Using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers have confirmed the discovery of the nearest rocky planet outside our solar system, larger than Earth and a potential gold mine of science data.

A new NASA study has concluded California accumulated a debt of about 20 inches of precipitation between 2012 and 2015.

Complex molecules that could be key building blocks of life, the daily rise and fall of temperature, and an assessment of the surface properties and internal structure of the comet are just some of the highlights of the first scientific analysis of the data returned by Rosetta’s lander Philae last November.  

Join us Friday, 31 July, at 10:00 CEST for the ‘Earth from Space’ video programme. This week features a Sentinel-2A image of northern Italy

Narrow, curved red lines on Tethys’ surface are among the most unusual color features on Saturn’s moons to be revealed by Cassini’s cameras.

Dubbed HD 219134b, this exoplanet, which orbits too close to its star to sustain life, is a mere 21 light-years away.

ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli will be heading for space a third time, as part of Expeditions 52 and 53 to the International Space Station. He will be launched on a Soyuz vehicle in May 2017 on a five-month mission.

Musicians, composers and audio buffs are invited to help celebrate 40 years of ESA’s tracking station network. Create some truly cosmic sound and you may win impressive prizes, including a trip to our anniversary gala event in Spain.

Unexplained arc-shaped, reddish streaks are visible on the surface of Saturn’s icy moon Tethys in new, enhanced-color images from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft.

Thanks to a new system developed by scientists in the UK, taking to the waves for a spot of surfing can benefit research into the health of coastal waters, and could help confirm satellite measurements of sea-surface temperature.

You might know it as a drink for hipsters or as an ancient brew drunk for centuries in Eurasia, but the culture that ferments sugary tea into Kombucha is going around the world. Bolted to the outside of the International Space Station are …

Observations of Nova Centauri 2013 help to explain the mystery of why many young stars seem to have more of this chemical element than expected.

The scientists found the aurora not from a planet, but from a low-mass star at the boundary between stars and brown dwarfs.

Colorful new maps of Ceres, based on NASA’s Dawn spacecraft data, showcase a diverse topography, with dramatic height differences between crater bottoms and mountain peaks.

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will fire thrusters on Wednesday for a maneuver to get into position for the 2016 arrival of NASA’s next Mars lander.

Human spaceflight and operations image of the week: MSG-4 controllers hand over Europe’s newest weather satellite

Now with detailed topography and official feature names from the IAU, these maps of asteroid Ceres are worth exploring.

Undergraduates discovered two tiny galaxies crammed with stars at more than 10,000 times the density of the Milky Way.

From agricultural monitoring to charting changing lands, early images from Europe’s new Sentinel-2A satellite show how the ‘colour vision’ mission’s critical observations can be used to keep us and our planet safe.

Discover some of the mission’s benefits for the planet’s ever-growing population, such as deforestation monitoring, food security and the sustainable management of natural resources

Space Science image of the week: XMM-Newton’s view of an eye-shaped cloud carved by a dying star’s brief comeback to life

Europe’s ninth and tenth Galileo satellites have crossed the Atlantic, touching down in French Guiana ahead of their joint launch this September.

A new study shows how cosmic winds can erode a galaxy’s gas and dust, shutting down star formation.

A new survey of globular clusters show many of the star groups are almost as old as the universe itself.

On 26 July at 09:30 GMT (11:30 CEST), ESA handed control of Europe’s last Meteosat Second Generation weather satellite, MSG-4, to EUMETSAT

Just 10 days after closest approach, the distant world is showing a diversity of planetary geology that has mission scientists thrilled.

Our week through the lens: 20-24 July 2015

Explore the International Space Station with ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti as your guide in this 360° interactive view

The next ESA astronaut to work on the International Space Station, Andreas Mogensen, will arrive a day later than previously planned because the Station’s orbit has been changed.

The Danish flight engineer, commander Sergei Volkov and Kazakh cosmonaut Aidyn Aimbetov will leave Earth from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, at 4:34 GMT (6:34 CEST, 10:34 local time) on 2 September and arrive at the Space Station just six hours later.

Andreas and Aidyn’s stay will be short – they will be back on terra firma just 10 days later. They will leave Sergei on the Station and return to Earth in a different Soyuz under commander Gennady Padalka, who is already in space.

