European Space Agency

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has enabled another long-sought scientific breakthrough, this time for Solar System scientists studying the origins of the water that has made life on Earth possible. Using Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument, astronomers have confirmed gas – specifically water vapour – around a comet in the main asteroid belt for the first time, proving that water from the primordial Solar System can be preserved as ice in that region. However, the successful detection of water comes with a new puzzle: unlike other comets, Comet 238P/Read had no detectable carbon dioxide. View the full article

More than three weeks after efforts began to deploy Juice’s ice-penetrating Radar for Icy Moons Exploration (RIME) antenna, the 16-metre-long boom has finally escaped its mounting bracket. View the full article

Last month, ESA’s woolly astronaut became Europe's first lunar ‘lamb-bassador’: Shaun the Sheep returned home from his Artemis I mission to a hero's welcome and then was herded off on a celebratory post-flight tour. View the full article

Week in images: 08-12 May 2023 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

Image: This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image features the Japanese island of Nishinoshima, in the northwest Pacific Ocean. View the full article

Mars has some of the most impressive volcanoes in the Solar System. ESA’s Mars Express has now imaged the pitted, fissured flank of the planet’s second-tallest: Ascraeus Mons. View the full article

Astronomers used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to image the warm dust around a nearby young star, Fomalhaut, in order to study the first asteroid belt ever seen outside of our Solar System in infrared light. But to their surprise, they found that the dusty structures are much more complex than the asteroid and Kuiper dust belts of our Solar System. View the full article

Help us visualise how much of the Universe we know and don’t know and win a trip to mission control as ESA’s Euclid mission launches into space no earlier than July to unlock the mysteries of the Dark Universe. View the full article

ESA’s wind mission, Aeolus, will soon be lowered in orbit leading to its fiery reentry and burn-up through Earth’s atmosphere. ESA’s efforts to ensure a safe return go well beyond international standards and place the Agency in the lead for space safety. View the full article

Millions of supporters avidly follow football clubs across Europe, from Manchester United to Bayern Munich. Now ESA is partnering with UEFA to use space to help ensure the safety of football fans and the sustainability of the sport – as well as exploring other ways in which space can help promote football. View the full article

Week in images: 01-05 May 2023 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

Image: The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over El Oued, in northeast Algeria, about 80 km west of the border with Tunisia. View the full article

Video: 00:03:57 Europe’s latest weather satellite, the Meteosat Third Generation Imager, has just delivered its first image of Earth. What does this satellite do exactly? And what does this mean for weather forecasting? Learn more about the Meteosat Third Generation and how this new generation of satellites is set to revolutionise weather forecasting in Europe. The Meteosat Third Generation image can be downloaded here. View the full article

Europe’s latest weather satellite, the Meteosat Third Generation Imager, has just delivered its first view of Earth – revealing conditions over Europe, Africa and the Atlantic in remarkable detail. View the full article

Video: 00:34:37 ESA astronaut candidates Sophie Adenot, Pablo Álvarez Fernández, Rosemary Coogan, Raphaël Liégeois and Marco Sieber took up duty at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) on 3 April 2023 to be trained to the highest level of standards as specified by the International Space Station partners. Watch the replay of their first news conference from EAC in Cologne, Germany. View the full article

Image: ESA's astronaut candidates of the class of 2022 at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany. The five candidates are Sophie Adenot, Pablo Álvarez Fernández, Rosemary Coogan, Raphaël Liégeois, and Marco Sieber. The group is part of the 17-member astronaut class of 2022, selected from 22 500 applicants from across ESA Member States. The astronaut candidates will be trained to the highest level for future space missions. Basic training includes learning about space exploration, technical and scientific disciplines, space systems and operations, as well as spacewalks and survival training. View the full article

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What are the next steps for making human spaceflight more inclusive, accessible, and safer? How can designing for space accessibility improve accessibility on Earth? Where does ESA’s parastronaut feasibility project stand? On Thursday, 11th May 2023 at 15:00-17:00 CEST, join the webinar organised by ESA’s Advanced Concepts Team and ESA’s Chief Diversity Officer, with the support of the non-profit BIRNE7 e.V. View the full article

Week in images: 24-28 April 2023 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

Juice’s ice-penetrating RIME antenna has not yet been deployed as planned. During the first week of commissioning, an issue arose with the 16-metre-long Radar for Icy Moons Exploration (RIME) antenna, which is preventing it from being released from its mounting bracket. View the full article

Video: 00:04:08 The European Space Agency (ESA) is currently training five astronaut candidates for future missions to the International Space Station and beyond. Their training programme consists of three phases: The first phase is basic training, which covers medical exams, fitness assessments, and space programmes and systems. The second phase, the pre-assignment training, is advanced training in specific areas such as systems training, vehicle training, robotics and EVA-training. The third phase is mission-specific training, which is tailored to the tasks and experiments that astronauts will perform during their mission. ESA's astronaut training programme also includes training for exploration of the lunar surface, as astronauts will need to apply their skills and knowledge to new challenges in future space missions beyond Earth orbit. View the full article

Image: Captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission on 8 April 2023, this image shows Los Angeles and part of the hinterland in Southern California. View the full article

ESA is inviting companies with an interest in merchandising to submit a tender to become the space agency’s official ESA-branded merchandise supplier. View the full article

Image: Juice’s first taste of science from space View the full article

When one thinks of the damage that climate change is doing, it’s probable that what comes to mind is a vision of huge lumps of ice dropping off one of the polar ice sheets and crashing into the ocean. While Greenland and Antarctica are losing masses of ice, so too are most of the glaciers around the world, but it’s tricky to measure how much ice they are shedding. Thanks to ESA’s CryoSat satellite and a breakthrough way of using its data, scientists have discovered that glaciers worldwide have shrunk by a total of 2% in just 10 years, and it’s because of higher air temperatures. View the full article