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ESA’s Euclid spacecraft finished its ocean cruise safe and sound on 30 April at Port Canaveral in Florida. Subsequently, the satellite was moved by road to the Astrotech facility near Cape Canaveral.
Euclid will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, no earlier than July, before starting its 1.5 million km journey to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2. In orbit, Euclid will map billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light years, across more than one third of the sky.
Euclid’s cosmic map will help us understand the Universe’s mysterious components: dark matter and dark energy. Together they appear to make up 95% of the Universe, while the normal matter that we know and are made of (together with stars, planets and all we see) makes up the other 5%.
Astronomers will use Euclid observations to study the evolution of the expansion of the Universe and the large-scale distribution of galaxies over cosmic history. From this, we can learn more about the role of gravity and the nature of dark matter and dark energy.
Credits: Thales Alenia Space / ImagIn
This image is released as part of the Early Release Observations from ESA’s Euclid space mission. All data from these initial observations are made public on 23 May 2024 – including a handful of unprecedented new views of the nearby Universe, this being one.
This breathtaking image features Messier 78 (the central and brightest region), a vibrant nursery of star formation enveloped in a shroud of interstellar dust. This image is unprecedented – it is the first shot of this young star-forming region at this width and depth.
Euclid peered deep into this enshrouded nursery using its infrared camera, exposing hidden regions of star formation for the first time, mapping its complex filaments of gas and dust in unprecedented detail, and uncovering newly formed stars and planets. This is the first time we’ve been able to see these smaller, sub-stellar sized objects in Messier 78; the dark clouds of gas and dust usually hide them from view, but Euclid’s infrared ‘eyes’ can see through these obscuring clouds to explore within.
Euclid’s sensitive instruments can detect objects just a few times the mass of Jupiter, and its visible and infrared instruments – the VIS and NISP cameras – reveal over 300 000 new objects in this field of view alone. Scientists are using this data to study the amount and ratio of stars and sub-stellar objects here, which is key to understanding the dynamics of how star populations form and change over time. Sub-stellar objects like brown dwarfs and free-floating or ‘rogue’ planets are also one possible candidate for dark matter. While our current knowledge suggests that there aren’t enough of these objects to solve the mystery of dark matter in the Milky Way, it remains an open question, and one that Euclid will definitively answer by probing a significant fraction of our galaxy.
Also visible to the top of the frame is the bright nebula NGC 2071, and a third filament of star formation towards the bottom of the image (with a ‘traffic light’-like appearance). This lower region is a dark nebula producing lower-mass stars, all arranged along elongated filaments in space.
Messier 78 lies 1300 light-years away in the constellation of Orion.
Read more about the new data released as part of Euclid’s Early Release Observations, including a stunning set of five never-before-seen images: here
Explore this image at the highest resolution in ESASky
[Technical details: The data in this image were taken in just about one hour of observation. This colour image was obtained by combining VIS data and NISP photometry in Y and H bands; its size is 8200 x 8200 pixels. VIS and NISP enable observing astronomical sources in four different wavelength ranges. Aesthetics choices led to the selection of three out of these four bands to be cast onto the traditional Red-Green-Blue colour channels used to represent images on our digital screens (RGB). The blue, green, red channels capture the Universe seen by Euclid around the wavelength 0.7, 1.1, and 1.7 micron respectively. This gives Euclid a distinctive colour palette: hot stars have a white-blue hue, excited hydrogen gas appears in the blue channel, and regions rich in dust and molecular gas have a clear red hue. Distant redshifted background galaxies appear very red. In the image, the stars have six prominent spikes due to how light interacts with the optical system of the telescope in the process of diffraction. Another signature of Euclid special optics is the presence of a few, very faint and small round regions of a fuzzy blue colour. These are normal artefacts of complex optical systems, so-called ‘optical ghost’; easily identifiable during data analysis, they do not cause any problem for the science goals.]
[Image description: A filamentary orange veil covers a bright region of star formation. The background is dark, stippled with stars and galaxies ranging from small bright dots to starry shapes. The foreground veil spans from upper left to the bottom right and resembles a seahorse. Bright stars light up the ‘eye’ and ‘chest’ regions of the seahorse with purple light. Within the tail, three bright spots sit in a traffic-light like formation.]
CREDIT
ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre (CEA Paris-Saclay), G. Anselmi
LICENCE
CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO or ESA Standard Licence
Europe' Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana is gearing up for the arrival of Ariane 6, Europe's new generation launch vehicle.
Aerial views from December 2021 show the main elements of the new Ariane 6 launch complex: the launch vehicle assembly building, the mobile gantry, and launch pad.
Ariane 6 has two versions depending on the required performance and will be capable of a wide range of missions to guarantee Europe’s independent access to space.
Credits: CNES-ESA/Sentinel
ESA’s automated Flyeye telescope will help Europe discover risky celestial objects such as asteroids and comets during its nightly sky surveys. It will automatically identify possible new near-Earth objects for follow up and later checking by human researchers as part of Europe’s Space Situational Awareness Programme.
The equatorial mount that will hold the Flyeye telescope orients the direction of view around the right ascension and the declination axis – the celestial coordinates. By doing so, it compensates for the rotation of the Earth by movement of one axis only and avoids image rotation during exposures.
The black structure at the centre of the mount in this picture is for testing purposes and will be replaced with the Flyeye telescope.
The telescope splits the image into 16 smaller subimages to expand the field of view, similar to the technique exploited by a fly’s compound eye.
Such ‘fly-eyed’ survey telescopes provide a very large field of view: 6.7° x 6.7° or about 45 square degrees. 6.7° is about 13 times the diameter of the Moon as seen from the Earth (roughly 0.5 degrees).
In the telescope, a single mirror of 1 m equivalent aperture collects the light from the entire 6.7° x 6.7° field of view and feeds a pyramid-shaped beam splitter with 16 facets.
The complete field of view is then imaged by 16 separate cameras.
The mount and telescope are now being integrated in Milan, Italy, by OHB Italia ready for installation at the final location on Mount Mufara in Sicily at the end of 2019.
Credits: ESA
This abstract image is a preview of the instrumental power that will be unleashed once the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope will be in space.
The image was acquired during testing of the Near-InfraRed Spectrograph (NIRSpec) instrument, which is part of ESA's contribution to the international observatory. NIRSpec will be used to study astronomical objects focussing on very distant galaxies. It will do so by splitting their light into spectra – separating the light into components allows scientists to investigate what these objects are made of.
Created using one of the instrument’s internal calibration lamps as the light source, the image shows many spectra as horizontal bands that were recorded by two detectors,. The wavelengths are spread from left to right; the pattern of dark stripes, called absorption lines, is characteristic of the light source, much like a fingerprint.
The image was produced by sending commands to open over 100 of the instrument's micro-shutters – minuscule windows the width of a human hair – that will be used to study hundreds of celestial objects simultaneously. The thin strips in the upper and lower parts of the image are spectra created by light that passed through the micro-shutters, while the thicker bands at the centre of the images were produced by light that enters the instrument through five slits at the centre.
Once in space, the micro-shutters will be opened or closed depending on the distribution of stars and galaxies in the sky.
