Captured on 17 November 2023, this Copernicus Sentinel-2 image shows a plume of smoke spewing from the Popocatépetl volcano, located some 70 km southeast of Mexico City.

Standing at 5,425 m high, the Popocatépetl volcano, also known as El Popo, has been active for centuries and has been continuously erupting for decades.

Satellites in orbit carry different instruments that provide a wealth of complementary information to better understand volcanic eruptions. Optical satellites, such as the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, can image smoke plumes, lava flows, mudslides and ground fissures.

See also: Sulphur dioxide concentrations from Mexico's Popocatepetl volcano

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

ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer and his NASA crew mates Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron arrive at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA on 25 October 2021.

Collectively, the astronauts make up Crew-3 and will travel to the International Space Station on the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft “Endurance”. The first launch opportunity for Crew-3 is 07:21 CET (06:21 GMT, 02:21 EDT) Sunday 31 October 2021, with a backup date of 3 November.

The name of Matthias’s mission is “Cosmic Kiss”. This is Matthias’s first mission, and he will be the 600th human to fly to space.

Once in orbit, Matthias will spend around six months living and working in microgravity as he supports more than 35 European experiments and numerous international experiments on board.

Matthias is also certified to perform Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) in both the Russian Orlan and American EMU spacesuits. He is expected to perform a Russian spacewalk during his mission as part of initial operations for the European Robotic Arm (ERA) that was launched to the Station in July 2021.

Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja

This image tells the story of redemption for one lonely star. The young star MP Mus (PDS 66) was thought to be all alone in the Universe, surrounded by nothing but a featureless band of gas and dust called a protoplanetary disc. In most cases, the material inside a protoplanetary disc condenses to form new planets around the star, leaving large gaps where the gas and dust used to be. These features are seen in almost every disc – but not in MP Mus’s.

When astronomers first observed it with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), they saw a smooth, planet-free disc, shown here in the right image. The team, led by Álvaro Ribas, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge, UK, gave this star another chance and re-observed it with ALMA at longer wavelengths that peer even deeper into the protoplanetary disc than before. These new observations, shown in the left image, revealed a gap and a ring that had been obscured in previous observations, suggesting that MP Mus might have company after all.

Meanwhile, another piece of the puzzle was being revealed in Germany as Miguel Vioque, an astronomer at the European Southern Observatory, studied this same star with the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Gaia mission. Vioque noticed something suspicious – the star was wobbling. A bit of gravitational detective work, together with insights from the new disc structures revealed by ALMA, showed that this motion could be explained by the presence of a gas giant exoplanet.

Both teams presented their joint results in a new paper published in Nature Astronomy. In what they describe as “a beautiful merging of two groups approaching the same object from different angles”, they show that MP Mus isn’t so boring after all.

[Image description: This is an observation from the ALMA telescope, showing two versions (side-by-side) of a protoplanetary disc. Both discs are bright, glowing yellow-orange objects with a diffused halo against a dark background. The right disc is more smooth and blurry looking. The left disc shows more detail, for example gaps and rings within it.]

Source: ESO

Credits: ALMA(ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/A. Ribas et al.

This sparkling scene of star birth was captured by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. What appears to be a craggy, starlit mountaintop kissed by wispy clouds is actually a cosmic dust-scape being eaten away by the blistering winds and radiation of nearby, massive, infant stars.

Called Pismis 24, this young star cluster resides in the core of the nearby Lobster Nebula, approximately 5,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Scorpius. Home to a vibrant stellar nursery and one of the closest sites of massive star birth, Pismis 24 provides rare insight into large and massive stars. This region is one of the best places to explore the properties of hot young stars and how they evolve.

[Image description: Webb image of Pismis 24 with compass arrows, scale bar, and color key. Image shows brilliant stars against a blue and black sky covering about two thirds of the image. Across the bottom third is a craggy, mountain-like vista with soaring peaks and deep, seemingly misty valleys. A wispy white cloud stretches horizontally across the mountaintops. At bottom left, compass arrows indicate the orientation of the image on the sky. The north arrow points downward in the 6 o’clock direction. The east arrow points in the 3 o’clock direction. At lower right is a scale bar labeled 1 light-year. The length of the bar is a about one-eighth the total width of the image. Below the image is a color key showing which NIRCam filters were used to create the image and which visible-light color is assigned to each filter. From left to right, filters are: F090W is blue; F187N is blue-green; F200W is yellow-green; F335M is orange; and F470N is red.]

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

The subject of this week’s Picture of the Week from Hubble is the spiral galaxy IC 4633, located 100 million light-years away from us in the constellation Apus. IC 4633 is a galaxy rich in star-forming activity, as well as hosting an active galactic nucleus at its core. From our point of view, the galaxy is tilted mostly towards us, giving astronomers a fairly good view of its billions of stars.

However, we can’t fully appreciate the features of this galaxy — at least in visible light — because it’s partially concealed by a stretch of dark dust. This dark nebula is part of the Chamaeleon star-forming region, itself located only around 500 light-years from us, in a nearby part of the Milky Way galaxy. The dark clouds in the Chamaeleon region occupy a large area of the southern sky, covering their namesake constellation but also encroaching on nearby constellations, like Apus. The cloud is well-studied for its treasury of young stars, particularly the cloud Cha I, which has been imaged by Hubble and also by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope.

The cloud overlapping IC 4633 lies east of the well-known Cha I, II and III, and has been called MW9 or the South Celestial Serpent. A vast, narrow trail of faint gas that snakes over the southern celestial pole, it’s much more subdued-looking than its neighbours. It’s classified as an integrated flux nebula (IFN) — a cloud of gas and dust in the Milky Way galaxy that’s not near to any single star, and is only faintly lit by the total light of all the galaxy’s stars. Hubble has no problem making out the South Celestial Serpent, though this image captures only a tiny part of it. For a showy astronomical object like IC 4633, among the South Celestial Serpent’s coils clearly isn’t a bad place to hide.

[Image Description: A spiral galaxy seen nearly face-on. The disc is made up of many tightly wound spiral arms. They contain small strands of reddish dust, near the centre. On the left side, the disc features glowing patches of star formation. The whole right side, and part of the centre, is obscured by a large cloud of dark grey gas which crosses the image.]

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

Acknowledgement: L. Shatz

The Vega-C Payload Assembly Composite (PAC) with LARES-2 has been rolled out to the Vega Launch Zone (ZLV) and hoisted onto the Vega-C launch Vehicle on 7 July 2022 at Europe's Space Port in Kourou, French Guiana.

On the wave of Vega’s success, Member States at the ESA Ministerial meeting in December 2014 agreed to develop the more powerful Vega-C to respond to an evolving market and to long-term institutional needs.

