Space News & Blog Articles

Every year on 22 April, we’ve celebrated Earth Day and the beautiful planet we call home. Earth Day, established in 1970, has been used to highlight our planet’s environmental challenges and raise awareness of the importance of protecting our world for future generations. But shouldn’t every day be Earth Day? We only have one beautiful planet after all. We hope you enjoy this curated list of 10 of the most remarkable facts about Earth. 

Scroll to the end of the article to take part in ESA's Earth Day 2023 campaign.

On 30 April 2023, all nominal operations of Aeolus, the first mission to observe Earth’s wind profiles on a global scale, will conclude in preparation for a series of end of life activities.

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ESA’s Solar Orbiter may have taken another step towards solving the eighty-year-old mystery of why the Sun’s outer atmosphere is so hot.

On 3 March 2022, just a few months into Solar Orbiter’s nominal mission, the spacecraft’s Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) returned data showing for the first time that a magnetic phenomenon called reconnection was taking place persistently on tiny scales.

At that time, the spacecraft was about halfway between the Earth and the Sun. This enabled coordinated observations with NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) missions. The data from the three missions was then combined during the analysis.

Magnetic reconnection occurs when a magnetic field changes itself into a more stable configuration. It is a fundamental energy release mechanism in superheated gasses known as plasmas and is believed to be the major mechanism for powering large-scale solar eruptions. This makes it the direct cause of space weather, and a prime candidate for the mysterious heating of the Sun’s outer atmosphere.

It has been known since the 1940s that the Sun’s outer atmosphere, called the corona, is much hotter than the Sun’s surface. While the surface glows at around 5 500°C, the corona is a rarified gas of around 2 million °C. How the Sun injects energy into its atmosphere to heat it to this tremendous temperature has been a major puzzle ever since.

ESA has signed contracts for two parallel concept studies for commercial-scale Space-Based Solar Power plants, representing a crucial step in the Agency’s new SOLARIS initiative – maturing the feasibility of gathering solar energy from space for terrestrial clean energy needs.  

Image: Juice gets wings

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) has taken its first monitoring camera images showing part of the spacecraft with Earth as a stunning backdrop.

The mission launched on an Ariane 5 from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou on 14 April 14:14 CEST and the images were captured in the hours afterwards. 

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Watch a replay of the launch broadcast for ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice.

Juice was launched into space on an Ariane 5 from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 13 April 2023, on an eight-year cruise to Jupiter. It will make detailed observations of gas giant Jupiter and its three large ocean-bearing moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.

The programme includes live segments from the Spaceport and ESA’s European Spacecraft Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany. 

Access the related broadcast quality video material.

Week in images: 10-14 April 2023

Discover our week through the lens

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) lifted off on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana at 14:14 CEST on 14 April. The successful launch marks the beginning of an ambitious voyage to uncover the secrets of the ocean worlds around giant planet Jupiter.

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ESA’s latest interplanetary mission, Juice, lifted off on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, at 14:14 CEST on 14 April 2023 to begin its eight-year journey to Jupiter, where it will study in detail the gas giant planet’s three large ocean-bearing moons: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. 

Juice – JUpiter ICy moons Explorer – is humankind’s next bold mission to the outer Solar System. This ambitious mission will characterise Ganymede, Callisto and Europa with a powerful suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments to discover more about these compelling destinations as potential habitats for past or present life. Juice will monitor Jupiter’s complex magnetic, radiation and plasma environment in depth and its interplay with the moons, studying the Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giant systems across the Universe. 

Following launch, Juice will embark on an eight-year journey to Jupiter, arriving in July 2031 with the aid of momentum and direction gained from four gravity-assist fly-bys of the Earth-Moon system, Venus and, twice, Earth. 

Flight VA260 is the final Ariane 5 flight to carry an ESA mission to space. 

Find out more about Juice in ESA’s launch kit 

Data from ESA’s star-mapping Gaia spacecraft has allowed astronomers to image a gigantic exoplanet using Japan's Subaru Telescope. This world is the first confirmed exoplanet found by Gaia’s ability to sense the gravitational tug or ‘wobble’ a planet induces on its star. And the technique points the way to the future of direct exoplanet imaging.

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Ariane 5 VA 260 with Juice integration and rollout timelapse at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana.

Juice – Jupiter Icy moons Explorer – is humankind’s next bold mission to the outer Solar System. This ambitious mission will characterise Ganymede, Callisto and Europa with a powerful suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments to discover more about these compelling destinations as potential habitats for past or present life. Juice will monitor Jupiter’s complex magnetic, radiation and plasma environment in depth and its interplay with the moons, studying the Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giant systems across the Universe.

Following launch, Juice will embark on an eight-year journey to Jupiter, arriving in July 2031 with the aid of momentum and direction gained from four gravity-assist fly-bys of the Earth-Moon system, Venus and, twice, Earth.

Flight VA 260 will be the final Ariane 5 flight to carry an ESA mission to space.

Find out more about Juice in ESA’s launch kit 

Image:

At ESA’s mission control, before the launch comes the pre-launch briefing – and the all-important group photo. This is the team that will fly Juice to Jupiter with four planetary flybys of Earth and Venus, then switching orbit from Jupiter to its largest moon, Ganymede, followed by a tour of the icy, complex Jovian system comprising a whopping 35 lunar flybys.

Never before has a mission switched orbit from a planet other than our own to one of its moons. Radiation at Jupiter will be extreme. Light at the edge of the solar system will be just 3% of what powers us on Earth. It will be cold. Time delays of up to two hours mean teams are only ever communicating with a spacecraft in the past. Ten science instruments need to be oriented precisely, without interference, from hundreds of millions of kilometres away.

Juice was made for this extreme environment, and mission control is ready to navigate it. Back-to-back critical operations over the next decade will make this possible. We are GREEN for Juice launch.

A key focus of ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) will be Ganymede: Jupiter’s largest moon, and an ideal natural laboratory for studying the icy worlds of the Solar System.

Download this launch kit (in English, other languages below) to learn more about the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) mission and its science goals.

Image: Ariane 5 flight VA260, Juice mission: fully integrated and ready for rollout at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana

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Have you ever wondered what a volcano looks like from space? Today, we’re counting down our picks of the most impressive volcanoes around the world – captured by satellites. Our countdown includes Mount Fuji, Mount Mayon and Mount Vesuvius. Satellites orbiting 800 km above us can monitor volcanoes. They can provide real-time data on volcanic activity and can even help disaster response efforts post-eruption.

The explosion of a star is a dramatic event, but the remains that the star leaves behind can be even more dramatic. A new mid-infrared image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope provides one stunning example. It shows the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A), created by a stellar explosion 340 years ago.

Week in images: 03-07 April 2023

Discover our week through the lens

A large mass of Sargassum ‘seaweed’ circling around the Gulf of Mexico may soon wash up along the US west coast near Florida – depending on the right combination of currents and wind. The bloom, which may likely be the largest ever recorded, is so large that it’s visible from space.