Tag: science

During its flyby of Earth on 20 August, ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) found ingredients for life in Earth’s atmosphere.

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During its recent flyby of Earth, ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) travelled through the zones of charged particles that surround our planet. These two zones are known as the Van Allen radiation belts. The inner belt is mostly full of energetic protons, and the outer belt is mostly full of energetic electrons. The region between the two belts is mostly empty. 

The high levels of radiation in the Van Allen belts makes them very dangerous for electronics and humans, but they pale in comparison to Jupiter’s own radiation belts. At Jupiter, extremely energetic electrons can get through even the thickest of shielding, so they could damage Juice’s scientific instruments over time. 

Juice carries a radiation monitor called RADEM to continuously measure the spacecraft’s exposure to high-energy particles. RADEM forms part of a long-term plan to better understand radiation throughout the Solar System, and supplements Juice’s Plasma Environment Package – a collection of sensors designed to measure charged particles around Jupiter and its icy moons. 

Juice’s flight through the Van Allen belts was RADEM’s first big test in space. It passed with flying colours, successfully measuring electrons in the outer belt, then protons in the inner belt, then electrons again as it moved away from Earth. The blue and yellow dots indicate the intensity of electrons and protons that Juice measured; in both cases the intensity peaks as Juice goes through the densest part of the belt. 

These observations demonstrated the capabilities of RADEM and provided a great opportunity to cross-calibrate the instrument with other spacecraft orbiting Earth in a well-known environment. 

More about Juice’s lunar-Earth flyby 

More about Juice’s instruments 

[Image description: Black background with planet Earth at the centre. We see a spacecraft travelling around Earth from right to left. Concentric white circles surround Earth, indicating distance. It is possible to move a slider to switch between two images that both have all of the aforementioned elements. The left image shows a ring of white closely surrounding Earth; blue dots (protons) are plotted along Juice’s trajectory, peaking where Juice travels through this white band. The right image shows a ring of white further from Earth; yellow dots (electrons) are plotted along Juice’s trajectory, peaking in the two places where Juice travels through this white band.]

ESA is part of the Big Science Business Forum 2024 event on 1–4 October in Trieste, Italy. This is where industry and Europe’s leading science organisations, research infrastructures and their collaborators will meet to inform, network and discuss business opportunities in a market valued at nearly €10 billion annually.

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On 8 September 2024, Salsa (Cluster 2), one of four satellites that make up ESA’s Cluster mission, will reenter Earth’s atmosphere over the South Pacific Ocean Uninhabited Area.

Salsa’s reentry marks the end of the historic Cluster mission, over 24 years after the quartet was sent into space to measure Earth’s magnetic environment. Though the remaining three satellites will also stop making scientific observations, discoveries using existing mission data are expected for years to come.

This ‘targeted reentry’ is the first of its kind, and goes well beyond international standards. ESA is committed to ensuring the long-term sustainability of space activities by mitigating the creation of space debris wherever possible and ensuring the safest possible reentry of its satellites at the end of their lives.

A targeted reentry involves manoeuvring a satellite months to years in advance to line it up for a limited geographical region, where it reenters the atmosphere at a specific time. It does not require the spacecraft to be controlled during the reentry itself. Salsa’s reentry marks the first time that anyone has targeted the demise of a satellite with an eccentric orbit in this way.

Not much of the 550 kg satellite is expected to endure, with most fragments burning up around 80 km above Earth’s surface. Some parts might partially survive the high friction and fragmentation.

The end of the Cluster mission also offers a rare chance to study the reentries of four identical satellites at different times and under different conditions. The resulting data will improve our understanding of atmospheric reentry and inform the design of ‘zero-debris’ satellites.

Leading up to and during Salsa’s reentry we are providing updates via the Rocket Science blog, and the @ESA_Cluster, @esaoperations and @esascience Twitter accounts.

More on Salsa’s reentry

Salsa reentry FAQs

More on the Cluster mission

Access the related broadcast quality footage.

ESA’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft has provided crucial data to answer the decades-long question of where the energy comes from to heat and accelerate the solar wind. Working in tandem with NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, Solar Orbiter reveals that the energy needed to help power this outflow is coming from large fluctuations in the Sun’s magnetic field.

During this week’s lunar-Earth flyby, the Navigation Camera (NavCam) of ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) was tested out in space for the first time.

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Mermaid on salty Mars

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XMM-Newton and Euclid image of galaxy cluster Abell 2390

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) will return to Earth on 19–20 August, with flight controllers guiding the spacecraft first past the Moon and then past Earth itself. This ‘braking’ manoeuvre will take Juice on a shortcut to Jupiter via Venus.

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Several team members wish Euclid a happy first launch anniversary in their own language. ESA’s Euclid satellite launched on 1 July 2023 on a SpaceX Falcon 9, and now resides in an orbit around the Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2. During its mission, Euclid will observe billions of galaxies out to ten billion light-years over one third of the sky to study dark matter and dark energy.   

 
The team members in order of appearance: 

Prof. Carole Mundell – ESA Director of Science,  

Dr. Valeria Pettorino – Euclid Project Scientist, 

Iris Nijman – Euclid communication team,  

Dr. René Laureijs – Euclid Project Scientist, 

Dr. Teymoor Saifollahi – Strasbourg Observatory/CNES, 

Jerry Zhang – Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands, 

John Hoar – Euclid science operations, 

Dr. Jean-Charles Cuillandre – CEA Paris-Saclay, 

Dr. Karina Voggel – Strasbourg Observatory, 

Dr. Marusa Zerjal – Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands, 

Dr. Francesca Annibali – INAF-OAS, Bologna. 

An international team of astronomers have used the NASA/ESA/Webb James Webb Space Telescope to study the disc around a young and very low-mass star. The results reveal the richest hydrocarbon chemistry seen to date in a protoplanetary disc (including the first extrasolar detection of ethane) and contribute to our evolving understanding of the diversity of planetary systems.

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Today, ESA’s Euclid space mission releases five unprecedented new views of the Universe. The never-before-seen images demonstrate Euclid’s ability to unravel the secrets of the cosmos and enable scientists to hunt for rogue planets, use lensed galaxies to study mysterious matter, and explore the evolution of the Universe.

Read more about Euclid’s first images and download the individual images here.

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The eye of the crater