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A 500-day global observation campaign spearheaded more than three years ago by ESA’s galaxy-mapping powerhouse Gaia has provided unprecedented insights into the binary system of stars that caused an unusual brightening of an even more distant star. To source
Observations from ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft are shedding light on the mysterious make-up of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, revealing a mix of compounds thought to be essential precursors to life – including salts of ammonium and a particular type of hydrocarbons. To source
Image: These illustrations show the surroundings of a black hole feeding on ambient gas as mapped using ESA’s XMM-Newton X-ray observatory. As the material falls into the black hole, it spirals around to form a flattened disc, as shown here, heating up as it does so. At the very centre of the disc, close to […]
Image: The changing activity of our Sun as seen by ESA’s Proba-2 satellite in 2019. The satellite is continuously monitoring the Sun – one image was selected to represent each day of the year in this montage of 365 Suns. The images were taken by the satellite’s SWAP camera, which works at extreme ultraviolet wavelengths to […]
Image: This animated artist’s impression shows the Milky Way (the small galaxy depicted at the centre of the frame) and its halo (the extended gaseous region). It illustrates the halo in three different shades – emerald, yellow and green. These all mix together throughout the halo, and each represents gas of a different temperature. Dots […]
ESA’s XMM-Newton has discovered that gas lurking within the Milky Way’s halo reaches far hotter temperatures than previously thought and has a different chemical make-up than predicted, challenging our understanding of our galactic home. To source
Fifteen years ago today, ESA’s Huygens probe made history when it descended to the surface of Saturn’s moon Titan and became the first probe to successfully land on another world in the outer Solar System. However, during its descent, the probe began spinning the wrong way – and recent tests now reveal why. To source
Image: ESA’s Characterising Exoplanet Satellite, Cheops, is shown here as a long streak against a backdrop of stars as it orbits the Earth after its successful launch on 18 December 2019. The 6-minute long exposure was taken at 13:18 UTC on 11 January 2020 with the 1-m SAINT-EX robotic telescope , located at the National […]
Image: This image shows shows part of the ice cap at Mars’ north pole in 3D when viewed using red-green or red-blue glasses. This anaglyph was derived from data obtained by the nadir and stereo channels of the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on ESA’s Mars Express during spacecraft orbit 3670. It covers a part […]
Image: This image shows part of the ice cap sitting at Mars’ north pole, complete with bright swathes of ice, dark troughs and depressions, and signs of strong winds and stormy activity. The landscape here is a rippled mix of colour. Dark red and ochre-hued troughs appear to cut through the icy white of the […]
Image: This image shows shows the ice cap at Mars’ north pole. The area outlined by the bold white box indicates the area imaged by the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera on 16 November 2006 during orbit 3670. To source
Image: This image shows the Perseus galaxy cluster – one of the most massive known objects in the Universe – in X-ray and optical light, as seen by XMM-Newton ’s European Photon Imaging Camera (EPIC) and the Digitzed Sky Survey II, respectively. Using XMM-Newton to study Perseus, astronomers spotted the first signs of this hot […]
ESA’s XMM-Newton X-ray observatory has spied hot gas sloshing around within a galaxy cluster – a never-before-seen behaviour that may be driven by turbulent merger events. To source