All articles tagged with #science and exploration
On 12 August 2026, a total solar eclipse will be visible from northern Spain; ESA, the City of León and the University of León are hosting a free public event at the Palacio de Exposiciones y Congresos de León with daytime workshops, talks and live observations, followed by an evening program guiding visitors through totality, with free eclipse glasses (while supplies last) and an ESA live broadcast for those unable to attend.
Artemis II astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen visited ESA’s ESTEC in the Netherlands to meet the European Service Module team, tour facilities and labs, and receive a Program Award; they will also visit Airbus in Bremen and Thales Alenia Space in Turin as part of ongoing post-flight engagements.
ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover will land at Oxia Planum to study vast clay-bearing sediments that extend toward Mawrth Vallis, hinting at extensive past water activity and possibly an ancient ocean. The mission will drill up to two metres and analyze samples to search for biosignatures while orbiters show similar mineral layers and a paused deposition history, informing Mars’ early climate and habitability and helping reconstruct its water history.
The European-Chinese Smile mission, a joint ESA-CAS project to study how Earth reacts to solar wind using an X-ray camera for magnetosphere observations and a UV imager for auroras, is rescheduled to launch on May 19, 2026, aboard a European Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana after a precautionary delay due to a Vega-C subsystem issue. The launch time is 05:52 CEST / 04:52 BST / 00:52 local, with Smile released after about 57 minutes into a low-Earth orbit and solar panels unfolding around 63 minutes after liftoff, before entering an elongated orbit peaking about 121,000 km above the North Pole and extending to roughly 5,000 km above the South Pole to deliver data to ground stations. The mission aims to shed light on space weather, solar storms and geomagnetic processes through its four instruments, as ESA and CAS collaborate on this Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer.
On its 36th anniversary, the Hubble Space Telescope revisits the Trifid Nebula (Messier 20), a roughly 5,000-light-year-old star-forming region, with a newer wide-field camera to reveal changes on human timescales and features like protostellar jets and ultraviolet winds sculpting the gas—underscoring Hubble’s ongoing legacy of discovery and collaboration with Webb.
Crew-12—Andrei Fedyaev, Jack Hathaway, Jessica Meir and Sophie Adenot—are slated to launch no earlier than Feb 11 from Cape Canaveral aboard SpaceX's Dragon, propelled by a Falcon 9, to the ISS for about nine months and to join Expeditions 74/75. Adenot and Hathaway will make their first spaceflight; Meir is on her second, and Fedyaev would become the first cosmonaut to fly twice on Dragon. The quartet quarantined Jan 28 at Johnson Space Center and will move to Kennedy Space Center Feb 6; launch windows are Feb 11 with backups Feb 12–13. The εpsilon mission highlights international cooperation and science in orbit.
ESA has been conducting a 20-year study at Concordia station in Antarctica, where a medical doctor lives for 13 months to research the psychological and physiological effects of extreme isolation and environment, providing insights relevant to space missions beyond Earth.
ESA's Mars Express has captured an image of a unique crater on Mars that resembles a butterfly, formed by a low-angle impact that created irregular wings and a central oval body, with evidence suggesting interaction with water or ice during formation. The region also features volcanic mesas and signs of past volcanic activity, providing insights into Mars's geological history.
The ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) has celebrated 30 years of continuous solar observation, overcoming challenges and revolutionizing solar science, space weather monitoring, and comet discovery, while inspiring future missions and international collaboration.
Astronomers have confirmed the first observation of a coronal mass ejection (CME) from a star other than the Sun, using ESA's XMM-Newton and LOFAR telescopes. The CME, originating from a red dwarf star 130 light-years away, was extremely fast and dense, capable of stripping away planetary atmospheres, which has significant implications for the habitability of planets orbiting active stars.
New images from ESA's Mars Express reveal signs of an ancient ice age on Mars, including glacial flow patterns and features like Coloe Fossae, indicating that the planet experienced significant climate changes and ice coverage during its history, even at mid-latitudes.
A European experiment on the ISS studies how condensation behaves in microgravity using fin-shaped metal surfaces to improve understanding of heat transfer, with potential applications in space technology and Earth-based cooling systems.
The European Space Agency's Plato spacecraft has completed its construction, including mounting its sunshield and solar panels, and is now preparing for final tests before a planned December 2026 launch to search for Earth-like exoplanets.
Scientists analyzed 20 years of images from ESA's Mars Express and ExoMars TGO to track 1039 dust devils on Mars, revealing that wind speeds are faster than previously thought and providing new insights into the planet's weather and climate, which will aid future missions and climate models.
Scientists analyzing data from the Cassini spacecraft have discovered complex organic molecules in the fresh ice grains ejected from Saturn's moon Enceladus, indicating active chemical reactions in its subsurface ocean that could support life, prompting plans for a dedicated ESA mission to explore the moon further.