Vega-C increases performance from Vega’s current 1.5 t to about 2.2 t in a reference 700 km polar orbit, covering identified European institutional users’ mission needs, with no increase in launch service and operating costs.

The participating states in this development are: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Credits: ESA-Manuel Pedoussaut

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 glittering globular cluster Terzan 12 — a vast, tightly bound collection of stars — fills the frame of this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This star-studded stellar census comes from a string of observations that aim to systematically explore globular clusters located towards the centre of our galaxy, such as this one in the constellation Sagittarius. The locations of these globular clusters — deep in the Milky Way galaxy — mean that they are shrouded in gas and dust, which can block or alter the wavelengths of starlight emanating from the clusters.

Here, astronomers were able to sidestep the effect of gas and dust by comparing the new observations made with the razor-sharp vision of Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide-Field Camera 3 with pre-existing images. Their observations should shed light on the relation between age and composition in the Milky Way’s innermost globular clusters.

[Image Description: The frame is completely filled with bright stars, ranging from tiny dots to large, shining stars with prominent spikes. In the lower-right the stars come together in the core of the star cluster, making the brightest and densest area of the image. The background varies from darker and warmer in colour, to brighter and paler where there are more stars.]

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Cohen (Rutgers University); CC BY 4.0

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

Spacewalks are a risky business and wearing a spacesuit that protects against the vacuum outside our atmosphere is cumbersome. This glove is a mockup concept for astronauts that adds extra functions to the five fingers.

As humankind explores the Universe we will work hand in hand with robots that scout ahead, prepare landing sites and go to places too dangerous or impracticable for humans.

The gloves in this photo are an independent project from French company Comex and designer Agatha Medioni based on materials from the ESA-funded activity Pextex to develop novel space suit materials for the Moon.

The gloves have three extra functions in addition to protecting an astronaut’s hands from vacuum. They can be used to control a martian drone or lunar rover with gestures alone. They have an integrated laser light that can measure distances or target objects. Lastly the materials have a display to show the status of supplies such as oxygen levels. Current spacesuits have this display on the torso and astronauts use a mirror on their wrist to be able to see it.

Future missions will aim to establish a permanent presence on the Moon and new spacesuits would be used for longer and more frequently than those from the Apollo era.

The Pextex project aims to identify and test advanced textiles for spacesuit in Europe. The garments are near airtight and waterproof, can withstand temperature differences of +120°C to –170°C while keeping the astronaut safe though insulation from heat and radiation as well as being strong enough to resist the abrasive lunar dust – all while allowing the human inside maximum movement to get their work done.

Bonus features of a future European spacesuit material might include self-repair, energy harvesting, integrated sensors, robot control and displays. The materials for the Pextex project will be tested with the partner organisations in France (Comex), Germany (DITF) and Austria (Austrian Space Forum, OeWF) and will run for two years.

Credits: COMEX, Agatha Médioni

Rollout of Galileo L14 Ariane 6 A62 flight VA266 at the Ariane 6 launch complex (ELA-4) at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana on 16 December 2025.

Credits: ESA - M. Pédoussaut

Integrated in October 2020 at ArianeGroup in Bremen, Germany, this ‘hot-firing model’ of the complete Ariane 6 upper stage is fully operational having undergone extensive functional tests. Its new reignitable Vinci engine is connected to two liquid hydrogen and oxygen tanks and is equipped with all lines, valves and electronic and hydraulic instrumentation and control systems.

Credits: ArianeGroup/ Frank T. Koch / Hill Media GmbH

Astronomers have designed a computer algorithm, inspired by slime mould behavior, and tested it against a computer simulation of the growth of dark matter filaments in the Universe. The researchers then applied the slime mould algorithm to data containing the locations of over 37 000 galaxies mapped by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The algorithm produced a three-dimensional map of the underlying cosmic web structure.

They then analysed the light from 350 faraway quasars catalogued in the Hubble Spectroscopic Legacy Archive. These distant cosmic flashlights are the brilliant black-hole-powered cores of active galaxies, whose light shines across space and through the foreground cosmic web.

Learn more.

Credits: NASA, ESA, and J. Burchett and O. Elek (UC Santa Cruz); CC BY 4.0

On Saturday 11 December, the James Webb Space Telescope was placed on top of the Ariane 5 rocket that will launch it to space from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

After its arrival in the final assembly building, Webb was lifted slowly about 40 m high and then carefully manoeuvred on top of Ariane 5, after which technicians bolted Webb’s launch vehicle adapter down to the rocket.

This whole process was performed under strict safety and cleanliness regulations, as it was one of the most delicate operations during the entire launch campaign for Webb.

A ‘shower curtain’ about 12 m high and 8 m in diameter was installed in between two platforms, to create a closed-off space around Webb to avoid any contamination.

The next step is to encapsulate Webb inside Ariane 5’s specially adapted 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-Manuel Pedoussaut

This image shows a pair of festive silhouettes spotted by ESA’s Mars Express near Mars’ south pole in 3D when viewed using red-green or red-blue glasses. This anaglyph was derived from data obtained by the nadir and stereo channels of the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on ESA’s Mars Express during spacecraft orbit 21305 (8 November 2020). It covers a part of the martian surface centred at 148°E/78°S. North is to the left.

More information

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

This image features IC 3476, a dwarf galaxy that lies about 54 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Coma Berenices. Whilst this image does not look very dramatic — if we were to anthropomorphise the galaxy, we might say it looks almost serene — the actual physical events taking place in IC 3476 are highly energetic. In fact, the little galaxy is undergoing a process known as ram pressure stripping, which is driving unusually high levels of star formation within regions of the galaxy itself.

We tend to associate the letters ‘ram’ with the acronym RAM, which refers to Random Access Memory in computing. However, ram pressure has a totally distinct definition in physics: it is the pressure exerted on a body when it moves through some form of fluid, due to the overall resistance of the fluid. In the case of entire galaxies experiencing ram pressure, the galaxies are the ‘bodies’ and the intergalactic or intracluster medium (the dust and gas that permeates the space between galaxies, and for the latter the spaces between galaxies in clusters) is the ‘fluid’.

Ram pressure stripping occurs when the ram pressure results in gas being stripped from the galaxy. This stripping away of gas can lead to a reduction in the level of star formation, or even its complete cessation, as gas is absolutely key to the formation of stars. However, the ram pressure can also cause other parts of the galaxy to be compressed, which can actually boost star formation. This is what seems to be taking place in IC 3476: there seems to be absolutely no star formation going on at the edge of the galaxy bearing the brunt of the ram pressure stripping, but then star formation rates within deeper regions of the galaxy seem to be markedly above the average.

