An annotated timeline of the most critical events during the IXV mission. ESA’s wingless spaceplane is set for liftoff on a Vega rocket from Kourou, French Guiana, 11 February 2015.
ESA’s Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV) will be launched on Vega flight VV04 at 13:00 GMT (14:00 CET) for a suborbital flight to test technologies and critical systems for Europe’s future … Read the rest of this article
ESA’s experimental spaceplane, poised for liftoff on its Vega rocket, is set to showcase the latest technologies and critical systems to extend Europe’s capability for space exploration.
In a world first, Europe will launch and land an unmanned spaceplane that has no wings but instead features an aerodynamic shape that produces the lift to fly through the atmosphere. Flaps … Read the rest of this article
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, on approach to dwarf planet Ceres, has acquired its latest and closest-yet snapshot of this mysterious world. The image of Ceres, taken on Feb. 4, 2015, from a distance of about 90,000 miles (145,000 kilometers), is available at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=pia19174
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=pia19179
At a resolution of 8.5 miles (14 kilometers) per pixel, the pictures represent the sharpest images to … Read the rest of this article
Firing off a string of snapshots like a sports photographer at a NASCAR race, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured a rare look at three of Jupiter’s largest moons parading across the banded face of the gas-giant planet: Europa, Callisto, and Io.
These so-called Galilean satellites (named after the 17th century scientist Galileo Galilei, who discovered them with a telescope) complete … Read the rest of this article
New maps from ESA’s Planck satellite uncover the ‘polarised’ light from the early Universe across the entire sky, revealing that the first stars formed much later than previously thought.
The history of our Universe is a 13.8 billion-year tale that scientists endeavour to read by studying the planets, asteroids, comets and other objects in our Solar System, and gathering light … Read the rest of this article
ESA’s Rosetta probe is preparing to make a close encounter with its comet on 14 February, passing just 6 km from the surface.
Yesterday was Rosetta’s last day at 26 km from Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, marking the end of the current orbiting period and the start of a new phase for the rest of this year.
Today, Rosetta is moving into … Read the rest of this article
NASA and Microsoft have teamed up to develop software called OnSight, a new technology that will enable scientists to work virtually on Mars using wearable technology called Microsoft HoloLens.
Developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, OnSight will give scientists a means to plan and, along with the Mars Curiosity rover, conduct science operations on the Red Planet.… Read the rest of this article
The NASA-funded Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer, or LBTI, has completed its first study of dust in the “habitable zone” around a star, opening a new door to finding planets like Earth. Dust is a natural byproduct of the planet-formation process, but too much of it can block our view of planets.
The findings will help in the design of future … Read the rest of this article
As NASA’s Dawn spacecraft closes in on Ceres, new images show the dwarf planet at 27 pixels across, about three times better than the calibration images taken in early December. These are the first in a series of images that will be taken for navigation purposes during the approach to Ceres.
Over the next several weeks, Dawn will deliver increasingly … Read the rest of this article
The UK-led Beagle-2 Mars lander, which hitched a ride on ESA’s Mars Express mission and was lost on Mars since 2003, has been found in images taken by a NASA orbiter at the Red Planet.
Beagle-2 was released from its mother craft on 19 December 2003 and was due to land six days later. But nothing was heard from the … Read the rest of this article
The Sun Now (Visible light)
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The Sun Now (H-Alpha light)
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Aurora Oval
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Aurora Oval
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