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Fifth-grade students from Emerson Elementary School in Maywood, Illinois, place cardboard boxes over their heads to shield their eyes from the sun, 1963
ESA's star-surveying Gaia mission has released a treasure trove of new data as part of its ‘focused product release’. One of the new papers reveals more about 156 823 of the asteroids identified as part of Gaia DR3, the orbits of which are shown in this image. The new dataset pinpoints the positions of these rocky bodies over nearly double the previous timespan, making most of their orbits – based on Gaia observations alone – 20 times more precise.
This image utilises DR3 data to show the 156 823 asteroid orbits. The wider blue and yellow circles in the frame show planetary orbits, while the myriad colourful inner swirls are asteroids. The central region all lies within the orbit of Jupiter (blue circle). See more on these asteroids.
Alt-text: This image shows many looping and overlapping orbits encircling the Sun, all of different colours (to differentiate between asteroids). The centre of the image – representing an area within the orbit of Jupiter – is very densely packed with orbits, while the outer edges remain clearer, showing the background plane of the Milky Way.
Acknowledgements: Stefan Jordan, Toni Sagristà, Paolo Tanga; Gaia Sky (developed by Toni Sagristà); Gaia DR3 data
Credits: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The Vega-C Payload Assembly Composite (PAC) with LARES-2 has been placed onto the Upper Composite Transport Platform (PFRCS PlatForme Routière Composite Supérieur) on 5 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
ESA’s Hera mission lifted off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, USA, on 7 October at 10:52 local time (16:52 CEST, 14:52 UTC).
Hera is ESA’s first planetary defence mission. It will fly to a unique target among the 1.3 million asteroids in our Solar System – the only body to have had its orbit shifted by human action – to solve lingering unknowns associated with its deflection.
Hera will carry out the first detailed survey of a ‘binary’ – or double-body – asteroid, 65803 Didymos, which is orbited by a smaller body, Dimorphos. Hera’s main focus will be Dimorphos, whose orbit around the main body was previously altered by NASA’s kinetic-impacting DART spacecraft.
By sharpening scientific understanding of this ‘kinetic impact’ technique of asteroid deflection, Hera should turn the experiment into a well-understood and repeatable technique for protecting Earth from an asteroid on a collision course.
Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja
This striking image captures the interacting galaxy pair known as Arp-Madore 2339-661, so named because they belong to the Arp-Madore catalogue of peculiar galaxies. However, this particular peculiarity might be even odder than first meets the eye, as there are in fact three galaxies interacting here, not just two.
The two clearly defined galaxies are NGC 7733 (smaller, lower right) and NGC 7734 (larger, upper left). The third galaxy is currently referred to as NGC 7733N, and can actually be spotted in this picture if you look carefully at the upper arm of NGC 7733, where there is a visually notable knot-like structure, glowing with a different colour to the arm and obscured by dark dust. This could easily pass as part of NGC 7733, but analysis of the velocities (speed, but also considering direction) involved in the galaxy shows that this knot has a considerable additional redshift, meaning that it is very likely its own entity and not part of NGC 7733. This is actually one of the many challenges that observational astronomers face: working out whether an astronomical object really is just one, or one lying in front of another as seen from Earth’s perspective!
All three galaxies lie quite close to each other, roughly 500 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Tucana, and, as this image shows, they are interacting gravitationally with one another. In fact, some science literature refers to them as a ‘merging group’, meaning that they are on a course to ultimately become a single entity.
[Image Description: Two spiral galaxies. Each glows brightly in the centre, where a bar stretches from side to side. The upper one is more round and its arms form two thin rings. The lower galaxy is flatter and its arms make one outer ring; a dusty knot atop its upper arm marks out a third object. Gravity is pulling gas and dust together where the galaxies come close. A number of small galaxies surround them on a black background.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Dalcanton, Dark Energy Survey/DOE/FNAL/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA; CC BY 4.0
Acknowledgement: L. Shatz
ESA’s new Sun exploring spacecraft Solar Orbiter launched atop the US Atlas V 411 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 04:03 GMT (05:03 CET) on 10 February 2020. An ESA-led mission with strong NASA participation, Solar Orbiter will look at some of the never-before-seen regions of the Sun, such as the poles, and attempt to shed more light on the origins of solar wind, which can knock out power grids on the ground and disrupt operations of satellites orbiting the Earth. The spacecraft will take advantage of the gravitational pull of Venus to adjust its orbit to obtain unprecedented views of the solar surface.
Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja
In late May 2019, a spiral-shaped dust storm at the north polar ice cap of Mars was observed by several instruments onboard Mars Express. This image was taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on 26 May and covers an area of about two thousand by five thousand kilometres.
The spiral shape of the storm arises from the deflection of air masses due to the rotation of the planet, a phenomenon known as the Coriolis force. This effect is also observed on Earth, where low-pressure areas at the northern hemisphere – cyclones, for example – have a clockwise spiral shape. However, storms on Mars are generally weaker compared to storms on Earth, on account of the Red Planet’s much lower atmospheric pressure – less than one percent of Earth’s atmospheric pressure at the surface – and have less than half the typical wind speeds of hurricanes on Earth.
The swirling pattern of the north polar ice cap can also be seen at the far top-right of the image. At the same time, wispy clouds can be seen along the edge of the ice cap, and also further south (left) around the large volcanoes. The dark patches are the result of dust blown volcanic material on the surface.
Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana is preparing for the arrival of Ariane 6, ESA’s new heavy-lift rocket. This involves the final preparations of the new Ariane 6 launch complex and all the systems necessary for a launch.
On the launch pad, two ‘cryo-arms’ made and tested in France have been attached to the upper end of the mast. They are part of the fluidic connection system which connects to the Ariane 6 upper stage.
These ‘cryo arms’ support the upper umbilicals which supply the Ariane 6 upper stage with cryogenic top-up fuel, maintain the correct pressurisation of the upper stage tanks, cool the engines before ignition and generally keep the upper stage in an optimal condition right up to the point of liftoff. The same umbilicals allow the fuel to be drained safely if a launch is aborted.
Each arm is 13 m long and weighs 20 tonnes. One arm supplies liquid hydrogen at -250ºC, the other supplies liquid oxygen at -180ºC. When Ariane 6 lifts off, these arms will disconnect from the rocket and then pivot away quickly in just 2.6 seconds to avoid interfering with the rocket's ascent.
This manoeuvre requires great precision in order, almost simultaneously, to disconnect the arms, protect the supply hoses from gas ejections from the boosters and allow the launch vehicle to pass while avoiding any contact with it. A 50-tonne counterweight inside the mast – as heavy as a humpback whale – speeds up the retraction of the arms. A smart damping system allows the arms to brake before the end of their swing backwards in order to preserve the mechanical links with the mast.
Keeping the fluidic supplies connected with the rocket until the moment of liftoff guarantees the best availability and simplification of the interface with the launch vehicle.
The disconnect time for Ariane 6 is much faster than for Ariane 5, which is six seconds before liftoff. This means that the sequence for Ariane 6 can be triggered at the latest possible moment in the countdown reducing the chance of unnecessary disconnects on an aborted launch.
These articulated structures will now be tested with the mobile gantry fully retracted – as for a launch. They will repeat the tests performed in Fos-sur-Mer, France, but this time attached to the mast.
Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace
Reaching a major milestone, engineers have connected successfully the two halves of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope for the first time at Northrop Grumman’s facilities in Redondo Beach, California. Once it reaches space, Webb will explore the cosmos using infrared light, from planets and moons within our Solar System to the most ancient and distant galaxies.