This calibration image was obtained in 2017 during testing in the giant thermal vacuum chamber at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The tests demonstrated that the combined structure, comprising the Webb telescope and its four science instruments, operated flawlessly at temperatures of around –233°C, similar to those they will experience in space.
The telescope and instruments are now at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems in Redondo Beach, California, where they will be integrated with the spacecraft and sunshield for further tests and launch preparations. The launch is targeted for 2020.
More about the testing campaign: Tests, moving to a new home, and more tests.
Credits: ESA/SOT team
This image shows the irregular galaxy NGC 6822, as observed by the Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) mounted on the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. NIRCam probes the near-infrared, which in this case makes it suitable for observing the densely packed star field.
Webb’s near-infrared NIRCam image shows the galaxy’s countless stars in incredible detail. Here, the dust and gas that pervade the galaxy are reduced to translucent red wisps, laying the stars bare for astronomical study. The power of Webb’s ice-cold infrared instruments and the incredible resolution of its primary mirror is necessary to examine stars hidden in dusty environments, and the results as shown here are spectacular.
The brightest stars appear in pale blue and cyan colours in this image, colours which are assigned to the shortest wavelengths of light that NIRCam can detect: red and nearest infrared. The amount of light emitted by any star decreases at longer and longer wavelengths, towards the mid-infrared, so the stars that are more faint to NIRCam also appear more warmly coloured here. A bright blue orb to the lower left of the gas is particularly prominent: this is a globular cluster, packed with stars.
[Image Description: A huge, dense field completely filled with tiny stars. A few of the star images are a bit larger than the rest, with visible diffraction spikes; two foreground stars are large and bright on the right side. Many small galaxies within various shapes and sizes can be seen hiding behind the stars. In the centre some faint, wispy, dark red gas appears.] or [Image Description: A huge, dense field completely filled with stars. A few of the star images are a bit larger than the rest, with visible diffraction spikes; two foreground stars are bright on the right side. Many galaxies with various shapes and sizes can be seen hiding behind the stars. In the centre some faint, wispy, dark red gas appears.]
Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Meixner
This colour-coded topographic image shows a region of Mars’ surface named Nilosyrtis Mensae, based on data gathered by the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera on 29 September 2019 during orbit 19908. This view is based on a digital terrain model (DTM) of the region, from which the topography of the landscape can be derived; lower parts of the surface are shown in blues and purples, while higher altitude regions show up in whites, yellows and reds, as indicated on the scale to the bottom left. North is to the right.
Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
ESA’s Mars Express radar team recently made an exciting announcement: data from their instrument points to a pond of liquid water buried about 1.5 km below the icy south polar ice of Mars.
Between 2012 and 2015 Mars Express made repeated passes over the 200 km wide study region in Planum Australe, bouncing radio waves through the planet’s surface and recording the properties of the reflected signal with its Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding instrument, MARSIS.
The radar ‘footprints’ on the surface are represented in the image and are colour-coded corresponding to the ‘power’ of the signal reflected from features below the surface. The brightest reflections are coloured in blue, with data from multiple overlapping orbits defining a 20 km-wide zone corresponding to the triangular shaped patch to the right of centre in this image.
Directly below this patch, under repeating layers of ice and dust at a depth of 1.5 km, is a base layer that has radar properties corresponding to liquid water. Despite the below-freezing temperatures on Mars, it can be kept liquid by the presence of salts, and it may be heavily laden with water-saturated sediments.
Water once flowed freely on the Red Planet’s surface, but it is not stable today. Discovering liquid water buried underground is essential for understanding the evolution of Mars, the history of water on our neighbour planet, and its habitability.
Find out more about this discovery.
Credits: ESA/NASA/JPL/ASI/Univ. Rome; R. Orosei et al 2018
The Orion spacecraft will ferry astronauts to the Moon on NASA's Artemis missions. The European Service Module is ESA’s contribution to Orion and provides electricity, water, oxygen and nitrogen as well as keeping the spacecraft at the right temperature and on course. In case of a problem during launch the European Service Module can also activate to fly the astronauts to safety. This infographic shows the steps of an Abort To Orbit (ATO).
Credits: ESA
Check our accessible text here.
On the Moon a person would weigh six times less than they do on Earth. This is because the Moon has one sixth the gravity of Earth.
Image description: Scale on Earth show 60 kg, scale on the Moon shows 10 kg.
Credits: ESA
A digest-sized science fiction magazine edited by Lester del Rey that ran for eight issues in 1952-53. Two issues of an identically titled magazine were published in 1957 by Republic Features Syndicate and edited by Michael Avallone. The second issue, dated August 1957, proved to be the final issue.
By 1957 the boom in American science fiction magazines had reached its peak. At least 24 science fiction magazines published at least one issue that year. One of the most prominent of these magazines, "Galaxy Science Fiction," had a successful association with two radio shows, "Dimension X" and "X Minus One." This sparked imitators. [Source: Wikipedia]
The team of propulsion experts has spent two days carrying out the tricky task of fuelling the Copernicus Sentinel-3B satellite with 130 kg of hydrazine and pressurising the tank for its life in orbit.
Since hydrazine is extremely toxic, only specialists remained in the cleanroom for the duration. A doctor and security staff waited nearby with an ambulance and fire engine ready to respond to any problems.
The satellite is scheduled for liftoff on 25 April from Russia’s Plesetsk Cosmodrome at 17:57 GMT (19:57 CEST).
Credits: Thales Alenia Space
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
The BepiColombo Mercury Transfer Module has completed its final major test inside ESA’s Large Space Simulator, proving it will be able to withstand the temperature extremes it will experience on its journey to Mercury.
On the one hand, the mission will be exposed to the cold vacuum of space. On the other, it will travel close to the Sun, receiving 10 times the solar energy than we do on Earth. This translates to about 11 kW per sq m at Mercury, with the spacecraft expected to endure heating to about 350ºC, similar to a pizza oven.
Inside the simulator, the largest of its kind in Europe at 15m high and 10m wide, pumps create a vacuum a billion times lower than standard sea-level atmosphere, while the chamber’s walls are lined with tubes pumped with liquid nitrogen to create low temperatures of about –180ºC. At the same time, a set of 25kW IMAX projector-class lamps are used with mirrors to focus light onto the craft to generate the highest temperatures.
During the latest tests, carried out between 24 November and 4 December 2017, the module was rotated through 13º either side to monitor the heating and distribution. The ion engines were also activated – without creating thrust from an ion beam given the confines of the test chamber – to confirm that the module's electric propulsion system can operate in this challenging environment
The module is seen here stacked on a replica interface to mimic the science orbiters that it will be attached to during launch and the 7.2 year journey to Mercury. The four ion thrusters are seen on the top of module in this orientation. Not present in this test, the module will also be equipped with two solar wings that will unfold to a span of 30 m.
The transfer module’s job is to carry ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and Japan’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter to the planet, where they will separate and enter their respective orbits. The craft will use a combination of gravity assist flybys at Earth, Venus and Mercury along with the transfer module’s ion thrusters to reach its destination.
The module will now be checked before the entire assembly is shipped to Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana next year. With this last major test complete, the mission is on track to be launched in the two-month window opening on 5 October 2018.
