further. This type of supernova occurs when a massive star can no longer produce enough energy in its core to stave off the crushing pressure of gravity. SN 2014cx’s progenitor star is estimated to have been ten times more massive than the Sun and hundreds of times as wide. Though it has long since dimmed from its initial brilliance, researchers are still keeping tabs on this exploded star, not least through the Hubble observing programme which produced this image.

[Image Description: A barred spiral galaxy on a dark background. The galaxy’s central region is a pale colour due to older stars, contains some pale reddish threads of dust, and is brighter along a broad horizontal bar through the very centre. Off the bar come several stubby spiral arms, merging into the outer region of the disc. It is a cool blue colour and contains some bright sparkling blue spots, both indicating young hot stars.]

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Kilpatrick; CC BY 4.0

At the centre of this image, captured by ESA’s Herschel space observatory , is a truly peculiar cosmic object: a star named IRAS 19312+1950.

Located over 12 000 light-years from us, this star has puzzled astronomers for many years because it shows conflicting signs of being both extremely old and extremely young.

Astronomers have spotted signs of emission usually associated with old, late-type stars: silicon oxide and hydroxyl masers – the microwave equivalent of a visible-light laser.

But they have also discovered characteristics mostly seen around early-type stars: a chemical-rich enveloping cloud usually seen around youthful stars and in regions of star formation.

Infrared observations from both Herschel and NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope now suggest that it may instead be a star in the making, rather than a fully-fledged or ancient star. In other words, it is a protostar.

The star is about 10 times as massive as the Sun and emits about 20 000 times as much energy. It appears to be rich in oxygen, and has jets of gas streaming from both poles at speeds of at least 90 km/s.

In addition, it is surrounded and obscured by a collapsing cloud of gas, dust and ice – including large quantities of water and carbon dioxide ice – that contains an overall mass equivalent to 500 to 700 Suns.

Although it displays features atypical of its peers, astronomers believe it to be a stellar embryo fast approaching the end of its ‘accretion’ stage, the period in which it feeds upon surrounding material to fuel its growth. Although the region had not been pinpointed as a stellar nursery before, there are signs of recently formed and youthful stars nearby, supporting this idea.

This image is a composite of infrared data gathered by Herschel’s Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS ) at 70 (green) and 160 (blue) microns. The associated research is published in the Astrophysical Journal.

Credit: ESA/Herschel/PACS/Hi-GAL Project, KU Leuven

The ESA-owned Short Arm Human Centrifuge has been upgraded, installed and inaugurated at the Olympic Sport Centre Planica facility near Kranjska Gora, Slovenia. Soon to be home to ESA bedrest studies, this recently enhanced clinical research centre will help further scientists’ knowledge of human physiology in space.

Run by the Jozef Stefan Institute on behalf of ESA, bedrest studies at the facility offer scientists a way to see how the human body adapts to weightlessness. This allows researchers to test techniques, known as “countermeasures”, to counteract the negative effects of living in space.

The Short-Arm Human Centrifuge offers an extra suite of possible countermeasures by exposing people to artificial gravity. At 35 revolutions of the 3-m arms per minute, riders may experience a force of gravity that is more than twice their own body weight at their centre of mass, and more than four times their body weight at their feet.

Artificial gravity has the potential to reduce many of the negative effects of weightlessness on the human body in one go. As spinning encourages blood to flow back towards a subject’s feet, they are provided with a force to push against, while they follow a carefully controlled exercise regime of squats, jumps, heel raises and toe raises, for 30 minutes per day. These countermeasures should mitigate the reduction of bone and muscle mass that astronauts, and bedrest subjects, can otherwise experience.

The Planica facility provides equipment to collect all ESA Bedrest Core Data, allowing for comparison between different ESA-sponsored studies. It can also be maintained under adjustable environmental conditions, such as a low-oxygen atmosphere, which is highly relevant for human exploration missions.

In bedrest studies, volunteers spend from five to 60 days in bed, usually tilted backwards with their heads at 6° below the horizontal. They are not permitted to stand up unless a research programme demands it and must perform all daily activities in bed – including eating, showers and exercise.

The results of these studies also benefit people on Earth. Many negative effects of living in space are similar to those experienced naturally as we age, such as osteoporosis, muscle loss and orthostatic intolerance.

ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher signed the loan agreement for the centrifuge with representatives from the Jozef Stefan Institute during his tour of Slovenia last week.

Slovenia has been an ESA Associate member since 2016 and recently signed on to the Terrae Novae programme (formerly known as the European Exploration Envelope Programme (E3P).

Credits: K. Bidovec & A. Hodalič

On 4 April, Juice was encapsulated inside the Ariane 5’s fairing, meaning that the nose of the rocket was installed over the spacecraft. Here we see the two engineers working where the fairing meets the lower part of the rocket. This operation followed the placement of Juice atop the Ariane 5 on 1 April. Juice will remain inside the fairing during launch. Shortly after launch, the fairing will open up and Juice will separate from the rocket.

Juice is being prepared to launch from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on 13 April 2023. After an eight-year journey to Jupiter, the mission will make detailed observations of the gas giant and its three large ocean-bearing moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa – with a suite of instruments. The mission will characterise these moons as both planetary objects and possible habitats, explore Jupiter’s complex environment in depth, and study the wider Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giants across the Universe.

Find out more about Juice in ESA’s launch kit

Credits: ESA - M. Pédoussaut

This colour-coded topographic view shows the relative heights of the terrain in and around Korolev crater, an ice-filled crater in the northern lowlands of Mars.

Lower parts of the surface are shown in blues and purples, while higher-altitude regions show up in whites, browns, and reds, as indicated on the scale to the top right. The crater’s thick deposit of ice can be seen at the centre of the frame.

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 over orbits 18042 (captured on 4 April 2018), 5726, 5692, 5654, and 1412.It covers a region centred at 165° E, 73° N, and has a resolution of approximately 21 metres per pixel.

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

Concordia research station in Antarctica is located on a plateau 3200 m above sea level. A place of extremes, temperatures can drop to –80°C in the winter, with a yearly average temperature of –50°C.

As Concordia lies at the very southern tip of Earth, the Sun does not rise above the horizon in the winter and does not set in the summer. The crew must live without sunlight for four months of the year.

The station is a collaboration between the French Institut Polaire Français Paul-Emile Victor (IPEV) and Italian Programma Nazionale di Richerche Antartide (PNRA).

Credits: ESA/IPEV/PNRA–C. Possnig

This image captures prominent bright and dark streaks on slopes in the ancient Locras Vallis region on Mars.

The image was taken in the early martian morning on 20 June 2019 by the CaSSIS camera onboard the ESA/Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter.

The brighter streaks are facing northeast; their photometric characteristics may depend on lighting geometry. The exact relationship between bright and dark slope streaks is still debated but the leading theory suggests that are formed by a dry avalanching process.

The image is centred at 10.6ºN/41.6ºE. North is up.

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

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week features a sparkling spiral galaxy paired with a prominent star, both in the constellation Virgo. While the galaxy and the star appear to be close to one another, even overlapping, they’re actually a great distance apart. The star, which is marked with four long diffraction spikes, is in our own galaxy. It’s just 7109 light-years away from Earth. The galaxy, which is named NGC 4900, lies about 45 million light-years from Earth.

This image combines data from two of Hubble’s instruments: the Advanced Camera for Surveys, which was installed in 2002 and is still in operation today, and the older Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, which was in use from 1993 to 2009. The data used here were taken more than 20 years apart for two different observing programmes — a real testament to Hubble’s long scientific lifetime!

Both programmes aimed to understand the demise of massive stars. In one, researchers studied the sites of past supernovae, aiming to estimate the masses of the stars that exploded and investigate how supernovae interact with their surroundings. NGC 4900 was selected for study because it hosted a supernova named SN 1999br.

In the other programme, researchers laid the groundwork for studying future supernovae by collecting images of more than 150 nearby galaxies. After a supernova is detected in one of these galaxies, researchers can examine these images, searching for a star at the location of the supernova. Identifying a supernova progenitor star in pre-explosion images gives valuable information about how, when and why supernovae occur.

