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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 …

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Our week through the lens: 13-17 July 2015

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.