European Space Agency
The European Space Agency is an intergovernmental organization of 22 member states dedicated to the exploration of space. Established in 1975 and headquartered in Paris, ESA has a worldwide staff of about 2,200
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Image: A chance alignment in Lupus View the full article
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For decades, satellites have played a crucial role in our understanding of the remote polar regions. The ongoing loss of Antarctic ice, owing to the climate crisis, is, sadly, no longer surprising. However, satellites do more than just track the accelerating flow of glaciers towards the ocean and measure ice thickness. New research highlights how ESA’s CryoSat mission has been used to uncover the hidden impact of subglacial lakes – vast reservoirs of water buried deep under the ice – that can suddenly drain into the ocean in dramatic outbursts and affect ice loss. View the full article
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Image: This image shows Webb’s recent observation of the asteroid 2024 YR4 using both its Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). Data from NIRCam shows reflected light, while the MIRI observations show thermal light. On 8 March 2025, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope turned its watchful eye toward asteroid 2024 YR4, which we now know poses no significant threat to Earth in 2032 and beyond. This is the smallest object targeted by Webb to date, and one of the smallest objects to have its size directly measured. Observations were taken to study the thermal properties of 2024 YR4, including how quickly it heats up and cools down and how…
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Video: 00:08:04 Space Debris: Is it a Crisis? The European Space Agency’s short documentary film ‘Space Debris: Is it a Crisis?’ on the state of space debris premiered at the 9th European Conference on Space Debris on 1 April 2025. Earth is surrounded by thousands of satellites carrying out important work to provide telecommunications and navigation services, help us understand our climate, and answer fundamental questions about the Universe. However, as our use of space accelerates like never before, these satellites find themselves navigating increasingly congested orbits in an environment criss-crossed by streams of fast-moving debris fragments resulting from c…
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Read the latest edition of ESA Impact View the full article
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Image: Biomass cleared for fuelling View the full article
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Launched just seven months ago, ESA’s Arctic Weather Satellite has been proving how the New Space approach can accelerate the development of missions capable of delivering detailed temperature and humidity profiles for short-term weather forecasts. Moreover, the impact of this tiny prototype satellite goes even further – its measuring instrument has been recognised as able to provide data that’s on a par with traditional large missions. View the full article
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The European Space Agency (ESA) has selected Airbus to design and build the landing platform for the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover. In 2028, ESA will launch this ambitious exploration mission to search for past and present signs of life on Mars. View the full article
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Week in images: 24-28 March 2025 Discover our week through the lens View the full article
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Video: 00:05:23 For over a decade, ESA’s Gaia mission has mapped our galaxy with stunning precision—rewriting the story of the Milky Way. As its mission enters a new phase, we look back at its most groundbreaking discoveries. View the full article
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Video: 00:15:30 Meet Arnaud Prost—aerospace engineer, professional diver, and member of ESA’s Astronaut Reserve. From flying aircraft to getting a taste of spacewalk simulation, his passion for exploration knows no bounds. In this miniseries, we take you on a journey through the ESA Astronaut Reserve, diving into the first part of their Astronaut Reserve Training (ART) at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) near Cologne, Germany. Our “ARTists” are immersing themselves in everything from ESA and the International Space Station programme to the European space industry and institutions. They’re gaining hands-on experience in technical skills like spacecraft systems a…
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The first image from a new Italian Earth observation satellite mission was published today: a high-resolution image of a strip of the Italian peninsular showing the city of Rome at a resolution of 2.66 metres. This is three times higher than the resolution currently available for systematic acquisition over Italy. View the full article
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Image: The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission captures the striking landscape surrounding the Waza National Park in Cameroon. View the full article
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Two spacecraft flying as one – that is the goal of European Space Agency’s Proba-3 mission. Earlier this week, the eclipse-maker moved a step closer to achieving that goal, as both spacecraft aligned with the Sun, maintaining their relative position for several hours without any control from the ground. View the full article
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The European Space Agency (ESA) has powered down its Gaia spacecraft after more than a decade spent gathering data that are now being used to unravel the secrets of our home galaxy. On 27 March 2025, Gaia’s control team at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre carefully switched off the spacecraft’s subsystems and sent it into a ‘retirement orbit’ around the Sun. Though the spacecraft’s operations are now over, the scientific exploitation of Gaia’s data has just begun. View the full article
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Image: Spying a spiral through a cosmic lens (Webb telescope image) View the full article
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Using the unique infrared sensitivity of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, researchers can examine ancient galaxies to probe secrets of the early Universe. Now, an international team of astronomers has identified bright hydrogen emission from a galaxy in an unexpectedly early time in the Universe’s history. The surprise finding is challenging researchers to explain how this light could have pierced the thick fog of neutral hydrogen that filled space at that time. View the full article
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Video: 00:00:43 Aside from sunlight, the Sun sends out a gusty stream of particles called the solar wind. The ESA-led Solar Orbiter mission is the first to capture on camera this wind flying out from the Sun in a twisting, whirling motion. The solar wind particles spiral outwards as if caught in a cyclone that extends millions of kilometres from the Sun. Solar wind rains down on Earth's atmosphere constantly, but the intensity of this rain depends on solar activity. More than just a space phenomenon, solar wind can disrupt our telecommunication and navigation systems. Solar Orbiter is on a mission to uncover the origin of the solar wind. It uses six imaging instru…
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As ESA’s Hera planetary defence mission flew past planet Mars it autonomously locked onto dozens of impact craters and other prominent surface features to track them over time, in a full-scale test of the self-driving technology that the spacecraft will employ to navigate around its target asteroids. View the full article
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Image: ESA's Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space at NASA's Kennedy Space Center View the full article
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The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has captured a beautiful juxtaposition of the nearby protostellar outflow known as Herbig-Haro 49/50 with a perfectly positioned, more distant spiral galaxy. Due to the close proximity of this Herbig-Haro object to Earth, this new composite infrared image of the outflow from a young star allows researchers to examine details on small spatial scales like never before. With Webb, we can better understand how the jet activity associated with the formation of young stars can affect the environment surrounding them. View the full article
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Video: 00:02:46 The high-performance computing (HPC) environment will be available for scientific research and technological development activities, supporting all ESA programmes as well as the researchers and small- and medium-enterprises from Member States. View the full article
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Week in images: 17-21 March 2025 Discover our week through the lens View the full article
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