[Image Description: A dwarf spiral galaxy. The centre is not particularly bright and is covered by some dust, while the outer disc and halo wrap around as if swirling water. Across the face of the galaxy, an arc of brightly glowing spots marks areas where new stars are being formed. The galaxy is surrounded by tiny, distant galaxies on a dark background.]

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Sun; CC BY 4.0

ESA's Gaia mission not only maps the stars in our galaxy but tells us what is in between the stars. The space between stars is not empty but instead filled with dust and gas clouds, out of which stars are born.

Through the precise measurements of the stars' positions and their dispersed light, Gaia allows us to map the absorption of the starlight by the interstellar medium. Those maps provide us with essential clues to the physical mechanisms of the formation of stars, galaxies, and the history of our home galaxy.

This map shows the interstellar dust that fills the Milky Way. The dark regions in the centre of the Galactic plane in black are the regions with a lot of interstellar dust fading to the yellow as the amount of dust decreases.The dark blue regions above and below the Galactic plane are regions where there is little dust.

Read more about Gaia's data release 3 here.

Credits: ESA/Gaia/DPAC; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

In August 2022, to mark the launch of the Picture of the Month series, ESA/Webb published a stunning image of the Phantom Galaxy (also known as M74 and NGC 628). Now, this series is revisiting the target to feature new data on this iconic spiral galaxy.

M74 resides around 32 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Pisces, and lies almost face-on to Earth. This, coupled with its well-defined spiral arms, makes it a favourite target for astronomers studying the origin and structure of galactic spirals.

This image features data from two of Webb’s instruments: MIRI (Mid-InfraRed Instrument) and NIRCam (Near-InfraRed Camera). Observations in the infrared reveal the galaxy’s creeping tendrils of gas, dust and stars. In this image the dark red regions trace the filamentary warm dust permeating the galaxy. The red regions show the reprocessed light from complex molecules forming on dust grains, while orange and yellow colours reveal the regions of gas ionised by the recently formed star clusters. Stellar feedback has a dramatic effect on the medium within the galaxy and creates a complex network of bright knots as well as cavernous black bubbles. The lack of gas in the nuclear region of this galaxy also provides an unobscured view of the nuclear star cluster at the galaxy's centre. M74 is a particular class of spiral galaxy known as a ‘grand design spiral’, meaning that its spiral arms are prominent and well-defined, unlike the patchy and ragged structure seen in some spiral galaxies.

M74 was observed by Webb as part of a series of observations collectively entitled Feedback in Emerging extrAgalactic Star clusTers, or FEAST (PI: A. Adamo). Many other targets of the FEAST programme, including NGC 4449, M51, and M83, were the subjects of previous ESA/Webb Picture of the Month images in 2023 and 2024. The FEAST observations were designed to shed light on the interplay between stellar feedback and star formation in environments outside the Milky Way galaxy. Stellar feedback is the term used to describe the outpouring of energy from stars into the environments which form them, and is a process that contributes significantly to determining the rates at which stars form. Understanding stellar feedback is vital for building accurate universal models of star formation.

The new Webb data obtained by the FEAST team has allowed scientists to look at the stellar nurseries in galaxies that are many light years away. Astronomers are learning how other galaxies are forming stars and how stars actively participate to model the galaxy interstellar medium. They have found that newly born stars slowly carve they gas and dust nurseries modifying the morphological appearance and essentially destructing them, as Webb has shown that this evolution is connected with star clusters. Furthermore, the team has concluded from their studies that the spiral arms captured by the extended coverage of the FEAST programme are the places where stars are forming more actively in the galaxy. The brighter and larger complexes of stellar nurseries are in the spiral arms fully captured by the new Webb data. The telescope is now revealing the map of hydrogen emission lines in the near-infrared. These lines are less affected than the dusts and reveals the places where new massive stars have just formed.

[Image Description: A large spiral galaxy takes up the entirety of the image. The core is mostly bright white, but there are also swirling, detailed structures that resemble water circling a drain. There is small white and pale blue light that emanates from stars and dust at the core’s centre, but it is tightly limited to the core. The rings feature colours of deep red and orange and highlight filaments of dust around cavernous black bubbles.]

Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Adamo (Stockholm University) and the FEAST JWST team; CC BY 4.0

Next Monday’s Artemis launch will be an uncrewed first flight, headed into orbit around the Moon. Yet technology previously worn by ESA astronauts on the International Space Station has also been hard-mounted aboard the NASA-ESA Orion module.

A set of five ESA Active Dosimeter – Mobile Units (EAD-MUs) will map the deep space and lunar radiation environment in as complete a manner as possible, allowing comparisons with ISS measurements and helping to assess the safety of crewed Artemis missions to follow.

Each about the size of a deck of cards, these EAD-MUs have been mounted on panels dotted around the capsule in different locations. This ISS-tested advanced technology – along with a complementary suite of NASA detectors and instrumented mannequins from the German Aerospace Center, DLR – will allow scientists to see how the radiation fluctuates during the mission, as well as showing total levels of ionising energies the spacecraft will travel through, from as far as almost half a million kilometres from our planet.

“These EAD-MUs – previously either worn by astronauts or used as area monitors for some 26 different regions of the ISS – are one element of a larger ESA-patented system, which includes a central device for EAD-MU charging and data transfer,” Explains ESA physicist Matthias Dieckmann of the Agency’s Directorate of Technology, Engineering and Quality, who led EAD development.

“The EAD system first flew with ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen in 2015. Its aim was to replace passive radiation dosimeters that had more of a ‘post mortem’ function, with limited detection responses and lacking any time-tagging, indicating only full-time integrated exposure. Instead we produced a gold standard technology that can provide flight surgeons with a complete chronological dossier of a crewmember’s exposure history, compliant with first class medical support, and with this obtain a reliable insight into the space radiation environment they live and work within.”

The EAD-MUs are also distinguished by verified, well-calibrated detector responses, Dr. Dieckmann adds: “This extends to some 14 orders of magnitude for neutrons, not matched by any other wearable detector, plus sensitivity to electrons and the particle masses emitted by our Sun, from primary protons through to ion nuclei.”

The versions aboard Orion are larger than the ISS-flown EAD-MUs, because they are equipped with an automated measurement start system – triggered by the acceleration of the 111-m-tall SLS launcher as it leaves the ground – plus a larger battery to keep the devices running throughout the approximately 40 day duration of the Artemis mission. Their data will be retrieved after Orion’s splashdown.