Credit: ESA–C. Carreau, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
ESA’s Euclid satellite departs from Thales Alenia Space’s plant in Cannes in a carefully monitored container, carried by an exceptional convoy truck. The satellite headed over to the port of Savona, Italy, then boarded a ship that is taking it to the port near its launch site in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The ship is expected to reach its destination at the beginning of May, getting ready for launch no earlier than this July on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida, USA.
Euclid will travel 1.5 million km from Earth, in the opposite direction to the Sun, to the Lagrange point L2. From there, ESA's Euclid mission will begin the detective work of exploring the dark Universe.
Euclid will create the largest, most accurate 3D map of the Universe ever. It will observe billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years, across more than a third of the sky. With this map, Euclid will reveal how the Universe has expanded and how large-scale structure has evolved over cosmic history. And from this, we can learn more about the role of gravity and the nature of dark energy and dark matter.
Credits: Thales Alenia Space / ImagIn
Carefully wrapped inside this donut-shaped bag is a 35-m diameter parachute that will endure a frenzied six-minute dive into martian atmosphere.
This qualification model is a copy of the largest-ever parachute to open on the Red Planet when it flies on the ExoMars 2022 mission – and it is at least 10 000 times cleaner than your smartphone.
The 64 kg parachute, made mostly of nylon and Kevlar fabrics, has been thoroughly sterilised to reduce its level of contamination for planetary protection. One of the main goals of ExoMars is to search for signs of life on the Red Planet, so any microbes hitchhikingon its ride from Earth would interfere with the investigation and could trigger a false positive – what scientists call ‘forward contamination’.
The potential existence of past and perhaps even present life on Mars requires rigorous sterilisation. Scientists want to be sure that the instruments on the ExoMars rover Rosalind Franklin, only detect signs of indigenous life, but protecting the martian environment from ourselves is equally as important. A planetary protection policy by the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) details all requirements, in compliance with the United Nations Outer Space Treaty.
The parachute was heated in an oven at 125°C for several days to kill any microbes. The oven is part of ESA’s Life, Physical Sciences and Life Support Laboratory, a state-of-the-art facility in the Netherlands. The Laboratory has also cleaned ExoMars instruments and subsystems, but this second stage parachute is the largest item to be sterilised.
The dry heat steriliser is in the ‘ISO Class 1’ cleanroom, one of the cleanest places in Europe. All air passes through a two-stage filter ensuring less than 10 dust particles no larger than 10 millionth of a metre, or less than the size of the coronavirus.
People working on the ExoMars hardware are the main biohazard. Every day, each of us sheds millions of skin particles. Everyone entering the chamber has to gown up more rigorously than a surgeon before passing through an air shower to remove any remaining contaminants. Watch how to dress to avoid being a ‘bioburden’ in the latest ExoMars vlog.
The parachute will next prove itself in high-altitude drop tests. The whole parachute assembly system, mounted onto a drop test vehicle, will be lifted to an altitude of nearly 30 km by helium balloon. The vehicle will free-fall until the test parachute sequence starts in pressure conditions similar to diving into the martian atmosphere.
The dates of these tests have been postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak, and a new window of opportunity for testing is pending confirmation.
Learn more about the ride to Mars on the ExoMars mission pages.
Credits: ESA–P. Horváth
At the invitation of ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson attended the ESA Council at ESA’s establishment ESTEC in the Netherlands on 15 June 2022.
ESA is currently working with NASA on many areas, from science such as the James Webb Space Telescope to exploration such as Mars Sample Return, Artemis and the International Space Station, to Earth observation.
At the ESA Council, a framework agreement between ESA and NASA for a strategic partnership in Earth System Science was signed, as well as a memorandum of understanding between ESA and NASA on the Lunar Pathfinder mission.
Credits: ESA-S.Corvaja
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it is off to work the microbes go.
ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano slides the smallest miners in the universe into the Kubik experiment container on the International Space Station.
For the next three weeks, three different species of bacteria will unleash themselves on basalt slides in the Kubik centrifuge that simulates Earth and martian gravity as well as in microgravity.
Run by a research team from the University of Edinburgh in the UK, the BioRock experiment is testing how altered states of gravity affect biofilm formation – or the growth of microbes on rocks.
Microbes are able to weather down a rock from which they can extract ions. This natural process enables biomining, where useful metals are extracted from rock ores.
Already a common practice on Earth, biomining will eventually take place on the Moon, Mars and asteroids as we expand our understanding and exploration of the Solar System.
The bacteria arrived at the Space Station on the latest Dragon resupply mission in a dehydrated, dormant state.
The organisms are given ‘food’ to restore cell growth and left to grow on basalt at 20°C.
After three weeks, the samples will be preserved and stored at 4°C while they await their return to Earth.
Researchers will map out how altered states of gravity affect the rock and microbes as a whole, as well as which microbe is the best candidate for mining in space. It is hoped these results will shine light on extraterrestial biomining technologies and life-support systems involving microbes for longer duration spaceflight.
Biomining in space can also increase the efficiency of the process on Earth and could even reduce our reliance on precious Earth resources.
In addition to installing the little creatures, Luca is busy with a host of other experiments during his six-month mission, called Beyond.
Listen to the latest episode of the ESA Explores podcast for more science on the Space Station.
Follow Luca and his #MissionBeyond on social media and the blog.
Credits: ESA
This mosaic combines several observations of the Taurus Molecular Cloud performed by ESA’s Herschel observatory. Located about 450 light-years from us, in the constellation Taurus, the Bull, this vast complex of interstellar clouds is where a myriad of stars are being born, and is the closest large region of star formation.
Observing the sky at far-infrared and submillimetre wavelengths from 2009 to 2013, Herschel could catch the faint glow of dust grains dispersed through these clouds. Astronomers can use this glow to trace the otherwise dark gas where star formation unfolds.
The darker, blue-hued areas throughout the image correspond to colder, less dense portions of the cloud, while the brighter, red-hued regions are the densest environments, where the star-forming activity is most intense.
The densest regions are distributed along an intricate network of filaments, teeming with bright clumps: the seeds of future stars. This is a textbook example of the filamentary structures that were spotted by Herschel nearly everywhere in the Galaxy, demonstrating the key role of filaments in star formation.
Embedded in the bright clump towards the top left of the image is Lynds 1544, a pre-stellar core that will later turn into a star. Here, Herschel detected water vapour – the first time this molecule was ever found in a prestellar core – in an amount that exceeds, by over 2000 times, the water content of Earth’s oceans.
Herschel observations of the tangled structures in the top right of the image have shown that the material along filaments is not at all static. In fact, the most prominent filaments appear to be drawing matter from their surroundings through a network of lower-density filaments, known as striations, perpendicular to the main filament. In these regions, astronomers found that magnetic fields tend to be perpendicular to the densest, star-forming filaments and parallel to the striations, indicating that they must also play an important role in the processes that lead to stellar birth.
This four-colour image combines Herschel observations at 160 microns (blue), 250 microns (green), 350 microns (split between green and red) and 500 microns (red), and spans 13.8° by 7.3°; north is up and east to the left.
