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Space News & Blog Articles
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This year started with a nice imaging opportunity for Solar Orbiter, and a chance to further improve the quality of its data. On 3 January 2023, inner planet Mercury crossed the spacecraft’s field of view, resulting in a transit where Mercury appeared as a perfectly black circle moving across the face of the Sun.
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Understanding Earth’s delicate natural balance and how it is being altered by human activity is not only key to advancing science but also fundamental to acting on environmental issues, the climate crisis, and preparing for their societal impact. With their hallmark of demonstrating novel space technologies and returning scientific excellence, ESA’s family of Earth observing Earth Explorer research satellite missions are world-renowned – and now it’s time for scientists to pitch their new ideas for the twelfth mission in this outstanding series.
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ESA’s Euclid mission is undergoing the final test before launch in July 2023.
Here it is standing in a special room in the Thales Alenia Space test facilities in Cannes, France, where it successfully underwent electromagnetic compatibility testing.
This kind of testing is routine for spacecraft. All electronics emit some form of electromagnetic waves that can cause interference with other devices. Think of the buzz that speakers give out right before an incoming call on a mobile phone. Spacecraft electronics can cause similar interference, but out in space such interference can have disastrous consequences, so all systems must be checked before launch.
The large test chamber at TAS, called the Compact Antenna Test Range, simulates the electromagnetic environment of deep space, being lined with cones that absorb radio signals and prevent reflections. To avoid TV or radio interference, the walls of the chamber form a steel ‘Faraday cage’, impenetrable to electromagnetic signals from the outside world.
In this radiation-free environment, the team studied the radio signals and electrical noise coming from the various systems on the spacecraft and checked whether they caused any electromagnetic interference with each other.
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After many years of study, development, building and testing, ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, has finally arrived at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. At the end of 2022 the spacecraft underwent its final thermal vacuum test at an Airbus Defence and Space facility in Toulouse, as well as its final software verification tests, whereby it was controlled from the ESOC mission control centre in Darmstadt, Germany.
Soon, an Ariane 5 will lift Juice into orbit and send it on its journey to explore the largest planet in our Solar System and its three icy moons, Europa, Callisto and in particular Ganymede. By exploring and studying the Jovian system, the mission neatly fullfills its role in ESA’s Cosmic Vision programme, teaching us about our Universe and the origins of life.
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Image: The Liverpool Land peninsula, on the east coast of Greenland, is featured in this Copernicus Sentinel-2 image.
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No one saw the Chelyabinsk meteor of 15 February 2013 coming – the largest asteroid to strike Earth in over a century. Just after sunrise on a sunny winter’s day, a 20-metre, 13 000 tonne asteroid struck the atmosphere over the Ural Mountains in Russia at a speed of more than 18 km/s.
The relatively small rock exploded in the atmosphere at an altitude of 30 km, releasing about half a megaton of energy (equivalent to 35 Hiroshima-sized bombs). Two minutes later, the shockwave reached the ground damaging thousands of buildings, breaking windows and injuring roughly 1500 people from flying shards of glass.
Hidden in the glare of our Sun are an unknown number of asteroids, on paths we do not know, many of which could be heading for Earth, and we just don’t know it.
“Asteroids the size of the Chelyabinsk meteor strike Earth roughly every 50-100 years,” explains Richard Moissl, ESA’s Head of Planetary Defence.
“Injuries caused by airbursts or similar events could be prevented if people are informed of an oncoming impact and its predicted effects. With advance warning, local authorities would be able to advise the public to keep well away from windows and glass.”
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ESA and the Mexican space agency, Agencia Espacial Mexicana (AEM) signed a Cooperation Agreement on 14 February 2023. The objective of this agreement is to allow Mexico and ESA to create a framework for more-intensive cooperation in joint projects in the future.
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For the seventh time, a small asteroid – a meteoroid as astronomers call it – was discovered in space as it raced towards Earth for impact. The predicted time and location of the impact (02:50 - 03:03 UTC, above northern France) were made possible with observations by European astronomer Krisztián Sárneczky using the 60 cm Schmidt telescope from the Piszkéstető Observatory in Hungary. 2023 CX1 is the second impactor discovered by Krisztián, after the impact of 2022 EB5 less than a year ago.
The last three predicted impacts have all occurred in the last 12 months– an encouraging illustration of how asteroid detection capabilities are rapidly advancing.
What happened?
At 20:18:07 UTC on 12 February 2023, the new asteroid (now officially designated 2023 CX1 but initially designated Sar2667 by its discoverer) was imaged by the Piszkéstető Observatory. Once a second observation was taken, it was reported to the Minor Planet Center at 20:49 UTC.
About 40 minutes later, follow-up observations reported by the Višnjan Observatory in Croatia confirmed the object. At this point various impact assessment systems around the globe calculated a 100% impact probability, expected above the English Channel between 02:00 - 04:00 UTC. The asteroid was estimated to be around one metre in diameter and posed no threat to people or property.
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ESA's Euclid mission is designed to explore the composition and evolution of the dark Universe. The space telescope will create a great map of the large-scale structure of the Universe across space and time by observing billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years, across more than a third of the sky. Euclid will explore how the Universe has expanded and how structure has formed over cosmic history, revealing more about the role of gravity and the nature of dark energy and dark matter.
Euclid is a fully European mission, built and operated by ESA, with contributions from NASA. The Euclid Consortium – consisting of more than 2000 scientists from 100 institutes in 13 European countries and the US – provided the scientific instruments and scientific data analysis. ESA selected Thales Alenia Space as prime contractor for the construction of the satellite and its Service Module, with Airbus Defence and Space chosen to develop the Payload Module, including the telescope. NASA provided the near-infrared detectors of the NISP instrument.
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Türkiye and Syria are reeling from one of the worst earthquakes to strike the region in almost a century. Tens of thousands of people have been killed with many more injured in this tragedy.
Satellite data are being used to help emergency aid organisations, while scientists have begun to analyse ground movement – aiding risk assessments that authorities will use as they plan recovery and reconstruction, as well as long-term research to better model such events.
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ESA celebrates the International Day of Women and Girls in Science this 11 February, and highlights the story of the first all-female Systems Team in ESA’s Concurrent Design Facility, the place where ideas for new space missions, systems and structures take definite shape.
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ESA’s mission to explore Jupiter and its largest moons has safely arrived at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, where final preparations for its April launch are now underway.
The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer – better known as Juice – arrived on 8 February at Félix Eboué airport in Cayenne by a special Antonov Airlines An-124 cargo flight from Toulouse, France, where prime contractor Airbus completed a nearly decade-long process of concept, design, testing and construction. Now, the spacecraft will undergo final testing and inspection by engineers from ESA and Airbus before it is fueled up and mounted on its Ariane 5 rocket.
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Image: Agricultural fields that surround the cities of Lund and Malmö in Sweden are pictured in this image, captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission.
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Video: 00:03:21 Three-minute cinematic video trailer presenting ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) mission
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