European Space Agency
The European Space Agency is an intergovernmental organization of 22 member states dedicated to the exploration of space. Established in 1975 and headquartered in Paris, ESA has a worldwide staff of about 2,200
2,628 topics in this forum
-
- 0 replies
- 53 views
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 around the planet in late 2026. The video begins with BepiColombo's approach to Mercury, showing images taken by onboard monitoring cameras 1 and 2 (M-CAM 1 and M-CAM 2) between 16:59 CET on 7 January and 01:45 CET on 8 January. During this time, the spacecraft moved from 106 019 to 42 513 km from Mercury's surface. The view fro…
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 81 views
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 future mission, LISA, could see. View the full article
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 57 views
Slovenia has celebrated its status ESA'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. View the full article
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 55 views
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. View the full article
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 58 views
Week in images: 06-10 January 2025 Discover our week through the lens View the full article
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 86 views
Video: 01:22:54 Watch the replay of ESA's start-of-the-year press briefing looking ahead to 2025. View the full article
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 57 views
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 are in permanent shadow, and the vast sunlit northern plains. View the full article
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 53 views
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. View the full article
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 65 views
On 8 January 2025, the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission will fly just 295 km above Mercury's surface, with a closest approach scheduled for 06:59 CET (05:59 UTC). It will use this opportunity to photograph Mercury, make unique measurements of the planet’s environment, and fine-tune science instrument operations before the main mission begins. This sixth and final flyby will reduce the spacecraft’s speed and change its direction, readying it for entering orbit around the tiny planet in late 2026. View the full article
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 71 views
Video: 00:01:14 At the start of this new year, we look back at close-up pictures and solar flare data recorded by the ESA-led Solar Orbiter mission over the last three years. See and hear for yourself how the number of flares and their intensity increase, a clear sign of the Sun approaching the peak of the 11-year solar cycle. This video combines ultraviolet images of the Sun's outer atmosphere (the corona, yellow) taken by Solar Orbiter's Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument, with the size and locations of solar flares (blue circles) as recorded by the Spectrometer/Telescope for Imaging X-rays (STIX) instrument. The accompanying audio is a sonification ba…
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 57 views
Image: Pale blue (supernova) dot View the full article
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 100 views
Don’t miss the final ESA Impact of the year! Your interactive gateway to the most captivating stories and stunning visuals from ESA. View the full article
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
In a world first, ESA and Telesat have successfully connected a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite to the ground using 5G Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) technology in the Ka-band frequency range, marking a crucial step towards making space-based connections as simple as using a mobile phone. View the full article
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 94 views
Global warming is driving the rapid melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, contributing to global sea level rise and disrupting weather patterns worldwide. Because of this, precise measurements of its changing shape are of critical importance for adapting to climate change. Now, scientists have delivered the first measurements of the Greenland Ice Sheet’s changing shape using data from ESA's CryoSat and NASA's ICESat-2 ice missions. View the full article
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 88 views
Video: 00:10:27 In 1975, 10 European countries came together with a vision to collaborate on key space activities: science and astronomy, launch capabilities and space applications: the European Space Agency, ESA, was born. In 2025, we mark half a century of joint European achievement – filled with firsts and breakthroughs in science, exploration and technology, and the space infrastructure and economy that power Europe today. During the past five decades ESA has grown, developing ever bolder and bigger projects and adding more Member States, with Slovenia joining as the latest full Member State in January. We’ll also celebrate the 50th anniversary of ESA’s Es…
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 82 views
Year in images 2024 Our year through the lens: a selection of our favourite images for 2023 View the full article
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 98 views
Image: Hera asteroid mission in your house View the full article
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 86 views
Image: With the festive season approaching, even Earth-observing satellites are getting into the spirit, capturing a stunning compilation of European cities that resemble stars. View the full article
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 108 views
View the full article
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 82 views
Image: The southern lights at Concordia station in Antarctica View the full article
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 97 views
Video: 00:01:22 An ethereal dance of misty clouds of interstellar dust with a myriad of distant stars and galaxies speckled like paint drops over a black canvas. This is a sonification of a breathtaking image king image taken by ESA's Euclid space telescope of the young star-forming region Messier 78. The sonification offers a different representation of the data collected by Euclid, and lets us explore the stellar nurseries in M78 through sound. Close your eyes and listen to let the cosmic image be drawn by your mind’s eye, or watch as the traceback line in this video follows the sounds to colour the image from left to right. The twinkling sounds of various pi…
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 78 views
View the full article
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 87 views
Video: 00:00:00 Watch the replay of the media information session in which ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher and ESA Council Chair Renato Krpoun (CH) update journalists on the key decisions taken at the ESA Council meeting, held at ESA Headquarters in Paris on 17 and 18 December 2024. View the full article
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 86 views
Step into the holidays with this picturesque ‘winter wonderland’ scene at the south pole of Mars, captured by ESA’s Mars Express. View the full article
Last reply by European Space Agency, -
- 0 replies
- 104 views
Video: 00:11:10 In 2024, ESA continued to drive Europe’s innovation and excellence in space, equipping the continent with advanced tools and knowledge to address global and local challenges. The year saw pioneering missions, cutting-edge satellites and the pivotal restoration of Europe’s independent access to space. The first Ariane 6 launch was perhaps ‘the’ highlight of the year but it was only one of many achievements. We saw the last Vega launch and then the return to flight of Vega-C, the more powerful, upgraded version carrying Sentinel-1C. Far away in our Solar System, the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft performed twoMercury flybys in 2024, needed so that …
Last reply by European Space Agency,