European Space Agency

On 30 April 2023, all nominal operations of Aeolus, the first mission to observe Earth’s wind profiles on a global scale, will conclude in preparation for a series of end of life activities. View the full article

Video: 00:42:00 ESA’s Solar Orbiter may have taken another step towards solving the eighty-year-old mystery of why the Sun’s outer atmosphere is so hot. On 3 March 2022, just a few months into Solar Orbiter’s nominal mission, the spacecraft’s Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) returned data showing for the first time that a magnetic phenomenon called reconnection was taking place persistently on tiny scales. At that time, the spacecraft was about halfway between the Earth and the Sun. This enabled coordinated observations with NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) missions. The data from the three missions was then combined during the analysis. Magnetic reconnection occurs when a magnetic field changes itself into a more stable configuration. It is a fundamental energy release mechanism in superheated gasses known as plasmas and is believed to be the major mechanism for powering large-scale solar eruptions. This makes it the direct cause of space weather, and a prime candidate for the mysterious heating of the Sun’s outer atmosphere. It has been known since the 1940s that the Sun’s outer atmosphere, called the corona, is much hotter than the Sun’s surface. While the surface glows at around 5 500°C, the corona is a rarified gas of around 2 million °C. How the Sun injects energy into its atmosphere to heat it to this tremendous temperature has been a major puzzle ever since. In the past, magnetic reconnection has usually been seen during large-scale, explosive phenomena. However, the new result presents ultra-high-resolution observations of persistent small-scale (around 390 km across) reconnection in the corona. These are revealed to be a long-lived ‘gentle’ sequence compared to sudden explosive releases of energy that reconnection is usually associated with. The 3 March 2022 event took place over the period of one hour. The temperatures around the point of the magnetic field where the magnetic field intensity drops to zero, known as the null-point, sustained itself at around 10 million °C, and generated an outflow of material that came in the form of discrete ‘blobs’ travelling away from the null point with a speed of around 80 km/s. In addition to this continuous outflow, an explosive episode also took place around this null point, and lasted for four minutes. Solar Orbiter’s results suggest that magnetic reconnection, at scales that were previously too small to be resolved, proceeds continually in both gentle and explosive ways. This is importantly because it means that reconnection can therefore persistently transfer mass and energy to the overlying corona, contributing to heating it. These observations also suggest that even smaller and more frequent magnetic reconnections await discovery. The goal is now to observe these with EUI at even higher spatio-temporal resolution in the future around Solar Orbiter’s closest approaches to estimate what fraction of the corona’s heat may be transferred in this way. Solar Orbiter’s most recent closest passage to the Sun took place on 10 April 2023. At that time, the spacecraft was just 29 percent the Earth’s distance from the Sun. Solar Orbiter is a space mission of international collaboration between ESA and NASA, operated by ESA. These results are published in Nature Communications in a paper titled Ultra-high-resolution Observations of Persistent Null-point Reconnection in the Solar Corona. Principal author Prof. Xin Cheng, Nanjing University, China, and Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Göttingen, Germany led an international team of 24 collaborators. View the full article

ESA has signed contracts for two parallel concept studies for commercial-scale Space-Based Solar Power plants, representing a crucial step in the Agency’s new SOLARIS initiative – maturing the feasibility of gathering solar energy from space for terrestrial clean energy needs. View the full article

Image: Juice gets wings View the full article

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) has taken its first monitoring camera images showing part of the spacecraft with Earth as a stunning backdrop. The mission launched on an Ariane 5 from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou on 14 April 14:14 CEST and the images were captured in the hours afterwards. View the full article

Video: 02:22:14 Watch a replay of the launch broadcast for ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice. Juice was launched into space on an Ariane 5 from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 13 April 2023, on an eight-year cruise to Jupiter. It will make detailed observations of gas giant Jupiter and its three large ocean-bearing moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. The programme includes live segments from the Spaceport and ESA’s European Spacecraft Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany. Access the related broadcast quality video material. View the full article

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) lifted off on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana at 14:14 CEST on 14 April. The successful launch marks the beginning of an ambitious voyage to uncover the secrets of the ocean worlds around giant planet Jupiter. View the full article