ESA has established a Radiation Research Road Map spanning this decade, which includes the placing of an enhanced version of the EAD-MU system is due to be flown aboard the Gateway – a planned space station in lunar orbit – as part of a set of payloads called the ESA Radiation Sensor Array.

EAD development was supported through ESA’s General Support Technology Programme, GSTP, which readies promising technology for space, led by Udo Becker. Dr. Dieckmann notes: “This marked the first time, thanks to Udo’s support, that this optional Agency programme made such a complex development possible, with contributions from four Member States: Austria, Finland, Germany and Ireland.”

Read more on the EAD-MUs aboard Orion at ESA’s Orion blog.

Credits: NASA

Using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have spotted two rare kinds of dust in the dwarf galaxy Sextans A, one of the most chemically primitive galaxies near the Milky Way. The finding of metallic iron dust and silicon carbide (SiC) produced by aging stars, along with tiny clumps of carbon-based molecules, shows that even when the Universe had only a fraction of today’s heavy elements, stars and the interstellar medium could still forge solid dust grains. This research with Webb is reshaping ideas about how early galaxies evolved and developed the building blocks for planets.

Webb’s data of the dwarf galaxy Sextans A has revealed polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), large carbon-based molecules that can be a signifier of star formation. In the above image, the inset at the top right zooms in on those PAHs, which are represented in green. In Sextans A, the PAHs are clumpy and relatively small.

Sextans A is a nearby galaxy that is chemically primitive, meaning it has a very low content of metals heavier than helium and hydrogen. It resembles galaxies that filled the early Universe, before stars had a chance to enrich the space with ‘metals’ like oxygen and iron. With the new discovery from Webb, Sextans A is now the lowest-metallicity galaxy ever found to contain PAHs.

The Webb image on the left was created with Webb data from proposal: 2391 (PI: J. Roman-Duval). More information about this result can be found here.

[Image description: A region of space is filled with stars and clumps of glowing orange and tan dust. A small portion of the sky at the center of the image is outlined with a white box. Lines extend from the corner of the box to the inset panel at the top right showing a magnified version of the outlined portion of the image. In the inset, there are smatterings of dim whitish-blueish stars and about seven glowing red orbs across the center in a line. Also across the center of the inset is a green glow. The background of the image is filled with stars and galaxies of various shapes and colors.]

Credits: STScI, NASA, ESA, CSA, KPNO, NSF's NOIRLab, AURA, E. Tarantino (STScI), P. Massey (Lowell Obs.), G. Jacoby (NSF, AURA), C. Smith (NSF, AURA), Image Processing: A. Pagan (STScI), T. A. Rector (UAA), M. Zamani (NSF's NOIRLab), D. De Martin (NSF's NOIRLab); CC BY 4.0

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 galaxy featured in this week’s Hubble Picture of the Week is the dwarf irregular galaxy NGC 5238, located 14.5 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Canes Venatici. Its unexciting, blob-like appearance, resembling more an oversized star cluster than a galaxy, belies a complicated structure which has been the subject of much research by astronomers. Here, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is able to pick out the galaxy’s countless stars, as well as its associated globular clusters — the glowing spots both inside and around the galaxy that are swarmed by yet more stars.

NGC 5238 is theorised to have recently — here meaning no more than a billion years ago! — had a close encounter with another galaxy. The evidence for this is the tidal distortions of NGC 5238’s shape, the kind produced by two galaxies pulling on each other as they interact. There’s no nearby galaxy which could have caused this disturbance, so the hypothesis is that the culprit is a smaller satellite galaxy that was devoured by NGC 5238. Traces of the erstwhile galaxy might be found by closely examining the population of stars in NGC 5238, a task for which the Hubble Space Telescope is an astronomer’s best tool. Two tell-tale signs would be groups of stars with properties that look out of place compared to most of the galaxy’s other stars, indicating that they were originally formed in a separate galaxy, or stars that look to have all formed abruptly at around the same time, which would occur during a galactic merger. The data used to make this image will be put to use in testing these predictions.

Despite their small size and unremarkable appearance, it’s not unusual for dwarf galaxies like NGC 5238 to drive our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution. One main theory of galaxy evolution is that galaxies formed ‘bottom-up’ in a hierarchical fashion: star clusters and small galaxies were the first to form out of gas and dark matter, and they gradually were assembled by gravity into galaxy clusters and superclusters, explaining the shape of the very largest structures in the Universe today. A dwarf irregular galaxy like NGC 5238 merging with an even smaller companion is just the type of event that might have begun this process of galaxy assembly in the early Universe. So, it turns out that this tiny galaxy may serve as a test of some of the most fundamental predictions in astrophysics!

[Image Description: A dwarf irregular galaxy. It appears as a cloud of bluish gas, filled with point-like stars that also spread beyond the edge of the gas. A few glowing red clouds sit near its centre. Many other objects can be seen around it: distant galaxies in the background, four-pointed stars in the foreground, and star clusters that are part of the galaxy - shining spots surrounded by more tiny stars.]

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, F. Annibali; CC BY 4.0

Simulating the test flight of a hypersonic glider, being developed through the international HEXAFLY-INT collaboration, involving partners across Europe, Russia, Australia and Brazil and supported by the European Commission and ESA.

The aim of the project is to develop and fly a waverider-based vehicle above seven times the speed of sound, designed to surf on the shock waves generated by its own high-speed flight. HEXAFLY-INT’s Experimental Flight Test Vehicle (EFTV) will be launched by a Brazilian sounding rocket before being deployed for its test glide.

At 3.29 m long, and 1.24 m wide, the EFTV is slightly smaller than a compact car, with a flat nose tip and wings. A detailed study of its aerodynamic performance was recently performed by Italy’s Centro Italiano Ricerche Aerospaziali, funded through ESA’s Technology Development Element.

Credits: ESA

The ELA-4 launch zone at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana is currently undergoing reconstruction in preparation for Europe’s Ariane 6 launch vehicle.

In this image you see both the launch pad and, in the background, the steel frame of the mobile gantry.

ESA and European industry are currently developing a new-generation launcher: Ariane 6. This follows the decision taken at the ESA Council meeting at Ministerial level in December 2014, to maintain Europe’s leadership in the fast-changing commercial launch service market while responding to the needs of European institutional missions.

The overarching aim of Ariane 6 is to provide guaranteed access to space for Europe at a competitive price without requiring public sector support for exploitation.

The targeted payload performance of Ariane 6 is over 4.5 t for polar/Sun-synchronous orbit missions at 800 km altitude and the injection of two first-generation Galileo satellites. Ariane 6 can loft a payload mass of 4.5–10.5 tonnes in equivalent geostationary transfer orbit.