[Image Description: A spiral galaxy seen face-on. Broken spiral arms made of blue patches of stars and thin strands of dark dust swirl around the galaxy’s centre, forming a broad, circular disc. An extended circular halo surrounds the disc. The centre is a brightly-glowing, stubby bar-shaped area in a pale yellow colour. A bright star in our own galaxy, with long cross-shaped diffraction spikes, is visible atop the distant galaxy.]

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, S. J. Smartt, C. Kilpatrick; CC BY 4.0

Post-flight news conference at ESA's European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne, Germany. From left to right: ESA Director for Human and Robotic Exploration David Parker, ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer, Walther Pelzer, Director General of the German Space Agency at DLR.

Credits: ESA

The James Webb Space Telescope lifted off on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, at 13:20 CET on 25 December on its exciting mission to unlock the secrets of the Universe.

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ESA - S. Corvaja

This stereoscopic image shows Utopia Planitia on Mars, and was generated from data captured by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on ESA’s Mars Express orbiter on 12 July 2021 during orbit 22150. The anaglyph, derived from data acquired by the nadir channel and one stereo channel of the HRSC, offers a three-dimensional view when viewed using red-green or red-blue glasses.

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

This galaxy emitted its light 13.1 billion years ago.

It was captured by Webb’s microshutter array, part of its Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec). This instrument is so sensitive that it can observe the light of individual galaxies that existed in the very early universe. This will prove transformational for research. Webb’s capabilities have allowed scientists to observe spectra of galaxies this far away for the first time.

When researchers stretch out the light of an individual galaxy into a spectrum, like the graph shown above, they can learn about the chemical composition, temperature, and density of the galaxy’s ionised gas. For example, this galaxy’s spectrum will reveal the properties of its gas, which will indicate how its stars are forming and how much dust it contains. These data are rich – and have never before been detected from this far away at this quality.

As astronomers begin analysing Webb’s data, we will learn an incredible amount about galaxies that existed all across cosmic time – and how they compare to the beautiful spiral and elliptical galaxies in the nearby universe.

NIRSpec was built for the European Space Agency (ESA) by a consortium of European companies led by Airbus Defence and Space (ADS) with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center providing its detector and micro-shutter subsystems.

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

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

After 3D printers devoted to space projects were shut down amidst the coronavirus pandemic, an idea to protect those fighting the outbreak on the front line was born.

Space innovation and local cooperation in a time of crisis are joining forces in the fight against COVID-19 to keep essential workers safe.

Instead of printing new materials and bricks for future lunar habitats, two 3D printers at ESA’s European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne, Germany, were set to work on face shields for hospital workers.

The printers are steadily producing headbands and brackets for Personal Protective Equipment, or PPE, and will be used in conjunction with a filtering mask. This type of face shield is essential in hospitals to protect staff against virus-carrying droplets.

A strong desire to help prompted the team from the "Advanced Manufacturing" activities of Spaceship EAC to offer their open-source 3D printers for producing face shields components as part of a local MakerVsVirus initiative. The design has been optimised through crowd engineering for an efficient and steady production.

ESA contributes its parts to the final product together with a wider hub of makers. The first batch of 50 holder elements has already been delivered to a local collection point, where all components are assembled before the face shields are distributed to hospitals in need. The team plans to continue printing remotely to solve the pressing demand as long as printing materials are available.

The printers were usually busy printing special items for astronaut training and testing ideas for future spaceflight. ESA is investigating how 3D printing could ease the construction, expansion and maintenance of a lunar base.

Before the lockdown, young minds were working on 3D printing new materials made of plastic and Moon dust simulants that could be used to build bricks for lunar habitats. This technology builds a solid object from a series of layers, each one printed on top of the last – also known as additive manufacturing.

The approach aims towards zero waste production and recycling, and gives astronauts the ability to produce components as they need them, rather than carrying a full suite of spare parts.

Read more about this initiative here.

Credits: MakerVsVirus

This Hubble Picture of the Week features a richness of spiral galaxies: the large, prominent spiral galaxy on the right side of the image is NGC 1356; the two apparently smaller spiral galaxies flanking it are LEDA 467699 (above it) and LEDA 95415 (very close at its left) respectively; and finally, IC 1947 sits along the left side of the image.