To combine both halves of Webb, engineers carefully lifted the telescope (which includes the mirrors and science instruments) above the already-combined sunshield and spacecraft using a crane. Team members slowly guided the telescope into place, ensuring that all primary points of contact were perfectly aligned and seated properly. The observatory has been mechanically connected; next steps will be to electrically connect the halves, and then test the electrical connections.
Later, engineers will fully deploy the intricate five-layer sunshield, which is designed to keep Webb's mirrors and scientific instruments cold by blocking infrared light from Earth, the Moon and Sun. The ability of the sunshield to deploy to its correct shape is critical to mission success.
Webb is scheduled for launch on a European Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana in March 2021.
The James Webb Space Telescope is an international project led by NASA with its partners, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency. As part of its contribution to the project, ESA provides the NIRSpec instrument, the Optical Bench Assembly of the MIRI instrument, the Ariane 5 launcher, and staff to support mission operations at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, USA.
Read more about the assembly of the two halves
Credits: NASA/Chris Gunn
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over palm oil plantations in East Kalimantan - the Indonesian part of the island Borneo.
Palm oil is the most widely-produced tropical edible oil. It’s used in a vast array of products – from ice cream and chocolates, to cosmetics such as make up and soap, to biofuel. Not only is it versatile, palm oil is also a uniquely productive crop. Harvested all year-round, oil palm trees produce up to nine times more oil per unit area than other major oil crops.
To meet global demand, palm oil trees are grown on vast industrial plantations – leading to acres of rainforest being cut down. Between 1980 and 2014, global palm oil production increased from 4.5 million tonnes to 70 million tonnes, and is expected to increase.
Indonesia is the largest producer of palm oil, followed by Malaysia. Together they account for 84% of the world’s palm oil production.
To produce palm oil in large enough quantities to meet growing demand, farmers clear large areas of tropical rainforest to make room for palm plantations. This leads to a loss of habitat for species such as the orangutan – declared as critically endangered by the WWF. In general, burning forests to make room for the crop is also a major source of greenhouse gas emissions.
In this image, captured on 15 February 2019, the various stages of the deforestation process are clearly visible – the green patches in the plantations are the well-established palm oil farms, while the light brown patches show the newly-harvested land. The surrounding lush rainforest is visible in dark green.
Copernicus Sentinel-2 is a two-satellite mission, used mostly to track changes in the way land is being used, as well as monitoring the health of vegetation. Each satellite carries a high-resolution camera that images Earth’s surface in 13 spectral bands.
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
This life-size copy of the world-famous Rosetta spacecraft is living out its retirement at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany.
Engineering models are an important part of spacecraft operations – acting as faithful and realistic testbeds for all sorts of trials and tricks too risky to attempt, first-go, on the original.
Models like this also serve as mementos of our human endeavours in space, which are so often hard to visualise, and even harder to get close to.
The original Rosetta probe carried out its final manoeuvre at 20:50 GMT (22:50 CEST) on 29 September 2016, setting itself down on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko and sending its final image from just 24 or so metres above the surface.
While we no longer receive updates from the plucky comet-chaser, our super model in Germany reminds us every day of what a remarkable achievement this was.
Credits: ESA/J. Mai
This image, from the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission on 1 November 2023, captures the colours of autumn over the Japanese archipelago.
Japan is made up of thousands of islands stretching some 2500 km through the western Pacific Ocean. Almost all of the land area, however, is taken up by the country’s four main islands, three of which are pictured in this image. From north to south we see Honshu, the largest island extending in a northeast–southwest arc, Shikoku, just beneath the lower part of Honshu, and Kyushu at the bottom.
The image also shows how Japan is mainly mountainous and about 68% of the land area is covered by forest. Cooler temperatures and fewer daylight hours triggered the autumn foliage, which shows up here in shades of brown and red, particularly in forests in the upper part of the image. The colours depend on the various tree species, local weather, altitude and orientation of the slopes.
Urban areas and cultivated land stand out in sharp contrast in tones of grey. The largest area on the eastern coast of Honshu is Japan’s capital Tokyo. This metropolitan area – commonly known as Greater Tokyo – stretches around Tokyo Bay and is home to about 37 million people, making it the largest megacity in the world. Other urban areas, visible moving south along the Pacific coast of Honshu, are Nagoya and Osaka.
Honshu is also home to the country’s highest mountain Mount Fuji, a volcano that has been dormant since 1707. Its snow-capped summit can be spotted as a small white dot near the Pacific coast, about 100 km southwest of Tokyo.
Another volcano, visible with a plume of smoke pouring from its summit, is Sakurajima on the southern island of Kyushu. Formerly an island-volcano in the middle of Kagoshima Bay, it is now a peninsula after a powerful eruption in 1914 connected it with the Osumi Peninsula to the east.
Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellites carry four sensors working together, making it the most complex so far of all the Sentinel missions. The Ocean and Land Colour Instrument used to create this image offers new eyes on Earth, monitoring ocean ecosystems, supporting crop management and agriculture, and providing estimates of atmospheric aerosol and clouds.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2023), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The Copernicus Sentinel-3B satellite cocooned in its rocket fairing ready to be placed on the train that will take it to the launch pad.
Sentinel-3B will ride into space on a Rockot on 25 April at 17:57 GMT (19:57 CEST). In orbit it will join its identical twin, Sentinel-3A, which was launched in 2016. This pairing of satellites provides the best coverage and data delivery for Copernicus. Sentinel-3B is the seventh Sentinel satellite to be launched for Copernicus. Its launch will complete the constellation of the first set of Sentinel missions for Europe’s Copernicus programme.
Credits: ESA–S. Corvaja
This image from ESA’s Mars Express shows a region of Mars known as Caralis Chaos, where copious water is thought to have once existed in the form of an ancient lake.
Numerous labels have been placed across the terrain, highlighting features and regions of note. Be sure to click on these labels to explore the landscape in detail!
This image comprises data gathered by Mars Express’s High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on 1 January 2024 (orbit 25235). It was created using data from the nadir channel, the field of view aligned perpendicular to the surface of Mars, and the colour channels of the HRSC. North is to the right. The ground resolution is approximately 15 m/pixel and the image is centred at about 38°S/177°E.
[Image description: This tan-coloured slice of ground is smoother to the left and becomes covered in small hills and mounds to the right. Wriggly, uneven ridges cut horizontally across the frame, while two prominent fault lines cut down vertically on the left and right. Large and small craters are peppered across the terrain. The worn-away boundaries of a once-colossal lakebed can be seen curving up and away from the bottom-centre to the top right; this skirts around the largest crater seen here, which sits in the middle of the picture encircled by rough, irregular valleys and channels.]
Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
On 24 March 2022, ESA came one step closer to unveiling the mysteries of the dark Universe, following the coming together of two key parts of the Euclid spacecraft – the instrument-carrying payload module and the supporting service module.
This image shows the 800-kilogram payload module being lifted by a crane, just before it was lowered onto the service module.
Euclid’s instruments were integrated onto the payload module at the end of 2020. During 2021, the complete module successfully passed intensive testing under simulated space conditions to check that the telescope and instruments work as expected.
Read more about the coming together of the two modules here.
Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja
Gravity: we can live with it, and it turns out we can live without it, for a little while anyway.
