Space News & Blog Articles

Week in images: 22-26 August 2022

Save the date: this year’s 11th annual ESA Open Day at ESTEC in the Netherlands is confirmed to take place on Sunday 2 October. One of a string of ‘ESA Days’ across Member States, this is the day when the gates of the Agency’s technical heart will be thrown open to the general public, to see space hardware and testing facilities and meet space scientists, engineers and ESA astronauts.

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The Orion spacecraft with integrated European Service Module sit atop the Space Launch System, imaged at sunrise at historic Launchpad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA.

Image: ESA astronaut rad-detectors on Artemis

The countdown has started for the first human-rated launch to the Moon in over half a century. ESA’s European Service Module will be powering the Orion spacecraft to our natural satellite and back.

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has found definitive evidence for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a gas giant planet orbiting a Sun-like star 700 light-years away. The result provides important insights into the composition and formation of the planet, and is indicative of Webb’s ability to also detect and measure carbon dioxide in the thinner atmospheres of smaller rocky planets.

Image: A record-breaking drought has caused parts of the Yangtze River to dry up – affecting hydropower, shipping routes and limiting drinking water supplies. Images captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission show a comparison of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers, near Chongqing, over the last three years.

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The Artemis I mission is almost ready for launch: it will send an uncrewed spacecraft beyond the Moon and back.

An agreement signed yesterday looks to extend the use of ESA space technology along European roads. The Agency’s Navigation Directorate has finalised a Memorandum of Intent with ERTICO, the organisation for the European Road Transport Telematics Implementation Coordination, a public-private partnership focused on the development, promotion and connection of intelligent road systems and services.

Image: Jupiter showcases aurorae, hazes (NIRCam widefield view)

A new map of Mars is changing the way we think about the planet’s watery past, and showing where we should land in the future.

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The 12-member crew of Concordia research station woke up to a most welcome sight in early August: sunrise, after four months of Antarctic darkness.

Week in images: 15-19 August 2022

Image: A special Moon snap

ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen of Denmark is set to return to the International Space Station for his first long-duration Station mission. With only one year left before his launch in mid-2023, a name for the mission has been chosen: Huginn.

See all 22 artworks submitted for the Art for Artemis project on display at the Waterfront in Bremen, Germany. The formal opening of the exhibition is on 22 August at 17:00 CEST with ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter and will be open to the public throughout the Artemis I mission to the Moon and back.

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The series of heatwaves we are currently experiencing in western Europe is a clear sign of human-induced global warming. ESA’s Clement Albergel explains how we monitor these events using satellites such as the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission and puts them in the context of the long-term climate data record generated via ESA’s Climate Change Initiative.

Image: Water levels on the Rhine River have continued to drop owing to soaring temperatures and lack of rainfall - preventing many vessels from navigating through the river's waters at full capacity. These Copernicus Sentinel-2 images show the stark difference between August 2021 and August 2022.