European Space Agency

XRISM revealed the structure, motion and temperature of the material around a supermassive black hole and in a supernova remnant in unprecedented detail. Astronomers presented the first scientific results of the new X-ray telescope today, less than a year after the telescope’s launch. View the full article

Just a month after its launch, ESA’s Arctic Weather Satellite has already delivered its first images, notably capturing Storm Boris, which has been wreaking havoc across central Europe. View the full article

Hera asteroid mission launch kit Everything you'd ever want to know about ESA's first planetary defence mission View the full article

Video: 00:03:02 From the arrival of Earth-obversation satellite Sentinel-2C in July 2024 and the first fit-check to launch on the from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, this timelapse shows how the third Sentinel 2 satellite was prepared for launch. The last Vega rocket, flight VV24, lifted off on 5 September at 03:50 CEST (4 September 22:50 local time). Sentinel-2C will provide high-resolution data that is essential to Copernicus – the Earth observation component of the European Union’s Space programme. Developed, built and operated by ESA, the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission provides high-resolution optical imagery for a wide range of applications including land, water and atmospheric monitoring. The mission is based on a constellation of two identical satellites flying in the same orbit but 180° apart: Sentinel-2A and Sentinel-2B. Together, they cover all of Earth’s land and coastal waters every five days. Once Sentinel-2C is operational, it will replace its predecessor, Sentinel-2A, following a brief period of tandem observations. Sentinel-2D will eventually take over from Sentinel-2B. Sentinel-2C was the last liftoff for the Vega rocket – after 12 years of service this was the final flight, the original Vega is being retired to make way for an upgraded Vega-C. Access the related broadcast quality video material. View the full article

Less than two weeks after being launched into orbit, Sentinel-2C has delivered its first images. These spectacular views of Earth offer a sneak peek at the data that this new satellite will provide for Copernicus – Europe’s world-leading Earth observation programme. View the full article

With the help of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, an international team of researchers led by scientists in the Department of Astronomy at Stockholm University has found more black holes in the early Universe than has previously been reported. The new result can help scientists understand how supermassive black holes were created. View the full article

Swatch has again teamed up with ESA to give space fans a new opportunity to design a custom watch featuring breathtaking images of Earth from space. View the full article

The European Galileo satellite navigation system Galileo keeps growing: a new pair of satellites has joined the constellation after a journey on a Falcon 9 rocket, launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on 18 September at 00:50 CEST (17 September 18:50 local time). View the full article

Week in images: 09-13 September 2024 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

Video: 00:01:25 Watch the closest flyby of a planet ever, as the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft sped past Mercury during its latest encounter on 4 September 2024. This flyby marked BepiColombo’s closest approach to Mercury yet, and for the first time, the spacecraft had a clear view of Mercury’s south pole. This timelapse is made up of 128 different images captured by all three of BepiColombo’s monitoring cameras, M-CAM 1, 2 and 3. We see the planet move in and out of the fields of view of M-CAM 2 and 3, before M-CAM 1 sees the planet receding into the distance at the end of the video. The first few images are taken in the days and weeks before the flyby. Mercury first appears in an image taken at 23:50 CEST (21:50 UTC) on 4 September, at a distance of 191 km. Closest approach was at 23:48 CEST at a distance of 165 km. The sequence ends around 24 hours later, on 5 September 2024, when BepiColombo was about 243 000 km from Mercury. During the flyby it was possible to identify various geological features that BepiColombo will study in more detail once in orbit around the planet. Four minutes after closest approach, a large ‘peak ring basin’ called Vivaldi came into view. This crater was named after the famous Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741). The flyover of Vivaldi crater was the inspiration for using Antonio Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ as the soundtrack for this timelapse. Peak ring basins are mysterious craters created by powerful asteroid or comet impacts, so-called because of the inner ring of peaks on an otherwise flattish floor. A couple of minutes later, another peak ring basin came into view: newly named Stoddart. The name was recently assigned following a request from the M-CAM team, who realised that this crater would be visible in these images and decided it would be worth naming considering its potential interest for scientists in the future. BepiColombo’s three monitoring cameras provided 1024 x 1024 pixel snapshots. Their main purpose is to monitor the spacecraft’s various booms and antennas, hence why we see parts of the spacecraft in the foreground. The photos that they capture of Mercury during the flybys are a bonus. The 4 September gravity assist flyby was the fourth at Mercury and the seventh of nine planetary flybys overall. During its eight-year cruise to the smallest and innermost planet of the Solar System, BepiColombo makes one flyby at Earth, two at Venus and six at Mercury, to help steer itself on course for entering orbit around Mercury in 2026. BepiColombo is an international collaboration between ESA and JAXA. BepiColombo’s best images yet highlight fourth Mercury flyby BepiColombo images in ESA’s Planetary Science Archive Processing notes: The BepiColombo monitoring cameras provide black-and-white, 1024 x 1024 pixel images. These raw images have been processed to remove electronic banding in the cameras. The M-CAM 1 images have been cropped to 995 x 995 pixels View the full article