This image is a really interesting example of how challenging it can be to tell whether two galaxies are actually close together, or just seem to be from our perspective here on Earth. A quick glance at this image would likely lead you to think that NGC 1356, LEDA 467699 and LEDA 95415 were all close companions, whilst IC 1947 was more remote. However, we have to remember that two-dimensional images such as this one only give an indication of angular separation: that is, how objects are spread across the sphere of the night sky. What they cannot represent is the distance objects are from Earth.

For instance, whilst NGC 1356 and LEDA 95415 appear to be so close that they must surely be interacting, the former is about 550 million light-years from Earth and the latter is roughly 840 million light-years away, so there is nearly a whopping 300 million light-year separation between them. That also means that LEDA 95415 is likely nowhere near as much smaller than NGC 1356 as it appears to be.

On the other hand, whilst NGC 1356 and IC 1947 seem to be separated by a relative gulf in this image, IC 1947 is only about 500 million light-years from Earth. The angular distance apparent between them in this image only works out to less than four hundred thousand light-years, so they are actually much much closer neighbours in three-dimensional space than NGC 1356 and LEDA 95415!

[Image Description: A collection of galaxies. On the left side a large spiral galaxy with swirling, twisted arms is flanked by a smaller, but still detailed, spiral behind its arm on the left, and a smaller spiral above it. On the right side is a fourth, round spiral galaxy seen face-on. Between them lies a single bright star. Several stars and distant galaxies dot the background.]

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Dalcanton, Dark Energy Survey/DOE/FNAL/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA; CC BY 4.0

Acknowledgement: L. Shatz

Presented at ESA’s Advanced Manufacturing workshop, this 1.5 m-long hard polymer bar was produced using a 3D printer that is much smaller than it is.

The printer is capable of printing parts of unlimited dimensions in a single direction. It is a ground demonstrator version of 3D printing technology which is ultimately intended for use aboard the International Space Station.

ESA advanced manufacturing engineer Advenit Makaya explains: “Developing out-of-Earth manufacturing solutions for large parts, in a human exploration context such as here and later on for spacecraft structural parts will be essential in enhancing the sustainability and robustness of future space missions.”

Known as Project IMPERIAL, the aim is to develop out-of-Earth manufacturing methods that overcome the build constraints of current 3D printers, enabling easy onboard building and maintenance to enhance the self-sufficiency of future space missions.

“With this activity we have overcome one of the main limitation of 3D printing – the build volume - while using a compact 3D printer capable to process high performance thermoplastics,” notes ESA materials specialist Ugo Lafont. “This is a great achievement that will extend the application field of this on-demand manufacturing process.”

The project is being undertaken for ESA by a consortium led by OHB in Germany, with Azimut Space in Germany, Athlone Institute of Technology in the Republic of Ireland and BEEVERYCREATIVE in Portugal developing the 3D printer.

“Innovating within a working group, – the consortium and ESA technical officers – that fully cooperates and creates synergies, has been a great pleasure,” says Aurora Baptista, CEO of BEEVERYCREATIVE. “It adds to the honor of contributing to an advance that enlarges the concept of being global.”

The company has shared video from a test printing here.

Credits:

BEEVERYCREATIVE

This image shows a slice of the Red Planet from the northern polar cap downwards, and highlights cratered, pockmarked swathes of the Terra Sabaea and Arabia Terra regions. The area outlined in the centre of the image indicates the area imaged by the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera on 17 June 2019 during orbit 19550. This context map is based on data gathered by NASA’s Viking and Mars Global Surveyor missions.

Credits: NASA/Viking, FU Berlin

SpaceX Crew-2 Walkout and dry dress rehearsal with ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet on 18 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 22 April at 06:11 EDT/12:11 CEST.

Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja

Solar Orbiter took images of the Sun on 7 March, from a distance of roughly 75 million kilometres, using its Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment (SPICE) instrument. SPICE takes simultaneous “spectral images” at several different wavelengths of the extreme ultraviolet spectrum by scanning its spectrometer slit across a region on the Sun. The different wavelengths recorded correspond to different layers in the Sun’s lower atmosphere. Purple corresponds to hydrogen gas at a temperature of 10 000°C. Each full-Sun image is made up of a mosaic of 25 individual scans. It represents the best full Sun image taken at the Lyman beta wavelength of ultraviolet light that is emitted by hydrogen gas.