This is the first time that jets have been found coming from brown dwarfs at such an early stage of their formation and shows that they form in a way similar to that of stars.

NASA’s Kepler mission has confirmed the first near-Earth-size planet in the “habitable zone” around a sun-like star.

Kepler’s newest planetary find joins a pantheon of planets with similarities to Earth.

Lake Tahoe’s iconic blueness is more strongly related to the lake’s algal concentration than to its clarity.

The laser-firing instrument on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has identified a rock target that is rich in silica, prompting further investigation with the rover.

Join us Friday, 24 July, at 10:00 CEST for the ‘Earth from Space’ video programme. This week features a Sentinel-1 radar image over southern Bavaria

Scientists have discovered a binary system where a rapidly spinning neutron star’s wind is rocketing away material from the disk around its companion.

The newly discovered Kepler-452b is the smallest planet to date discovered orbiting in the habitable zone or a G2-type star like our Sun.

Wind-harvesting robotic probes might someday explore the atmospheres of other planets, as well as our home planet, thanks to an innovative NASA JPL study.

Researchers at JPL and UCLA have developed a technology that could reduce the power needed to send information from wearable devices.

Mars researchers are soliciting volunteers to locate odd polar-area features on Mars that have names such as “Swiss cheese terrain” and “spiders.”

Technology image of the week: Testing the antenna that will keep ESA’s Mercury mission linked to Earth

The new observations allow astronomers to start to see how the first galaxies were built up and how they cleared the cosmic fog during the era of reionization.

The heights of these mountains are comparable to those found in the U.S. Appalachian range.

As more data on Nix and Hydra come back from the spacecraft, scientists will be able to make more detailed findings on these moons’ surface characteristics and other properties.

Greenland’s glaciers are badly undercut and melting faster than thought, raising sea levels faster than currently estimated.

Human spaceflight and operations image of the week: Container for storing snow samples at the remotest base in the world

New computer simulations show that these galaxies stopped star formation as early as 7 billion years ago but haven’t been ripped apart due to their dark matter.

NASA will host a news teleconference at 9 a.m. PDT (noon EDT) Thursday, July 23, to announce new discoveries made by its planet-hunting mission, the Kepler Space Telescope.

Measurements from ESA’s CryoSat satellite show that the volume of Arctic sea ice increased by a third following the unusually cool summer of 2013. This new finding suggests that ice in the northern hemisphere is more sensitive to changes in summer melting than it is to winter cooling.

Tour one of the most geologically diverse regions on Rosetta’s comet

The Breakthrough Prize Foundation has already contracted with two of the world’s largest radio telescopes to devote major telescope time to searching for signals from other civilizations.

Data from the new NASA camera will be used to study the sunlit face of our planet.

Space science image of the week: Intricate dust lanes are revealed in this far-infrared view of the constellation Carina

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is using its ion propulsion system to descend to its third mapping orbit at Ceres, and all systems are operating well.

Our week through the lens: 13-17 July 2015

Airbus Defence & Space in France has been selected as the prime industrial contractor for ESA’s Juice mission to Jupiter and its icy moons.

It is a type of a two-star system known as a cataclysmic variable, where one super dense white dwarf star is stealing gas from its companion star, effectively “cannibalizing” it.

New views of Tombaugh Regio, Pluto’s icy heart, provide still more evidence of a geologically rich world.

Join us Friday, 17 July, at 10:00 CEST for the ‘Earth from Space’ video programme. This week features a satellite image of New York City

A new study of Titan’s surface depressions suggests that it dissolves in a process similar to the creation of sinkholes on Earth.

This is the first time scientists have had observational verification that large filamentary superhighways are channeling dwarf galaxies across the cosmos along bridges of dark matter.

