The Merger That Led to the Formation of the Milky Way
ESA’s Gaia mission has made a major breakthrough in unravelling the formation history of the Milky Way. Instead of forming alone, our Galaxy merged with…
European Space Agency
Mars Express Observes the Evolution of a Cloud Formation Hovering Over Arsia Mons
Since 13 September, ESA’s Mars Express has been observing the evolution of an elongated cloud formation hovering in the vicinity of the 20 km-high Arsia…
Astronomers Identify Possible Places of Origin of ‘Oumuamua
Using data from ESA’s Gaia stellar surveyor, astronomers have identified four stars that are possible places of origin of ‘Oumuamua, an interstellar object spotted during…
Students Spot Mysterious X-Ray Source in Globular Cluster NGC 6540
An enigmatic X-ray source revealed as part of a data-mining project for high-school students shows unexplored avenues hidden in the vast archive of ESA’s XMM-Newton…
Moon Bricks Will Pave the Way for Human Space Exploration
Lunar masonry starts on Earth. European researchers are working with Moon dust simulants that could one day allow astronauts to build habitats on our natural…
Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Captures the Sounds of the Sun
Data from ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) has captured the dynamic movement of the Sun’s atmosphere for over 20…
Can Lunar Dust Jeopardise Human Health?
When the Apollo astronauts returned from the Moon, the dust that clung to their spacesuits made their throats sore and their eyes water. Lunar dust…
XMM-Newton Views Star-Circling Bubble of Gas NGC 3199
This turbulent celestial palette of purple and yellow shows a bubble of gas named NGC 3199, blown by a star known as WR18 (Wolf-Rayet 18)….
Space Storm Hunter Captures First Images and Data
As the International Space Station flew over the Indonesian coast of Sumatra on an April night, lightning from a thunderstorm reached the upper layers of…
ESA Image of the Week – The Heart of the Milky Way
At first glance, this image may resemble red ink filtering through water or a crackling stream of electricity, but it is actually a unique view…
Astronomers Continue to Unravel the Mystery of the Universe’s Missing Matter
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…
Scientists Successfully Complete World-First Firing of Air-Breathing Electric Thruster
In a world-first, an ESA-led team has built and fired an electric thruster to ingest scarce air molecules from the top of the atmosphere for…
Astronomers Witness a Very Rare Event, The Birth of a Symbiotic X-Ray Binary
ESA’s Integral space observatory has witnessed a rare event: the moment that winds emitted by a swollen red giant star revived its slow-spinning companion, the…
Space Weather Satellite Set to Go Where No Mission Has Gone Before
Living near a star is risky business, and positioning a spacecraft near the Sun is a very good way to observe rapidly changing solar activity…
Scientists Measure Energy Transfer Within the Magnetosheath
For the first time, scientists have estimated how much energy is transferred from large to small scales within the magnetosheath, the boundary region between the…
Breathtaking Hubble Image of Spiral Galaxy NGC 7331
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a spiral galaxy known as NGC 7331. First spotted by the prolific galaxy hunter William Herschel in 1784,…
ESA and Russian Space Mission Steps Up the Search for Life on Mars
In 2013, the European Space Agency and Roscosmos — the Russian governmental body responsible for space research — agreed to cooperate on ExoMars, the first…
Miniature Satellites GomX-4B and GomX-4A Will Be Propelled By Butane
ESA’s next miniature satellite will be its first able to change orbit. Thanks to a compact thruster resembling a butane cigarette lighter, the cereal box-sized…