Under the elemental force of nature keeping all our parts and planet together, humans thrive. But in weightlessness and funny things begin to happen. Our muscles start to wear away, our bones decay, our balance shifts and our spatial perception falters.
Astronauts living and working in space are helping researchers determine the acceptable limits of these changes. So too are subjects taking part in experiments here on Earth.
In this image, a volunteer tries to get to the tennis ball as part of an experiment testing the influence of weightlessness on the perception of distance. He must first determine the distance of the ball from his person under normal gravity conditions by walking blindfolded to it.
For the microgravity portion of the experiment, researchers set up a sled along which subjects can pull themselves to the ball. In this scenario, the body is reclined and the arms are helping, giving the brain some more signals to work with to estimate the distance.
The experiment, developed by the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center in France, is taking place on this week's parabolic flight campaign aboard a Novespace Zero-G aircraft. The special aircraft simulates different levels of gravity, from 2g to 0g, by flying in parabolas.
Researchers will compare the results in normal gravity conditions (1g), nearly twice the force on the upward incline of the plane (1.8 g), and at freefall during the plane’s descent (0g).
Astronauts have long reported spatial disorientation in orbit. Without a grip on where you are in space, it is hard to measure distance. This can affect astronauts’ performance when using the robotic arm or during a spacewalk. To solve the problem, researchers must first assess the full scope of it.
Previous runs of this experiment had the subjects blind-pulling themselves up or down while sitting up and lying down. In the latest iteration, researchers will test lateral distance perception by having subjects blind-pull themselves to the left and right to the ball.
The ultimate goals of the experiment are to better understand to what degree gravity or the lack of it affects the sensorimotor (what we see) and neurocognitive (what we think) systems.
Deeper insights into these systems will help researchers fine tune the countermeasures that help keep astronauts living in space healthy during and after spaceflight.
Credits: Novespace
This composite NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the debris ring and dust clouds cs1 and cs2 around the star Fomalhaut. For comparison, dust cloud cs1, imaged in 2012, is pictured with dust cloud cs2, imaged in 2023. The dashed circles mark the location of these clouds. When dust cloud cs2 suddenly appeared, astronomers quickly noticed they had witnessed the violent collision of two massive objects. Previously thought to be a planet, cs1 is now classified as a similar debris cloud. In this image, Fomalhaut itself is masked out to allow the fainter features to be seen. Its location is marked by the white star.
This image was created from Hubble data from proposal #17139 (P. Kalas).
[Image description: Image labeled Fomalhaut system, Hubble Space Telescope. A grainy orange oval ring tilts slightly from upper right to lower left. At two o’clock, a white box outlines the ring’s edge and white lines extend to a larger pullout at lower right. Two spots are labeled cs1 2013 and cs2 2023. Inside the ring is a black circle with a white star symbol in the middle.]
Credits: NASA, ESA, P. Kalas (UC Berkeley), J. DePasquale (STScI); CC BY 4.0
Featured in this new image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope is the dwarf galaxy NGC 4449. This galaxy, also known as Caldwell 21, resides roughly 12.5 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici. It is part of the M94 galaxy group, which lies close to the Local Group that hosts our Milky Way.
NGC 4449 has been forming stars for several billion years, but it is currently experiencing a period of star formation at a much higher rate than in the past. Such unusually explosive and intense star formation activity is called a starburst and for that reason NGC 4449 is known as a starburst galaxy. In fact, at the current rate of star formation, the gas supply that feeds the production of stars would only last for another billion years or so. Starbursts usually occur in the central regions of galaxies, but NGC 4449 displays more widespread star formation activity, and the very youngest stars are observed both in the nucleus and in streams surrounding the galaxy. It's likely that the current widespread starburst was triggered by interaction or merging with a smaller companion; indeed, astronomers think NGC 4449's star formation has been influenced by interactions with several of its neighbours.
NGC 4449 resembles primordial star-forming galaxies which grew by merging with and accreting smaller stellar systems. Since NGC 4449 is close enough to be observed in great detail, it is the ideal laboratory for astronomers to study what may have occurred during galaxy formation and evolution in the early Universe.
The image was captured by Webb’s NIRCam, or Near-InfraRed Camera. In this image, the bright red spots correspond to regions rich in hydrogen that have been ionised by the radiation from the newly formed stars. The diffuse gradient of blue light around the central region shows the distribution of older stars. The compact light-blue regions within the red ionised gas, mostly concentrated in the galaxy’s outer region, show the distribution of young star clusters.
[Image Description: A dwarf galaxy. It is illuminated by a strong, cool light radiating from its core, a bar-shaped area at the centre, and filled with a huge number of visible stars that appear as tiny glowing points. Faint wisps and clouds of dust wind around and through the galaxy’s core. Some are lit up by star-forming regions inside them. Many small, distant galaxies can be seen through and around the dwarf galaxy.]
Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Adamo (Stockholm University) and the FEAST JWST team
The Crew Dragon capsule carrying ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer and NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron home from the International Space Station splashed down off the coast of Florida, USA, on Friday 6 May 2022 at 05:43 BST/06:43 CEST.
Its return marks the end of Crew-3’s almost six-month stay in orbit and the end of Matthias’s first mission, known as Cosmic Kiss.
Crew-3 undocked from the International Space Station in Crew Dragon spacecraft Endurance at 06:20 BST/07:20 CEST Thursday 5 May.
When a Crew capsule splashes down, it is met by nearby ships with experts ready to bring it on board, open the hatch, and welcome the astronauts home. After initial medical checks, the crew is transported by helicopter to shore.
Now that his mission has come to an end, Matthias will return to ESA’s European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany, where he will participate in post-flight debriefings, provide samples for scientific evaluation and readapt to Earth’s gravity with the support of ESA experts.
Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja
This image shows the Sun in visible light. It was taken by the Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI) onboard the Solar Orbiter spacecraft on 22 March 2023. The instrument collected red light with a wavelength of 617 nanometres.
What you see is the visible surface of the Sun, also called the photosphere. Almost all radiation from the Sun comes from this layer, which has a temperature between 4500 and 6000 °C. Beneath it, the hot, dense plasma is churned around in the ‘convection zone’ of the Sun, not unlike magma in Earth's mantle.
The most striking features in this image are the sunspots. These look like dark spots, or holes, in the otherwise smooth surface. Sunspots are regions where the Sun's magnetic field breaks through. This inhibits the plasma’s convection because charged particles are forced to follow the magnetic field rather than following the heat-mixing convective flow. As a result, sunspots are colder than their surroundings and send out less light.
Assembled from multiple high-resolution images taken by the PHI instrument, the diameter of the Sun's disc is spanned by around 8000 pixels. It is one image of a set of four, three being the first high-resolution full-disc views of the Sun from PHI and the fourth an image of the Sun's corona taken by Solar Orbiter's Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI).
Read the full story here
Credits: ESA & ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/PHI Team
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Image processing by PHI Team members at MPS
The James Webb Space Telescope arrived safely at Pariacabo harbour in French Guiana on 12 October 2021 ahead of its launch on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe's Spaceport.
Few space science missions have been as eagerly anticipated as the James Webb Space Telescope (Webb). As the next great space science observatory following Hubble, Webb is designed to resolve unanswered questions about the Universe and see farther into our origins: from the formation of stars and planets to the birth of the first galaxies in the early Universe. Webb will be the largest, most powerful telescope ever launched into space.