The exploitation cost of the Ariane 6 launch system is its key driver. Launch service costs will be halved, while maintaining reliability by reusing the trusted engines of Ariane 5. The first flight is scheduled for 2020.

Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja

Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana is carrying out combined tests to prepare for the arrival of Ariane 6, Europe’s next generation heavy-lift launch vehicle.

The first Ariane 6 fairing has already arrived at the Spaceport from Europe. It is 20 m high and 5.4 m in diameter and is being integrated with a mockup payload to test equipment and procedures inside the assembly building.

Ruag Space in Emmen, Switzerland manufactures each entire large half-shell in one piece from carbon-fibre composite which is ‘cured’ in an industrial oven. This reduces cost and speeds up production. Fewer parts allow horizontal as well as vertical assembly of the closed fairing and the launch vehicle, which is particularly important for Ariane 6.

A blue metal scaffold on the right of the picture, called the ‘strongback’, encases the fairing. There is one for each half-shell to hold each steady and to maintain the shape of the fairing while it is being raised vertical, and during assembly.

The mockup payload stands on its payload adaptor – the black cone. This is the interface between the bottom of the payload and the rocket. The adapter cone is fixed to a permanent dock on the ground.

Before this combined test, the French space agency, CNES, updated the existing Ariane 5 assembly building with a new integration dock, composed of a large white frame, with two mobile platforms adjustable to any level and accessible by fixed stairs and platforms.

This assembly building has two halls: one for integration of the fairing on the Ariane 5 rocket, and an encapsulation hall where the payload is stowed in the fairing. This encapsulation hall is a spacious clean room for Ariane 6.

A new door 26 m high has been installed at the entrance of the building to make room for the integrated fairing, payload and adapter to move on its trailer to the Ariane 6 launch zone.

This activity is one of many extensive ‘combined tests’ which are being carried out in a team effort at the Spaceport by ESA, CNES, ArianeGroup, Avio and other industry partners. These tests will prove the systems and procedures that will prepare Europe's new Ariane 6 launch vehicle for flight.

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

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over Lake Valencia, in northern Venezuela.

This false-colour image was processed in a way that makes vegetation of the Henri Pittier National Park, north of the lake, appear in fluorescent green. These bright colours contrast with the blackness of the lake.

With a surface area of 370 sq km, Lake Valencia formed a few million years ago and is now a reservoir for the cities of Valencia on the west shores and Maracay on the east shores.

Unfortunately, the inflow of untreated wastewater from the surrounding industrial and agricultural lands has led to the lake to become contaminated. The lake now suffers from algal blooms and between 1960 and 1990 it lost over 60% of its native fish species.

It was at this very lake that the German naturalist and explorer, Alexander von Humboldt, witnessed how human behaviour could cause harm to our natural ecosystem and climate. During his travels in the late 18th century, he noted the surrounding barren land which had been cleared for plantations and crops for sugar and tobacco. He attributed the decreasing water levels in the lake to climate change.

“When forests are destroyed, the springs are entirely dried up,” he wrote in his travel report, the Relation historique du voyage aux régions équinoxiales du nouveau continent (1814-17). “The beds of the rivers are converted into torrents whenever great rains fall on the heights…Hence it results, that the destruction of forests, the want of permanent springs, and the existence of torrents, are three phenomena closely connected together.”

The now poor-quality waters of Lake Valencia prevent the development of tourism and recreational activities in the region.

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

This image, which was captured on 2 February 2019, 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

Captured on 1 October 2018 by the Copernicus Sentinel-2A satellite, this image features part of northeast Kenya – an area east of the East African Rift.

The region tends to be very arid and this false-colour image has been processed to highlight different types of rock, soil and sand in pinks, purples and yellows.

The bright green at the top of the image depicts vegetation, but the rest of the area appears relatively devoid of vegetation. Several dry river beds can also be seen etched into the landscape and the black shape in the middle-left appears to be an area of freshly burnt land. The lack of water has, at times, led to clashes between clans over access to water and pasture for cattle. When the rains do come, however, this dry dusty land can burst into life and turn a rich green.

Part of the ‘great north road’ can also been seen running from the bottom-left to the top-right. The road is one of the best in the country, linking Nairobi in the south of the country to Ethiopia. The northern 500-km stretch from Isiolo to the Kenyan–Ethiopian border town of Moyale took about nine years to build and was completed recently, but has reduced travel time from Nairobi to Moyale from three days to about 12 hours and opened up new opportunities for trade and business. Moyale can be seen in the top-right of the image.

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

This Copernicus Sentinel-2A 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

ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter image of the eastern flank of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the Solar System. In this scene, lava flow fields and lava channels are cross-cut by large volcano-tectonic structures. Aligned depressions at the far right of the image hint at a possible collapsed lava tube.

The image was taken by the orbiter’s Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System, CaSSIS on 25 May 2018 and captures an approximately 32 x 9.8 km segment centred at 15.8ºN/ 129.2ºW. North is to the right and slightly up in this orientation.

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

The third Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite, Sentinel-1C, has launched aboard a Vega-C rocket, flight VV25, from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The rocket lifted off on 5 December 2024 at 22:20 CET (18:20 local time).

Sentinel-1C extends the legacy of its predecessors, delivering high-resolution radar imagery to monitor Earth’s changing environment, supporting a diverse range of applications and advance scientific research. Additionally, Sentinel-1C introduces new capabilities for detecting and monitoring maritime traffic.

The launch also marks Vega-C’s ‘return to flight’, a key step in restoring Europe’s independent access to space. Vega-C is the evolution of the Vega family of rockets and delivers increased performance, greater payload volume and improved competitiveness.

Credits: ESA–M. Pédoussaut

ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter image of a section of the Ius Chasma floor located within the vast Valles Marineris canyon in the equatorial region of Mars. This image shows the interior deposits, layers and the floor material.

The image was taken by the orbiter’s Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System, CaSSIS on 27 May 2018 and captures an approximately 40.8 x 9 km segment centred at 7.8ºS/80.3ºW. North is to the bottom left in this orientation.

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

The Orion spacecraft with European Service Module at NASA’s Plum Brook Station. The first Orion will fly farther from Earth on the Artemis I mission than any human-rated vehicle has ever flown before – but first it will undergo testing to ensure the spacecraft withstands the extremes of spaceflight.

Here at NASA’s Plum Brook Station in Ohio, USA, Orion is being put into a thermal cage in preparation of getting its first feel of space in the world’s largest thermal vacuum chamber.

Orion will be subjected to temperatures at Plum Brook ranging from –115°C to 75°C in vacuum for over two months non-stop – the same temperatures it will experience in direct sunlight or in the shadow of Earth or the Moon while flying in space.