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Credits: ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/SPICE team; Data processing: G. Pelouze (IAS)

Solar cells have a hard life in space – their efficiency at converting sunlight into energy at the end of their time there is more prized than their initial efficiency. This next generation solar cell having an area of around 30 sq. cm boosts the beginning of life efficiency of up to 30.9% and end of life efficiency to 27.5% - and in the future designers expect to push this figure above 30%.

Developed for ESA by a consortium led by German solar cell manufacturer Azur Space, CESI in Italy, Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Qioptiq in the UK, Umicore in Belgium, tf2 devices in the Netherlands, and Finland’s Tampere University of Technology, this design is a ‘four-junction’ 0.1 mm-thick device containing four layers of different materials (AlGaInP, AlGaInAs, GaInAs,Ge) to absorb separate wavelengths of sunlight.

This design was originated through ESA’s Technology Research Programme with further development and qualification testing supported through the Agency’s ARTES, Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems, programme. It is currently intended to fly with ESA’s next generation Neosat telecom satellites.

Credits: Azur Space

A view of Earth captured by one of the MCAM selfie cameras on board of the European-Japanese Mercury mission BepiColombo, as the spacecraft zoomed past the planet during its first and only Earth flyby. The image was taken at 03:35 UTC on 10 April 2020, shortly before the closest approach, from around 18 600 km away.

Launched into an orbit around the Sun in October 2018, BepiColombo returned to Earth to take advantage of its gravity to steer its trajectory deeper into the inner Solar System. The spacecraft was visible during the manoeuvre to astronomers, including amateurs, equipped with small telescopes and located south of Rome and Madrid. The Earth flyby was the first of nine gravity-assist manoeuvres that will help BepiColombo to gradually home in on its target orbit around the smallest and innermost planet of the Solar System.

Travelling towards the Sun, BepiColombo has to constantly brake against the star’s powerful gravitational pull in order to be able to stop at Mercury. Comprising of the ESA-owned Mercury Planetary Orbiter, the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and the ESA-built Mercury Transfer Module, the spacecraft will perform next two gravity-assist manoeuvres at Venus and further six at Mercury before commencing its science operations in early 2026.

Credits: ESA/BepiColombo/MTM, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over Gangotri, one of the largest glaciers in the Himalayas and one of the main sources of water for the Ganges River.

This huge ball of stars — around 100 billion in total — is an elliptical galaxy located some 55 million light-years away from us. Known as Messier 89, this galaxy appears to be perfectly spherical; this is unusual for elliptical galaxies, which tend to be elongated ellipsoids. The apparently spherical nature of Messier 89 could, however, be a trick of perspective, and be caused by its orientation relative to the Earth.

Messier 89 is slightly smaller than the Milky Way, but has a few interesting features that stretch far out into the surrounding space. One structure of gas and dust extends up to 150 000 light-years out from the galaxy’s centre, which is known to house a supermassive black hole. Jets of heated particles reach out to 100 000 light-years from the galaxy, suggesting that Messier 89 may have once been far more active — perhaps an active quasar or radio galaxy — than it is now. It is also surrounded by an extensive system of shells and plumes, which may have been caused by past mergers with smaller galaxies — and implies that Messier 89 as we know it may have formed in the relatively recent past.

Messier 89 was discovered by astronomer Charles Messier in 1781, when Messier had been cataloguing astronomical objects for 23 years — ever since he mistook a faint object in the sky for Halley’s Comet. Upon closer inspection, he realised the object was actually the Crab Nebula. To prevent other astronomers from making the same error, he decided to catalogue all the bright, deep-sky objects that could potentially be mistaken for comets. His methodical observations of the night sky led to the first comprehensive catalogue of astronomical objects: the Messier catalogue! Messier 89 holds the record for being the last ever giant elliptical to be found by Messier, and the most perfectly spherical galaxy in the entire catalogue of 110 objects.