Webb arrived from California on board the MN Colibri which sailed the Panama Canal to French Guiana on a 16-day voyage. The shallow Kourou river was specially dredged to ensure a clear passage and the vessel followed high tide to safely reach port.
Though the telescope weighs only six tonnes, it is more than 10.5 m high and almost 4.5 m wide when folded. It was shipped in its folded position in a 30 m long container which, with auxiliary equipment, weighs more than 70 tonnes. This is such an exceptional mission that a heavy-load tractor unit was brought on board MN Colibri to carefully transport Webb to the Spaceport.
Webb was taken to a dedicated spacecraft preparation facility. Here it will be unpacked and examined to ensure that it is undamaged from its voyage and in good working order.
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 Baudon - E Prigent
The graceful winding arms of the grand-design spiral galaxy M51 stretch across this image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. Unlike the menagerie of weird and wonderful spiral galaxies with ragged or disrupted spiral arms, grand-design spiral galaxies boast prominent, well-developed spiral arms like the ones showcased in this image. This galactic portrait is a composite image that integrates data from Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI).
In this image the dark red regions trace the filamentary warm dust permeating the medium of the galaxy. The red regions show the reprocessed light from complex molecules forming on dust grains, while colours of orange and yellow reveal the regions of ionised gas by the recently formed star clusters. Stellar feedback has a dramatic effect on the medium of the galaxy and create complex network of bright knots as well as cavernous black bubbles.
M51 — also known as NGC 5194 — lies about 27 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Canes Venatici, and is trapped in a tumultuous relationship with its near neighbour, the dwarf galaxy NGC 5195. The interaction between these two galaxies has made these galactic neighbours one of the better-studied galaxy pairs in the night sky. The gravitational influence of M51’s smaller companion is thought to be partially responsible for the stately nature of the galaxy’s prominent and distinct spiral arms. If you would like to learn more about this squabbling pair of galactic neighbours, you can explore earlier observations of M51 by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope here.
This Webb observation of M51 is one of a series of observations collectively titled Feedback in Emerging extrAgalactic Star clusTers, or FEAST. The FEAST observations were designed to shed light on the interplay between stellar feedback and star formation in environments outside of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Stellar feedback is the term used to describe the outpouring of energy from stars into the environments which form them, and is a crucial process in determining the rates at which stars form. Understanding stellar feedback is vital to building accurate universal models of star formation.
The aim of the FEAST observations is to discover and study stellar nurseries in galaxies beyond our own Milky Way. Before Webb became operative, other observatories such as the Atacama Large Millimetre Array in the Chilean desert and Hubble have given us a glimpse of star formation either at the onset (tracing the dense gas and dust clouds where stars will form) or after the stars have destroyed with their energy their natal gas and dust clouds. Webb is opening a new window into the early stages of star formation and stellar light, as well as the energy reprocessing of gas and dust. Scientists are seeing star clusters emerging from their natal cloud in galaxies beyond our local group for the first time. They will also be able to measure how long it takes for these stars to pollute with newly formed metals and to clean out the gas (these time scales are different from galaxy to galaxy). By studying these processes, we will better understand how the star formation cycle and metal enrichment are regulated within galaxies as well as what are the time scales for planets and brown dwarfs to form. Once dust and gas is removed from the newly formed stars, there is no material left to form planets.
[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 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
The rocket that will launch NASA’s Orion spacecraft to the Moon with the European Service Module on its way to the launchpad in Florida, USA, for its first full test before the Artemis I launch later this year.
The Space Launch Systems rocket (SLS) left the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at around 23:00 CET (22:00 GMT) on 17 March on the start of its 6.5 km trip to Launchpad LC39B.
In the preceding months the Orion spacecraft with European Service Module had been placed on top of the rocket. The first Artemis mission will send Orion to the Moon and back, farther than any human-rated spacecraft has travelled before. ESA’s European Service Module is the powerhouse that fuels and propels Orion, and provides everything needed to keep astronauts alive with water, oxygen, power and temperature control.
Credits: ESA–A. Conigli
What lurks behind the dense, dusty clouds of this galactic neighbour? There lies the star-powered heart of the galaxy Messier 82 (M82), also known as the Cigar Galaxy. Located just 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major (The Great Bear), the Cigar Galaxy is considered a nearby galaxy. As this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week shows in great detail, it’s home to brilliant stars whose light is shaded by sculptural clouds, clumps and streaks of dust and gas.
It’s no surprise that the Cigar Galaxy is so packed with stars, obscured though they might be by the distinctive clouds pictured here. Forming stars 10 times faster than the Milky Way, the Cigar Galaxy is what astronomers call a starburst galaxy. The intense starburst period that grips this galaxy has given rise to super star clusters in the galaxy’s heart. Each of these super star clusters contains hundreds of thousands of stars and is more luminous than a typical star cluster. Researchers used Hubble to home in on these massive clusters and reveal how they form and evolve.
Hubble’s views of the Cigar Galaxy have been featured before, both as a previous Picture of the Week in 2012 and as an image released in celebration of Hubble’s 16th birthday. The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has also turned toward the Cigar Galaxy, producing infrared images in 2024 and earlier this year.
This image features something not seen in previously released Hubble images of the galaxy: data from the High Resolution Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The High Resolution Channel is one of three sub-instruments of ACS, which was installed in 2002. In five years of operation, the High Resolution Channel returned fantastically detailed observations of crowded, starry environments like the centres of starburst galaxies. An electronics fault in 2007 unfortunately left the High Resolution Channel disabled.
[Image Description: A close-in view of the centre of galaxy M82. Bright, bluish light radiating from the centre is due to stars actively forming there. A thick lane of gas, black in the centre and red around the edges, crosses the centre and blocks much of the light. Thinner strands and clumps of reddish dust cover much of the rest of the view.]
View the location of galaxy centre in Messier 82
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. D. Vacca; CC BY 4.0
ESA’s Euclid mission to aims to investigate dark matter, dark energy and the expanding Universe.
Here the payload module is shown, which contains the telescope and the scientific instruments.
At Centre Spatial de Liège (CSL) in Belgium, the telescope and instruments successfully passed tests to show that they can operate in extreme space environments.
Credits: ESA
The Cheops satellite in the cleanroom of Airbus Defence and Space Spain in Madrid.
Cheops, the Characterising Exoplanet Satellite, will make observations of exoplanet-hosting stars to measure small changes in their brightness due to the transit of a planet across the star's disc.
The information will enable precise measurements of the sizes of the orbiting planets, in particular in the Earth-to-Neptune mass range: combined with measurements of the planet masses, this will provide an estimate of their mean density – a first step to characterising planets outside our Solar System.
In this view, the science instrument – which includes the telescope, its aperture covered by a copper-coloured lid – is integrated on top of the spacecraft platform, before the installation of the solar panels.
Recently shipped to France, the satellite will later travel to Switzerland and then to ESA’s technical centre in the Netherlands for further tests. Finally, it will return to Spain, before shipment to Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
Cheops, which is implemented as a partnership between ESA and Switzerland, is on track to be ready for launch by the end of the year. It is an exciting period for the Cheops team as they scrutinise every detail of the mission with the spacecraft moving from country to country, and from test to test.
More about the testing campaign: From star positions to images – Cheops operations centres pull together
Credits: Airbus 2018
After combing through the archive of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope of sweeping extragalactic cosmic fields, a small team of astronomers have identified a sample of galaxies that have a previously unseen combination of features.
