Tag: science

ESA’s XMM-Newton observatory has discovered the best-ever candidate for a very rare and elusive type of cosmic phenomenon: a medium-weight black hole in the process of tearing apart and feasting on a nearby star.

BepiColombo’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter is fitted with its bespoke, hand-sewn insulation blankets

A representative model of the ExoMars rover that will land on Mars in 2021 is beginning a demanding test campaign that will ensure it can survive the rigours of launch and landing, as well as operations under the environmental conditions of Mars. 

Space Science Image of the Week: The BepiColombo spacecraft unpacked at their new home at the Spaceport

Explore Gaia’s second data release with this interactive visualisation of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, the family portrait of stars in our Milky Way

Media are invited to join experts of the Characterising Exoplanets Satellite, Cheops, at Airbus Defence and Space in Madrid, Spain, for a unique opportunity to visit the spacecraft in the clean room on 22 May.

The spacecraft of the BepiColombo mission to Mercury have arrived safely at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, marking the start of six months of preparation to ready the craft for launch.

Space Science Image of the Week: Gaia fingerprints the stars and monitors their motion through the Universe

Gaia’s new star catalogue has been unveiled. Watch a replay of the media briefing from ILA.

ESA’s Gaia mission has produced the richest star catalogue to date, including high-precision measurements of nearly 1.7 billion stars and revealing previously unseen details of our home Galaxy.

Find out why scientists worldwide are excited about Gaia’s new data and how it’s going to impact all things astronomy

Media representatives are invited to a briefing on the second data release of ESA’s Gaia mission, an astrometry mission to map more than one billion stars in our Galaxy, the Milky Way.

Astronomers using ESA’s XMM-Newton space observatory have probed the gas-filled haloes around galaxies in a quest to find ‘missing’ matter thought to reside there, but have come up empty-handed – so where is it?