GAIA Reveals For the First Time Crystallization in White Dwarfs
Data captured by ESA’s galaxy-mapping spacecraft Gaia has revealed for the first time how white dwarfs, the dead remnants of stars like our Sun, turn…
European Space Agency
ESO Image of the Week – A Portrait of a Beauty
Nuzzled in the chest of the constellation Virgo (the Virgin) lies a beautiful cosmic gem — the galaxy Messier 61. This glittering spiral galaxy is aligned face-on…
PulChron System Measures Time Using Radio Pulses From Neutron Stars
ESA’s technical centre in the Netherlands has begun running a pulsar-based clock. The ‘PulChron’ system measures the passing of time using millisecond-frequency radio pulses from…
NELIOTA Project Views Flashes of Light Across the Surface of the Moon
Every few hours observing the Moon, ESA’s ‘NELIOTA’ project discovers a brilliant flash of light across its surface – the result of an object hurtling…
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…
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…