Four of the nine galaxies in the newly identified “platypus” sample were discovered in NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey (CEERS) are shown in this image. One key feature that makes them distinct is their point-like appearance, even to a telescope that can capture as much detail as Webb.
The research was presented in a press conference at the 247th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
[Image description: James Webb Space Telescope image showing a broad area of space with many small galaxies, four of which are highlighted in pull-out boxes. The four highlighted galaxies are very small, appearing as points of light. Black areas of the overall image indicate where the telescope did not collect data – a vertical section in the center and a square in the lower left corner.]
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, S. Finkelstein (UT Austin), Image Processing: A. Pagan (STScI); CC BY 4.0
The Vega-C Zefiro 9 third 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 10 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
Most galaxies we are familiar with fall into one of two easily-identified types. Spiral galaxies are young and energetic, filled with the gas needed to form new stars and sporting spiral arms hosting hot, bright stars. Elliptical galaxies have a much more pedestrian look, their light coming from a uniform population of older and redder stars. But other galaxies require in-depth study to understand: such is the case with NGC 4694, a galaxy located 54 million light-years from Earth in the Virgo galaxy cluster, and the subject of this Hubble Picture of the Week.
NGC 4694 has a smooth-looking, armless disc which — like an elliptical galaxy — is nearly devoid of star formation. However its stellar population is still relatively young and new stars are still actively forming in its core, powering the brightness we can see in this image and giving it a markedly different stellar profile from that of a classic elliptical galaxy. The galaxy is also suffused by the kinds of gas and dust normally seen in a young and sprightly spiral; elliptical galaxies often do host significant quantities of dust, but not the gas needed to form new stars. NGC 4694 is surrounded by a huge cloud of invisible hydrogen gas, fuel for star formation. This stellar activity is the reason for Hubble’s observations here.
As this Hubble image shows, the dust in this galaxy forms chaotic structures that indicate some kind of disturbance. It turns out that the cloud of hydrogen gas around NGC 4694 forms a long bridge to a nearby, faint dwarf galaxy named VCC 2062. The two galaxies have undergone a violent collision, and the larger NGC 4694 is accreting gas from the smaller galaxy. Based on its peculiar shape and its star-forming activity, NGC 4694 has been classified as a lenticular galaxy: lacking the unmistakable arms of a spiral, but not so bereft of gas as an elliptical galaxy, and still with a galactic bulge and disc. Some galaxies just aren’t so easy to classify as one type or the other!
[Image Description: An oval-shaped galaxy seen tilted at an angle. It glows brightly at its central point, with the radiated light dimming out to the edge of the oval. Reddish-brown, patchy dust spreads out from the core and covers much of the galaxy’s top half, as well as the outer edge, obscuring some of its light. Stars can be seen around and in front of the galaxy.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker; CC BY 4.0
Last week marked a milestone for ESA’s Proba-2 satellite: 10 years of operation in orbit around the Earth. Since its launch on 2 November 2009, Proba-2 (PRoject for OnBoard Autonomy) has probed the intricacies of the Sun and its connection to our planet, imaging and observing our star and investigating how it drives all manner of complex cosmic phenomena: from solar eruptions and flares to closer-to-home space weather effects.
This image shows 10 different views of the Sun captured throughout Proba-2’s lifetime, processed to highlight the extended solar atmosphere – the part of the atmosphere that is visible around the main circular disc of the star.
Characterising this part of the Sun is a key element of Proba-2’s solar science observations. Solar activity is closely tied to the space weather we experience closer to Earth. Understanding more about how the Sun behaves – and how this behaviour changes over time, including whether it may be predictable – is crucial in our efforts to prepare for space weather events capable of damaging both space-based and terrestrial communications systems.
The Sun’s activity has a cycle of about 11 years, with the presence and strength of phenomena such as flares, coronal mass ejections, dark ‘coronal holes’ and bright ‘active regions’ fluctuating accordingly. These images were taken by Proba-2’s extreme-ultraviolet SWAP (Sun watcher using APS detectors and image processing) instrument, and show a snapshot of the Sun in January or February of each year from 2010 to 2019 (with the oldest frame on the top left, and the most recent to the bottom right). This mosaic thus neatly shows the variability in the solar atmosphere in beautiful detail, demonstrating how this cycle affects the Sun. The Sun begins in a phase of low activity (solar minimum: top left) in 2010; enters a phase of increasing activity and then shows highest activity in 2014 (solar maximum: top right). It slowly calms down again to enter a low-activity phase in 2019 (another minimum: bottom right).
As its name suggests, Proba-2 is the second satellite launched under ESA’s ‘Project for Onboard Autonomy’ umbrella: a series of small, low-cost missions that are testing a wide array of advanced technologies in space. These missions are helping us understand and develop everything from solar monitoring to vegetation mapping to autonomous Earth observation. Future members of the Proba family will also be equipped to create artificial eclipses by flying two satellites together in formation to block the bright disc of the Sun for hours at a time, so that scientists can better observe fainter regions that are usually outshone.
For now, Proba-2 will continue to monitor the Sun, including an upcoming celestial event: the satellite’s SWAP camera will observe Mercury today as it transits across the face of the Sun, an event that only takes place around 13 times per century and will not occur again until 2032.
The individual frames of the image shown here were captured on (top row, left to right): 20 February 2010, 1 February 2011, 20 January 2020, 5 February 2013, 28 January 2014, and (bottom row, left to right) 19 January 2015, 5 February 2016, 22 January 2017, 2 February 2018, and 1 February 2019.
Credits: ESA/Royal Observatory of Belgium
The first half of the ESA Astronaut Reserve in the training hall at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne, Germany. Members of the ESA Astronaut Reserve—Sara García Alonso from Spain, Andrea Patassa from Italy, Arnaud Prost from France, Amelie Schoenenwald from Germany, and Aleš Svoboda from Czechia began training at EAC on 28 October 2024. The programme covers selected modules of ESA’s one-year basic training typically completed by career astronauts, equipping members of ESA’s astronaut reserve with the skills needed to support Europe’s future space exploration and scientific research. Training includes technical and operational skills, spacecraft systems, survival exercises in water and winter conditions, and initial spacewalk training.
Credits: ESA - A. Conigli
Georg von Peuerbach, (1421—1461), was an Austrian mathematician and astronomer instrumental in the European revival of the technical understanding of the astronomical ideas of Ptolemy (fl. c. ad 140) and the early use of sines in Europe.
Peuerbach’s best-known work, the Theoricae novae planetarum (1454; “New Theories of the Planets”), began as lectures to the Viennese “Citizens’ School” (Bürgerschule), which Regiomontanus copied in his notebook. An influential university textbook, the Theoricae novae planetarum eventually replaced the widely used, anonymous 13th-century Theorica planetarum communis (the common “Theory of the Planets”). By the late 17th century, this textbook had appeared in more than 50 Latin and vernacular editions and commentaries, while introducing such students as Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543), Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), and Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) to an updated and simplified version of Ptolemy’s Almagest that gave a physical interpretation to its mathematical models.
ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst participates in a training session in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) at the Sonny Carter Training Facility near NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, USA. The training took place on 5 March 2018.
The spacewalk training session includes the donning of the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuit on the pool deck and underwater operations. A liquid cooling and ventilation garment complements the EMU spacesuit.
Alexander will be launched on 6 June with US astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor and Russian cosmonaut Sergei Prokopyev from the Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan in the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft.
