At a ceremony held in Vatican City today, ESA and the Vatican Apostolic Library have agreed to continue their years-long cooperation on the preservation, management and exploitation of archived information.

Solar scientists have a problem: They haven’t been able to fully explain why the Sun’s atmosphere is about 100 times hotter than its surface.
Now, observations of a solar wave rising up from a sunspot may help explain at least one of the wa…

High-res color images give more insight about the lander’s demise

The Full Moon on November 13/14 will be bigger and brighter than normal, but it won’t be easy to tell from a casual glance.

Earth observation image of the week: Chile’s Bernardo O’Higgins National Park and the Pío XI Glacier, also featured on the Earth from Space video programme

New high-resolution images taken by a NASA orbiter show parts of the ExoMars Schiaparelli module and its landing site in colour on the Red Planet.

New information on the effects of the 30 October earthquake that struck central Italy continues to emerge as scientists analyse radar scans from satellites.

Join us Friday, 4 November, at 10:00 CET for the ‘Earth from Space’ video programme. This week features the glaciers of Chile’s Bernardo O’Higgins National Park

Sets of ridges and troughs some 1000 km north of the giant Olympus Mons volcano contain a record of the intense tectonic stresses and strains experienced in the Acheron Fossae region on Mars 3.7–3.9 billion years ago.

The James Webb Space Telescope is finally completed after 20 years

Laser-zapping of a globular, golf-ball-size object on Mars by NASA’s Curiosity rover confirms that it is an iron-nickel meteorite fallen from the Red Planet’s sky.

Laser-zapping of a globular, golf-ball-size object on Mars by NASA’s Curiosity rover confirms that it is an iron-nickel meteorite fallen from the Red Planet’s sky.

Human spaceflight and robotic exploration image of the week: Exploring Mars on Earth

Scientists are analysing Sentinel-1 radar images from before and after the 30 October earthquake that struck central Italy to reveal just how much the ground has shifted

A close galactic encounter gave these astronomers an interesting discovery

After protests, the TMT board had to conceive a Plan B

The Pillars of Creation are also sites of cosmic destruction

Scientists have produced the first global maps of human emissions of carbon dioxide ever made solely from satellite observations, using data from NASA’s OCO-2.

Scientists have produced the first global maps of human emissions of carbon dioxide ever made solely from satellite observations, using data from NASA’s OCO-2.

Technology image of the week: friction stir welding used to make a titanium propellant tank for space

By crunching numbers, astronomers discover that many worlds may be gone forever from our corner of the cosmos.

A new model may explain what caused the rings around Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune

The latest search for alien construction around Tabby’s Star began this week

Space Science Image of the Week: An unusually bright and sudden aurora looms over Iceland, adopting the spooky form of a writhing celestial serpent

Our week through the lens: 24-28 October 2016

Satellite engineers have been puzzling over why GPS navigation systems on low-orbiting satellites like ESA’s Swarm sometimes black out when they fly over the equator between Africa and South America. Thanks to Swarm, it appears ‘thunderstorms’ in the ionosphere are to blame.

From Jupiter’s red storms to distant howling lightning storms, these are the places you least want to be.

After a year and a half of transmitting, the last of the data has finally been returned

12th-magnitude Comet Johnson, Algol in Perseus reaches maximum brightness, and other cool things to look for in the sky this week.

The Copernicus Sentinel-1 twin radar satellites combined with cloud computing are monitoring Europe’s earthquake zones by searching for ground shifts as small as a millimetre. 

The most powerful telescope orbiting Mars provides new details of the scene where Europe’s test lander hit the surface last week.

New results from NASA’s GRAIL mission yield insights into the huge impacts that dominated the early history of Earth’s moon and other solid worlds in the outer solar system.

The 15,000th near-Earth asteroid (2016 TB57) was discovered this month.

“Orbit,” an educational experience, lets the public explore satellites through sound.

“Orbit,” an educational experience, lets the public explore satellites through sound.

New results from NASA’s GRAIL mission yield insights into the huge impacts that dominated the early history of Earth’s moon and other solid worlds in our solar system.

The most powerful telescope orbiting Mars provides new details of the scene where Europe’s test lander hit the surface last week.

The 15,000th near-Earth asteroid (2016 TB57) was discovered this month.

80 years of daring to do what few others have tried, including bouncing radio signals off a giant, orbiting balloon in 1960.

A high-resolution image taken by a NASA Mars orbiter this week reveals further details of the area where the ExoMars Schiaparelli module ended up following its descent on 19 October.

Technology image of the week: ESA’s original technology demonstration minisatellite, still going strong, images an Arctic river delta

Operations image of the week: ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter swings into orbit around the Red Planet

Join us Friday, 28 October, at 10:00 CEST for the ‘Earth from Space’ video programme. The flat-topped mountains of Russia’s Putoransky State Nature Reserve are featured in this week’s edition

New distant objects? Unseen planets? The unexplored region of our solar system

The tragic fate of the European Space Agency’s lander has been confirmed

This Halloween season, grab your telescope and scare up these spooky objects

The international effort to find, confirm and catalogue the multitude of asteroids that pose a threat to our planet has reached a milestone: 15 000 discovered – with many more to go.

80 years of daring to do what few others have tried, including bouncing radio signals off a giant, orbiting balloon in 1960.

What started out as a bar room bet became a paper taking the goofy premise deadly seriously

A ‘Joint Statement on Shared Vision and Goals for the Future of European Space’ was signed by ESA Director General Jan Woerner and European Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska in Brussels today.

A space-age system for detecting drones took home the grand prize in this year’s European Satellite Navigation Competition, while ESA’s prize went to a smart satnav bicycle bell.

New model of merging galaxies better explains missing stars and visible star clumps

Here’s what we knew of Mars in 1954

Astronomers have captured a stunningly clear, and rare image of stellar triplets still in their infancy

A huge, unknown object is dimming this supergiant star’s light, just as it did 27 years ago. New technology may soon tell us what it is.

Two new studies offer a direct view of rapid melting from the undersides of glaciers in West Antarctica, with implications for future rates of global sea level rise.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft at Jupiter has left safe mode and has successfully completed a minor burn of its thruster engines in preparation for its next close flyby of Jupiter.

Two new studies offer a direct view of rapid melting from the undersides of glaciers in West Antarctica, with implications for future rates of global sea level rise.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft at Jupiter has left safe mode and has successfully completed a minor burn of its thruster engines in preparation for its next close flyby of Jupiter.

Witness the dazzling effects of some particularly stormy celestial weather tonight

The ExoMars team may have an easy fix for their 2020 lander

A poor soul adrift in the void could bring the genesis on a place like Mars

Welcome to the theoretical counter-Saturn.

These interesting stars will be helpful for scientists studying gravitational effects of stars

Heartbeat stars got their name because if you were to map out their brightness over time, the result looks like an electrocardiogram, a graph of the electrical activity of the heart.

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has identified new markings on the surface of the Red Planet that are believed to be related to Europe’s Schiaparelli test lander, which arrived at Mars on Oct. 19.

A new study suggests Uranus has two tiny, previously undiscovered moonlets orbiting near two of the planet’s rings.

Heartbeat stars got their name because if you were to map out their brightness over time, the result looks like an electrocardiogram, a graph of the electrical activity of the heart.

A new study suggests Uranus has two tiny, previously undiscovered moonlets orbiting near two of the planet’s rings.

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has identified new markings on the surface of the Red Planet that are believed to be related to Europe’s Schiaparelli test lander, which arrived at Mars on Oct. 19.

Our week through the lens: 17-21 October 2016

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has identified new markings on the surface of the Red Planet that are believed to be related to ESA’s ExoMars Schiaparelli entry, descent and landing technology demonstrator module.

ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet and crew practise for the final Soyuz spacecraft exams before launch on 16 November

People with no astrophysics training still helped make a big discovery

Why we shouldn’t call exoplanets ‘Earth-like’ just yet

Scientists are still trying to piece together exactly what happened to the lander

Earth observation image of the week: a Sentinel-2 false-colour image of Nepal’s capital city, Kathmandu, and part of the Himalayan foothills

Ten thousand volunteers viewing images of Mars have helped identify targets for closer inspection, yielding new insights about erosional features known as “spiders.”

As winter comes to the southern parts of Saturn’s moon Titan, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has been following dramatic seasonal changes in the temperature and composition of the atmosphere there.

A NASA analysis of a 2015 Texas flood is the first to document the full life cycle and impacts of a flood on both land and ocean.

As winter comes to the southern parts of Saturn’s moon Titan, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has been following dramatic seasonal changes in the temperature and composition of the atmosphere there.

Ten thousand volunteers viewing images of Mars have helped identify targets for closer inspection, yielding new insights about erosional features known as “spiders.”

A NASA analysis of a 2015 Texas flood is the first to document the full life cycle and impacts of a flood on both land and ocean.

Join us Friday, 21 October, at 10:00 CEST for the ‘Earth from Space’ video programme. This week features Nepal’s capital city, Kathmandu, and part of the Himalayan foothills

What to expect from this year’s Orionid meteor shower

Inside the surprising finds from the New Horizons mission.

16 Psyche, a metallic relic of the early solar system, just got weirder.

Replay of ExoMars media briefing on 20 October at ESA’s Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany

Essential data from the ExoMars Schiaparelli lander sent to its mothership Trace Gas Orbiter during the module’s descent to the Red Planet’s surface yesterday has been downlinked to Earth and is currently being analysed by experts.

Juno mission managers are working to bring the spacecraft out of safe mode, while the science team shares interesting findings from the August 27 Jupiter flyby.

Juno mission managers are working to bring the spacecraft out of safe mode, while the science team shares interesting findings from the August 27 Jupiter flyby.

Watch live: Status report on the ExoMars mission. Streaming starts 08:00 GMT / 10:00 CEST 

The Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) of ESA’s ExoMars 2016 has successfully performed the long 139-minute burn required to be captured by Mars and entered an elliptical orbit around the Red Planet, while contact has not yet been confirmed with the mission’s test lander from the surface.

Initial signals received from Mars indicate the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has completed its orbit insertion manoeuvre as planned. Mission teams continue waiting for confirmation of progress from the Schiaparelli lander

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy have captured the sharpest, clearest image of the Eta Carinae star system.

How our possible rogue planet may be messing with our solar system

Juno was 13 hours from its closest approach to Jupiter when it went into safe mode

All is not well on the fourth planet.

Technology image of the week: False-colour crops bloom in the Saudi Arabian desert, imaged by ESA’s Proba-V minisatellite