Full story: The cosmic water trail uncovered by Herschel
Credit: ESA/Herschel/NASA/JPL-Caltech; acknowledgement: R. Hurt (JPL-Caltech), 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
The feature-rich Deuteronilus Cavus depression allows us to explore a range of geological processes across Mars’s complex history.
From channels that once contained flowing water, and glacial-driven activity around its crater walls, to eroded blocks and wind-blown volcanic dust, click the labels to explore the features in more detail.
The image comprises data acquired by Mars Express’s High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on 25 October 2024 (orbit 26275). The ground resolution is approximately 18 m/pixel and the image is centred at about 36°N/14°E. It was created using data from the nadir channel, the field of view which is aligned perpendicular to the surface of Mars, and the colour channels of HRSC.
[Image description: An irregularly shaped depression takes centre stage in this birds-eye view of a portion of the martian landscape. Evidence of glacial activity is apparent around much of the inner crater walls as rock-covered ice has flowed downslope. At the nine o’clock position a channel with several branches breaches the crater wall; it likely once contained flowing water. At the three o’clock position a rectangular chunk is missing from the crater wall – likely related to water erosion initiating collapse, and later glacial erosion widening it out. The crater floor has various scattered blocks that have resisted erosion. The floor also has a patch of dark material which is likely volcanic dust. Outside of the depression other smaller craters are seen, with wrinkle ridges formed from cooling lava snaking through them in some places.]
Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
SpaceX Crew-2 Walkout and dry dress rehearsal with ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet on 18 April 2021 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
French ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet is returning to the International Space Station on his second spaceflight. The mission, which is called Alpha, will see the first European to launch on a US spacecraft in over a decade. Thomas is flying on the Crew Dragon, alongside NASA astronauts Megan MacArthur and Shane Kimbrough, and Japanese astronaut Aki Hoshide.
The Crew-2 launch is scheduled for 22 April at 06:11 EDT/12:11 CEST.
Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja
On Friday 17 December, the Ariane 5 rocket fairing was closed around the James Webb Space Telescope. This protective fairing, or ‘nose cone’, will shield the telescope during liftoff and its journey through the atmosphere on 24 December.
Earlier this week, Webb was placed on top of Ariane 5 and a protective ‘shower curtain’ was put up to avoid any contamination.
On the day of encapsulation in the fairing, a protective cover on top of Webb was removed and the fairing was lowered down over the observatory and locked in place for liftoff.
This was a particularly delicate operation, assisted by a laser guiding system, because the margins between the folded up observatory (4.5 m wide) and the rocket fairing (5.4 m wide) are small.
The fairing is equipped with specialised environmental controls that keep the observatory in a perfectly controlled temperature and humidity range during its final few days on Earth.
Now that Webb has been securely attached to its Ariane 5 launch vehicle, and enclosed within its protective fairing, mechanical operations involving the observatory at its launch site in French Guiana have formally concluded.
Final electrical and software configurations will occur on the launch pad during the final hours before liftoff. Webb will switch to internal battery power roughly 20 minutes prior to liftoff, and within 15 minutes prior the observatory and its launch vehicle will both be fully cleared for flight.
Ariane 5’s rollout to the launch pad is scheduled to begin Wednesday 22 December, and this is where final health checks and preparations for liftoff will occur.
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 - S.Martin
An infrared view of our Solar Orbiter spacecraft, which is currently undergoing a series of tests at the IABG facility in Ottobrunn, Germany, ahead of its launch, scheduled for February 2020.
Selected in 2011 as the first medium-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision programme, Solar Orbiter was designed to perform unprecedented close-up observations of the Sun. The spacecraft carries a suite of 10 state-of-the-art instruments to observe the turbulent, sometimes violent, surface of the Sun and study the changes that take place in the solar wind that flows outward at high speed from our nearest star.
Solar Orbiter’s unique orbit will allow scientists to study our parent star and its corona in much more detail than previously possible, and to observe specific features for longer periods than can ever be reached by any spacecraft circling the Earth. In addition, it will measure the solar wind close to the Sun, in an almost pristine state, and provide high-resolution images of the uncharted polar regions of the Sun.
After the preliminary definition and design phase, the mission started its integration and qualification in 2016, including environmental testing of the spacecraft as well as validation of all mission systems and sub-systems.
The first phase of Solar Orbiter’s environmental testing campaign was conducted in IABG’s special thermal-vacuum chamber in December 2018. Inside the chamber, powerful lamps are used to produce a ‘solar beam’ that simulates the Sun's radiation to demonstrate that the spacecraft can sustain the extreme temperatures it will encounter in the Sun's vicinity.
This picture was taken with an infrared camera, and the colouring indicates the temperatures of the spacecraft surface, corresponding to the range indicated in the colour bar on the right-hand side. During this thermal-vacuum test on the spacecraft, the solar beam was used at its maximum flux of about 1800 W/m2, reaching temperatures up to 107,6 ºC. An additional thermal-vacuum test was conducted on the heat shield that protects the entire platform from direct solar radiation: during this test, which used infrared plates to simulate the Sun’s heat, the heat shield reached higher temperatures, up to 520 ºC, similar to what it will experience during operations.
In this view, the spacecraft panel that will face the Sun is visible on the left, covered with the heat shield. The dark elements visible in the upper part of the panel are sliding doors that will open the path for sunlight to reach the remote-sensing instruments during science operations. Some of the thrusters that will be used to control the spacecraft orbit and to perform manoeuvres are hosted on the panel that is visible on the right in this view.
A video showing the spacecraft rotating as part of a simulated orbit-control-manoeuvre is available here.
After completing the thermal-vacuum tests, Solar Orbiter also successfully concluded the mechanical testing phase, including intense vibration tests, shaking the spacecraft to ensure that it will survive the stresses of launch.
Solar Orbiter is an ESA-led mission with strong NASA participation. It will be launched from Cape Canaveral aboard a NASA-supplied Atlas V launch vehicle.
Credits: Airbus Defence and Space/IABG
MetOp-SG-A1 and Sentinel-5 on Ariane 6 ready on the launch pad at the European spaceport in French Guiana ahead of liftoff, planned for 13 August 2025 at 02:37 CEST (12 August 21:37 Kourou time).
MetOp-SG-A1 is the first in a series of three successive pairs of satellites. The mission as a whole not only ensures the continued delivery of global observations from polar orbit for weather forecasting and climate analysis for more than 20 years, but also offers enhanced accuracy and resolution compared to the original MetOp mission – along with new measurement capabilities to expand its scientific reach.
This new weather satellite also carries the Copernicus Sentinel-5 mission to deliver daily global data on air pollutants and atmospheric trace gases as well as aerosols and ultraviolet radiation.
Ariane 6 is Europe’s heavy launcher and a key element of ESA’s efforts to ensure autonomous access to space for Europe’s citizens. Ariane 6 has three stages: two or four boosters, and a main and upper stage. For this flight, VA264, the rocket is used in its two-booster configuration.
Credits: ESA- S.Corvaja
ESA’s space weather expert, Juha-Pekka Luntama, took to the stage at this year’s New Scientist Live to illustrate the hazards that come from our star and the agency’s plan to protect infrastructure on Earth and in space.