The mission is called Horizons to evoke exploring our Universe, looking far beyond our planet and broadening our knowledge. His first mission was called Blue Dot. Alexander will take over command of the International Space Station for the second half of his mission. This is only the second time that a European astronaut will take up this leading position on the space outpost – the first was ESA astronaut Frank De Winne in 2009. Alexander Gerst is the 11th German citizen to fly into space.
The science programme is packed with European research: more than 50 experiments will deliver benefits to people back on Earth and prepare for future space exploration.
Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja
ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst participates in a training session in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) at the Sonny Carter Training Facility near NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, USA. The training took place on 5 March 2018.
The spacewalk training session includes the donning of the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuit on the pool deck and underwater operations. A liquid cooling and ventilation garment complements the EMU spacesuit.
Alexander will be launched on 6 June with US astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor and Russian cosmonaut Sergei Prokopyev from the Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan in the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft.
The mission is called Horizons to evoke exploring our Universe, looking far beyond our planet and broadening our knowledge. His first mission was called Blue Dot. Alexander will take over command of the International Space Station for the second half of his mission. This is only the second time that a European astronaut will take up this leading position on the space outpost – the first was ESA astronaut Frank De Winne in 2009. Alexander Gerst is the 11th German citizen to fly into space.
The science programme is packed with European research: more than 50 experiments will deliver benefits to people back on Earth and prepare for future space exploration.
Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja
The first ESA-funded space weather monitoring instrument was launched on 4 December 2018, hitching a ride on South Korea’s new geostationary satellite, GEO-KOMPSAT-2 – the Geostationary Korea Multi-Purpose Satellite-2A.
The satellite, seen in this image, was lofted into orbit on an Ariane rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, and will provide meteorological monitoring over the Asia-Pacific region as well as data on space weather.
‘Space weather’ describes the constantly changing conditions in space as a result of the unpredictable behaviour of our active Sun.
This dynamic solar activity changes the space environment, causing variations in magnetic and electric fields, and levels of high-energy particles and radiation around our planet. Such changes can cause impair satellites, disturb telecommunication and satellite navigation, and damage with crucial infrastructure on Earth, such as power grids.
ESA’s Service Oriented Spacecraft Magnetometer (SOSMAG) instrument has four tiny sensors that will measure Earth’s magnetic field and provide data on how space weather affects it.
The SOSMAG kit is designed ultimately to be mounted on a variety of different spacecraft, in an array of orbits, which together will give a fuller picture of Earth’s space weather environment. These ‘hosted payloads’ boost efficiency and reduce cost, while providing critical data to be fed into ESA’s Space Weather Services Network.
Find out more about the network, ESA’s future Distributed Space Weather Sensor System, and the upcoming Lagrange mission to monitor the Sun, all part of the Agency’s plan to monitor hazards in space and one day to mitigate them.
The SOSMAG instrument is funded by ESA’s Space Situational Awareness programme, and was built by an industrial consortium consisting of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the Space Research Institute (IWF), Magson GmbH, the Institut für Geophysik und Extraterrestrische Physik of TU Braunschweig and the The Blackett Laboratory of Imperial College London (ICL).
Credits: KARI
The Idaeus Fossae region of the Red Planet is filled with fascinating tidbits for Mars enthusiasts. This patch of martian ground is covered in dark layers of volcanic minerals, steep rocky outcrops, wrinkled ridges in the red-brown surface, and an intriguing example of a butterfly crater.
We've added labels to highlight features and regions of note. Be sure to click on these labels to explore the landscape in detail!
This image comprises data gathered by Mars Express’s High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on 8 November 2024 (orbit 26325). It was created using data from the nadir channel, the field of view aligned perpendicular to the surface of Mars, and the colour channels of the HRSC. 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.
[Image description: A wide, yellow-reddish-brown Martian landscape viewed from above. The surface appears dusty and uneven, with several large circular impact craters scattered across the scene. Two prominent craters on the right have steep, rugged rims and darker interiors, while smaller craters dot the terrain throughout. The ground shows faint ridges and cracks, giving it a textured, weathered look.]
Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
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
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite takes us over the city of Valencia and its stunning blue coast. Situated on the east coast of the Iberian Peninsula, Valencia is the third largest city in Spain after Madrid and Barcelona.
Click on the box in the lower-right corner to view this image at its full 10 m resolution directly in your browser.
The city is visible in the centre of the image, flanked by the Mediterranean Sea on one side and overlooked by the mountains of Sierra Calderona to the north. As a significant cultural centre for the country, it is home to the futuristic City of Arts and Sciences complex, which also hosts Oceanografic – the biggest aquarium in Europe.
Just 10 km south of the city, this true-colour image shows us the Albufera freshwater lagoon in green. Separated by a narrow strip of coastline featuring sand dunes and Mediterranean pine forest, three canals connect the lagoon and surrounding wetlands with the sea.
The area is home to huge numbers of both migratory and resident birds, including rare species such as Eurasian Bittern. The area is also thought to be the home of the world-famous Paella dish, with the traditional rice used for the dish grown in the surrounding fields since the 19th century.
On the right of the image, amidst the waves and popcorn clouds, we can see a boat, possibly travelling to the port of Valencia from one of the nearby Balearic Islands – a popular route for tourists and residents of the city alike.
The region of Valencia is famous for the diversity of its landscapes, covering mountains, beaches, wetlands and semi-arid desert environments within a total area of less than 25 0000 sq km. This diversity is clearly highlighted in the Sentinel-2 image.
Sentinel-2 data can be used to monitor agriculture, biodiversity, and coastal and inland waters for Europe’s Copernicus environmental monitoring programme.
This satellite image will be shown at IGARRS – the International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, held in Valencia from 22–27 July. The theme for this year’s symposium highlights the pressing demands for ‘observing, understanding and forecasting the dynamics of our planet’.
This image, which was captured on 9 August 2017, is also featured on the Earth from Space programme.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2017), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
A technician places a nearly 70 kg parachute designed for ESA and Roscosmos’s ExoMars 2020 mission inside the dry heater steriliser of the Agency’s Life, Physical Sciences and Life Support Laboratory, based in its Netherlands technical centre.
Mars is a potential abode of past and perhaps even present-day life. Accordingly, international planetary protection regulations require any mission sent to the Red Planet to undergo rigorous sterilisation, to prevent terrestrial microbes from piggybacking their way there.
The Lab’s Alan Dowson explains: “This is the ‘qualification model’ of the 35-m diameter main parachute for ExoMars 2020, basically a test version which allows us to finalise our sterilisation procedures ahead of the flight model chute’s arrival.
“This version has been threaded with thermal sensors, allowing us to see how long it takes to reach the required sterilisation temperature in all parts of the folded parachute, even in the hardest to heat points. Our target was to sterilise at 125 °C for 35 hours and 26 minutes, and the oven took about 44 hours to reach that temperature to begin with.”
The oven is part of the Lab’s 35 sq. m ‘ISO Class 1’ cleanroom, one of the cleanest places in Europe. All the cleanroom’s air passes through a two-stage filter system. Anyone entering the chamber has to gown up in a much more rigorous way than a hospital surgeon, before passing through an air shower to remove any remaining contaminants.
“If you imagine our clean room as being as big as the entire Earth’s atmosphere, then its allowable contamination would be equal to a single hot air balloon,” adds Alan. “Our ISO 1 rating means we have less than 10 dust particles measuring a tenth of one millionth of a metre in diameter per cubic metre of air.”
