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By European Space Agency
ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher emphasises the importance of cooperation in space activities
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By European Space Agency
As the new Biomass satellite settles into life in orbit following its launch on 29 April, ESA has released its most extensive satellite-based maps of above-ground forest carbon to date. Spanning nearly two decades, the dataset offers the clearest global picture yet of how forest carbon stocks have changed over time.
Developed through ESA’s Climate Change Initiative, this new long-term record integrates data from multiple satellite missions – and will soon be further enhanced by data from the Biomass mission itself.
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By European Space Agency
Video: 00:02:01 ESA’s state-of-the-art Biomass satellite has launched aboard a Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The rocket lifted off on 29 April 2025 at 11:15 CEST (06:15 local time).
In orbit, this latest Earth Explorer mission will provide vital insights into the health and dynamics of the world’s forests, revealing how they are changing over time and, critically, enhancing our understanding of their role in the global carbon cycle. It is the first satellite to carry a fully polarimetric P-band synthetic aperture radar for interferometric imaging. Thanks to the long wavelength of P-band, around 70 cm, the radar signal can slice through the whole forest layer to measure the ‘biomass’, meaning the woody trunks, branches and stems, which is where trees store most of their carbon.
Vega-C is the evolution of the Vega family of rockets and delivers increased performance, greater payload volume and improved competitiveness.
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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
https://youtu.be/63uNNcCpxHI How are we made of star stuff?
Well, the important thing to understand about this question is that it’s not an analogy, it’s literally true.
The elements in our bodies, the elements that make up our bones, the trees we see outside, the other planets in the solar system, other stars in the galaxy. These were all part of stars that existed well before our Sun and Earth and solar system were even formed.
The universe existed for billions of years before we did. And all of these elements that you see on the periodic table, you see carbon and oxygen and silicon and iron, the common elements throughout the universe, were all put there by previous generations of stars that either blew off winds like the Sun blows off a solar wind, or exploded in supernova explosions and thrust their elements throughout the universe.
These are the same things that we can trace with modern telescopes, like the Hubble Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory. These are all elements that we can map out in the universe with these observatories and trace back to the same things that form us and the elemental abundances that we see in stars now are the same things that we see in the Earth’s crust, we see in asteroids. And so we know that these are the same elements that were once part of these stars.
So the question of, “How are we made of star stuff?”, in the words of Carl Sagan, “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
[END VIDEO TRANSCRIPT]
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Last Updated Apr 28, 2025 Related Terms
General Astrophysics Astrophysics Division Chandra X-Ray Observatory Hubble Space Telescope James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Origin & Evolution of the Universe Science Mission Directorate The Solar System The Universe Explore More
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