Space weather refers to the environmental conditions in space as influenced by solar activity. Besides emitting a continuous stream of electrically charged atomic particles, the Sun periodically sneezes out billions of tonnes of material threaded with magnetic fields in colossal-scale ‘coronal mass ejections’ — immense clouds of matter.
“People do not realise just how reliant humanity is on satellite technology, from mobile phone communication and GPS, to navigation systems, power grids and weather services. These tools that are so fundamental to our way of life are vulnerable to even medium-sized outbursts from our raging star.” explains Juha-Pekka.
ESA and European industry are currently preparing for the Lagrange mission, the first-ever satellite placed onto the gravitational plateau 150 million km behind Earth, known as L5. From there it has a constant view of the side of our star that we cannot see from Earth. This allows the spacecraft to supply vital data on the Sun’s behaviour before it affects us, feeding advanced warnings into Europe's Space Weather services network that will ultimately allow economically vital infrastructure to be protected.
In the event of extreme solar weather, these warnings will ensure astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) have time to get to safety, and that power grid operators can take necessary measures to protect their networks and ensure continued power delivery. Vitally, these warnings will also provide satellite operators with the time to take defensive measures needed to protect space infrastructure.
Juha-Pekka adds, "The Lagrange mission is the first of its kind, and as technology develops, the warnings and alerts it will enable are becoming more necessary every day."
For more information on the Lagrange mission, click here.
Credits: ESA
This image shows an area of the mosaic released by ESA’s Euclid space telescope on 15 October 2024. The area is zoomed in twelve times compared to the large mosaic. In the middle left, spiral galaxy NGC 2188 is visible edge-on at a distance of 25 million light-years. In the top right corner, galaxy cluster Abell 3381 is now clearly noticeable, 678 million light-years away from us.
Equatorial sky coordinates RA/DEC: 06:10:01.48 / -33:49:36.85
Galactic sky coordinates GLON/GLAT: 240.54, -22.75
Area: 1.1 sq. deg.
[Image description: A sea of light points scattered evenly across a black background, with a few brighter and colourful ones standing out. As one gazes across the image from left to right, in the upper left corner, a bright orange star with six faint spikes catches the eye first. To the lower right of this, just below the halfway mark of the picture, a thin white elliptical galaxy floats into sight. Above it slightly to the right, a pair of bright golden yellow stars dance into view. Further to the right, in the last third of the image, a short line of stars and galaxies is visible. This appears as a chain, tilted at a 45-degree angle, on which hazy galaxies in different hues of yellow are strung like beads on a cosmic wristband.]
Credits: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CEA Paris-Saclay, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, E. Bertin, G. Anselmi; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territory of Canada can be seen from this Copernicus Sentinel-3 image, captured on 21 May 2019.
Read more: CryoSat conquers ice on Arctic lakes
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2019), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
In this image, Plato is situated on top of ESA’s QUAD shaker to simulate the vibrations encountered during launch. This test was essential to make sure Plato can survive the first two minutes of launch, during which the most extreme shocks are encountered.
[Image description: The structural model of Plato sits on top of the QUAD shaker at ESA’s ESTEC Test Centre. Plato’s structural model has 26 cylindrical shaped cameras attached. Plato sits on top of an octagonal-shaped shaker built into the floor.]
Credits: ESA/ G. Porter
This new NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month presents HH 30 in unprecedented resolution. This target is an edge-on protoplanetary disc that is surrounded by jets and a disc wind, and is located in the dark cloud LDN 1551 in the Taurus Molecular Cloud.
Herbig-Haro objects are small nebulae found in star formation regions, marking the locations where gas outflowing from young stars is heated into luminescence by shockwaves. HH 30 is an example of where this outflowing gas takes the form of a narrow jet. The source star is located on one end of the jet, hidden behind an edge-on protoplanetary disc that the star is illuminating.
HH 30 is of particular interest to astronomers. In fact, the HH 30 disc is considered the prototype of an edge-on disc, thanks to its early discovery with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Discs seen from this view are a unique laboratory to study the settling and drift of dust grains.
An international team of astronomers have used Webb to investigate the target in unprecedented detail. By combining Webb’s observations with those from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the team was able to study the multiwavelength disc appearance of the system.
The long-wavelength data from ALMA trace the location of millimetre-sized dust grains, which are found in a narrow region in the central plane of the disc. The shorter-wavelength infrared data from Webb reveal the distribution of smaller dust grains. These grains are only one millionth of a metre across — about the size of a single bacterium. While the large dust grains are concentrated in the densest parts of the disc, the small grains are much more widespread.
These Webb observations were taken as part of the Webb GO programme #2562 (PI F. Ménard, K. Stapelfeldt), which aims to understand how dust evolves in edge-on discs like HH 30. Combined with the keen radio-wavelength eyes of ALMA, these observations show that large dust grains must migrate within the disc and settle in a thin layer. The creation of a narrow, dense layer of dust is an important stage in the process of planet formation. In this dense region, dust grains clump together to form pebbles and eventually planets themselves.
In addition to the behaviour of dust grains, the Webb, Hubble, and ALMA images reveal several distinct structures that are nested within one another. Emerging at a 90-degree angle from the narrow central disc is a high-velocity jet of gas. The narrow jet is surrounded by a wider, cone-shaped outflow. Enclosing the conical outflow is a wide nebula that reflects the light from the young star that is embedded within the disc. Together, these data reveal HH 30 to be a dynamic place, where tiny dust grains and massive jets alike play a role in the formation of new planets.
The annotated verision of this image can be seen here.
[Image Description: A close-in image of a protoplanetary disc around a newly formed star. Many different wavelengths of light are combined and represented by separate and various colours. A dark line across the centre is the disc, corresponding to the densest parts of the disc, made of opaque dust: the star is hidden in here and creates a strong glow in the centre. A band going straight up is a jet, while other outflows above and below the disc, and a tail coming off to one side.]
Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, Tazaki et al.; CC BY 4.0
The powerful Hurricane Otis has been captured in this Copernicus Sentinel-3 image when it was approaching Mexico’s southern Pacific coast in October 2023.
Originally classified as a tropical storm, Otis was upgraded in just 12 hours to a category five hurricane – the most dangerous rating for a hurricane – shocking forecasters and local authorities alike. With sustained winds reaching around 265 km per hour, Hurricane Otis became the strongest on record to hit Mexico's Pacific coast. After making landfall near Acapulco, the hurricane began to weaken as it moved inland, leaving a trail of devastation.
This image, acquired on 24 October 2023 by Copernicus Sentinel-3’s Ocean and Land Colour Instrument, shows Hurricane Otis near Acapulco, where it made landfall the following day. The eye of the storm, which is very clear to see, had a diameter of approximately 25 km.
Acapulco, which is home to almost one million people is covered by storm clouds in the image. It was one of the worst places hit. Mexico City, the country’s huge, densely populated capital, can be seen as a brown area in the cloud-free part of the image north of the hurricane. The Popocatépetl active volcano can also be spotted about 70 km southeast of Mexico City.
To help emergency response efforts, both the International Charter Space and Major Disasters and the Copernicus Emergency Mapping Service were triggered to supply maps, based on satellite data, of the affected areas.