In the picture, Orion is being placed in a cage, called the Thermal Enclosure Structure (TES), that will radiate infrared heat during the tests inside the vacuum chamber.

The tests that will be run over the next few months will show that the spacecraft works as planned and adheres to the strictest safety regulations for human spaceflight. The European Service Module has 33 thrusters, 11 km of electrical wiring, four propellant and two pressurisation tanks that all work together to supply propulsion and everything needed to keep astronauts alive far from Earth – there is no room for error.

Credits: ESA–S. Corvaja

New research using a decade of data from ESA’s Mars Express has found clear signs of the complex martian atmosphere acting as a single, interconnected system, with processes occurring at low and mid levels significantly affecting those seen higher up.

Full story: Martian atmosphere behaves as one

Credits: ESA/Mars Express/MARSIS/B. Sánchez-Cano et al 2018

ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher is talking to ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer who is aboard the International Space Station during the Intermediate Ministerial Meeting (IMM21), where ESA’s Ministers in charge of space activities convened.

Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja

Featured in this Hubble Picture of the Week this week is the dwarf galaxy IC 776. This swirling collection of stars new and old is located in the constellation Virgo — in fact, in the Virgo galaxy cluster — 100 million light-years from Earth. While a dwarf galaxy, it's also been classified as an SAB-type or ‘weakly barred’ spiral, one study naming it a “complex case” in morphology. This highly detailed view from Hubble demonstrates that complexity well. IC 776 has a ragged, disturbed disc that nevertheless looks to spiral around the core, and arcs of star-forming regions.

This image is from an observation programme dedicated to the study of dwarf galaxies in the Virgo cluster, searching for sources of X-rays in such galaxies. X-rays are often emitted by accretion discs, where material that is drawn into a compact object by gravity crashes together and forms a hot, glowing disc. The compact object can be a white dwarf or neutron star in a binary pair, stealing material from its companion star, or it can be the supermassive black hole at the heart of a galaxy, devouring all around it. Dwarf galaxies like IC 776, travelling through the Virgo cluster, experience a pressure from the intergalactic gas which can both stimulate star formation and feed the central black hole in a galaxy. That can create energetic accretion discs, hot enough to emit X-rays.

While Hubble is not able to see X-rays, it can coordinate with X-ray telescopes such as NASA’s Chandra, revealing the sources of this radiation in high resolution using visible light. Dwarf galaxies are thought to be very important for our understanding of cosmology and the evolution of galaxies. As with many areas of astronomy, the ability to examine these galaxies across the electromagnetic spectrum is critical to their study.

[Image Description: A spiral galaxy viewed tilted at a diagonal angle. The core and the disc of the galaxy are different colours, but are otherwise difficult to tell apart, with the disc having wispy, ragged edges and many arcs of glowing star-forming patches. A few distant galaxies can be seen in the background around the spiral galaxy, as well as several foreground stars.]

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Sun CC BY 4.0

The Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) crew lifts off to the International Space Station atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from launchpad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA, on 25 June at 02:31 EDT, local time (07:31 BST/08:31 CEST).

ESA project astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski travels to his new home in space in the Dragon spacecraft. Sławosz is part of Axiom Mission 4 alongside Peggy Whitson (USA), Shubhanshu Shukla (India) and Tibor Kapu (Hungary).

During their journey on the Dragon spacecraft to the orbital outpost Sławosz and Tibor will serve as mission specialists, Shubhanshu will be the crew’s pilot and Peggy will be commander.

The Polish project astronaut is the second of a new generation of European astronauts to fly on a commercial human spaceflight opportunity with Axiom Space. Sponsored by the Polish government and supported by ESA, the Polish Ministry of Economic Development and Technology (MRiT), and the Polish Space Agency (POLSA), the mission will include an ambitious technological and scientific programme with several experiments led by ESA and proposed by the Polish space industry. The mission, known as Ignis will officially begin once Sławosz enters the Station.

Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski was selected in November 2022 as a member of the ESA astronaut reserve and joined ESA as a project astronaut on 1 September 2023 for training familiarisation at ESA’s European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany.

Follow Sławosz’s journey on the Ignis website, check our launch kit and connect with him on his Instagram and X accounts.

Credits: ESA - S.Corvaja

Get ready to bounce. Bouncing around on the Moon not only sounds like a lot of fun, but it could also be good for astronaut's muscles, bones and the cardiorespiratory system.

The "Movement in Low gravity environments" (MoLo) programme from ESA’s space medicine team at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne, Germany, aims to test movements in simulated reduced gravity, called hypogravity, on Earth.

This picture shows the first data collection stage of the MoLo study. A 17-metres refurbished ventilation shaft in ESA’s ground based facility “Locomotion On Other Planets” in Milan, Italy, is fitted with a bungee rope suspension system, which allows 6-metres high jumps to be performed. The study team consisting of experts from EAC, the German Sport University in Cologne, the Aachen University of Applied Sciences in Germany, the University of Bath in the UK and the University of Milan in Italy in addition to the German Aerospace Center DLR in Cologne, Germany, is evaluating the movement and balance of each test subject as they jump and perform various other forms of locomotion.

The small blue devices on the participant’s legs are electromyography (EMG) sensors used to measure muscle activity. The grey reflective markers placed on the test subject’s body allow for a full 3D motion analysis to reconstruct the participant’s body in software and analyse their movements.

The next step of the study will happen during a parabolic flight, a flight manoeuvre simulating lunar and Mars-like gravity. During the rollercoaster flight all body parts are affected equally, allowing the team to study the effects of hypogravity on human balance.

If the study reveals that balance is impaired due to reduced gravity levels, the findings will help provide insights that could be used to define effective countermeasure systems to prevent falls and balance problems on the lunar and Martian surfaces.

In a future step, the MoLo study team seeks to also test if hopping can be performed on the International Space Station where loading applied to the body is around 70% of that on Earth.

Hopping could be an additional and effective simple exercise to help astronauts mitigate or prevent deconditioning of muscles and bones that occurs when mechanical forces acting on the human body are reduced when living and working in space.

It could also provide an important aerobic exercise without the need for additional equipment even though astronauts will walk around on the lunar surface during Moonwalks as part of their normal daily tasks.

For further testing on Earth, the MoLo team is involved in developing a system for the ESA-DLR LUNA facility with a vertical suspension system that can suspend two people simultaneously and simulate a moonwalk under simulated hypogravity conditions.

With this pioneering project, the team is looking forward to expanding and pooling knowledge on the effects of hypogravity on the human body to prepare astronauts for future planetary exploration missions.