Watch the replay of the full MSG-4 launch coverage from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 15 July

Missed MSG-4 liftoff? Watch the replay of the launch from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 15 July

Technology image of the week: ESA’s 7.5 tonne X-ray machine for seeing into space parts

Stunning shots of Rosetta’s comet reveal details of regional boundaries

MSG-4 lifted off on an Ariane 5 launcher from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana at 21:24 GMT (23:42 CEST) on 15 July

The last weather satellite in Europe’s highly successful Meteosat Second Generation series has been launched from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana

The last weather satellite in Europe’s highly successful Meteosat Second Generation series lifted off on an Ariane 5 launcher at 21:42 GMT (23:42 CEST) on 15 July from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

The existence of a Jupiter-mass planet in a Jupiter-like orbit around a Sun-like star opens the possibility that the system of exoplanets around this star may be similar to our solar system.

New Horizons’ first high-resolution images of Pluto are giving astronomers insight into the dwarf world’s complex ice geology.

The pentaquark represents a way to aggregate the fundamental constituents of ordinary protons and neutrons in a pattern that has never been observed before.

Mission scientists are thrilled with the data already, and they haven’t even received information from the flyby yet.

Follow the launch of Europe’s next weather satellite live on Wednesday night. MSG-4 is set for liftoff on an Ariane launcher in a 37-minute window starting at 21:42 GMT (23:42 CEST) on 15 July

Human spaceflight and operations image of the week: ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen visiting the Columbus Control Centre for the last time before his iriss mission

Twenty-five years in the making, this close-up examination of the Pluto system represents the capstone of the first era of planet reconnaissance.

New Horizons made closest approach to the distant world at 7:50 a.m. EDT this morning.

The images reveal an elongated object that is only 260 feet (80 meters) across at its widest point.

A safer airspace over Europe by 2018 is materialising as ESA’s Iris precursor project today began development with the unlocking of a further €7.6 million of funding.

On 15 July, a powerful Ariane launcher will loft Europe’s final Meteosat Second Generation weather satellite into orbit from Kourou, French Guiana. For the mission control team at ESA, liftoff will mark the end of months of careful preparations and the start of the mission’s first critical phase.

Based on the most recent data, Pluto is actually larger than previous conservative estimates, making it the largest of all known solar system objects beyond Neptune.

MSG-4 is set for launch on Wednesday night. Learn more about the European weather satellite with ESA TV

Rosetta’s investigations of its comet are continuing as the mission teams count down the last month to perihelion – the closest point to the Sun along the comet’s orbit – when the comet’s activity is expected to be at its highest.

As a research scientist, she inspired a generation, especially young women, to seek careers in science, technology, engineering and math.

NASA’s NuSTAR usually examines the mysteries of black holes, supernovae, and other high-energy objects, but it occasionally looks closer to home to study our star.

One day 3C 279 was just one of many active galaxies scientists see, and the next day it was the brightest thing in the gamma-ray sky.

Space Science Image of the Week: 20 SOHO snapshots of our Sun, one for each year of operations

A robot building on ESA’s ExoMars rover is bidding to win a place on oil and gas production rigs around the world, to work in remote and hazardous environments.

While composition and color data still need to be downlinked, this hemisphere will be invisible to New Horizons during the July 14 flyby.

Among the structures tentatively identified in this new image are what appear to be polygonal features, a complex band of terrain stretching east-northeast across the planet, and a complex region where bright terrains meet the dark terrains of the “wha…

Curiosity is monitoring sunspots on the side of the sun facing away from Earth, during weeks when sun-monitoring spacecraft can’t provide that information.

Mission managers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, are assessing an anomaly with the radar instrument on NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite observatory.

Our week through the lens: 6-10 July 2015

The two worlds orbit the same gravitational point, but their similarities seem to end there.

A proposed rule change aimed at thwarting TMT protestors could block public access to some of the most pristine dark skies on Earth.

The satellite detected the start of a new outburst from V404 Cygni, where a black hole and a Sun-like star orbit each other.

Because the galaxy the 7-billion-solar-mass black hole was discovered in is fairly typical in size, the study calls into question previous assumptions on the development of galaxies.

Magnetic waves from a black hole are set in motion as if a whip is being cracked.

A NASA study shows heat has been trapped in the Pacific and Indian oceans. The finding explains the recent slowdown in global temperature rise.

NASA’s New Horizons will have the support of other spacecraft during its historic Pluto flyby, with observations from their outposts across the solar system.

ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen narrates this animated story about his iriss mission to space starting September