A new color map of dwarf planet Ceres, which NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has been orbiting since March, reveals the diversity of the surface of this planetary body.

The long-standing mystery of why Saturn seethes with enormous storms every 30 years may have been solved by scientists working with data from NASA’s Cassini mission.

Martian weather and soil conditions that NASA’s Curiosity rover has measured, together with a type of salt found in Martian soil, could put liquid brine in the soil at night.

Watch the Rosetta mission science press briefing live from the European Geosciences Union, Vienna, on Tuesday 14 April at 12:00 CEST

Invader art arrives at ESA’s spacecraft control centre ESOC in Darmstadt, Germany

Space science image of the week: Rosetta watches the comet’s activity as it approaches the inner Solar System

For the launch of Sentinel-2A, ESA is inviting you to take part in a photo contest focusing on the theme of ‘colour vision’. Enter for a chance to win a trip to ESA’s operations centre for the satellite’s launch event.

For the launch of Sentinel-2A, ESA is inviting you to take part in a photo contest focusing on the theme of ‘colour vision’. Enter for a chance to win a trip to ESA’s operations centre for the satellite’s launch event.

Watch video replays of the daily sessions of the IAA Planetary Defence Conference, recorded 13-17 April 2015 at ESA/ESRIN

New studies have calculated the amount of water in these central latitudes, and it is the equivalent of all of Mars being covered by more than 1 meter of ice.

Differences in morphology and color across the surface suggest the dwarf planet was once an active body.

Smartphones and other personal electronic devices could, in some regions of the world, function as early warning systems for large earthquakes, according to a new study.

Our week through the lens: 6-10 April 2015

Scientists have found that the while the Sun formed 5 billion years ago, the peak of star formation out galaxy likely occurred 5 billion years earlier.

Earth observation image of the week: the glaciers of Argentina’s Los Glaciares National Park, also featured on the Earth from Space video programme

Runners at JPL have begun the first of 22 laps in a marathon-length relay today to celebrate the Opportunity Mars rover’s achievement of driving farther than a marathon on Mars.

New maps of two recent California megafires that combine unique data sets from the U.S. Forest Service and JPL are answering some of the urgent questions that follow a huge wildfire.

Join us Friday, 10 April, at 10:00 CEST for the ‘Earth from Space’ video programme. This week features Argentina’s Los Glaciares National Park

A crucial difference in the “fingerprints” of Earth and the Moon confirms an explosive, interconnected past.

JPL has licensed patents on high-temperature thermoelectric materials to Evident Technologies, Troy, New York.

Human spaceflight and operations image of the week: ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet with French compatriots and basketball stars Tony Parker and Boris Diaw

Once in space, Sentinel-2A will open its solar wing to generate the power it needs to carry out the task of monitoring Earth’s vegetation. Engineers have recently made sure this move is well rehearsed before the satellite is packed up and shipped to the launch site.

This behavior affects the peaks and valleys in the approximately 11-year solar cycle, sometimes amplifying and sometimes weakening the solar storms that can buffet Earth’s atmosphere.

The discovery reveals that the protoplanetary disk surrounding the million-year-old star MWC 480 is brimming with methyl cyanide.

Next time you sip a humble glass of H2O, consider this: The story of water connects each of us to processes that shape our universe.

Researchers from NASA and other institutions are in the U.S. Southwest, aiming to uncover reasons for a mysterious methane “hot spot” detected from space.

ESA’s François Spoto and Omar Sy join the Earth from Space video programme to discuss the Sentinel-2A satellite and its mission

Space Science Image of the Week: A massive eruption on the Sun generated this colourful, shimmering auroral curtain

Observation results show the presence of multiple gas outflows from a protostar, indicating the possible existence of two newborn stars in the region.

Forged by the chance alignment of two distant galaxies, this striking ring-like structure is a rare and peculiar manifestation of gravitational lensing.

NASA has selected six scientists as recipients of the 2015 Carl Sagan Exoplanet Postdoctoral Fellowships.

This Earth Day, April 22, NASA is asking people around the world to share pictures and videos on social media that show there is no place like home — planet Earth.

