Image: The Christmas tree is up at ESA’s ESTEC technical heart in the Netherlands, seen here reflected in the main mirror of a tenth scale model of the NASA-ESA-CSA James Webb Space Telescope . The Christmas tree’s lights will have taken about 15 billionths of a second to travel to this multi-segment mirror, but the actual […]
Tag Archives | ESA
Greenland ice loss much faster than expected
The Greenland ice sheet is losing mass seven times faster than in the 1990s, according to new research. To source
Holiday kristall
Image: This box of holiday cheer is actually tubes of plasma containing suspended microparticles exposed to an electrical current to form 3D crystal structures. Called Plasma Kristall-4, this ESA–Roscosmos experiment has been helping to visualise atoms on the International Space Station to provide insights on basic physical processes. A plasma is an electrically charged gas, […]
Cheops: The Hunt for Exoplanets
Video: 00:03:00 A powerful space telescope, due for launch from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 17 December 2019, will give scientists a new insight into the nature of planets outside our Solar System. Cheops, the ‘Characterising Exoplanet Satellite’, will study known exoplanets that are orbiting bright stars. More than 4000 exoplanets have been discovered […]
Call for Media: Cheops launch to study exoplanets
Press Release N° 24–2019 Cheops, ESA’s ‘Characterising Exoplanet Satellite’, is scheduled to be launched on a Soyuz-Fregat rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at 09:54 CET on 17 December 2019. Representatives of traditional and social media are invited to apply for accreditation to follow the launch live from ESA’s European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) […]
GOCE reveals what’s going on deep below Antarctica
To source
Matyas's YGT experience in the Lunar Resource Lander Team
Video: 00:02:41 Matyas Hazadi shares his YGT experience as a system engineer in the Lunar Resource Lander Team working in ESTEC, the Netherlands. To source
XMM-Newton’s 20th anniversary in space
Image: On 10 December, ESA’s XMM-Newton X-ray space observatory is celebrating its 20th launch anniversary. In those two decades, the observatory has supplied a constant stream of outstanding science. One area that the mission has excelled in is the science of black holes, having had a profound effect on our understanding of these cosmic enigmas. […]
ESA commissions world’s first space debris removal
ClearSpace-1 will be the first space mission to remove an item of debris from orbit, planned for launch in 2025. The mission is being procured as a service contract with a startup-led commercial consortium, to help establish a new market for in-orbit servicing, as well as debris removal. To source
Satellites key to '10 Insights in Climate Science' report
A new easy-to-read guide, ‘10 New Insights in Climate Science’ has been presented to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Executive Secretary, Patricia Espinosa, at the COP25 climate conference. To source
Nobel Prize laureates call to Space Station
Video: 00:54:35 Station on 6 December 2019. The call was made from Stockholm, Sweden, at the start of Nobel Week festivities. ESA astronaut Christer Fuglesang moderated the conversation between two of the Nobel Prize laureates in physics, Didier Queloz and Michel Mayor, and the Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry, Stanley Whittingham. To source
New biomass map to take stock of the world’s carbon
The first of a series of global maps aimed at quantifying change in carbon stored as biomass across the world’s forests and shrublands has been released today by ESA’s Climate Change Initiative at COP25 – the United Nation Climate Change Conference currently taking place in Madrid. To source
New reentry CubeSat in orbit
Image: ESA’s latest space mission has reached orbit. The Qarman CubeSat flew to space aboard SpaceX’s Dragon launched from Florida, USA, on Thursday 5 December, ahead of a planned rendezvous with the International Space Station on Sunday 8 December. From there, Qarman – seen here during plasma wind tunnel testing – will be deployed into […]