Credits: ESA

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, being unpacked from its shipping container in the Hydra clean room at ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre, ESTEC in the Netherlands on 30 April 2020.

Juice will undergo environmental testing in ESTEC’s Large Space Simulator to replicate the extreme heating and cooling cycles that the spacecraft will experience on its way to Jupiter.

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

Judith de Santiago, winner of the under 18 category of ESA’s lunar 3D printing competition, with the printed version of her design: a dodecahedron (or 12-sided) plant pot.

While studying lunar base concepts ESA ran a competition, asking: what would you 3D print on the Moon, to make it feel like home?

Judith, a student from Madrid, Spain, proposed a pot for plants that would be cherished on a Moon base, incorporating symbols of Earth: “The blue curves of the bottom represent the waves of the sea, and the badge with a small plant located at the centre, inspired by Disney’s movie WALL·E, represents the Earth in general.”

Judith ensured her design was realistic by designing it in a 3D printing format.

“I first got interested in 3D printing two years ago when my high school got a new 3D printer,” Judith explains. “We were talking about future printers and what they have in mind to do with them such us using them for medical situations or maybe to build houses or even more!

“I remember my first 3D prototype: that day I was learning how to draw in a new app and I told my father to choose a random item. That's how I did a coke can, then I sent it to my tech teacher to print it for me and the result was amazing.

“Since then I've been learning how to use the different apps to create from basic figures to replace some broken pieces. Finally, I got a small 3D printer for my birthday so I could keep practicing.”

As a prize, Judith received this prototype version of her design BeeVeryCreative in Portugal, part of the URBAN consortium of companies overseeing ESA’s ‘Conceiving a Lunar Base Using 3D Printing Technologies’ project: “It is exactly as I imagined it to be – I was very excited to see it.”

The competition received more than a hundred entries from adults and children across the world with other ideas including a mobile lampshade to generate Earth-like colours, an hourglass filled with lunar dust, a glass model of Earth including realistic night lighting, proposals for statues and game boards – not to mention a few suggestions to print a 3D printer.

The adult category was won by visual artist Helen Schell from the UK, proposing a ‘magic Moon garden’, printed from recycled coloured plastics.

Credits: J. Santiago

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 Vega-C Zefiro 40 second stage has now been transferred to and integrated at the Vega Launch Zone (Zone de Lancement Vega) ZLV at Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana on 4 May 2022.

On the wave of Vega’s success, Member States at the ESA Ministerial meeting in December 2014 agreed to develop the more powerful Vega-C to respond to an evolving market and to long-term institutional needs.

Vega-C increases performance from Vega’s current 1.5 t to about 2.2 t in a reference 700 km polar orbit, covering identified European institutional users’ mission needs, with no increase in launch service and operating costs.

The participating states in this development are: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Credits: ESA - M. Pedoussaut

This image of Greece is compiled from data returned from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission between April and September 2020.

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

At 11:12 GMT (13:12 CEST), 6 June 2018, ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst was launched into space alongside NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor and Roscosmos commander Sergei Prokopyev in the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The launch went as planned as the 50-m tall Soyuz rocket propelled the astronauts to their cruising speed of around 28 800 km/h. Within 10 minutes of rising from the pad, the trio travelled over 1640 km and gained 210 km altitude. Every second for nine minutes, their spacecraft accelerated 50 km/h on average.

The spacecraft is an improved model from the last time Alexander was launched into space in 2014 with many technological upgrades to make the spacecraft lighter and more modern. For example, halogen lights have been replaced with LEDs, and newer and larger solar panels increase power generation.

Over the next two days, while circling Earth 34 times, the trio will catch up with the International Space Station where they will spend the next six months. The journey is relatively smooth and quiet after the rigours of launch. With no Internet or satellite phones, the crew relies on radio to communicate at set intervals with ground control.

The German astronaut is a returning visitor to the International Space Station, the first of ESA’s 2009 class of astronauts to be sent into space for a second time. During the second part of his mission Alexander will take over as commander of the International Space Station, only the second time an ESA astronaut will take on this role so far.

Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja

This whirling image features a bright spiral galaxy known as MCG-01-24-014, which is located about 275 million light-years from Earth. In addition to being a well-defined spiral galaxy, MCG-01-24-014 has an extremely energetic core, known as an active galactic nucleus (AGN), so it is referred to as an active galaxy. Even more specifically, it is categorised as a Type-2 Seyfert galaxy. Seyfert galaxies host one of the most common subclasses of AGN, alongside quasars. Whilst the precise categorisation of AGNs is nuanced, Seyfert galaxies tend to be relatively nearby ones where the host galaxy remains plainly detectable alongside its central AGN, while quasars are invariably very distant AGNs whose incredible luminosities outshine their host galaxies.

There are further subclasses of both Seyfert galaxies and quasars. In the case of Seyfert galaxies, the predominant subcategories are Type-1 and Type-2. These are differentiated from one another by their spectra — the pattern that results when light is split into its constituent wavelengths — where the spectral lines that Type-2 Seyfert galaxies emit are particularly associated with specific so-called ‘forbidden’ emission. To understand why emitted light from a galaxy could be considered forbidden, it helps to understand why spectra exist in the first place. Spectra look the way they do because certain atoms and molecules will absorb and emit light very reliably at very specific wavelengths. The reason for this is quantum physics: electrons (the tiny particles that orbit the nuclei of atoms and molecules) can only exist at very specific energies, and therefore electrons can only lose or gain very specific amounts of energy. These very specific amounts of energy correspond to certain light wavelengths being absorbed or emitted.

Forbidden emission lines, therefore, are spectral emission lines that should not exist according to certain rules of quantum physics. But quantum physics is complex, and some of the rules used to predict it use assumptions that suit laboratory conditions here on Earth. Under those rules, this emission is ‘forbidden’ — so improbable that it’s disregarded. But in space, in the midst of an incredibly energetic galactic core, those assumptions don’t hold anymore, and the ‘forbidden’ light gets a chance to shine out towards us.

[Image Description: A spiral galaxy. It appears to be almost circular and seen face-on, with two prominent spiral arms winding out from a glowing core. It is centred in the frame as if a portrait. Most of the background is black, with only tiny, distant galaxies, but there are two large bright stars in the foreground, one blue and one red, directly above the galaxy.]

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

When the setup for a science experiment looks like this, it is easy to confuse it for a session at the arcade. But sometimes science is as fact as fiction.

The subject imaged here is training to fly a Soyuz spacecraft, currently the only means of transport for astronauts to and from the International Space Station. However, it is not the simulator but where it is located that is the focus of this experiment.

It is located at Concordia station, a research hub on a plateau 3200 m above sea level on the Antarctic peninsula. A place of extremes, temperatures on the white continent 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.

