Latest ESA Stories

ESA Without hi-tech magnetic sensors, rovers wouldn’t be able to roam around Mars. These same sensors will soon boost terrestrial travel by improving the machinery that molds parts for cars and aircraft here on Earth. These devices will ‘feel’ parts in exquisite detail, noting features like the width and depth of drilled holes, helping to create perfect 3D pictures of each highly complex piece. It takes up to 20 minutes to beam information from Mars to Earth – more than...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online The European Space Agency (ESA) says it has unraveled the mystery as to the origin of water observed in the upper atmosphere of Jupiter. ESA's Herschel space observatory found evidence that the water in this part of Jupiter's atmosphere was delivered by the dramatic impact of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 in July 1994. During this collision, a string of 21 comet fragments pounded into the southern hemisphere of Jupiter, leaving dark scars...

ESA [ Watch The Video Freshwater Plume From SMOS And Aquarius ] The saltiness of the oceans is being closely monitored from space by both ESA’s SMOS and NASA’s Aquarius missions, but in slightly different ways. By joining forces, researchers are exploiting these complementary missions to benefit climate science even further. Everyone knows that seawater is salty, but it isn’t that obvious that the concentration of salt – the salinity – of the surface waters of the world’s...

ESA Ireland is setting an example for how space technologies can contribute to economic growth and recovery through the maritime sector. Over 100 European specialists in policy, space technology, industry and maritime interests met this week on the Emerald Isle to learn more. Satellites can support the development of our seas and oceans in areas such as aquaculture, renewable energy, resource extraction, fisheries protection and tourism. With ESA’s help, Irish companies and...

ESA ESA’s Proba-V vegetation-mapping minisatellite has been fitted to the payload adapter and met its fellow passengers for its 2 May flight to orbit on a Vega launcher. Last week, technicians attached Proba-V to the top of the Vespa adapter, which carries multiple payloads on a single Vega. The other two satellites flying with Proba-V have now been installed inside Vespa: Vietnam’s VNREDSat Earth observation mission and Estonia’s ESTCube-1 student nanosatellite, to test...

ESA Developing new ways of monitoring Earth is always demanding, but ESA’s Aeolus mission has faced some particularly difficult technical challenges. However, with the success of intense high-energy tests on its novel laser there is now light at the end of the tunnel for this unique mission. The Aeolus satellite will carry a single, but complex, instrument that will probe the atmosphere to profile the world’s winds. Reliable and timely wind profiles are urgently needed by...

ESA These colorful displays are produced when electrically charged particles traveling from the Sun in the solar wind are channeled along Earth’s magnetic field lines and strike atoms high in the atmosphere. Collisions with oxygen atoms typically generate green aurora, as seen here. The link between auroras and solar activity has been apparent for centuries, but only with the aid of satellites can scientists begin to decipher the physical mechanisms causing this spectacular...

ESA Dramatic underground explosions, perhaps involving ice, are responsible for the pits inside these two large martian impact craters, imaged by ESA’s Mars Express on 4 January. The ‘twin’ craters are in the Thaumasia Planum region, a large plateau that lies immediately to the south of Valles Marineris, the largest canyon in the Solar System. The northernmost (right) large crater in this scene was officially given the name Arima in early 2012, but the southernmost (left)...

ESA Track your skiing, speed, altitude, slopes and lift kilometers with a nifty phone app from an ESA business incubation start-up. Compete against friends, win prizes and even donate to a children’s charity. This is what German start-up company MapCase GmbH is offering with their MAPtoSNOW free app for mobile phones. The company was supported by ESA Business Incubation Centre Darmstadt, Germany, to develop their application, based on satnav. Available at over 190 ski resorts in...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The European Space Agency's (ESA) Herschel space observatory has snapped images of a dust belt orbiting a subgiant star that hosts a planetary system. The space observatory's sensitive far-infrared detection helped astronomers resolve bright emission around Kappa Coronae Borealis, indicating the presence of a dusty debris disc. The star is a little heavier than our own Sun at 1.5 solar masses, is around 2.5 billion years old, and sits...