Video: 00:02:05 This is a new artist’s animation of our galaxy, the Milky Way, based on data from ESA’s Gaia space telescope. Gaia has changed our impression of the Milky Way. Even seemingly simple ideas about the nature of our galaxy’s central bar and the spiral arms have been overturned. Gaia has shown us that it has […]
Image: The best Milky Way map, by Gaia (artist impression) To source
Image: The best Milky Way map, by Gaia (artist impression, edge-on) To source
This year will mark the European Space Agency’s 50th anniversary and promises to be a landmark year for the European aerospace industry. In addition to milestone events in our programmes, September will also mark 30 years of satellite navigation for Europe. This spring brings the second commercial mission involving a project astronaut to the International […]
The first IRIDE satellite – the Pathfinder Hawk – is now in orbit around Earth after lifting off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on 14 January. As its ‘Pathfinder’ name suggests, this new microsatellite is a prototype for one of the six IRIDE constellations, which are […]
Video: 00:01:36 Fly over Mercury with BepiColombo for the final time during the mission’s epic expedition around the Sun. The ESA/JAXA spacecraft captured these images of the Solar System’s smallest planet on 7 and 8 January 2025, before and during its sixth encounter with Mercury. This was its final planetary flyby until it enters orbit […]
The European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton has detected rapidly fluctuating X-rays coming from the very edge of a supermassive black hole in the heart of a nearby galaxy. The results paint a fascinating picture that defies how we thought matter falls into such black holes, and points to a potential source of gravitational waves that ESA’s […]
Slovenia has celebrated its status the European Space Agency’s 23rd Member State with a day of space activities including a primetime television broadcast from the Herman Potočnik Noordung Space Technology Center in Vitanje. To source
Week in images: 06-10 January 2025 Discover our week through the lens To source
Image: Five wildfires are still currently burning (as of 10 January) in areas of north Los Angeles. This image, captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission on 9 January 2025, shows the Palisades and the Eaton fires, with smoke seen reaching Catalina Island and the Santa Barbara reserve. To source
Video: 01:22:54 Watch the replay of ESA’s start-of-the-year press briefing looking ahead to 2025. Download the presentation slides . To source
On 8 January 2025, the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission flew past Mercury for the sixth time, successfully completing the final ‘gravity assist manoeuvre’ needed to steer it into orbit around the planet in late 2026. The spacecraft flew just a few hundred kilometres above the planet’s north pole. Close-up images expose possibly icy craters whose floors […]
Image: Fanned by very strong winds, a wildfire is ripping through the Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles, California. This image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission vividly depicts the smoke billowing from the fire near Santa Monica on 7 January 2025, not long after the fire broke out. To source