Since its capture by the gravity of dwarf planet Ceres on March 6, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has performed flawlessly, continuing to thrust with its ion engine as planned.

This winter, some members of the rover team were busy analyzing the martian atmosphere for xenon, a heavy noble gas.

To understand how stars explode, astronomers are studying the debris in detail with sensitive instruments.

Our week through the lens: 30 March – 3 April 2015

ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet will fly to the International Space Station next year on a six-month adventure of science in weightlessness. Now Thomas wants you to think of a name for his flight – and it will appear on the mission patch he will wear in space.

Hubble finds phantom objects near dead quasars

Highlights from Sentinel-1A’s first 365 days in orbit

Out of more than 15 entries, the St. Louis Astronomical Society wins Astronomy’s annual award honoring astronomy outreach programs.

Scientists believe non-gaseous planets are as prevalent around binaries as around single stars.

The glowing filaments indicate that these active galaxy cores were once emitting more energy or changed very rapidly, which they weren’t supposed to do.

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, at Mars since 2006, made an unplanned switch on Wednesday from one main computer to a redundant one onboard, triggering a hiatus in planned activities.

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, at Mars since 2006, made an unplanned switch on Wednesday from one main computer to a redundant one onboard, triggering a hiatus in planned activities.

Join us Friday, 3 April, at 10:00 CEST for the ‘Earth from Space’ video programme. This week features a multitemporal Sentinel-1A image of Irkutsk and Lake Baikal

A recent study shows that RR Lyrae stars may not be as lonely as previously thought.

By studying a young star in images 18 years apart, scientists have been able to see exactly what their models predicted.

NASA will air an event on Tuesday, April 7, about recent discoveries of water and organics in our solar system, our sun’s role in water-loss in neighboring planets, and our search for habitable worlds.

New NASA data find the snowpack in the Tuolumne River Basin currently contains just 40 percent as much water as it did near this time at its highest level of 2014.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has climbed uphill from an outcrop it studied for six months and found a site with two-tone mineral veins forming “ice-cream sandwich” ridges.

Technology image of the week: a new way to add augmented reality to a drone’s eye view

Cassini’s orbits had carried it high above the planet’s poles over the past two years, during which the mission’s ability to encounter the moons, apart from Titan, was limited.

Pinpointing when and how they formed should provide insight into the process of galaxy cluster evolution, including the role played by dark matter in shaping these cosmic metropolises.

If an asteroid were spotted headed towards Earth, what could humanity do about it? ESA’s latest mission is part of a larger international effort to find out.

Astronomers mine data from the Planck and Herschel missions to find a treasure chest of galaxy clusters.

NASA has announced the release of Vesta Trek, a free, web-based application that provides detailed visualizations of Vesta, one of the largest asteroids in our solar system.

NASA’s Curiosity rover is using a new experiment to better understand the history of the Martian atmosphere by analyzing xenon.

NASA’s Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) project will be flying a rocket-powered, saucer-shaped test vehicle into near-space from the Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, Hawaii, in June.

Human spaceflight and operations image of the week: Concordia crewmember at work in Antarctica

By combining observations of the distant Universe made with ESA’s Herschel and Planck space observatories, cosmologists have discovered what could be the precursors of the vast clusters of galaxies that we see today.

Even though cosmic magnetic fields are much weaker than Earth’s magnetic field, they have an important effect in regulating how stars form.

A new study suggests carbon from comets breaking apart acts like a stealth darkening agent on the innermost planet.

A dual view of Saturn’s icy moon Rhea marks the return of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft to the realm of the planet’s icy satellites.

Space Science Image of the Week: Herschel and Spitzer uncover the tumultuous heart of the Large Magellanic Cloud

In a new report, scientists show that using a particular class of type Ia supernovae that occur near youthful stars can improve measurements of cosmic distances.

The earlier episode at Jezero Crater formed clay minerals, and then later surface water activity transported them.

