Archive | Science

Video: 00:01:02 On 8 September 2024, Salsa (Cluster 2), one of four satellites that make up ESA’s Cluster  mission, will reenter Earth’s atmosphere  over the South Pacific Ocean Uninhabited Area. Salsa’s reentry marks the end of the historic Cluster mission, over 24 years after the quartet was sent into space to measure Earth’s magnetic environment. Though the remaining three satellites will also stop […]

ESA’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft has provided crucial data to answer the decades-long question of where the energy comes from to heat and accelerate the solar wind. Working in tandem with NASA’s Parker Solar Probe , Solar Orbiter reveals that the energy needed to help power this outflow is coming from large fluctuations in the Sun’s […]

During this week’s lunar-Earth flyby, the Navigation Camera (NavCam) of ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice ) was tested out in space for the first time. To source

Image: Mermaid on salty Mars To source

Image: XMM-Newton and Euclid image of galaxy cluster Abell 2390 To source

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) will return to Earth on 19–20 August, with flight controllers guiding the spacecraft first past the Moon and then past Earth itself. This ‘braking’ manoeuvre will take Juice on a shortcut to Jupiter via Venus. To source

Video: 00:00:48 Several team members wish Euclid a happy first launch anniversary in their own language. ESA’s Euclid satellite launched on 1 July 2023 on a SpaceX Falcon 9, and now resides in an orbit around the Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2. During its mission, Euclid will observe billions of galaxies out to ten billion light-years […]

An international team of astronomers have used the NASA/ESA/Webb James Webb Space Telescope to study the disc around a young and very low-mass star. The results reveal the richest hydrocarbon chemistry seen to date in a protoplanetary disc (including the first extrasolar detection of ethane) and contribute to our evolving understanding of the diversity of […]

Video: 00:01:01 Today, ESA’s Euclid space mission releases five unprecedented new views of the Universe. The never-before-seen images demonstrate Euclid’s ability to unravel the secrets of the cosmos and enable scientists to hunt for rogue planets, use lensed galaxies to study mysterious matter, and explore the evolution of the Universe. Read more about Euclid’s first […]

Image: The eye of the crater To source

Image: Research Fellows in space science 2024 To source

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has captured the sharpest infrared images to date of one of the most distinctive objects in our skies, the Horsehead Nebula. These observations show a part of the iconic nebula in a whole new light, capturing its complexity with unprecedented spatial resolution. To source

While ESA’s Integral was observing the sky, it suddenly spotted a burst of gamma-rays coming from the nearby galaxy M82. Only a few hours later, ESA’s XMM-Newton searched for an afterglow from the explosion but found none. Astronomers realised that the burst must have been an extra-galactic flare from a magnetar, a young neutron star […]