Despite these harsh conditions, up to 15 people spend around a year at a time living in Concordia in the name of science. Far removed from civilisation, the white world of Antarctica offers researchers the opportunity to collect data and experiment like no other place on Earth.

The participant in this image is taking part in the SimSkill project that investigates how often astronauts should train to maintain their piloting skills during a long spaceflight.

After their first training, participants are divided into two groups: one that “flies” once a month, while the other group does a refresher course once every three months over their winter stay in Antarctica.

Since no video or arcade game has provided satisfying answers to this query so far, ESA participates in the Italian-French base to research future missions to other planets, using the base as a model for extraterrestrial planets.

The experiment investigates whether or not isolation and oxygen deprivation endured at Concordia affects a pilot’s abilities and, if so, how.

The air in Concordia is very thin and holds less oxygen due to the altitude. Venturing outside the base requires wearing layers of clothes and limits the time spent outdoors – much like living on another planet.

In the great open landscape covered in darkness, colours, smells and sounds are almost non-existent, adding to the sense of loneliness. The isolation and sensory deprivation can wreak havoc on crewmembers’ biological clock, making it hard to get a good night’s sleep.

The results will be evaluated and compared to the same experiment performed in Stuttgart, Germany, and at the British Antarctic Survey’s Halley station, located at sea level in Antarctica.

Science is everywhere at ESA. As well as exploring the Universe and answering the big questions about our place in space we develop the satellites, rockets and technologies to get there. Science also helps us to care for our home planet. All this week we're highlighting different aspects of science at ESA. Join the conversation with #ScienceAtESA

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Follow the latest updates from Concordia on the blog

Credits: ESA/IPEV/PNRA-N. Albertsen

This colour-coded topographic image shows the Idaeus Fossae region of Mars.

It was created from data collected by ESA’s Mars Express on 8 November 2024 (orbit 26325) and 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 and reds, as indicated on the scale to the top right.

North is to the right. The ground resolution of the original image is approximately 17 m/pixel and the image is centred at about 37°N/309°E.

Read more

[Image description: A colour-coded topographic map of a martian surface. The terrain is mostly pale yellow and pinkish, with several large circular craters filled with bright colours – green, blue, and purple – due to their depth.. Smaller craters and faint ridges are scattered across the scene. A scale bar at the top right indicates the height shown by different colours.]

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

Ariane 5 parts are coming together in the launch vehicle integration building for the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

The Ariane 5 core stage is 5.4 m diameter and 30.5 m high. On 6 November it was taken out of its shipping container and raised vertical.

At launch it will contain 175 t of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen propellants. With its Vulcain 2 engine it provides 140 t of thrust. It also provides roll control during the main propulsion phase. This rolling manoeuvre will ensure that all parts of the payload are equally exposed to the sun which will avoid overheating of any elements of Webb.

Two boosters followed. They are 3 m in diameter and 31 m high. This week they will be positioned on the launch table and then anchored to the core stage. Engineers will then carry out mechanical and electrical checks. Each booster contains 240 t of solid propellant, together they will provide 1200 t of thrust which is 90 percent of the thrust at liftoff.

On the countdown to launch, the Vulcain 2 engine is ignited first. A few seconds later, when it reaches its nominal operating level, the two boosters are fired to achieve a thrust of about 1364 t at liftoff.

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 - P.Baudon

On Saturday 11 December, the James Webb Space Telescope was placed on top of the Ariane 5 rocket that will launch it to space from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

After its arrival in the final assembly building, Webb was lifted slowly about 40 m high and then carefully manoeuvred on top of Ariane 5, after which technicians bolted Webb’s launch vehicle adapter down to the rocket.

This whole process was performed under strict safety and cleanliness regulations, as it was one of the most delicate operations during the entire launch campaign for Webb.

A ‘shower curtain’ about 12 m high and 8 m in diameter was installed in between two platforms, to create a closed-off space around Webb to avoid any contamination.

The next step is to encapsulate Webb inside Ariane 5’s specially adapted 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-Manuel Pedoussaut

A team using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered a new type of astronomical object —a starless, gas-rich, dark-matter cloud that is considered a “relic” or remnant of early galaxy formation. Nicknamed “Cloud-9,” this is the first confirmed detection of such an object in the Universe

This image shows the blank field of the surrounding region of Cloud-9, which is 2,000 light-years from Earth. The image identifying its location can be found here.

[Image description: A dark field with stars and galaxies of various sizes speckled throughout the image. A particularly bright star is visible in the upper left region of the image.]

Credits: NASA, ESA. G. Anand (STScI), and A. Benitez-Llambay (Univ. of Milan-Bicocca); Image processing: J. DePasquale (STScI); CC BY 4.0

Thousands of glimmering galaxies are bound together by their own gravity, making up a massive cluster formally classified as MACS J1423.

The largest bright white oval is a supergiant elliptical galaxy that is the dominant member of this galaxy cluster. The galaxy cluster acts like a lens, magnifying and distorting the light from objects that lie well behind it, an effect known as gravitational lensing that has big research benefits. Astronomers can study lensed galaxies in detail, like the Firefly Sparkle galaxy.

This 2023 image is from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-InfraRed Camera). Researchers used Webb to survey the same field that the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope imaged in 2010. Thanks to its specialisation in high-resolution near-infrared imagery, Webb was able to show researchers many more galaxies in far more detail.

[Image description: Thousands of overlapping objects at various distances are spread across this field, including galaxies in a massive galaxy cluster, and distorted background galaxies behind the galaxy cluster. The background of space is black.]

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Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, C. Willott (NRC-Canada), L. Mowla (Wellesley College), K. Iyer (Columbia); CC BY 4.0

ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst landed on Earth for the second time on 20 December 2018 together with NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergei Prokopiev. Their Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft landed in the steppe of Kazakhstan at 05:02 GMT (11:02 local time). The landing concluded Alexander’s Horizons mission that saw him take over command of the International Space Station during Expedition 57.

The trio’s landing in the Kazakh steppe marked the successful conclusion of over six months in space during which Alexander conducted over 60 European experiments, became the second ever European commander of the International Space Station, welcomed six resupply vehicles, installed the first commercial facility for research in the Columbus laboratory, delivered an important message on climate change for leaders at the COP24 climate change conference, captured real-time footage of a Soyuz launch abort and much, much more.

Horizons was Alexander’s second mission to the International Space Station – the first was Blue Dot in 2014.

Alexander will take his time to readapt to Earth’s gravity supported by ESA’s team of space medicine experts at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany. He will also continue to provide ground-based data for researchers to support experiments performed in space.

Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0