Week in images: 10-14 April 2023 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

Video: 00:01:38 ESA’s latest interplanetary mission, Juice, lifted off on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, at 14:14 CEST on 14 April 2023 to begin its eight-year journey to Jupiter, where it will study in detail the gas giant planet’s three large ocean-bearing moons: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. Juice – JUpiter ICy moons Explorer – is humankind’s next bold mission to the outer Solar System. This ambitious mission will characterise Ganymede, Callisto and Europa with a powerful suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments to discover more about these compelling destinations as potential habitats for past or present life. Juice will monitor Jupiter’s complex magnetic, radiation and plasma environment in depth and its interplay with the moons, studying the Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giant systems across the Universe. Following launch, Juice will embark on an eight-year journey to Jupiter, arriving in July 2031 with the aid of momentum and direction gained from four gravity-assist fly-bys of the Earth-Moon system, Venus and, twice, Earth. Flight VA260 is the final Ariane 5 flight to carry an ESA mission to space. Find out more about Juice in ESA’s launch kit View the full article

Data from ESA’s star-mapping Gaia spacecraft has allowed astronomers to image a gigantic exoplanet using Japan's Subaru Telescope. This world is the first confirmed exoplanet found by Gaia’s ability to sense the gravitational tug or ‘wobble’ a planet induces on its star. And the technique points the way to the future of direct exoplanet imaging. View the full article

Video: 00:01:58 Ariane 5 VA 260 with Juice integration and rollout timelapse at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana. Juice – Jupiter Icy moons Explorer – is humankind’s next bold mission to the outer Solar System. This ambitious mission will characterise Ganymede, Callisto and Europa with a powerful suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments to discover more about these compelling destinations as potential habitats for past or present life. Juice will monitor Jupiter’s complex magnetic, radiation and plasma environment in depth and its interplay with the moons, studying the Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giant systems across the Universe. Following launch, Juice will embark on an eight-year journey to Jupiter, arriving in July 2031 with the aid of momentum and direction gained from four gravity-assist fly-bys of the Earth-Moon system, Venus and, twice, Earth. Flight VA 260 will be the final Ariane 5 flight to carry an ESA mission to space. Find out more about Juice in ESA’s launch kit Access the related broadcast quality video material. View the full article

Image: At ESA’s mission control, before the launch comes the pre-launch briefing – and the all-important group photo. This is the team that will fly Juice to Jupiter with four planetary flybys of Earth and Venus, then switching orbit from Jupiter to its largest moon, Ganymede, followed by a tour of the icy, complex Jovian system comprising a whopping 35 lunar flybys. Never before has a mission switched orbit from a planet other than our own to one of its moons. Radiation at Jupiter will be extreme. Light at the edge of the solar system will be just 3% of what powers us on Earth. It will be cold. Time delays of up to two hours mean teams are only ever communicating with a spacecraft in the past. Ten science instruments need to be oriented precisely, without interference, from hundreds of millions of kilometres away. Juice was made for this extreme environment, and mission control is ready to navigate it. Back-to-back critical operations over the next decade will make this possible. We are GREEN for Juice launch. View the full article

Image: Ariane 5 flight VA260, Juice mission: fully integrated and ready for rollout at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana View the full article

Video: 00:12:09 Have you ever wondered what a volcano looks like from space? Today, we’re counting down our picks of the most impressive volcanoes around the world – captured by satellites. Our countdown includes Mount Fuji, Mount Mayon and Mount Vesuvius. Satellites orbiting 800 km above us can monitor volcanoes. They can provide real-time data on volcanic activity and can even help disaster response efforts post-eruption. View the full article

The explosion of a star is a dramatic event, but the remains that the star leaves behind can be even more dramatic. A new mid-infrared image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope provides one stunning example. It shows the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A), created by a stellar explosion 340 years ago. View the full article

Week in images: 03-07 April 2023 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

A large mass of Sargassum ‘seaweed’ circling around the Gulf of Mexico may soon wash up along the US west coast near Florida – depending on the right combination of currents and wind. The bloom, which may likely be the largest ever recorded, is so large that it’s visible from space. View the full article