The glacier’s terminus is called Gomukh, which means ‘mouth of a cow’, presumed to describe what the snout of this huge glacier once resembled. Importantly, the headwaters of the Bhagirathi River form here. In Hindu culture and mythology, this is considered to be the source of the Ganges and consequentially the destination for many spiritual pilgrimages and treks. Gomukh is a 20 km trek from the village of Gangotri, which is in the top left of the image. While Gomukh and Gangotri have much spiritual significance, the Bhagirathi River offers an important supply of freshwater as well as power as it passes through a number of power stations, including the Tehri hydroelectric complex 200 km downstream (not pictured).

Gangotri is in an area also known as ‘the third pole’, which encompasses the Himalaya-Hindu Kush mountain range and the Tibetan Plateau. The high-altitude ice fields in this region contain the largest reserve of freshwater outside the polar regions. With such a large portion of the world’s population dependent on water from these cold heights, changes in the size and flow of these glaciers can bring serious consequences for society by affecting the amount of water arriving downstream.

From the vantage point of space, satellites, such as the Copernicus Sentinels, provide essential information to monitor the changing face of Earth’s glaciers, which are typically in remote regions and therefore difficult to monitor systematically from the ground.

This image, which was captured on 7 January 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

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, arriving at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 9 February 2023 from Airbus Toulouse.

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

The upper stage of Ariane 5 which will transport the James Webb Space Telescope in space, is now integrated with the Ariane 5 core stage inside the launch vehicle integration building at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

The upper stage arrived at the launch vehicle integration building on 11 November 2021 where it joined the Ariane 5 core stage and boosters. It was then hoisted high to awaiting engineers so that it could be integrated on top of the core stage.

The Ariane 5 upper stage is powered by the HM7B engine. It will contain 14.7 t of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen propellant to deliver 6.6 t of thrust for 1000 seconds. After core stage separation, the upper stage will provide attitude control during the ascent and separation of Webb on its path to the Lagrange point.

The Vehicle Equipment Bay, ‘the brain’ of Ariane 5, which is integrated with the upper stage, autonomously controls the whole vehicle and transmits all key flight parameters to the ground station network.

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).

These activities mark the beginning of a five-week campaign to prepare the Ariane 5 launch vehicle which runs in parallel with teams preparing Webb, which started three weeks earlier. Soon Webb will meet Ariane 5 and teams will unite for the final integration for launch.

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

Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique vidéo du CSG - S.Martin

This image shows a globular cluster known as NGC 1651. Like the object in another recent Picture of the Week, it is located about 162 000 light-years away in the largest and brightest of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). A notable feature of this image is that the globular cluster almost fills the entire image, even though globular clusters are only about 10 to 300 light-years in diameter (NGC 1651 has a diameter of roughly 120 light-years). In contrast, there are numerous Hubble Pictures of the Week that feature entire galaxies — which can be tens or hundreds of millions of light-years in diameter — that also more or less fill the whole image.

A common misconception is that Hubble and other large telescopes manage to observe wildly differently sized celestial objects by zooming in on them, as one would with a specialised camera here on Earth. However, whilst small telescopes might have the option to zoom in and out to a certain extent, large telescopes do not. Each telescope’s instrument has a fixed ‘field of view’ (the size of the region of sky that it can observe in a single observation). For example, the ultraviolet/visible light channel of Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), the channel and instrument that were used to collect the data used in this image, has a field of view roughly one twelfth the diameter of the Moon as seen from Earth. Whenever WFC3 makes an observation, that is the size of the region of sky that it can observe.

The reason that Hubble can observe objects of such wildly different sizes is two-fold. Firstly, the distance to an object will determine how big it appears to be from Earth, so entire galaxies that are relatively far away might take up the same amount of space in the sky as a globular cluster like NGC 1651 that is relatively close by. In fact, there's a distant spiral galaxy lurking in this image, directly left of the cluster — though undoubtedly much larger than this star cluster, it appears small enough here to blend in with foreground stars! Secondly, multiple images spanning different parts of the sky can be mosaiced together to create single images of objects that are too big for Hubble’s field of view. This is a very complex task and is not typically done for Pictures of the Week, but it has been done for some of Hubble’s most iconic images.

[Image Description: A spherical collection of stars, which fills the whole view. The stars merge into a bright, bluish core in the centre, and form a sparse band around that out to the edges of the image. A few stars lie in front of the cluster, with visible diffraction spikes. The background is dark black.]

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. Girardi, F. Niederhofer; CC BY 4.0