Hurricanes are one of the forces of nature that can be tracked by satellites. Timely imagery from space can help authorities take precautionary measures. Earth observation satellites are the best means of providing important information about storms, including size, wind speed and path, as well about features that contribute to the intensification of hurricanes, such as cloud thickness, temperature, and water and ice content.
Thanks to its daily revisits and spatial resolution, Copernicus Sentinel-3 is well equipped to measure, monitor and understand such large-scale global dynamics and provide essential information in near-real time for ocean and weather forecasting.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2023), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
To celebrate a new year, the NASA/ESA Space Telescope has published a montage of six beautiful galaxy mergers. Each of these merging systems was studied as part of the recent HiPEEC survey to investigate the rate of new star formation within such systems. These interactions are a key aspect of galaxy evolution and are among the most spectacular events in the lifetime of a galaxy.
It is during rare merging events that galaxies undergo dramatic changes in their appearance and in their stellar content. These systems are excellent laboratories to trace the formation of star clusters under extreme physical conditions.
The Milky Way typically forms star clusters with masses that are 10 thousand times the mass of our Sun. This doesn’t compare to the masses of the star clusters forming in colliding galaxies, which can reach millions of times the mass of our Sun.
These dense stellar systems are also very luminous. Even after the collision, when the resulting galactic system begins to fade into a more quiescent phase, these very massive star clusters will shine throughout their host galaxy, as long-lasting witnesses of past merging events.
By studying the six galaxy mergers shown here, the Hubble imaging Probe of Extreme Environments and Clusters (HiPEEC) survey has investigated how star clusters are affected during collisions by the rapid changes that drastically increase the rate at which new stars are formed in these galaxies. Hubble’s capabilities have made it possible to resolve large star-forming “knots” into numerous compact young star clusters. Hubble’s ultraviolet and near-infrared observations of these systems have been used to derive star cluster ages, masses, and extinctions and to analyse the star formation rate within these six merging galaxies. The HiPEEC study reveals that the star cluster populations undergo large and rapid variations in their properties, with the most massive clusters formed towards the end of the merger phase.
Each of the merging systems shown here has been previously published by Hubble, as early as 2008 and as recently as October 2020. To celebrate it’s 18th anniversary in 2008, the Hubble Space Telescope released a collection of 59 images of merging galaxies, which can be explored here.
Credits: NASA & ESA; CC BY 4.0
On 22 and 23 November 2022, ESA Member States, Associate States and Cooperating States observers gathered in Paris, France, for the ESA Council Meeting at Ministerial Level (CM22). They discussed how to strengthen Europe’s space sector for the benefit of all - including climate change monitoring and mitigation, secure communications under European control and rapid and resilient crisis response, and the ESA budget for the next three years.
Credits: ESA - P. Sebirot
During the lunar-Earth flyby that took place on 19–20 August 2024, the Navigation Camera (NavCam) of ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) was tested out in space for the first time.
[Image description: The Moon in black and white, with the surface looking very bumpy and cratered.]
Credits: ESA/Juice/NavCam
Acknowledgements: Airbus
This image provides a side-by-side comparison of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A) as captured by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument).
At first glance, Webb’s NIRCam image appears less colourful than the MIRI image. But this is only because the material from the object is emitting light at many different wavelengths The NIRCam image appears a bit sharper than the MIRI image because of its greater resolution.
The outskirts of the main inner shell, which appeared as a deep orange and red in the MIRI image, look like smoke from a campfire in the NIRCam image. This marks where the supernova blast wave is ramming into surrounding circumstellar material. The dust in the circumstellar material is too cool to be detected directly at near-infrared wavelengths, but lights up in the mid-infrared.
Also not seen in the near-infrared view is the loop of green light in the central cavity of Cas A that glowed in mid-infrared light, nicknamed the Green Monster by the research team. The circular holes visible in the MIRI image within the Green Monster, however, are faintly outlined in white and purple emission in the NIRCam image.
[Image description: A comparison between two images, one on the left (labelled NIRCam), and on the right (labelled MIRI), separated by a white line. On the left, the image is of a roughly circular cloud of gas and dust with a complex structure. The inner shell is made of bright pink and orange filaments that look like tiny pieces of shattered glass. Around the exterior of the inner shell are curtains of wispy gas that look like campfire smoke. On the right is the same nebula seen in different light. The curtains of material outside the inner shell glow orange instead of white. The inner shell looks more mottled, and is a muted pink. At centre right, a greenish loop extends from the right side of the ring into the central cavity.]
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, D. Milisavljevic (Purdue University), T. Temim (Princeton University), I. De Looze (University of Gent)
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This mosaic of images shows a multitude of tiny jets of material escaping from the Sun’s outer atmosphere. The images come from the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft. They show up as dark streaks across the solar surface in this mosaic. The images are ‘negatives’ meaning that although the jets are displayed as dark, they are bright flashes against the solar surface. Each jet lasts between 20 and 100 seconds, and expels charged particles, known as plasma, at around 100 km/s. These events could be the long-sought-after source of the ‘solar wind’, the constant outflow of charged particles that comes from the Sun and flows through the Solar System.
In this collage of images, the Sun’s south pole is to the left.
[Image description: A grid of 8 x 6 square images each showing one or more dark streaks in various orientations against a grainy yellow-white background. They represent bright flashes on the Sun that may be responsible for generating the solar wind.]
Credits: ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/EUI Team; acknowledgement: Lakshmi Pradeep Chitta, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The spiral galaxy appearing in this week’s Hubble Picture of the Week is named IC 3225. It looks remarkably as if it’s been launched from a cannon, speeding through space like a comet with a tail of gas streaming from its disc behind it. The scenes that galaxies appear in from Earth’s point of view are fascinating; many seem to hang calmly in the emptiness of space as if hung from a string, while others star in much more dynamic situations!
Appearances can be deceiving with objects so far from Earth — IC 3225 itself is about 100 million light-years away — but the galaxy’s location suggests some causes for this active scene, because IC 3225 is one of over 1300 members of the Virgo galaxy cluster. The density of galaxies in the Virgo cluster creates a rich field of hot gas between them, the so-called ‘intracluster medium’, while the cluster’s extreme mass has its galaxies careening around its centre in some very fast orbits. Ramming through the thick intracluster medium, especially close to the cluster’s centre, places an enormous ‘ram pressure’ on the moving galaxies that strips gas out of them as they go.
IC 3225 is not so close to the cluster core right now, but astronomers have deduced that it has undergone this ram pressure stripping in the past. The galaxy looks as though it’s been impacted by this: it is compressed on one side and there has been noticeably more star formation on this leading edge, while the opposite end is stretched out of shape. Being in such a crowded field, a close call with another galaxy could also have tugged on IC 3225 and created this shape. The sight of this distorted galaxy is a reminder of the incredible forces at work on astronomical scales, which can move and reshape even entire galaxies!
