Space News & Blog Articles

Image: Lunar solar power satellite

Image: Reminiscent of an artist’s pallet, this striking false-colour image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission features Lake Abbe in northeast Ethiopia.

Isn’t it strange that when satellites run out of fuel or a single component breaks down, we just discard them? ESA and European industry have joined forces to make sure that our satellites can live on.

Image: Moon stance

In March, we announced that 2023 would see the publication of over 300 vacancies at ESA. New vacancies keep being published as we continue our search for talented and motivated professionals to join our teams across Europe and support our mission of the peaceful exploration of space for the benefit of everyone. Could ESA be the next step in your career? Read more to find out!

Temperatures are sizzling across Europe this week amid an intense and prolonged period of heat. And it’s only just begun. Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Poland are all facing a major heatwave with temperatures expected to climb to 48°C on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia – potentially the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Europe.

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Webb is celebrating the completion of its first year of science operations. Let’s look back on the observatory’s first year in images!

From our cosmic backyard in the Solar System to distant galaxies near the dawn of time, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has delivered on its promise of revealing the Universe like never before in its first year of science operations. To celebrate the completion of a successful first year, a new Webb image has been released of a small star-forming region in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex. While the region is relatively quiet, its proximity at 390 light-years makes for a highly detailed close-up, with no foreground stars in the intervening space.

As the 2023 summer holiday season gets under way, ESA and Amsterdam’s international airport are once again giving travellers a chance to discover some out-of-this-world destinations.

A state-of-the-art conference centre that will support the thriving UK space industry has opened at Harwell campus in Oxfordshire.

After exceeding its planned life in orbit, ESA’s Aeolus wind satellite is on its way back to Earth. The satellite is currently falling around 1 km a day, and its descent is accelerating. ESA’s spacecraft operators will soon intervene and attempt to guide Aeolus in a first-of-its-kind assisted reentry. Why is ESA doing this?

Two European astronauts are following the traces of a treasure trove of rare, Moon-like crystals in a Norwegian fjord as part of the PANGAEA geology training course.

Space-based solar power could provide Earth with clean and reliable energy, 24 hours a day. As part of its SOLARIS initiative, ESA is inviting researchers to help advance our knowledge of key aspects of collecting solar power in space and wirelessly transmitting it to Earth.

Data from ESA’s exoplanet mission Cheops has led to the surprising revelation that an ultra-hot exoplanet that orbits its host star in less than a day is covered by reflective clouds of metal, making it the shiniest exoplanet ever found.

Week in images: 03-07 July 2023

ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen will bring a different kind of chocolate to the International Space Station on his Huginn mission, created by the Danish chef Thorsten Schmidt.

Image: The Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission captured this image of the powerful Cyclone Mocha on 13 May 2023 as it made its way across the Bay of Bengal heading northeast towards Bangladesh and Myanmar.

When the RIME antenna on ESA’s Juice mission failed to deploy a few days after launch, the engineering teams faced the mighty challenge to understand the fault and rectify it. At stake was a chance to see inside Jupiter’s mysterious icy moons.