Image: This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image captures algal bloom swirls in the north Adriatic Sea, along the coast of Italy. View the full article

Image: Digel Cloud 2S View the full article

Video: 00:04:29 Watch the second episode of the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover mission – Europe’s ambitious exploration journey to search for past and present signs of life on Mars. This episode starts with Rosalind searching for traces of life below the martian surface using a ground penetrating radar and a set of cameras. The rover will dig, collect, and investigate the chemical composition of material collected by a drill. Rosalind Franklin will be the first rover to reach a depth of up to two metres deep below the surface, acquiring samples that have been protected from surface radiation and extreme temperatures. Rosalind Franklin uses the WISDOM radar to help scientists on Earth decide where to drill. Besides identifying the most promising targets for sampling, WISDOM will help the rover avoid potential hazards, such as the presence of buried rocks that could damage the drill. The scientific eyes of the rover are set on the Panoramic Camera suite known as PanCam. The Close-UP Imager (CLUPI) sits on the side of the drill box, a camera designed to acquire high-resolution, colour, close-up images of outcrops, rocks and soils. PanCam and CLUPI will help scientists find the most promising spots to drill. These instruments can also investigate very fine outcrop details and image drill samples before they are sent into the rover’s laboratory. After the rover retracts its drill, the sample is in a special chamber at the tip. Under the reduced martian gravity (38% of Earth’s), the material drops onto a special “hand” that the rover can extend to the front to collect drill samples. The mission will serve to demonstrate key technologies that Europe needs to master for future planetary exploration missions. The ExoMars rover series show the rover and martian landscapes as true to reality as possible for a simulation. Check ESA’s ExoMars website and our frequently asked questions for the latest updates. Credits: ESA Production: Mlabspace for ESA 3D animation: ESA/Mlabspace Music composed by Valentin Joudrier Watch all the videos from the ExoMars Rosalind Frankin mission series. Access the related broadcst quality video material. View the full article

From inspiring a love for the stars to making a life-changing career move, we want to know how ESA’s Rosetta mission has shaped your life. View the full article

The Global Methane Budget 2024 paints a troubling picture of the current state of global methane emissions. The new report, which uses data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite, reveals that human activities are now responsible for at least two-thirds of global methane emissions. This marks a significant increase in human-produced methane sources over the past two decades, with emissions rising by 20%, with the fastest rise occurring over the last five years. View the full article

Sentinel-2C has completed its important first few days in space, which saw teams on the ground working around the clock to ensure the spacecraft is ready to begin its mission. View the full article

The first satellite in ESA’s Cluster quartet safely came back down to Earth last night in a world-first ‘targeted reentry’, marking a brilliant end to this remarkable mission. The spacecraft, dubbed ‘Salsa’ (Cluster 2), reentered Earth’s atmosphere at 20:47 CEST on 8 September 2024 over the South Pacific Ocean. In this region, any risk of fragments reaching land are absolutely minimised. During the last two decades Cluster has spent in space, it has provided invaluable data on how the Sun interacts with Earth’s magnetic field, helping us better understand and forecast space weather. With this first-ever targeted reentry, Cluster will go down in history for a second reason – helping ESA become a world-leader in sustainable space exploration. View the full article