[Image Description: A spiral galaxy. Its disc glows visibly from the centre, and has faint dust threaded through it. A spiral arm curves around the left edge of the disc and is noticeably more dense with bright blue spots, where there are hot and new stars, than the rest. Opposite, the disc stretches out into a short tail where it covers a distant background galaxy. Around it, other distant galaxies and some nearby stars are visible.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Sun; CC BY 4.0
This sequence of NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope images chronicles the waxing and waning of the amount of cloud cover on Neptune. This long set of observations shows that the number of clouds grows increasingly following a peak in the solar cycle – where the Sun’s level of activity rhythmically rises and falls over an 11-year period.
The theory is that the increased ultraviolet radiation from the Sun, during its peak of activity, causes chemical changes deep in Neptune’s atmosphere. After a couple years this eventually percolates into the upper atmosphere to form clouds.
In 1989, NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft provided the first close-up images of linear, bright clouds, reminiscent of cirrus clouds on Earth, seen high in Neptune’s atmosphere. They form above most of the methane in Neptune’s atmosphere and consequently are not blue, but reflect all colours of sunlight. Hubble picks up where the brief Voyager flyby left off by continually keeping an eye on the planet yearly.
The findings are published in the journal Icarus.
[Image description: This sequence of Hubble Space Telescope images chronicles the waxing and waning of the amount of cloud cover on Neptune taken in the years 1994, 1998, 2000, 2002 (top row) and 2006, 2010, 2015, 2020 (bottom row). The planet is blue (due to methane absorption of red light in its atmosphere) and the high-altitude, cirrus-like clouds are white. A comparison of Neptune’s cloud cover corresponds to peaks in the 11-year-long repeating solar cycle where the Sun’s level of activity rhythmically rises and falls.]
Credits: NASA, ESA, E. Chavez (UC Berkeley), I. de Pater (UC Berkeley); CC BY 4.0
The European Space Agency’s X-ray space observatory XMM-Newton observed interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on 3 December for around 20 hours. During that time, the comet was about 282–285 million km from the spacecraft.
XMM-Newton observed the comet with its European Photon Imaging Camera (EPIC)-pn camera, its most sensitive X-ray camera.
This image shows the comet glowing in low-energy X-rays: blue marks empty space with very few X-rays, while red highlights the comet’s X-ray glow. Astronomers expected to see this glow because when gas molecules streaming from the comet collide with the solar wind, they produce X-rays.
These X-rays can come from the interaction of the solar wind with gases like water vapour, carbon dioxide, or carbon monoxide – which telescopes such as the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope and NASA’s SPHEREx have already detected. But they are uniquely sensitive to gases like hydrogen (H₂) and nitrogen (N₂). These are almost invisible to optical and ultraviolet instruments, such as the cameras on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope or ESA’s JUICE.
This makes X-ray observations a powerful tool. They allow scientists to detect and study gases that other instruments can’t easily spot.
Several groups of scientists think that the first detected interstellar object, 1I/'Oumuamua (found in 2017), may have been made of exotic ice like nitrogen or hydrogen.
While 1I/'Oumuamua is too far away now, 3I/ATLAS presents a new opportunity to study an interstellar object, and observations in X-ray light will complement other observations to help scientists figure out what it is made of.
Visit our website the latest updates and FAQs related to comet 3I/ATLAS.
[Image description: This image shows an X-ray view of interstellar comet 3I ATLAS, captured by ESA’s XMM-Newton spacecraft. At the centre of the image, a bright red spot stands out against a dark background, like a fiery beacon. Starting from this core, faint gradients of purple and blue spread outward, creating a slightly rotated rectangular frame, divided by a thin horizontal line, the detector gap. The red colour shows low-energy X-rays, blue marks empty space with very few X-rays. A yellow arrow labelled “Sun” points left, indicating the comet’s orientation in the Solar System. At the bottom right, a scale marker reads “5 arcmin”, providing a sense of spatial dimension.]
Credits: ESA/XMM-Newton/C. Lisse, S. Cabot & the XMM ISO Team
This colour-coded topographic image shows the northern tip of Mars’s Eumenides Dorsum mountains, near the martian equator.
It was created from data collected by ESA’s Mars Express on 16 October 2024 (orbit 26245) 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 20 m/pixel and the image is centred at about 12°N/200°E.
[Image description: A colour-enhanced view of Mars’s surface showing a large circular impact crater on the right side with a bright blue centre and a raised rim. The surrounding terrain is mostly smooth and shaded in green and yellow tones, with a broad area of darker, rough-textured streaks spreading diagonally across the left side. A small colour scale bar appears in the top right corner.]
Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope unbarred spiral galaxy roughly 51 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Coma Berenices.
You can see an old image of NGC 4414 that features Hubble data from 1995 and 1999 here, which was captured as one of the telescope’s primary missions to determine the distance to galaxies. This was achieved as part of an ongoing research effort to study Cepheid variable stars. Cepheids are a special type of variable star with very stable and predictable brightness variations. The period of these variations depends on physical properties of the stars such as their mass and true brightness. This means that astronomers, just by looking at the variability of their light, can find out about the Cepheids' physical nature, which then can be used very effectively to determine their distance. For this reason cosmologists call Cepheids 'standard candles'.
Astronomers have used Hubble to observe Cepheids, like those that reside in NGC 4414, with extraordinary results. The Cepheids have then been used as stepping-stones to make distance measurements for supernovae, which have, in turn, given a measure for the scale of the Universe. Today we know the age of the Universe to a much higher precision than before Hubble: around 13.7 billion years.
[Image description: A large spiral galaxy is seen tilted diagonally. The arms of the galaxy’s disc are speckled with glowing patches; some are blue in colour, others are pink, showing gas illuminated by new stars. A faint glow surrounds the galaxy, which lies on a dark, nearly empty background. The galaxy's centre glows in white.]
Image B (closeup of NGC 4414's supernovae)
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, O. Graur, S. W. Jha, A. Filippenko; CC BY 4.0
The Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam is a vast maze of rivers, swamps and islands. The region faces a severe risk from rising sea levels, potentially inundating a significant portion of its land and displacing millions of people. This image was captured by Copernicus Sentinel-2 in February 2025.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2025), processed by ESA; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
This may look like a collection of colourful contact lenses and in some respects there are some similarities: these are the filters through which the ExoMars rover – Rosalind Franklin – will view Mars in visible and near infrared wavelengths.
They are pictured here in their individual transport cases, before they were installed in the filter wheels of the Panoramic Camera, PanCam, which comprises two wide-angle cameras and a high-resolution camera. The wide-angle cameras are mounted at each end of the PanCam unit and form a stereo pair. Each camera has a filter wheel with 11 positions. Red, green and blue broadband imaging filters for colour stereo imaging are common to both left and right cameras; the remaining eight are different between left and right to provide the range of filters needed for geological and solar imaging. The geology filters have been specifically selected to identify water-rich minerals and clays on Mars.
PanCam also hosts a high-resolution colour camera and, sitting on a mast 2 m above the martian surface, will be fundamental in the day-to-day scientific operations of the rover, its images essential to assist with scientific decisions on where to drive to next, and where to target its drill. The rover will be the first with the capability to drill 2 m below the surface to retrieve samples for analysis in its onboard laboratory, seeking signs of life past or present. Combined with observations with its spectrometers, close-up imager, sub-surface sounding radar and neutron detector, the ExoMars rover has a powerful payload to explore the surface and subsurface of Mars.