The mostly nylon and Kevlar parachute, packed into an 80-cm diameter donut-shaped unit, was delivered by Italy’s Arescosmo company. This qualification model will now be sent back there for testing, to ensure this sterilisation process causes no change to the parachute’s material properties.
Alan explains: “We will receive the parachute flight model later this spring for the same sterilisation process – identical to this version, except without any thermal sensors.”
ExoMars’s smaller first stage 15-m diameter parachute has already gone through sterilisation using the oven. This is the parachute that opens during initial, supersonic atmospheric entry, with the second, larger chute opening once the mission has been slowed to subsonic velocity.
The Lab has also tackled a variety of ExoMars instruments and subsystems, but this second stage subsonic parachute is the single largest item to be sterilised. The sterilisation process aims to reduce the overall mission ‘bioburden’ to a 10 thousandth of its original level.
Credits: ESA–M. Cowan
This image from the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument on the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope shows the central portion of the star cluster IC 348. Astronomers combed the cluster in search of tiny, free-floating brown dwarfs: objects too small to be stars but larger than most planets. They found three brown dwarfs that are less than eight times the mass of Jupiter. The smallest weighs just three to four times as much as Jupiter, challenging theories for star formation.
The wispy curtains filling the image are interstellar material reflecting the light from the cluster’s stars – what is known as a reflection nebula. The material also includes carbon-containing molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs. The bright star closest to the centre of the frame is actually a pair of type B stars in a binary system, the most massive stars in the cluster. Winds from these stars may help sculpt the large loop seen on the right side of the field of view.
[Image description: Wispy hair-like filaments of pink-purple fill the middle of the image, curving left and right on either side of the centre. On the right, the filaments form a dramatic loop that seems to extend toward the viewer. At lower left are additional yellowish filaments. Two prominent, bright stars near the centre of the image show Webb’s eight-point diffraction spikes. Dozens of fainter stars are scattered across the image.]
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and K. Luhman and C. Alves de Oliveira (Penn State University)
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has gazed at the Crab Nebula in the search for answers about the supernova remnant’s origins. Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) have revealed new details in infrared light.
Similar to the Hubble optical wavelength image released in 2005, with Webb the remnant appears to consist of a crisp, cage-like structure of fluffy red-orange filaments of gas that trace doubly ionised sulphur (sulphur III). Within the remnant’s interior, yellow-white and green fluffy ridges form large-scale loop-like structures, which represent areas where dust particles reside.
The area within is composed of translucent, milky material. This material is emitting synchrotron radiation, which is emitted across the electromagnetic spectrum but becomes particularly vibrant thanks to Webb’s sensitivity and spatial resolution. It is generated by particles accelerated to extremely high speeds as they wind around magnetic field lines. The synchrotron radiation can be traced throughout the majority of the Crab Nebula’s interior.
Locate the wisps that follow a ripple-like pattern in the middle. In the centre of this ring-like structure is a bright white dot: a rapidly rotating neutron star. Further out from the core, follow the thin white ribbons of the radiation. The curvy wisps are closely grouped together, following different directions that mimic the structure of the pulsar’s magnetic field. Note how certain gas filaments are bluer in colour. These areas contain singly ionised iron (iron II).
[Image description: An oval nebula with a complex structure against a black background. On the oval’s exterior lie curtains of glowing red and orange fluffy material. Interior to this outer shell lie large-scale loops of mottled filaments of yellow-white and green, studded with clumps and knots. Translucent thin ribbons of smoky white lie within the remnant’s interior, brightest toward its centre.]
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, T. Temim (Princeton University)
The James Webb Space Telescope was transferred to the final assembly building at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 7 December 2021, to meet its Ariane 5 launch vehicle.
Stowed inside a special 23-tonne transport container, Webb was protected and monitored throughout the transfer.
Ariane 5 was already moved to the same building on 29 November. Here, adjustable platforms allow engineers to access the launch vehicle and its payload.
The next steps are to hoist Webb to the upper platform which has been prepared so that Webb can be integrated on Ariane 5’s upper stage and then encapsulated inside Ariane 5’s specially adapted fairing.
Webb is scheduled for launch on 22 December from Europe’s Spaceport. Ground teams have already successfully completed the delicate operation of loading the spacecraft with the propellant it will use to steer itself while in 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).
Find out more about Webb in ESA’s launch kit and interactive brochure.
Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique Vidéo du CSG - P Piron
This colour-coded topographic view shows Terra Cimmeria, a region found in the southern highlands of Mars.
Lower parts of the surface are shown in blues and purples, while higher altitude regions show up in whites, yellows, and reds, as indicated on the scale to the top right. This view is based on a digital terrain model of the region, from which the topography of the landscape can be derived. It comprises data obtained by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on Mars Express on 11 December 2018 during orbit 18904.
The ground resolution is approximately 13 metres per pixel and the images are centred at about 171° East and 40° South. North is to the right.
Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
This stereoscopic image of Mars shows the Acheron Fossae region of Mars. It was generated from data captured by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on ESA’s Mars Express orbiter on 28 October 2024 during orbit 26287. The anaglyph offers a three-dimensional view when viewed using red-green or red-blue glasses.
ALT-text: Stereoscopic image of the Acheron Fossae region of Mars as seen by ESA’s Mars Express
Image description: A grey-toned image shows a largely disrupted, broken-up, irregular patch of ground, with numerous geological features scattered throughout. Most prominently, a system of deep grooves begins in the right half of the image and radiates outwards, extending out of frame. A smoother, irregularly shaped patch of ground can be seen in the middle third of the image, while further ridges and ditches – more gentle than those to the right – are again visible in the left third, along with a few scattered circular impact craters. The image offers a 3D view when using red-green or red-blue glasses.
Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
This Hubble Picture of the Week includes the pithily-named galaxy SDSS J103512.07+461412.2, visible in the centre of this image as a dispersed sweep of dust and stars with a denser, brighter core. SDSS J103512.07+461412.2 is located 23 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. The seemingly rambling name is because this galaxy was observed as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), a massive survey that began in 2000 with the aim of observing and cataloguing vast numbers of astronomical objects. So far, it has recorded several hundred million astronomical objects.
In the early days of astronomy catalogues, astronomers painstakingly recorded individual objects one by one. As an example, the Messier catalogue includes only 110 objects, identified by the astronomer Charles Messier because they were all getting in the way of his comet-hunting efforts. As the Messier catalogue is so limited, it is sufficient to simply refer to those objects as M1 to M110. In contrast, when a survey as massive in scope as the SDSS is involved, and when huge volumes of data need to be processed in an automated manner, the names assigned to objects need to be both longer, and more informative.
To that end, every SDSS object has a designation that follows the format of: ‘SDSS J’, followed by the right ascension (RA), and then the declination (Dec). RA and Dec define the position of an astronomical object in the night sky. RA is analogous to longitude here on Earth, whilst the Dec corresponds to latitude. To be more exact, RA measures the longitudinal distance of an astronomical object from the point where the celestial equator (the mid-point between the north and south celestial poles) intersects with the ecliptic (the plane in which Earth orbits around the Sun). The entire night sky is then carved into 24 slices, known as ‘hours’, measured eastwards from that starting point (which is designated as zero hour). This means that the RA can be expressed in ‘hours’, ‘minutes’ and ‘seconds’. Dec is the angle north or south of the celestial equator, and is expressed in degrees. The RA and Dec of the objects featured in each Hubble Picture of the Week can be found on the lower right side of the webpage!
