Category: Science

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At Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, ESA’s Characterising Exoplanet Satellite, Cheops, is being fitted into the flight adapter of the Soyuz-Fregat rocket that will lift it into space on 17 December.

In this picture, taken on 28 November, Cheops is hoisted above the conic flight adapter while the Airbus team is making sure the satellite orientation is correct before placing it on the flight adapter ring.

Cheops is ESA’s first mission dedicated to the study of extrasolar planets, or exoplanets. It will observe bright stars that are already known to host planets, measuring minuscule brightness changes due to the planet’s transit across the star’s disc.

More about Cheops

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The Cheops satellite being fuelled with hydrazine at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on 23 November. A highly specialised team of fuellers is at work, protected by special suites. Fuelling is controlled via a dedicated set-up which allows to control accurately the quantity of propellant loaded in the satellite tank.

Scheduled for launch on a Soyuz-Fregat rocket on 17 December, Cheops is ESA’s first mission dedicated to the study of extrasolar planets, or exoplanets. It will observe bright stars that are already known to host planets, measuring minuscule brightness changes due to the planet’s transit across the star’s disc.

More about Cheops

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The Cheops satellite being fuelled with hydrazine at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on 23 November. A highly specialised team of fuellers is at work, protected by special suites. Fuelling is controlled via a dedicated set-up which allows to control accurately the quantity of propellant loaded in the satellite tank.

Scheduled for launch on a Soyuz-Fregat rocket on 17 December, Cheops is ESA’s first mission dedicated to the study of extrasolar planets, or exoplanets. It will observe bright stars that are already known to host planets, measuring minuscule brightness changes due to the planet’s transit across the star’s disc.

More about Cheops

ESA’s mission to the Sun has been unpacked following its arrival in Florida earlier this month, ready to begin pre-launch testing and checks.

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The Cheops satellite positioned onto the fuelling stand at Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The stand facilitates access to the propulsion module, easing fuelling activities. 

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This image from ESA’s Mars Express shows a region of Mars named Deuteronilus Mensae. This oblique perspective view was generated using a digital terrain model and Mars Express data gathered on 25 February 2018 during orbit 17913. The ground resolution is approximately 13 m/pixel and the images are centred at about 25.5°E/44°N. This image was created using data from the nadir and colour channels of the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC). The nadir channel is aligned perpendicular to the surface of Mars, as if looking straight down at the surface.

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This colour-coded topographic view shows a region of Mars named Deuteronilus Mensae. Lower parts of the surface are shown in blues and purples, while higher altitude regions show up in whites, yellows and reds, as indicated on the scale to the top right. This view is based on a digital terrain model of the region, from which the topography of the landscape can be derived. It comprises data gathered on 25 February 2018 during orbit 17913. The ground resolution is approximately 13 m/pixel and the images are centred at about 25.5°E/44°N. North is to the right.

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In this image, Earth is the dot to the left of the image and the large arc around it is our planet’s magnetic bow shock. The swirling pattern to the right is the foreshock region where the solar wind breaks into waves as it encounters reflected particles from the bow shock. The image was created using the Vlasiator model, a computer simulation developed at the University of Helsinki to study Earth’s magnetic interaction with the solar wind.

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This graphic summarises significant measurement attempts of methane at Mars. Reports of methane have been made by Earth-based telescopes, ESA’s Mars Express from orbit around Mars, and NASA’s Curiosity located on the surface at Gale Crater; they have also reported measurement attempts with no or very little methane detected. More recently, the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter reported an absence of methane, and provided a very low upper limit.
In order to reconcile the range of results, which show variations in both time and location, scientists have to understand better the different processes acting to create and destroy methane.

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ESA’s Proba-2 had a ring-side seat for the transit of Mercury on 11 November 2019.

Proba-2 monitors the Sun from Earth orbit and was able to spot Mercury’s transit as a small black disc – seen here to the right of centre as it passed across the face of the Sun. The image was taken with the SWAP extreme ultraviolet telescope.

Solar transits – where a celestial body is seen to pass across the solar disc from the perspective of Earth – are relatively rare events. Mercury undergoes around 13 transits a century, and will not occur again until 2032.

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ESA’s Proba-2 had a ring-side seat for the transit of Mercury on 11 November 2019.

Proba-2 monitors the Sun from Earth orbit and was able to spot Mercury’s transit as a small black disc – seen here at the far left as it begins its journey across the face of the Sun. The image was taken with the SWAP extreme ultraviolet telescope.

Solar transits – where a celestial body is seen to pass across the solar disc from the perspective of Earth – are relatively rare events. Mercury undergoes around 13 transits a century, and will not occur again until 2032.

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This timelapse shows some of the activities that took place during the integration of ESA’s Solar Orbiter in the Hercules cleanroom at Airbus Defence and Space, Stevenage, UK.

Solar Orbiter is an ESA mission with strong NASA participation. The prime contractor is Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage, UK. Solar Orbiter will launch on a NASA-provided Atlas V 411 in February 2020.

The mission will provide new perspectives on our star, including the first images of the Sun’s polar regions. Its complementary suite of instruments means it will be able to study the plasma environment locally around the spacecraft, and collect data from the Sun from afar, connecting the dots between the Sun’s activity, and the space environment in the inner Solar System.

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Launched in December 2013, the Gaia mission is revolutionising our understanding of the Milky Way. The space telescope is mapping our galaxy in unprecedented detail – measuring the position, movement and distance of stars.

At a meeting in Groningen in the Netherlands, scientists have been discussing the challenge of processing and visualising Gaia data.

Latest science results from the mission, also discussed in this A and B-roll, include a new understanding of how stars cluster together and the fact that today’s Milky Way was formed from a merger of galaxies.

More details on these science results:
Gaia untangles the starry strings of the Milky Way
Gaia uncovers major event in the formation of the Milky Way