The filters of the wide-angle camera shown here were integrated into their filter wheels in 2018 and completed calibration testing on 11 May 2019. Just last week the entire PanCam instrument was shipped from University College London’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory and delivered to Airbus, Stevenage
, in the UK, where it will be soon be built into the rover, giving Rosalind Franklin rover her science eyes.
Credits: M. de la Nougerede, UCL/MSSL
After it's arrival at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana ahead of launch, the James Webb Space Telescope is unboxed inside a dedicated spacecraft preparation facility where it will be examined to ensure that it is undamaged from its voyage and in good working order.
Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique vidéo du CSG - P.Piron
Bathed in red, a scale model of the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover welcomes visitors to the Natural History Museum in London. Rosalind is part of an exhibition supported by the European Space Agency that explores the question of whether life could exist beyond Earth.
This marks the very first time the museum has hosted an exhibition dedicated to space exploration in its 144-year history, under the title “Space: Could Life Exist Beyond Earth?” The London venue is the second most visited attraction in the United Kingdom, with over six million visitors last year.
With more than 60 objects on display until February 2026, visitors will have the opportunity to understand both the science and the engineering of the search for life and will have the chance to touch fragments of rock from Mars.
The exhibition features the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover mission as Europe’s ambitious exploration journey to search for past and present signs of life on Mars. The rover will drill up to two metres below the surface to sample martian soil, analyse its composition, and search for preserved deposits of organic molecules.
The rover uses a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and scientific eyes atop its mast that provide a wide range of vision. From about two metres above the ground, its panoramic camera suite (PanCam) hosts wide angle and high-resolution cameras to get the big picture with high-resolution imaging. The Close-UP Imager (CLUPI) sits on the side of the drill box – another camera designed to acquire detailed images of outcrops, rocks and soils.
These radar and cameras will identify the most promising drilling sites. Rosalind’s Rosalind’s miniature laboratory will then analyse the samples with its three instruments, searching for evidence of life in underground soil protected from radiation.
European industry continues working to upgrade the Rosalind Franklin rover in preparation for its planned launch in 2028. Getting the Rosalind Franklin rover onto the surface of Mars is a huge international challenge and the culmination of more than 20 years’ work – potentially unlocking one of the greatest mysteries on our neighbouring planet.
Credits: Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London
A single member of a galaxy pair takes centre stage in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week. This beautiful spiral galaxy is NGC 3507, which is situated about 46 million light-years away in the constellation Leo. NGC 3507 is classified as a barred spiral because the galaxy’s sweeping spiral arms emerge from the ends of a central bar of stars rather than the central point of the galaxy.
Though pictured solo here, NGC 3507 actually travels the Universe with a galactic partner named NGC 3501 that is located outside the frame. NGC 3501 was featured in a previous Picture of the Week. While NGC 3507 is a quintessential galactic pinwheel, its partner resembles a streak of quicksilver across the sky. Despite looking completely different, both are spiral galaxies, simply seen from different angles.
For galaxies that are just a few tens of millions of light-years away, like NGC 3507 and NGC 3501, features like spiral arms, dusty gas clouds, and brilliant star clusters are on full display. More distant galaxies appear less detailed. See if you can spot any faraway galaxies in this image: they tend to be orange or yellow and can be anywhere from circular and starlike to narrow and elongated, with hints of spiral arms. Astronomers use instruments called spectrometers to split the light from these distant galaxies to study the nature of these objects in the early Universe.
In addition to these far-flung companions, NGC 3507 is joined by a far nearer object, marked by four spikes of light: a star within the Milky Way, a mere 436 light-years away from Earth.
[Image Description: A spiral galaxy seen face-on. Its centre is crossed by a broad bar of light. A glowing spiral arm extends from each end of this bar, both making almost a full turn through the galaxy’s disc before fading out. The arms contain sparkling blue stars, pink spots of star formation, and dark threads of dust that follow both spiral arms into and across the central bar. A foreground star sits atop the galaxy.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker; CC BY 4.0
Following a successful test campaign in Europe, the structural thermal model of the Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (Smile)’s payload module will soon be delivered to China to complete the qualification of the satellite.
Smile is a joint mission between ESA and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and will aim to build a more complete understanding of the Sun-Earth connection by measuring the solar wind and its dynamic interaction with the magnetosphere.
The payload module recently completed thermal testing and a deployment test of the magnetometer instrument boom at ESA’s technical heart in the Netherlands. The module then returned to Airbus in Spain for mechanical testing, completing the environmental test campaign phase that lasted three months.
Integration onto the Chinese platform is expected to begin in early April. Once the complete satellite is finished, it will undergo a comprehensive five month long qualification test campaign including thermal, mechanical, electromagnetic compatibility testing, and magnetic, deployment and functional tests at system level.
Credits: Airbus
During November 2025, ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) used five of its science instruments to observe 3I/ATLAS. The instruments collected information about how the comet is behaving and what it is made of.
In addition, Juice snapped the comet with its onboard Navigation Camera (NavCam), designed not as a high-resolution science camera, but to help Juice navigate Jupiter’s icy moons following arrival in 2031.
Though the data from the science instruments won’t arrive on Earth until February 2026, our Juice team couldn’t wait that long. They decided to try downloading just a quarter of a single NavCam image to see what was in store for them. The very clearly visible comet, surrounded by signs of activity, surprised them.
Not only do we clearly see the glowing halo of gas surrounding the comet known as its coma, we also see a hint of two tails. The comet’s ‘plasma tail’ – made up of electrically charged gas, stretches out towards the top of the frame. We may also be able to see a fainter ‘dust tail’ – made up of tiny solid particles – stretching to the lower left of the frame. More on the structure of a comet.
The image was taken on 2 November 2025, during Juice’s first slot for observing 3I/ATLAS. It was two days before Juice’s closest approach to the comet, which occurred on 4 November at a distance of about 66 million km.
We expect to receive the data from the five scientific instruments switched on during the observations – JANUS, MAJIS, UVS, SWI and PEP – on 18 and 20 February 2026. The delay is because Juice is currently using its main high-gain antenna as a heat shield to protect it from the Sun, leaving its smaller medium-gain antenna to send data back to Earth at a much lower rate.
Though Juice was further from 3I/ATLAS than our Mars orbiters were back in October, it observed 3I/ATLAS just after the comet’s closest approach to the Sun, meaning that it was in a more active state. We expect to see clearer signs of this activity in the data from the science instruments. This includes not only images from JANUS – Juice’s high-resolution optical camera – but also spectrometry data from MAJIS and UVS, composition data from SWI, and particle data from PEP.
Go here for the latest updates and FAQs related to comet 3I/ATLAS.
Click here to view an annotated version of the image.
[Image description: Grainy space image, with white dots on a dark background. At the centre of the image is a larger, bright white blob with a faint white line stretching towards the top of the frame.]
Credits: ESA/Juice/NavCam; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
ESA’s Aeolus satellite ready for liftoff on a Vega rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
Using revolutionary laser technology, Aeolus will measure winds around the globe and play a key role in our quest to better understand the workings of our atmosphere. Importantly, this novel mission will also improve weather forecasting.
Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja