Latest European Space Agency Stories

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online Drawing inspiration from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, two different teams of researchers have developed both an easy-to-use, fully searchable 3D map of the universe and new technology that could improve the quality of laser eye surgery, various media outlets reported late last week. A Microsoft team collected data and images from Hubble and other similar instruments to create what has been dubbed the WorldWide Telescope (WWT)....

ESA Like astronauts, heavy-equipment operators in remote mines can benefit from long-distance monitoring using space technology. An ESA spin-off company has raised safety for dozens of drivers at the El Brocal mine in Peru by predicting their fatigue. In far-flung mining operations around the world, drivers typically work 12-hour shifts, driving trucks and loaders of 160–180 tonnes – the size of a small apartment block. Combine the grueling schedule with even a small mistake, and...

NASA [ Watch The Video A Super-speed Look at Webb Telescope Progress ] NASA released a new sped-up, 32-second video that shows engineers working on some of the James Webb Space Telescope's flight components to integrate them together to ensure they will work perfectly together in space. The "NASA Webb Clean Room at Super-speed" video was filmed in the giant clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and produced at Goddard. Testing of the two flight...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Our planet has been mapped out and explored for the most part, but there are plenty of other planets out there waiting to be discovered, and the European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express has provided the means to do so. Mars Express has spent the last ten years snapping images of the Red Planet, and a web interface featuring an archive of these images offers up the chance to explore any region on Mars through the eyes of the ESA...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online The European Space Agency's SMOS satellite is showing its worth in observing the wetlands, offering a better understanding of Earth's carbon cycle. SMOS is a multifaceted satellite capable of mapping soil moisture and ocean salinity, and its novel microwave sensor is able to capture images of brightness temperature to obtain this information. The satellite has been used to map freezing soil, monitor thin Arctic sea ice, determine...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Using technologies contributed by NASA, the European Space Agency's (ESA) Planck space mission has provided the most accurate and detailed map made of the oldest light in the Universe. Results from Planck are giving a more detailed look into our Universe's history than ever before. The map suggests that the Universe is expanding more slowly and is 100 million years older than scientists previously thought. The data also shows there...

NASA NASA engineers and scientists have been making practice runs to ensure the placement of primary mirror segments on the James Webb Space Telescope go perfectly when the flight equipment is ready. NASA issued a video and photos showing the practice run in the giant clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The video explains and shows how a grey/silver robotic "arm" is used to install the surrogate mirrors onto a test copy of a structure called the telescope...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Astronomers using ground and space telescopes around the world have revealed a black hole and a star, intertwined in a cosmic tango together. Astronomers writing in Astronomy & Astrophysics say they have observed a black hole, known as MAXI J1659-152, and a red dwarf with a mass only 20 percent that of the Sun orbiting each other every 2.4 hours. The two cosmic bodies sit over half a million miles away from each other, but are...

ESA In its third year, the Copernicus Masters competition – previously known as the GMES Masters – opens once again. Submissions are now being accepted for the first challenge that asks participants to demonstrate how satellites show humans’ impact on our planet. The Copernicus Masters rewards the best ideas for services, business cases and applications based on satellite Earth observation data. With a prize pool of € 350 000 in cash prizes, technical support, data packages and...

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online The massive backplane that will help hold the James Webb Space Telescope’s primary mirror in place as it scans the night sky is now one step closer to completion, NASA officials announced on Friday. The recent assembly of the primary mirror backplane support structure wing “is another milestone that helps move Webb closer to its launch date in 2018," said Geoff Yoder, the telescope program’s director at the US space...