Thus, the SDSS J103512.07+461412.2 name simply tells us that the galaxy can be found 10 hours, 35 minutes and 12 seconds east of the zero-hour point on the celestial equator, and just over 46 degrees to the north of the celestial equator. So that lengthy name is really an identifier and a detailed location in one!
[Image Description: A galaxy in the centre of a wide view of space. It is surrounded by a variety of differently-shaped small galaxies. A wide and very flat spiral galaxy, and one star with four prominent diffraction spikes, are noticeable. The galaxy itself is a broad horizontal streak of tiny stars, extending left and right from a dense and bright core of stars in the centre.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Tully; CC BY 4.0
Four spacewalks in the coming weeks means a lot of prep work. ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano is gearing up the first in a series of historic extravehicular activities or EVAs taking place 15 November. He is pictured here creating tape flags that will be used to mark tubes during the spacewalks.
The spacewalks are to service the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer or AMS, a dark matter hunter that is providing researchers with data on cosmic ray particles well beyond its three-year mission.
Installed outside the International Space Station in 2011, the instrument has recorded over 140 billion particles to date along with their mass, velocity, and charge and direction of travel. This data is helping scientists track down and understand the sources of dark matter, an invisible energy that makes up roughly 90% of the universe.
As expected, the harsh environment of space began to wear down the facility. One by one, the cooling pumps keeping a vital detector at a constant temperature began to fail, affecting the data collection.
Plans for spacewalks to upgrade the pumps have been in the making for years to keep the science going.
Never intended to be serviced in orbit, the AMS maintenance will be complex.
For starters, AMS-02 has over 300,000 data channels. There are also no handrails or foot restraints installed around the instrument to access the cooling system that needs maintenance. New tools are also needed, as astronauts have never cut and reconnected fluid lines in a bulky spacesuit before.
Luca trained well in advance for these spacewalks at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, USA. New tools and procedures were extensively tested, with a lot of know-how drawn from the last series of complex spacewalks to extend the life of a valuable space instrument, the Hubble Space telescope.
Now that the latest Cygnus cargo supply mission has brought the final tools needed, Luca and NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan are ready to go.
Luca will play a leading role as EV-1, wearing a white spacesuit with red stripes while Andrew wears the white spacesuit with no stripes. It is the first time a European astronaut has held the lead position.
The pair will be supported by NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir who will operate the Canadarm2 robotic arm from inside the Station. This will help position the astronauts around their hard-to-reach work site, located on top of the Station’s S3 Truss structure between a pair of solar arrays and radiators.
The entire spacewalk is expected to take around six hours and it will set the scene for at least three more.
The spacewalk will be streamed live on ESA Web TV from 12:50 CET (11:50 GMT) and ESA’s Facebook page. The first two hours of the broadcast will feature commentary from astronaut and operation experts at ESA’s astronaut centre in Cologne, Germany, as well as a live cross with scientists at the CERN European Laboratory for Particle Physics.
Credits: ESA/NASA
An artist's impression of the lunar outpost called the Gateway. The Gateway is the next structure to be launched by the partners of the International Space Station.
During the 2020s, it will be assembled and operated in the vicinity of the Moon, where it will move between different orbits and enable the most distant human space missions ever attempted.
Placed farther from Earth than the current Space Station – but not in a lunar orbit – the Gateway will offer a staging post for missions to the Moon and Mars.
Like a mountain refuge, it will provide shelter and a place to stock up on supplies for astronauts en route to more distant destinations. It will also offer a place to relay communications and can act as a base for scientific research.
The Gateway will weigh around 40 tonnes and will consist of a service module, a communications module, a connecting module, an airlock for spacewalks, a place for the astronauts to live and an operations station to command the Gateway’s robotic arm or rovers on the Moon. Astronauts will be able to occupy it for up to 90 days at a time.
A staging outpost near the Moon offers many advantages for space agencies. Most current rockets do not have the power to reach our satellite in one go but could reach the space Gateway. Europe’s Ariane would be able to deliver supplies for astronauts to collect and use for further missions deeper into space – much like mountain expeditions can stock up refuges with food and equipment for further climbs to the summit.
The Gateway also allows space agencies to test technologies such as electric propulsion where Earth’s gravity would interfere if done closer to home. New opportunities for space research away from Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere are planned for the outpost. Its close position will provide rapid response times for astronauts controlling rovers on the Moon.
Credits: ESA/NASA/ATG Medialab
'Swage' was the word of the day on Monday as ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano carried out the third spacewalk to service the cosmic ray hunting Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer AMS-02. Luca swaged, or joined, the instrument’s tubes to a new pump system that will give it a new lease on life.
Riding on the International Space Station’s robotic arm, Luca soared to the cosmic ray detector’s worksite for nearly five hours of space plumbing.
Yesterday’s spacewalk was the most critical of four spacewalks planned to service the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer that has provided scientists with invaluable data on cosmic particles long after its original three-year mission. In 2017 the decision was made to service the instrument after all four cooling systems wore out.
Luca and NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan began by passing the cooling system to each other as they inched their way from the airlock to the Space Station’s robotic arm. Luca then attached himself to the arm and – aided by astronaut Jessica Meir who operated this from inside the Station – transported the system to the hard-to-reach worksite.
Luca rode the arm into position, seen in this image, and together with Drew screwed the new pump onto AMS. The system was powered on and Luca was moved to a different location by robotic arm for the swage operations. Luca did six swages before taking the robotic arm ride again to the underside of AMS for the last two and finish the job.
The spacewalk was a success, with Luca and Drew finishing their delicate and unprecedented work ahead of schedule. They returned to the Space Station airlock ending the spacewalk at six hours and two minutes. A fourth and last spacewalk for AMS is planned at a later date.
Credits: NASA
This colour-coded topographic image shows a region of Mars known as Caralis Chaos, where copious water is thought to have once existed in the form of an ancient lake.
It was created from data collected by ESA’s Mars Express on 1 January 2024 (orbit 25235) 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 is approximately 15 m/pixel and the image is centred at about 38°S/177°E.
Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
ESA's robots get ready to rock at LUNA.
Also known as the Moon on Earth, the LUNA facility near the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne, Germany, was unveiled in September 2024, a simulated lunar environment that prepares our return to the Moon. To celebrate, ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer joined forces with our robotics experts to showcase their cutting-edge machines Interact and Spot, and the potential of human-robot teamwork for space exploration.
Meet ESA’s robots: Interact, a wheeled robotic arm, and Spot, a robot dog. ESA’s robotics team in the Netherlands programs these machines for human-robot interaction experiments such as Surface Avatar, where astronauts on the International Space Station control robots in a simulated martian environment on Earth. The robots also starred in the inauguration show of LUNA. The team began preparations at their offices in ESTEC, ESA’s technical heart in the Netherlands.
“First, we had to decide what kind of demonstration we wanted to do with our robots,” says Rute Luz, a robotic engineer at ESA. “We had to make sure the choreography was reliable, following a strict timing for the live show with the astronauts.”
The team decided to re-use a portion of the robot choreography in the most recent session of Surface Avatar in July 2024, which involved several robots working together to bring a sample to a lunar lander mock-up.
But this robot choreography at LUNA added a complication. “For Surface Avatar, an astronaut was there to coordinate the robots, but this time we had the challenge of making the robots work completely autonomously,” continues Rute. The team had to programme the robot fleet to recognise once one robot had completed their task so another robot could automatically begin their task.
Find out how the team prepared the show in our blog.
Credits: ESA-Robotics team