Category: Science

Rosetta’s detection of xenon provides the first link between comets and our atmosphere

In ESA’s first event of its kind, members of the public have been invited to touch, taste and hear about life in the Universe in an immersive day of activities that are suitable for the sensory impaired. 

Space Science Image of the Week: Hubble images a portion of sky awash with spiral galaxies

The Hubble Space Telescope celebrates 27 years with two close friends

The motion of two million stars is traced five million years into the future using ESA’s Gaia

Space Science Image of the Week: This colourful Easter egg-like wrapping traces the pattern of Gaia’s all-sky scanning

A Soyuz rocket operated by Arianespace from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou will boost ESA’s upcoming exoplanet satellite into space.

Two ancient sites on Mars that hosted an abundance of water in the planet’s early history have been recommended as the final candidates for the landing site of the 2020 ExoMars rover and surface science platform: Oxia Planum and Mawrth Vallis.

Aoife van Linden Tol, recipient of the first ESA–Ars Electronica residency, spent three weeks at ESA researching for her Star Storm project

Growing fractures, collapsing cliffs, rolling boulders and moving material burying some features on the comet’s surface while exhuming others are among the remarkable changes documented during Rosetta’s mission.

Rosetta scientists have made the first compelling link between an outburst of dust and gas and the collapse of a prominent cliff, which also exposed the pristine, icy interior of the comet.  

Demanding electric, magnetic and power requirements, harsh radiation, and strict planetary protection rules are some of the critical issues that had to be tackled in order to move ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer – Juice – from the drawing board and into construction.

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has completed another set of important science calibration tests before a year of aerobraking gets underway.