Image: South Korea’s capital city, Seoul, and surroundings are featured in this image, captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission on 21 February 2023. View the full article

New research reveals that ice being lost from glaciers that flow into lakes in the Himalayas has been significantly underestimated. This discovery has critical implications for predicting the demise of the region’s glaciers and for managing critical water resources. View the full article

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer mission, Juice, is planned for launch at 13:15 BST/14:15 CEST on 13 April from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. Here’s how to follow the key milestones online. View the full article

Webb’s infrared image highlights the planet’s dramatic rings and dynamic atmosphere. Following in the footsteps of the Neptune image released in 2022, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has taken a stunning image of the solar system’s other ice giant, the planet Uranus. The new image features dramatic rings as well as bright features in the planet’s atmosphere. View the full article

They may be microscopic, but their ability to sequester carbon is phenomenal. We are talking phytoplankton – and scientists working on a project funded by ESA are assessing different aspects of the role that these tiny plants play in the ocean carbon cycle to better understand climate processes. View the full article

Image: After months practicing with a ‘fake’ Juice spacecraft, teams at ESA’s mission control centre in Darmstadt, Germany, today got in touch with the real thing. For the first time, mission engineers connected to the Ariane 5 rocket and inside its fairing the Juice spacecraft, for a dress rehearsal of the all-important “network countdown”. The dress rehearsal is the moment that ESA’s mission control brings together the various partners and elements of the mission for a final fully integrated test before launch. Today, Juice’s signals streamed into ESA’s Space Operations Centre via an umbilical connection that will be disconnected in the moments before liftoff, joined by mission partners Airbus and Arianespace. It is during the network countdown that the Flight Operations Director Andrea Accomazzo performs the well-known ‘final Rollcall’, as he contacts various teams and positions around the globe who each declare – when things are going well – they are “GO” for launch. The dress rehearsal is a live re-enactment of this countdown and every step has to go right to declare launch readiness, from setting up the connection to Juice on the launch pad to establishing ground station links across the globe and ensuring all mission control software and systems are up and running. This rehearsal comes after months of simulations in the Main Control Room, in which teams fly a spacecraft simulator controlled by devious Simulations Officers in the room below. Their job is to think up all the ways that something can go wrong. In this period the teams focussed predominantly on the critical moments after liftoff – the Launch and Early Orbit Phase. Among hundreds of errors, large and small, Juice’s 85 square metre solar arrays failed to deploy, the spacecraft was lost to Earth’s antennas on dozens of occasions and it entered emergency Safe Mode five times. Now that simulations are complete and dozens of worrying scenarios have been worked through, it’s time to focus on a nominal launch. “For the last time we have practiced critical operations for the complex Juice mission – and everything went perfectly to plan. Next time, we’ll be doing this for real”, explains Andrea Accomazzo, Flight Operations Director for the mission. “After speaking to Juice for the first time, we’re ready and couldn’t be more excited for the decade-long conversation about to take place across deep space”. Juice has now been installed in its Ariane 5 rocket, fuelled, and final checks are underway before it is rolled out to the launch pad at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, for a scheduled launch on 13 April at 13:15 BST (14:15 CEST). The mission, ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, will make detailed observations of the giant gas planet and its three large ocean-bearing moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa – with a suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments. Juice will characterise these moons as both planetary objects and possible habitats, explore Jupiter’s complex environment in depth, and study the wider Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giants across the Universe. To make all this possible, teams at ESA’s mission control centre in Germany will perform back-to-back critical operations including four planetary flybys to get to Jupiter and 35 flybys of its icy moons. Follow @esaoperations, @esascience and @esa_juice for live updates of Juice’s launch, its long eight-year journey and ultimately the fascinating science it will uncover. View the full article

Video: 01:00:04 ESA’s JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (Juice) will launch from Europe’s Spaceport at Kourou in French Guiana on Thursday 13 April 2023. Watch the replay of this online media briefing to hear more about the mission and the launch itself. Participants will include Olivier Witasse, Juice Project Scientist ; Ruedeger Albat, Head of Ariane 5 Programme at ESA and Alessandro Atzei, Payload System Engineer. View the full article

Image: Practice makes perfect View the full article