Europe now has eight navigation satellites in orbit after the launch of Galileos 7 & 8

Replay of the separation of Galileo satellites 7 and 8 from their Fregat upper stage

The EU’s Galileo satellite navigation system now has eight satellites in orbit following the launch of the latest pair. 

Replay of the launch transmission of Soyuz ST-B carrying Galileo satellites 7 and 8, 27 March at 22:46 GMT, from Europe’s Spaceport

Liftoff of Soyuz ST-B carrying Galileo satellites 7 and 8, at 21:46 GMT, from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana

A series of observations from Mars orbit show how dark blast zones that were created during the August 2012 landing of NASA’s Curiosity rover have faded inconsistently.

The rotating “golden lasso” reflector antenna on NASA’s new soil moisture mapping mission is now fully spun up to its design rate in preparation for science operations.

The team operating the Mars Rover Opportunity learned that it experienced a brief amnesia event related to its flash memory, the first since a reformatting a week earlier.

The team operating the Mars Rover Opportunity learned that it experienced a brief amnesia event related to its flash memory, the first since a reformatting a week earlier.

Our week through the lens: 23-27 March 2015

Check out some of the scientific results in these colourful images from this week’s Fringe Workshop on detecting surface movements with radar satellites

ESA’s recovered IXV spaceplane arrived at the Port of Livorno in Italy yesterday and is set to be taken to Turin for final analysis.

Dark matter does not slow down when colliding with each other, which means that it interacts with itself even less than previously thought.

It is most likely to be a young star with a massive core that is still accreting material.

NASA Wednesday announced more details in its plan for its Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), which in the mid-2020s will test a number of new capabilities needed for future human expeditions to deep space, including to Mars.

A new report identifies top-of-the-line tools for studying the fabric of space.

Tune in to a live, interactive broadcast from JPL where a test vehicle for NASA’s Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator project is being prepped for its next test flight in June.

Millions of images of celestial objects, including asteroids, observed by NASA’s NEOWISE spacecraft now are available online to the public.

Watch the launch of Europe’s next two Galileo satellites on Friday 27 March. Streaming starts at 21:24 GMT (22:24 CET)

It takes a lot of ingenuity – not to mention a massive quantity of sheer force – to get satellites into orbit. Now space engineers are applying comparable ingenuity to the challenge of getting their missions out of there, too.

Join us Friday, 27 March, at 10:00 CET for the ‘Earth from Space’ video programme. This week features a multitemporal Sentinel-1A image of the Aral Sea

The finding validates a long-suspected feedback mechanism enabling a supermassive black hole to influence the evolution of its host galaxy.

The dwarf galaxy is the least abundant in metals in the nearby universe and one of the most akin to the primeval galaxies.

Human spaceflight and operations image of the week: Spacecraft attached to the International Space Station at sunset

Astronomers using ESA’s Herschel space observatory have found that the winds blowing from a huge black hole are sweeping away its host galaxy’s reservoir of raw star-building material.

Sentinel-1A captured the fast-moving Pine Island glacier, which flowed about 100 m in less than two weeks

Technology image of the week: BBC Stargazing Live host Dallas Campbell atop ESA’s Electrodynamic Shaker

A look back at SpaceUp Cologne at ESA’s astronaut centre, 21-22 March

Scientists have long thought that nitrates would be produced on the Red Planet from the energy released in meteorite impacts, and the amounts they found agree with estimates from this process.

The new work addresses why the terrestrial planets in our solar system have such relatively low masses compared to the exoplanets orbiting other Sun-like stars.

Thousands of engineers have worked on the seventh and eighth navigation satellites of Europe’s Galileo constellation in recent years, but last Friday marked the very last time the spacecraft were glimpsed by human eyes. 

One of the four Cluster satellites has shifted its orbit to ensure a safe reentry when the time comes, as well as providing a rare opportunity to study how a satellite’s exhaust plume interacts with the solar wind.

A team using the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite aboard NASA’s Curiosity rover has made the first detection of nitrogen on the surface of Mars from release during heating of Martian sediments.

NASA’s new soil moisture mapping mission has moved a step closer to starting science operations following the partial spin-up of its “golden lasso” reflector antenna.