Video: 00:06:50 The first of four satellites that make up ESA’s Cluster mission is coming safely back down to Earth, marking a brilliant end to this remarkable mission. The satellite’s orbit was tweaked back in January to target a region as far as possible from populated regions. This ensures that any spacecraft parts that survive the reentry will fall over open ocean. During 24 years in space, Cluster has sent back precious data on how the Sun interacts with Earth’s magnetic field, helping us better understand and forecast potentially dangerous space weather. With this first ever targeted reentry, Cluster goes down in history for a different reason, taking ESA well beyond international space safety standards and helping ensure the long-term sustainability of space activities. View the full article

Week in images: 02-06 September 2024 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

Video: 00:01:00 Rover trials in a quarry in the UK showing a four-wheeled rover, known as Codi, using its robotic arm and a powerful computer vision system to pick up sample tubes. The rover drives to the samples with an accuracy of 10cm, constantly mapping the terrain. Codi uses its arm and four cameras to locate the sample tube, retrieve it and safely store it on the rover – all of it without human intervention. At every stop, the rover uses stereo cameras to build up a 180-degree map of the surroundings and plan its next maneouvres. Once parked, the camera on top of the mast detects the tube and estimates its position with respect to the rover. The robotic arm initiates a complex choreography to move closer to the sample, fetch it and store it. The sample tubes are a replica of the hermetically sealed samples inside which NASA’s Perseverance rover is collecting precious martian soil inside. To most people on Earth, they resemble lightsabres. The reddish terrain, although not fully representative of Mars in terms of soil composition, has plenty of slopes and rocks of different sizes, similar to what a rover might encounter on the martian surface. Quarry testing is an essential next step in the development process, providing a unique and dynamic landscape that cannot be replicated indoors. ESA continues to run further research using the rover to maintain and develop rover capabilities in Europe. Read the full article: Rovers, lightsabres and a piglet. View the full article

In 2022 NASA’s DART spacecraft made history, and changed the Solar System forever, by impacting the Dimorphos asteroid and measurably shifting its orbit around the larger Didymos asteroid. In the process a plume of debris was thrown out into space. The latest modelling, available on the preprint server arXiv and accepted for publication in the September volume of The Planetary Science Journal, shows how small meteoroids from that debris could eventually reach both Mars and Earth – potentially in an observable (although quite safe) manner. View the full article

Image: The Copernicus Sentinel-2B satellite captured this image over Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 2 September, just ahead of the Sentinel-2C launch. View the full article

Image: ESA’s Metal 3D Printer has produced the first metal part ever created in space. The technology demonstrator, built by Airbus and its partners, was launched to the International Space Station at the start of this year, where ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen installed the payload in the European Drawer Rack of ESA’s Columbus module. In August, the printer successfully printed the first 3D metal shape in space. This product, along with three others planned during the rest of the experiment, will return to Earth for quality analysis: two of the samples will go to ESA’s technical heart in the Netherlands (ESTEC), another will go to ESA’s astronaut training centre in Cologne (EAC) for use in the LUNA facility, and the fourth will go to the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). As exploration of the Moon and Mars will increase mission duration and distance from Earth, resupplying spacecraft will be more challenging. Additive manufacturing in space will give autonomy for the mission and its crew, providing a solution to manufacture needed parts, to repair equipment or construct dedicated tools, on demand during the mission, rather than relying on resupplies and redundancies. ESA’s technology demonstrator is the first to successfully print a metal component in microgravity conditions. In the past, the International Space Station has hosted plastic 3D printers. View the full article

The two new Galileo satellites launched in April have entered service, completing the second of three constellation planes. With every addition to the constellation, the precision, availability and robustness of the Galileo signal is improved. The next launch is planned in the coming weeks and the remaining six Galileo First Generation satellites will join the constellation in the next years. View the full article

The ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission has successfully completed its fourth of six gravity assist flybys at Mercury, capturing images of two special impact craters as it uses the little planet’s gravity to steer itself on course to enter orbit around Mercury in November 2026. The closest approach took place at 23:48 CEST (21:48 UTC) on 4 September 2024, with BepiColombo coming down to around 165 km above the planet’s surface. For the first time, the spacecraft had a clear view of Mercury’s south pole. View the full article