European Space Agency

How the Moon shaped our world: discover our interactive publication View the full article

Image: Firefighters in Greece are battling a rapidly spreading wildfire that has swept across several neighbourhoods in Athens, Greece, on Monday. Thousands of residents have been evacuated as the massive fire reached the suburbs of Athens, with some flames reaching heights of 25 m. This image shows the fires surrounding Athens on 12 August 2024, captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission. This image has been processed in a way that highlights vegetation in red, while the burned areas can be seen in black. The estimated affected area exceeds 100 sq km. In response to the fires, the Copernicus Emergency Management Service was activated to cover the fire event affecting the Attica Region. Copernicus EMS Rapid Mapping was requested to provide an initial rough estimate, as well as emergency mapping of the fire’s extent and damage assessment. The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission is based on a constellation of two identical satellites, each carrying an innovative wide swath high-resolution multispectral imager with 13 spectral bands for monitoring changes in Earth’s land and vegetation. View the full article

Video: 00:04:38 The effects of the climate crisis are felt more acutely in the Arctic than anywhere else on the planet. The weather in the Arctic is not only severe, but it changes extremely quickly. More frequent data are urgently needed to improve weather forecasts for this susceptible polar region. Enter ESA’s Arctic Weather Satellite: a brand new prototype mission to show exactly how this can be achieved. The satellite will provide precise, short-term weather forecasts for the Arctic region. It is equipped with a 19-channel cross-track scanning microwave radiometer which will provide high-resolution humidity and temperature soundings of the atmosphere in all weather conditions. The Arctic Weather Satellite is the forerunner of a potential constellation of satellites, called EPS-Sterna, that ESA would build for Eumetsat if this first prototype Arctic Weather Satellite performs well. View the full article

Week in images: 05-09 August 2024 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

Build your own Ariane 6 rocket with ESA! Download your printable kit and join the competition. View the full article

Image: The hidden intricacies of Messier 106 View the full article

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ESA’s star-surveying Gaia mission has again proven to be a formidable asteroid explorer, spotting potential moons around more than 350 asteroids not known to have a companion. View the full article

Mars once hosted a lake larger than any on Earth. The broken-down and dried-up remnants of this ancient lakebed are shown here in amazing detail by ESA’s Mars Express. View the full article

Exactly ten years on since Rosetta arrived at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, we dig into how the intrepid explorer has transformed our knowledge of comets, revealed some crucial pieces in the Solar System jigsaw puzzle, and shaped how we develop new missions. View the full article

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Polish project astronaut Sławosz Uznański is scheduled to fly to the International Space Station on Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4). View the full article

Atmospheric nitrogen dioxide is a harmful pollutant with significant impacts on air quality, climate and the biosphere. Although satellites have mapped nitrogen dioxide concentrations since the 1990s, their resolution was generally too coarse to pinpoint individual sources like power plants. In a recent study, researchers used imagery from Copernicus Sentinel-2 to observe nitrogen dioxide plumes from power plants for the first time – marking a significant advancement in air pollution monitoring. View the full article

Week in images: 29 July - 02 August 2024 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

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As ESA’s Hera mission for planetary defence completes its pre-launch testing, its target asteroids have come into focus as tiny worldlets of their own. A special issue of Nature Communications published this week presents studies of the Didymos asteroid and its Dimorphos moon, based on the roughly five and a half minutes of close-range footage returned by NASA’s DART spacecraft before it impacted the latter body – along with post-impact images from the Italian Space Agency’s LICIACube. View the full article

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Video: 00:01:02 ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) is coming back to Earth. Our fearless traveller is getting a nudge from Earth this summer, in the first of four ‘gravity assist manoeuvres’ that will put Juice on precisely the right path to arrive at Jupiter with the correct speed and direction in July 2031. This is the second big milestone in Juice’s journey to Jupiter, with the first being the launch into space on 14 April 2023. This second helping hand takes a very different form, with Juice flying past the Moon on 19 August, lining it up to fly past Earth on 20 August. The Earth flyby will line the spacecraft up for a flyby of Venus in summer 2025. Gravity is a fickle friend. These gravity assist flybys are a valuable technique to get Juice to Jupiter with less fuel, but they threaten derailment at any time. ESA mission operators will be keeping a very close eye on the spacecraft as it approaches the Moon-Earth system, making any tiny adjustments needed to keep the spacecraft on the right course. Find out more View the full article

Calling all space dreamers and game developers! ESA is back at Gamescom, the world's biggest video game event, kicking off in Cologne from 21 to 25 August. Our stand is in the careers area of Koelnmesse in Hall 10.2, so buckle up for a galaxy of opportunities! View the full article

Week in images: 22-26 July 2024 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

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Image: This striking high-resolution image offers an in-depth view of central Paris, allowing you to explore and zoom into the city’s most captivating areas in exceptional detail. View the full article

Video: 00:08:21 The first half of 2024 saw hundreds of people across Europe building, cajoling, shipping, lowering, integrating, securing and protecting the precious pieces and parts that came together to create Ariane 6 – Europe’s new heavy-lift rocket. Huge engines, boosters and outer shells met tiny screws, electrical boards and masses of supercooled fuel. All this came together at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, for the spectacular first launch of Ariane 6 on 9 July 2024, restoring Europe’s access to space. Get a glimpse at the teamwork, skill and care that went into this moment over many months, in this montage of Ariane 6 images, videos and timelapse photography spanning 30 January to 9 July 2024. View the full article

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